Hearts Under Construction (18 page)

He turned and walked wearily toward her. His face, pale and tight, held defeat. “Yeah, Ellie, what do you need?” he asked, the usual light gone from his eyes.

Her pulse quickened, knowing the CDs would improve his spirits. She reached into her purse. “Did you remember that I still do backups at the end of each week? I went home and got the CDs. These are the backups to what was on the computer up to last Friday.”

It seemed to take a fraction of a second for the meaning to hit him. He looked at her, mouth gaping, then hope lit his eyes. Jax pulled her into a tight embrace, lifted her, then swirled her around a couple of times. “Jax, put me down,” she said with a giggle.

Just then Cole and Alex walked into the parking lot. “Well, I’m glad someone is happy,” Cole said, appearing a bit put out by their little display.

Jax laughed and put Ellie down. He lifted the packet of CDs from her hand and waved them. “Ellie has saved the day. She’s been backing up our hard drive at the end of each week and taking them home. It’s something I asked her to start doing, I don’t know, about six months ago. I totally forgot about it. We had decided it would be a good thing to have backups somewhere other than the office in case of a fire or whatever. I wanted her to do it because I trusted her, and I didn’t trust myself to remember to do it.” He laughed and pulled Ellie close to him, placing a firm kiss on her cheek.

Relief washed over Cole, making him look years younger. “Now, it’s my turn.” He pulled Ellie into an enormous embrace and hugged her tight. When he released her, he looked at her, cupping her chin in the palm of his hand. “Thank you, Ellie.”

She shivered beneath his touch.

“Are you ready to go, Cole? They won’t hold our reservations forever,” Alex said in a way that indicated she wanted Ellie to know they were going to lunch together.

“Oh, sure.”

“Congratulations, Ellie,” Alex said.

For some reason, Ellie didn’t think Alex meant it.

T
he hostess walked Alex and Cole to their table. The room buzzed with activity as people crowded the restaurant for lunch.

Once they had ordered their meals and received their drinks, Cole felt himself relax. “Boy, I can’t tell you how much better I feel that Ellie had those CDs. I just wonder why she didn’t tell us this morning? Would have saved us a lot of worry.”

Alex’s eyebrows raised. “Does make you wonder, doesn’t it?”

Cole didn’t respond. Alex reached over and cupped her hand on Cole’s. “I want to thank you for being such a good friend, Cole.” She smiled sweetly, making him want to squirm. “I wondered if you’d consider coming to my home for dinner tonight?”

“Well, I don’t know—”

Her bottom lip puckered. “Oh, please. I have the best lasagna recipe, and you just have to try it.”

Cole thought a moment. Maybe something she would say or do would cast more light on what was going on in the office. He had wanted to spend time with her, after all, try to get to the truth of things. But an actual date, well, he wasn’t sure about that.

She rubbed his hand. “Please, say you’ll come.”

With a touch of discretion, he eased his hand from under hers. “I suppose that would work for me,” he said, glancing around the restaurant, trying not to give her the impression he was interested in her romantically.

“Oh, wonderful.” She clapped her hands. “How about seven o’clock?”

“Okay. You’ll have to give me directions to get there.”

“No problem.”

They passed lunch in casual conversation, and by the time they arrived back at the office, Cole had no better handle on the sabotage in the office than he had had before lunch.

When they entered the office, they found Ellie at the front desk, talking on the phone. Alex reached over and squeezed Cole’s hand, a gesture he noticed Ellie caught. He felt as if he was trapped in a web and Alex was the spider, toying with him. Not wanting to give Alex the wrong impression, he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to go to her house. If he could just get to the truth of things, he could forget all these games. Now that the computer was saved, he wondered if Jax still wanted to leave or if that had been discouragement talking.

Ellie hung up the phone.

“Thank you for lunch, Cole. I had a great time,” Alex said loudly enough for Ellie to hear. He glanced at Ellie. Their eyes locked a moment. Then Ellie picked up her notebook and turned toward her desk. He glanced back at Alex. A challenge lit her eyes. She was up to something. He needed to get to the truth.

Over coffee that night, Ellie told Cheryl everything that had been happening at the office. “I’m telling you, Cheryl, they deserve each other.”

“I’m not convinced they’re in on it together, Ellie.”

“Oh, please. Out to lunch, then I heard Alex talking to him about dinner tonight.”

“Are you jealous?”

The words pierced Ellie’s heart. She didn’t answer.

Cheryl squeezed her friend’s hand. “Look, El, don’t give up on him yet, okay?”

Tears pooled in Ellie’s eyes. “I thought we had something between us. I’ve been so stupid.”

Cheryl reached into her purse, pulled out a tissue, and handed it to Ellie. “Oh, no, you haven’t. I still think he cares for you. Give it time. See how it all shakes out.”

Ellie dabbed at her eyes. “She told me Cole felt really bad about what Caed did to me. Can you believe he told Alex about that?” Her voice rose in pitch. “As if it wasn’t humiliating enough without him spreading it around the office.”

“I know it looks bad and sounds bad, Ellie, but I don’t trust Alex. I’m telling you, get to the bottom of things before you do anything rash.”

They each drank from their coffee cups a moment. “I’m going to stay clear of him, mind my own business. I’m trying to stick things out for Jax. But if Jax sells the business to Cole, then I’ll know for sure Cole and Alex had arranged it all along. One thing I know, I won’t stick around if Cole buys the business.”

Cheryl nodded slightly, but kept silent. “Well, whatever you decide, I will be praying for you,” she said finally.

“Thanks, Cheryl. I would never make it through this without you.”

After dinner, Alex sat down close to Cole on the sofa. Soft music swirled in the room while candles flickered from the fireplace mantel. She turned to him, her fingers smoothing the hair behind his ears. “Thank you for coming tonight,” she whispered close to his ear. So close, he could feel her breath on his neck.

He swallowed hard, not liking where this was going.

“You know, I knew the moment I met you there was something special about you, but I was stuck with Jax at the time.” She kissed his temple lightly. He didn’t want to embarrass her, so he gently tried to ease away from her touch. But she held him firm. “I wasted time with him.” Her long nails tickled the other side of his face, then she turned his face to look at her. Before he could get away, in one bold sweep, she leaned her head in and kissed him hard, all the while running her fingers through the back of his hair. He could feel her trying to lure him in like a fly to a web.

Cole jerked away. “I’ve got to go,” he said, trying to stand.

Alex grabbed at him. “Cole, you can’t leave. What’s wrong? You know you want to stay.”

Not wanting to hurt her, but wanting to make it clear he was not interested in her in that way, he took a long, deep breath. “I’ve got to go, Alex. I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but leave me out of it, okay?” At that point, he didn’t care if he couldn’t get her to confess to the office sabotage or not. Things were getting out of hand.

A pained expression flickered across her face, then she rose to stand within inches of his face. “What’s the matter, Cole, don’t you trust yourself with me?” She lifted her hands to his chest.

He grabbed her wrists and pushed them down. “I trust myself completely with you, Alex. Actually, it’s you I don’t trust.” He took a step back.

Her eyes narrowed and looked as hard as rocks, her jaw set. She stepped toward him. “You afraid Ellie will find out about us?”

The sound of her voice sent a chill up his spine. “Leave Ellie out of this.”

“Poor little Ellie. Everybody worries about poor little Ellie.” She practically spat Ellie’s name. “I would have thought your brother’s little game would have made her wise up.”

Cole stared at her in disbelief. He wanted to ask her how she knew, but then, working in a small office, nothing could stay hidden for long. Even office sabotage. Looking at the hard glint in her eyes, the firm line of her mouth, the strong lock of her jaw, Cole suddenly realized he had his answer. Alex had to be the one behind the office sabotage. Though it surprised him, he found himself pitying her.

“I’m sorry, Alex. You’re a good friend, but—”

“Friend,” she sneered. “I don’t want to be your friend.”

The expression on her face sickened him. He needed to get out of there and fast. “Look—”

She took a deep breath as if to calm herself. “It’s your loss, Cole.” With a cold, measured voice she said, “I promise you, you’ll live to regret this.”

The next morning Alex walked into Cole’s office, walked behind his chair and placed a cup of coffee to the side of him on the desk. She brushed the backs of her fingertips against his cheek. Then as if telling a secret, she bent close to his face. “I thought you might like some coffee, Cole.”

Before he could respond, he looked up to see Ellie standing in the doorway. Her face flushed. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, “I didn’t know you were busy.” She quickly disappeared.

“Ellie, wait!” he shouted after her. He emerged from his office in time to see the women’s bathroom door close. Why did women do that, always go to the bathroom when things got tough?

He figured Alex had known Ellie would be coming to his office. She had planned that whole scene for Ellie’s benefit, he felt sure. Wanting to give Alex a piece of his mind, he stomped back to his office, but Alex was gone. He blew out a hard breath and closed his door. He didn’t want to deal with Alex right now. It was all he could do to get through the day.

Ellie had never been so uncomfortable at work. She couldn’t stay there. Alex and Cole deserved each other. She’d warn Jax of what they were up to and then she’d leave. There had to be other jobs out there. Somehow she’d manage.

Walking down the hall to Jax’s office, she was disappointed to see that his light was off. She had thought he would be at work by now. Just as she turned around to leave, she heard whispers coming from his room. This time, she unashamedly stepped closer. She didn’t care if she was eavesdropping, weird things were going on around here, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it.

“I’m not paying you until you get the job done, Ed. I told you that already. When the guys finish the job on Tulip Drive, they’ll get their money. Don’t you ever call me here. Call my cell phone. I’ll bring the spray cans and the paint. The place is deserted since it’s the first house in the subdivision. You guys meet me there around midnight, and I’ll let you in. You’ll get paid once the job is done.”

Ellie’s breath caught in her throat. So that was her plan. Alex was behind all this. She’d let Jax know and the two of them could catch them in the act. One thing for sure, she wouldn’t tell Cole.

“What are you doing?” Cole asked.

Ellie swung around. “Oh, I was just getting ready to tell Jax something, but he’s not here.” She whisked on past a puzzled Cole. As she rounded the corner, she peeked back at him to see him looking in at Alex, then he looked back toward where Ellie had been. She ducked her head.

Those two were definitely up to something.

Ellie went back to her desk and worked awhile. Once she heard Jax come in, she went in to see him.

“Could we talk a minute?”

“Sure, come on in,” he said, indicating that she should close the door.

Ellie explained to him what she had heard Alex saying over the phone. Ellie wanted to know if he would come with her that night in hopes of catching the perpetrators in action.

“I’ll be glad to go, Ellie, but I’ve got to tell you, I know Cole isn’t behind this.” He held up his hand to stop her protest. “I know he isn’t behind this.” His voice held authority. “Cole and I meet regularly to study the Bible. I think I know him pretty well. He’s on our side.”

She held perfectly still.

He sighed. “I can see you’re not convinced, so I won’t bring him along, but I’m telling you, he’s a good guy.”

“I suppose that’s why he wants to take over the business?”

“He does?” Jax’s face brightened. “Did he tell you that?”

Ellie frowned. “How can you say that, Jax? Why are you letting him do that?”

“Letting him do that?” he asked incredulously. “I
want
him to do that. I’ve been practically begging him to do that for the past couple of months.”

“Only because he’s setting you up so that you feel you have to get away.”

“Look, Ellie, I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but I talked to Cole about this before he ever came on board. We agreed to a trial-basis thing, but the idea was that if he liked the business and wanted to stay on, he had the first option to purchase it. I do not want to stay here. I’ve never wanted to own this place, you of all people should know that.”

“I thought you needed it for a while to put you through school.” She looked at him for answers, her own piecing together of the puzzle falling apart.

“That’s part of the deal. He buys the business, and I get to stay on for a designated length of time at a certain salary, providing the sales merit it. It’s all spelled out in the contract. The contract which he has yet to sign. As far as I know, he’s still not sure this is what he wants to do.”

“Let me get this straight. He’s not forcing you out?”

He shook his head.

“You want to go,” she said more than asked.

He nodded.

“You believe in Cole Preston, and you feel he’s working for the good of the business?”

He nodded again, with a smile.

She felt stupid for believing Alex’s lie. Then she thought of something else. “What about Alex? They’ve been, well, a little tight lately, and if she’s up to no good, doesn’t that incriminate him?”

“They’re not ‘tight,’ as you call it. She’s trying to pull him in. Cole wants no part of it. He’s been keeping me informed all along the way.”

“I don’t know that I’m convinced,” she said stubbornly.

“Doesn’t matter, Ellie.
I
am convinced.” His tone let her know the matter was settled. “I’ll be by to pick you up around eleven-thirty tonight, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, feeling a little dejected that her theory didn’t work out. Still, she couldn’t help wanting to believe Jax about Cole’s innocence. “See you tonight.”

“There’s a red truck turning in,” Ellie said, pointing.

“Here,” Jax said, handing her his cell phone. “Call the police. I’m going over there.”

“Wait. I’ll go with you.”

He waited a moment while she called the police and gave them the details, then together they walked over to the house. The driver had hidden the truck behind a group of trees.

“We need to be careful, Ellie. These guys could be dangerous.”

She nodded. A twig snapped beneath Jax’s boots, causing Ellie to jump.

Once they arrived at the house, they sneaked up onto the porch and Jax turned the door handle. The door was locked. Ellie pulled out a key. “I was afraid they would make it hard for us to get in, so I brought the spare key,” she whispered.

“Good girl,” Jax whispered back and gently pushed in the key, letting them in. Quietly, they slipped into the room. A man stood in the corner of the room, as if searching for a place to hide. Ellie looked around, she didn’t see anyone else. She was afraid others were lurking in the bedrooms, but before she could say anything, Jax pulled out a flashlight and beamed it on the man.

“Game’s over, buddy.”

The man whirled around, the light revealing his identity.