The Talk of the Town (4 page)

“And your orders—where do they come from?”

“The bulk of them come from stores located in large cities. Kansas City, of course, but also St. Louis, Chicago, Omaha.” She smiled, lulled by his businesslike tone. “Lately, though, we’ve received several orders from stores in smaller towns as well.”

As she finished her explanation, they arrived at a pair of double swinging doors, one of which had a Blue Eagle poster tacked to it. She crossed in front of him to peer through the dirt-streaked window. A second later she thrust the door open and ushered him forward.

The floor of the warehouse was concrete, the ceiling a network of exposed electrical wiring and water pipes. Tiers of wooden shelves and open bins formed aisles that checkered the cavernous space. A lift truck rumbled in the distance, underscoring the hum of activity as several men shifted items from bins or shelves to boxes and from boxes to bins or shelves. Beneath the hum was a murmur that followed their progress, like a missed beat in the warehouse’s pulse. Roxie ignored it as she led Luke to where two men in short-sleeved shirts and denim pants stood in a patch of light swirling with dust motes and cigarette smoke.

“I have a new part-time worker for you, Gary,” she said by way of greeting. “Luke Bauer just signed on to fill in when and where you need him.”

Tall and thin and a tad stoop-shouldered, the older man squinted thoughtfully at Luke, pressing all the crinkles around his eyes into a new pattern.

The younger one, a stumpy little guy with thick brown brows that formed a single line above his eyes, pulled a hand-rolled cigarette out of his mouth and said, “Bauer?” in a clearly shocked tone.

“That’s right, Willie,” Roxie confirmed a little too brightly. She turned ever-so-slightly to Luke. “Willie Newcomer here is assistant foreman, while Gary Koch”—she gestured toward the older man, who held several sheets of paper in his hand— “is our head foreman and most indispensable employee.”

“Tell many more like that and your nose will be too long for your face.” Gary laughed in a low rumble that faintly resembled the idling lift truck.

She laughed, too, and began to relax. Gary teased her only when he was in a good mood. It was his subtle way of letting her know he accepted her decision to hire Luke as a good one.

“Actually,” Gary said now, “I could use him full time.”

Roxie shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. “Someone else quit?”

“John Corder,” he confirmed. “Said he couldn’t live on what we’re paying, so he’s packing up Janice and the kids and heading west.”

“To California,” she said.

“The Promised Land,” he scoffed.

“Well, I hope he finds something that suits him.”

“He wants to hire on to help build that new Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.”

She nodded and looked at Luke. “So, does full time work for you?”

Willie’s expression turned sour at her question.

Ignoring the acid-faced man, Luke looked at Gary. “When can I start?”

“Tomorrow too soon for you?” Gary asked.

“What time should I report?”

“We start loading the trucks at seven.”

“I’ll be here at a quarter till.” That meant he would have to get up at five in order to eat breakfast and walk the two-plus miles to work, but he would do it and be glad of it.

Hearing his answer, a disgusted Willie stuck the cigarette back in his mouth and stalked away.

“I’ll leave Luke with you, Gary,” Roxie said. “You can show him around, explain a bit about his job and such while I speak to Fesol about putting him on the payroll.”

She pivoted then and walked out of the warehouse with a pert spring in her step. Even Willie’s obvious disapproval couldn’t dent her newfound cheer. Gary hadn’t raised so much as an eyebrow. In fact, he seemed happy to have replaced a worker without having to go through a lot of rigmarole.

On the other side of the double doors, she stopped and, after the briefest hesitation, she gave in to the urge to look back.

Through the streaks on the windowpane, she watched as Luke removed his worn blue suit coat. He folded it neatly and draped it over his arm with a precision that pleased her. She was a very precise person herself. Not, of course, that that had anything to do with anything.

Even at this distance she could see how much better he looked without that awful old jacket. She could see, too, that he was in excellent shape. His shoulders were broad and his arms were more muscled than she’d have imagined. Not that she’d imagined anything about his muscles, but—

“Are you thinking of cleaning it?” inquired someone behind her.

Roxie started and whirled around, her mouth popping open and her hand flattening on her chest as she came face-to-face with the company’s payroll clerk. Tall and gaunt and decked out in his usual work attire of a black suit, white shirt and wide black tie, Fesol Vernal had something of a grim-reaper look about him. He also had an annoying habit of sneaking up on people, which drove her to distraction.

“Fesol!” she scolded him now.

“I didn’t know you did windows,” he said, seeming to tease but failing in the attempt. Fesol wasn’t a man given to telling jokes or being joshed and jostled. He was more inclined to accuse than to amuse. And right now he sounded like he was accusing her of lollygagging.

Squaring her shoulders, she met his accusation with one of her own. “You scared me half to death, sneaking up on me like that.”

“I didn’t mean . . .” He stopped in mid-apology and glanced from her guilt-stricken face to the window and back again. Then he took a step forward and surveyed the scene through the window. When he turned back, she saw a surge of displeasure, compounded by disbelief, wash over his long, narrow face.

“Don’t tell me you hired him,” he challenged.

Roxie usually went out of her way to avoid disagreeing with Fesol because arguing with him was like arguing with a brick wall. Once he formed an opinion, he didn’t budge from it. This time, though, she had no intention of backing away from a confrontation.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I hired him.”

He wagged a bony finger at her. “Have you forgotten that he’s a convict, a criminal?”

“That was before,” she began, but stopped at the short, disgusted sound that Fesol made.

“Do you think seven years in prison made a choirboy out of Bauer?” he demanded.

“No, but—”

“If you think he’s changed, you’re more naïve than I’d thought,” Fesol went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “A leopard doesn’t change its spots.”

Her chin angled up. “But people do, Fesol. They change all the time, and usually for the better.”

He snorted in response.

Remembering how Luke had looked her squarely in the eye when he told her she didn’t have to give him a job, Roxie added with emphasis, “The man I interviewed bore very little resemblance to that wild boy everyone remembers. He made no attempt to excuse or to hide from his past. He simply asked for a job and promised to earn his pay.”

As if the sight of her offended her, Fesol removed his steel-rimmed glasses, pulled a precisely-folded handkerchief out of his back pocket and carefully cleaned the lenses. He returned the glasses to his nose, refolded the square of linen along its pressed-in lines and replaced it in his back pocket before speaking again.

“He’s probably casing the place as we speak, planning to rob us at the first opportunity.”

She dismissed that out of hand. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“He’s robbed before,” he reminded her unnecessarily.

“A gasoline station with money in the till, not a—”

“And don’t forget that he also stole a car.”

“Don’t
you
forget that he paid dearly for all of it,” she retorted.

Fesol sighed and shook his head in a show of distress. “I knew you’d cause trouble eventually.”

“What are you saying?” she demanded in icy tones.

He stepped closer now, crowding her. She either had to tilt her head back to look at him or fall back several steps, which she wasn’t about to do. She wasn’t going to give an inch of ground.

“I’m saying that the minute I met you I knew you were the type of woman who can’t pass by a stray puppy without picking it up and taking it home.” He made it sound as if this marked her as a tainted woman.

Squaring her shoulders, she snapped, “Nonsense. It’s nothing like that.”

“Isn’t it?” He took a step backwards, giving her some breathing room. “If you didn’t feel sorry for him, why did you hire him?”

Why, indeed? She couldn’t deny it. She
had
felt sorry for him and she had hired him for that very reason. Even Luke had realized as much. But she couldn’t admit it. To do so would seem like a betrayal of him.

She temporized, saying, “Someone has to give him a chance.”

“Mr. Stewart should be the one to decide whether or not this company takes such a risk.”

Fesol was no longer attacking Luke but her judgment. Some of the strain she felt abated. She was on surer ground, defending herself rather than the man everyone else loved to hate, and she responded with more confidence. “When he hired me, Mr. Stewart explained I’d be making those kinds of decisions whenever he’s gone.”

“I warned him that was a mistake.” Fesol had been here seven years to her seven months, and he rarely missed an opportunity to lord it over her.

She refused to let him rattle her any further. “There’s no guarantee that all my decisions will be the right ones, but even if I’m wrong, you aren’t the one to object. The decision was my responsibility, not yours.”

He opened his mouth, evidently thought better of speaking, and shut it again. Running a hand over his thinning brown hair, he eyed her consideringly from behind the thick lenses of his glasses. It wasn’t often that someone stood up to Fesol, and it was easy to see that he didn’t like it.

Taking advantage of his momentary silence, Roxie spun and left the warehouse area. Try as she might not to, she couldn’t help recalling how when Luke walked beside her, the corridor had seemed narrower and her heart had seemed to beat to the rhythm of his movements. Her pulse began to pound now with an intensity that disturbed her. His shadow seemed to haunt her, and though she felt foolish, she couldn’t keep from looking back over her shoulder.

Fesol hustled up the hall behind her.

She halted beside the door to her office and waited for him to catch up to her. “Please get Luke Bauer’s paperwork ready. He starts work in the morning.”

“Of course,” the payroll clerk said tightly, and she knew he would. The one thing about him that no one could dispute was that he did his job and he did it well. It was, in Roxie’s opinion, the one thing that made him tolerable.

Still, he had to have the last word. “I hope you don’t come to regret this.”

“So do I,” Roxie said in all honesty before stepping into her office and shutting the door behind her.

It wasn’t the sanctuary she’d longed for. She couldn’t hide from the censorious thoughts that battered her mind. What if Fesol was right? What if she
had
been naïve and trusting, hiring Luke for all the wrong reasons? Even though she could see that he’d changed, she couldn’t convince anyone else of it. Only he could do that. And really, it shouldn’t be that difficult to do. All he had to do was keep his word and earn his pay.

Sending up a silent prayer that she really had done the right thing, Roxie sat down behind her desk and reached for the stack of orders she’d set aside earlier. She couldn’t sit around wringing her hands over this. She had work to do. Whatever her reasons for hiring Luke, she’d made her decision and she would stick by it. If she was wrong . . . well, he might not be the only one out of a job.

Chapter 3

The subtle fragrance of rosewater lingered even after the double doors had swung shut behind Roxie Mitchell. Luke tried to ignore the scent, tried to ignore the stirrings he felt. But after so many years in a world without women, the faint bouquet tantalized him. He wondered what it would be like to immerse himself in the sweetness of it, in the soft, clean sweetness of her.

During their walk from her office to the warehouse, he’d been vividly, painfully aware of her sheer femininity, of the subtle sway of her below-the-knee blue skirt, of her shapely calves, of the strappy white shoes that encased her delicately-boned feet. His response had been immediate and sharp. He managed to suppress the achings. He was well practiced in the denial of his physical needs, but he’d done so only with difficulty. He had never before had to overcome the added allure of a woman’s charm.

She had charmed him, all right. She’d charmed him with her kindness, her nervousness, and even with the strength he’d seen in her fine-boned features. She’d charmed him into making that asinine observation about her hair. She’d charmed him into talking, thinking like a regular person. He had been so charmed, in fact, that for a few precious minutes he’d almost forgotten who and what he was.

But Willie Newcomer had brought him back to earth with a jolt, reminding him of exactly who he was: Bauer, the ex-con.

That didn’t matter now because he had a job. Relief seeped in at the realization. Luke savored it, lingering over the delicious taste of it. Unbelievably, he had a job. And with it he had the start to the new life he intended to make for himself.

All he wanted, all he’d dreamed about and longed for these past seven years, was to fade into the normality of life, to work at a steady job, to buy clothes and food, to pay bills and taxes, to just slip into the current of life unconfined by walls. That was all he wanted, all he needed. He didn’t expect anything more. He didn’t intend to grasp for the brass ring, not this time around.

It was obvious that the foreman and the younger man were surprised that Roxie had hired him. Even more obvious was that the younger one, the one called Willie, was displeased. Luke relaxed a little more. He knew how to deal with Willie. He’d been dealing with the Willies of this world all his life. As for the older one, Luke liked what he saw. He figured he’d get a fair shake. If he did his job, he’d have no trouble from Gary. And he would do his job.