Will Work For Love (14 page)

“Rick? It’s Chris. Got a little trouble and I need a
favor.”

He described the location of the dock where the
Sherwood
was tied up and asked him to come get them. Rick
asked no questions. It would only be a matter of minutes before
Rick would show up driving a Blue Isle Construction truck. It was
the only vehicle he had.

There was going to be a lot of explaining to do. If
he even got the chance.

“Is your friend coming to pick us up?” Whitney
asked. She had stood silently as he talked to Rick on the
phone.

“He’ll be here in just a few minutes.”

“He must be a good friend.”

“Uh-huh.”

Whitney reached up and put her hands on his
shoulders. “I’m sorry the night is ending badly, but I want to tell
you how much I’ve enjoyed it anyway,” she said.

“Me, too,” he said.

Chris tried to school his thoughts. He was standing
totally naked in the dark on his boat with a beautiful, desirable
woman whom he had just made love to. Twice. She was in his arms
telling him how much she liked it. He wanted to hold her against
his body and say what was in his heart, but he felt like a man who
saw a boulder rolling downhill toward him and was too paralyzed to
get out of the way.

“I should get dressed,” he mumbled. He found his
shorts on the floor of the boat and slipped them on. Whitney handed
him his shirt. He couldn’t see her face, but he could feel the
tension emanating from her in the dark. He was being distant, but
he couldn’t help it. It seemed cruel to her to do anything else. In
about five minutes, she was going to want to get as far away from
him as she could.

Chris heard an engine rumble and tires on gravel
then he saw headlights at the end of the dock. He stepped on to the
dock and reached out a hand to help Whitney off the boat. Pausing
as she joined him on the dock, he kissed her again. He wanted to
remember it.

A truck door slammed and Rick’s slim body was
silhouetted in the headlights. Chris recognized his friend
immediately, of course, but he doubted that Whitney would until
they got up close. Then all hell would break loose. He knew Rick
would say next to nothing, but he didn’t have to. The game would be
over. And he knew he would lose.

Chris kept Whitney’s hand in his as they walked down
the dock. His shoulders ached from swimming and pulling the heavy
wooden boat, but it was the tension that was really causing the
muscles in his neck and back to kill him. Only a few more steps and
Whitney would start asking questions. She was smart; it wouldn’t
take very many questions for her to figure him out completely. If
only she would give him a chance to explain. But he knew he didn’t
deserve that, not where she was concerned.

Chapter Sixteen

Despite being safely at the dock, Whitney couldn’t
shake the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. As soon as he
made that phone call, Chris changed completely. He acted like a
weight was hanging over him and the way he held her and kissed her
made it seem like it was for the last time. Good God, did he have a
wife and kids at home? Did he just call his brother-in-law or
something? The man’s name was Rick. Of course it wasn’t a terribly
unusual name, but she also met a man named Rick last Monday when
the owner of Blue Isle came out to East Pointe. That would be too
much of a coincidence, though, even on an island.

She walked down the dock with Chris and saw a thin
man outlined by the headlights, waiting for them. Chris’ grip on
her hand tightened. When she got close enough to see the man’s
face, she stopped.

“Rick Churchill?” she asked. It was too strange.
What was he doing there to pick them up? This was the man Chris
called? How did he know this sketchy business owner who was making
her life a living hell? If he knew him, why hadn’t he mentioned it
when she was pouring out her heart to him about the problems with
East Pointe?

Rick glanced at Chris before acknowledging Whitney’s
question with a brief nod.

“Thanks for coming to pick us up,” Chris said.

“I’ll ride in the back,” Rick replied.

Without another word, Rick disappeared, and Whitney
heard him climb into the bed of the truck. She turned to Chris, an
unspoken question on her lips. Unable to think of what to ask, she
was afraid to hear the answer anyway. Her stomach flipped and she
thought for a moment that she was either going to throw up or cry.
She hated crying. She hadn’t toughed out the competition in the
sportswear industry by crying. No, she was definitely
not
going to cry. She was going to demand some honest explanations.

“How do you know him?” she asked Chris. She was
still standing in the beams of the truck’s headlights. Tried to
keep her voice even despite the hurt and anger creeping into her
throat and making it feel thick.

“We work together,” Chris said.

She let go of his hand and turned to face him, arms
crossed over her chest. “By work together you mean at Blue Isle
Construction?”

“Yes,” Chris replied quietly.

“Rick is your boss?”

“No.”

Whitney didn’t ask another question. She just stood
there staring at him, her face a mix of anger and hurt.

Chris took a deep breath and forced himself to meet
her eyes with his. “I own Blue Isle Construction.”

The night air was suddenly very thick around them
and the headlights of the truck caught the dancing of insects in
midflight. Whitney was sure it must have been some kind of cosmic
interference with her hearing. Chris Maxwell could not have just
said what she thought he said.

“You what?”

Chris stared hard at the ground even though he
couldn’t possibly see anything in the darkness where he was
standing. The twin beams of the headlights separated him from
Whitney as she stepped back into the darkness on the other
side.

“I own Blue Isle Construction,” he said again.

“How—” she began, but then she paused and looked at
him in the fractured light. “I saw you,” she said slowly, “a big
man in a blue shirt. The day Rick came out to meet me at East
Pointe. I thought Rick owned Blue Isle. I only saw a shadow of you,
and then you hid. You let me…”

She stared at him, putting all the pieces together.
The pieces of conversation from the past week, every word and
action that had marked their acquaintance since the first day at
the airport.

“You jackass” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Whitney stepped closer. “Are you sorry you
took my friend’s money and then did nothing? Are you sorry my
friends are arriving in a few days and their house is still a total
mess?”

Whitney raked her scalp with her fingers,
frustration thrumming from her.

“Are you sorry my best friend is pregnant and
getting married and the only reason she can get married at East
Pointe is because I came down here and made sure the work will get
done? Work that you should have done months ago.”

Whitney balled both hands into tight fists. “Are you
sorry?” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. She swallowed hard. “Are
you sorry you’ve told me nothing but lies since we met?” A tear
escaped and slid slowly down her cheek, catching the light from the
headlights of the truck.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

Whitney squared her shoulders and stared hard at
him.

“Not as sorry as you’re going to be,” she said in a
low steady voice. “Take me home.”

****

She got in the passenger side of the truck and
slammed the door without another word. Chris slid into the driver’s
seat and backed slowly down the lane while watching the dim outline
of his beloved boat disappear into the darkness.

He thought of Rick sitting in the bed of the truck.
No doubt he heard every word. Rick had warned him, and the older
man was right, but he didn’t know the half of it. Rick couldn’t see
how far Chris’ heart had wandered into dangerous territory.

Chris drove to the marina where he and Whitney
happily took off on the
Sherwood
just hours before. Whitney
said not one word on the ten-minute drive. She didn’t look at him
as he parked and they traded vehicles. She said nothing as Rick
said goodnight and got in his Blue Isle Construction pickup. Chris
knew Rick was happy to escape, like he was on the last flight out
of an airport under siege.

Chris drove to East Pointe in continued silence.
Whitney stared out the side window of the truck, not even looking
at him. When he pulled in her driveway, she opened the door and
stepped out.

She held the door open and said, “You have two
days.”

These were the first words she had spoken in twenty
minutes and Chris wasn’t sure he understood her meaning. He shut
off the engine so he could hear her better.

“Two days?” he asked.

“Two days, and I want everything perfect. Better
than perfect.”

Chris’ mind reeled. She was giving him a chance to
finish the work. She was not calling in her lawyers and insurance
watchdogs. At least not tonight. She was giving him two days. If he
worked round the clock, he could finish the job and save his
company. He wanted to say something about being sorry, being
grateful for a chance, being in love with her. “Whitney, you have
to—”

“I don’t have to do anything,” she said. “You do.
Two days.”

“But—”

She slammed the truck door and leaned in the open
window. “Maybe you think I’m stupid because you’ve managed to play
me for the last week, but I didn’t get where I am by being a
pushover, and I also didn’t get here by taking people’s money and
giving them nothing in return.”

Chris’ hands gripped the wheel so hard he thought he
was going to break it off.

“It would take me about one and a half phone calls
to ruin you and Blue Isle Construction.”

She stepped back into the semi-darkness and he could
barely make out her face. “Two days, or Blue Isle is finished.”

Chapter Seventeen

Chris waited, motionless, until Whitney entered the
kitchen door and locked it behind her. It was completely silent at
East Pointe. Although it was probably only about nine o’clock, it
felt like it could be midnight. It seemed like an eternity since he
stupidly thought he could take her out on his boat and romance her,
reveling in hours alone with her.

He wanted to take a very large hammer from the
toolbox in the bed of the truck and knock some sense into himself.
How the hell did he think it would ever work out? He had known her
only nine days, but she had turned his world upside down.

Now, he was facing the music. Two days to finish a
job that should take a week. Two days to save his company.

He got out of the truck and slammed the door loud
enough for Whitney to hear it no matter where she was in that
ostentatiously large house. She wanted to see work done; she was
going to see it. And hear it.

Chris stalked around the curving sidewalk to the
beach side and used a small flashlight to find the switch on the
generator powering the lights. He turned on the gas line, punched
the starter, and filled the lawn with enough noise and light to
host a home football game. He carefully turned one light so it
shone directly on the house.

It was good business, he figured. Good to let the
client know he was taking the work seriously and investing quality
time on the project. She could just look out her bedroom window all
night and see what kind of work he was putting in.

He imagined her standing at the window in nothing
but a sheer lace nightgown, the cool night air raising her nipples
into soft peaks. Chris shook himself back into reality. He had no
time for thoughts like that, and she’d probably kill him with his
own power tools if he went anywhere near her right now.

****

Whitney threw her purse carelessly on the kitchen
table and went upstairs. She turned on the faucets in the bathtub
for a long, hot bath. It would be relaxing, she told herself.
Sinking into warm bubbles was better than wallowing in angry
self-pity and loathing. It might even bring her blood pressure down
below stroke threshold.

How could she have failed to put the pieces together
just a little bit sooner? How big an island did she think this was?
She should have investigated Blue Isle a lot more carefully and a
lot sooner. Whitney pulled off her clothes and got fluffy towels
out of the cabinet in the large guest bathroom while the water
gurgled noisily into the big sunken tub with luxurious jets. The
tub was almost full.

If she had been thinking with her head all along,
she would never have been taken in by a certain broad-shouldered,
blue-eyed man. She wouldn’t have sipped Virgin-esias with him. She
wouldn’t have kissed him by the moonlit harbor. She would
never
have poured out her heart to him about her
construction problems.

What was he thinking when he listened to her story?
Was he laughing at her the whole time? Was he just trying to
distract her and hoping she’d give up and go away? What outcome was
he possibly imagining to wining and dining her while hiding who he
was the whole time? What kind of a dreamer or schemer was this
guy?

Most importantly, what the hell was that noise she
heard outside when she turned off the running water? It sounded
like…

She grabbed a bathrobe off the hook behind the door
and stalked to the window in her bedroom. Obnoxious white light
poured into the room like there was a searchlight outside. The only
thing more annoying than that was the jarring sound of an engine
running. An incredibly loud engine shaking the foundation of the
house.

She knew that sound. She heard it earlier in the
week when they worked together late into the darkness. Whitney took
a deep breath. And she was going to hear it tonight, too. Even if
she got five minutes of sleep. If Chris Maxwell thought she was
going to relent instead of putting up with a distraction out on her
lawn, he had no idea who he was up against.