The Officer's Girl (5 page)

Brett dogged their heels until the two men were on their way and the rest of the force was notified. As he watched
them turn the corner, he reached beneath his cap to mop his forehead. His hand came away wetter than expected. He swigged water from a bottle on the front seat of his patrol car. Usually he was immune to the heat, and the altercation with the con men was a part of his daily routine. So what had him so uptight he was sweating?

The answer stood waiting next to the house. At the station last night, and on patrol this morning, he had half convinced himself that Stephanie Bryant was nobody he cared about. A “me, me” girl with a so-so figure and a snippy attitude. Definitely not his style. But one look at her, and he wanted to snug her into his arms and keep her safe. He took another pull from the water bottle, trying to rinse away the bitter taste of adrenaline.

“Are you all right?” he called.

She looked better than all right. She wore workout clothes—by some famous designer, no doubt. Thin jersey stretched tightly across her ample chest. The pants clung in all the right places, right down to the spot where they ended on her shapely calves. The sun had slicked her skin and dampened her hair, turning it into a mass of dark ringlets he wanted to run his fingers through. He crossed the lawn again so they wouldn’t have to shout at each other.

“I’m fine,” she answered with a nod in the direction the truck had gone. “They seemed harmless enough. I was handling it.”

She had grit, he’d give her that. Not every woman would tackle the heavy shutters on her own, or recognize a con when she saw one. But unless people stomped and waved to resolve arguments where she came from, she was wrong about the “handling it” part. What would have happened if he hadn’t come along when he had? The back of his neck
grew hot again. His voice gruffer than intended, he asked, “Didn’t they warn you at the checkpoint about hiring con artists?”

“I didn’t hire them,” she protested. “They were doing me a favor.” She pushed a tangle of curls from her face and her expression fell. “Or, at least, that’s how it started. So why didn’t you arrest them?”

“Got here a little too early. No money had changed hands. Ergo, no crime had been committed.” He didn’t like the glum look she wore any better than he liked having to defend his actions. Shrugging one shoulder, he tried again. “Running them out of town saves jail space for those who truly deserve it. Looters. Drunk drivers. Ax murderers.”

His answer tugged a smile from her lips, and the tension riding on his shoulders slipped a notch. In a minute or two, he’d get a call—someone would have run their car into a ditch or spotted a downed wire—and have to respond. Until then, he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do than talk to Stephanie.

“How were things in Orlando?” he asked.

They stood on her lawn and discussed hurricanes and traffic until Brett felt his temperature drop to nearly normal. He had just started to hope his T-shirt might air dry before he climbed back into his cruiser when Stephanie switched subjects, choosing one that made him sweat for a whole new reason.

“Thanks for the sleeping bag. It was a good thing to have.” She retrieved it from her car, which let him appreciate the way her hips moved beneath the clingy jersey. “I’ll drop your sweatshirt off at the station once the power comes back. I want to wash it. I hope you don’t mind that I wore it. I didn’t have anything else—”

Brett’s thoughts flew to an image of Stephanie in his
sweatshirt…and nothing else. The air around him grew warm. Forget the bottle of water. Where was a hose when you needed one?

“—appropriate,” she finished.

He didn’t have a hose, but the grass looked cool. He scuffed one foot through it, startling some kind of pink insect which flew off to the side.

“Oh! There it is!” Stephanie cried. She dropped to her hands and knees, running her fingers through the grass where the critter had landed.

“You like bugs?” he asked. They were a fact of life in Florida, but his last girlfriend had been scared to death by anything that possessed more legs than she did. As a result, Brett had been forced into pest control duty more often than he liked. A girl who didn’t mind a few bugs would certainly be different. “You need some help?”

“No, that’s okay. I lost…something.” She stretched for the unidentified something, her top riding above a trim waistline. “And now I’ve found it.”

Brett stared at a
very
nice inch of smooth, supple skin. He swallowed what felt like sand and felt the heat climb another degree. “Great.” He managed not to sound too relieved. Getting down on all fours in the grass with her was not an option.

He offered her a hand up, intending to ask what she’d lost, but once the space in front of him filled with living, breathing Stephanie Bryant, his train of thought switched tracks. He had nearly forgotten how small she was. Her head and all those glorious curls didn’t even reach the top of his shoulder. She peered up at him through incredibly blue eyes which, unless he was seriously misjudging the signals, were inviting him to take her into his arms. Uncertainty filled his head with static. It was such an unfa
miliar feeling that he paused, wanting to be sure. When she did not wave a red flag, he leaned in slightly, forcing himself to go slow, giving her a chance to back away, praying she wouldn’t.

The air between them crackled. A voice whispered in his ear.

“Lincoln, this is Dispatch. Those two yahoos are headed out on Highway 520. Merritt Island, Cocoa and points west have been alerted. They won’t find work in the county. Good job, Brett.”

Doris had a way of dousing a situation with cold water just when things were heating up nicely.

He tried to listen as she updated him on events throughout the town, but his attention kept wandering to Stephanie. The brunette had moved away and now stood with her cell phone pressed against one ear, her back to him. She kept talking after his call finished. Wondering who was on the other end of the line, he gathered tools that littered the ground beneath one of the windows, and waited until he heard her say, “I’ll see you there in an hour.”

Flipping the phone closed, Stephanie whirled to face him. “Sorry about that.” She shrugged. “Work. I have to go into the office. Hey, did you find any glue in that toolbox? I broke a nail.”

Brett shook his poor, confused head. If he needed proof she wasn’t right for him, she had just given it. A girl had to be pretty self-centered to worry about a broken fingernail in the aftermath of a hurricane, didn’t she? Hadn’t he decided he was done with women like that?

“Time for both of us to get back to work,” he announced. There would be no repeat of the almost-kiss. Not now. Not ever.

“All those ax murderers to chase?”

“Something like that. See you around.” He was immune to the way her eyes sparkled. He was. So why did he have to force his feet toward the patrol car?

“Right. I’ve gotta run, too,” she called.

She was in her car and pulling out of the driveway before he realized what was bothering him. Over one shoulder, he eyed the panels covering most of her windows. Heat and humidity would turn the inside of her house into a sweatbox. She’d need to strip down to her underwear in order to find any comfort at all.

The image of Stephanie Bryant, hot and sweaty and alone, was not one he wanted to carry with him until the power came back on.

Stifling a groan, he went back to the house and began removing her shutters.

The guard trudged soundlessly through the hall on rubber-soled shoes. He passed one darkened office after another while Stephanie trailed behind, wishing the heels of her Jimmy Choo knockoffs wouldn’t clatter so loudly against the marble floor. She could have worn sneakers and saved her aching arches for another day. It wasn’t as if anyone would see her shoes during the telecom with Corporate.

The suit was another matter. Thanks to the latest in electronic gizmos, the bigwigs would get an eyeful of everything above her waist. From the megabucks they had invested in her, she knew they expected their newest director to be cool, calm and dressed to the nines, hurricanes and power outages notwithstanding. Thus, the quick change out of her sweats and into a suit in the ladies’ room off the lobby. Shoes were just part of the package.

“Here you go, Ms. Bryant.” The guard unlocked a door at the end of the hall.

Stephanie darted a quick look at his name tag. “Thank you, Paul.”

The deference that came with her new title would take some getting used to. Not unlike her new office suite. A broad grin threatened to break across her face when she
glanced past the empty receptionist’s desk to the door of her very own spacious corner office.

“I’ll be at the front desk if you need me. Will you be all right, Ms. Bryant?”

With backup generators powering the computers and air conditioners, she would be more than all right. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for opening up for me, Paul.”

She would get her own set of keys when she was formally introduced as the new director of human resources. Keys or not, she had work to do, and that work included research on the way the hurricane had impacted the company’s biggest asset—its employees. Corporate had requested a 7:00 p.m. briefing, and she was determined to have all the answers to their questions by then.

Stephanie gave her escort a long look. Rain, wind, hail or hurricane, Space Tech’s security force remained on guard, and the man had probably been on duty for days. It wouldn’t hurt to gather a first-hand report from one of the company’s own.

“Did you and your family come through the storm all right, Paul?” she asked.

He hesitated, his weight shifting from foot to foot. “Not exactly,” he finally answered.

“Oh?”

“Our mobile home lost part of the roof. I’m just hoping it don’t rain till I get enough time off to tarp it.”

A hole in the roof of his trailer. Stephanie ran a hand through springy curls that refused taming without a blow-dryer and a flat iron. So what if she didn’t have power? She lived in a solid house with an intact roof. She could tolerate a few curls.

“I’m sure the company values your loyalty, Paul, but you didn’t want to take the day off?”

“We have a new baby in the house, ma’am. I can’t afford a day without pay.”

Stephanie noted folded arms and a firmly set jaw. Body language did not lie, and Paul’s discomfort with the subject was easy to read. Reassurance rose in her throat, but she throttled it. He hadn’t asked for any special favors. She would not offer empty promises. For now, she could only let him get back to work.

“Congratulations on the baby. Good luck with the roof,” she said.

While he trudged back the way they had come, she crossed the anteroom, pausing at the doorway to her office to take in the green-and-gold patterned carpet beneath sand-colored walls. Company manuals filled two tall bookcases. Matching chairs and a conference table flanked the dark rosewood desk. Not the most impressive office she had ever seen, but it was hers. All hers. Now, if she could just keep it.

Corporate wanted assurance that everything was fine and dandy in the aftermath of the hurricane’s near miss. “We don’t expect this will require much action on our part,” a senior VP cautioned.

Stephanie thought otherwise. Official reports—not those wildly speculative ones on the television—showed damage to one out of twenty homes and businesses throughout the county. Which meant, one out of twenty Space Tech employees could face the same awful choice Paul had made. The only way to help him, and others like him, would mean a temporary dip in the company’s bottom line. Her research showed that assisting the employees with hurricane recovery would pay big dividends in the future, but was it worth the immediate risk to her career?

Weighing her answer, she walked to one of the picture
windows and looked out at the pine trees, palmettos and green grass. Sporadic lightning backlit a thick cloud bank that hovered on the horizon. Tomorrow’s forecast called for rain.

She smoothed her collar, firmed her resolve, and joined the ongoing discussion at the appointed time.

Several hours of hard bargaining and compromise later, Stephanie logged out of the conference call. She propped her feet on the edge of her desk and leaned back. Toasting her success with a well-deserved swig of bottled water, she jiggled one foot until the charms dangling from her ankle strap clinked together. The sound made her grin.

Though they were only designer knockoffs, no one could tell her shoes from the real thing. And the other executives had taken her suggestions as seriously as if she were the real thing, too. Instead of a director so new to the job she didn’t even have keys to her own office. So new to the area, she had to be told when to evacuate.

From evacuation, it was a simple jump to thoughts of Brett Lincoln and her mind played leapfrog. The way the hunky police officer had looked at her earlier brought steamy to a whole new level. But he hadn’t kissed her. She would have bet money on that and lost.

Gladly, she insisted. Space Tech needed her. Her commitment to the welfare of its eight hundred local employees would leave no time for a relationship. If nothing else, today’s events had proven that.

It had also added to her list of things to do before she headed home. After another sip of water, her feet hit the floor. A few keyboard clicks filled her computer screen with information. She picked up the phone and dialed.

“This is Stephanie Bryant in HR,” she explained to the security supervisor when he answered. “I’d appreciate it if you called someone in to cover Paul’s shift tomorrow.”
She listened to the expected response. “Yes, I realize he doesn’t have any vacation left. Give him the day off, with pay. I’ve already squared it with senior management. Charge it against this account.” She rattled off a series of numbers tied to a pool of money the home office had grudgingly set aside.

The notifications would soon spread throughout the company. In a day, two at the most, Space Tech would reopen its doors and everyone with e-mail would know about the special leave plan. Those with significant, verifiable hurricane damage would be granted up to five days of
paid
personal time. Not only that, a special exemption would allow those who needed it to borrow from their retirement funds for repairs. The message was clear: the Space Tech family cared for its own.

She had seen to it. The ladder to success might have wobbled a bit, but she was still hanging on.

She eyed her office again. Without Brett’s sleeping bag to curl up in, the floor would be harder than hard, so staying there wasn’t an option. It was time to go home and pry off another storm shutter. She hadn’t been able to accomplish the task earlier, so how she’d manage without daylight was perplexing, but manage she would. Hadn’t she battled Corporate and won? Surely, she could take down a storm shutter or two. She powered down her laptop, shut off the lights and closed her office door.

S
TEPHANIE COULD
not believe her luck. Dick and Sam
had
returned. They’d taken down her storm shutters and left them neatly propped against the wall next to the garage. Unfortunately, her luck did not extend to cell coverage she discovered when she tried to tell Brett he’d been wrong about the duo. She tapped her phone, but service was on
the fritz again and the bars refused to appear. She flipped the phone closed. The chance to tease the cop could wait until morning. In the meantime, she would spend a delightfully cool evening in her new house, where sea breezes blew in through every window.

At work the next day, she delayed making the call until Paul’s replacement escorted her through the halls. But by the time they reached her office, it was too late. Shrill phones rang on the other side of the door.

“Will the offices have electricity?” a caller asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Power has been restored to all Space Tech buildings.”

Not every business was so lucky, but the electric company had called for additional help, and contractors from all over the country were working around the clock to restore power. Top priority went to area hospitals and police stations, followed by a slowly expanding grid of homes and community services.

She dumped her laptop and briefcase onto the receptionist’s desk before picking up another line. This caller had received an e-mail about extra vacation time and wanted to take it.

“What kind of storm damage do you have?” Stephanie asked. She grabbed a pad of paper and a pen, ready to take notes.

“None at all, thanks,” answered the woman. “Our neighbors had a tree fall on their carport. Can you imagine? I don’t know how I’d cope…”

The woman rambled on while Stephanie sipped coffee from Pat’s Place. Many businesses and homes had backup generators. The convenience mart near her home was one of them, thank goodness. She shifted her briefcase to the floor. She doubted very much if she would make it as far
as her office. She might not even get to eat breakfast. Her eyes flitted between a bag of doughnuts and the three blinking lights on the telephone console. Other callers were waiting. Stephanie broke in to explain that substantial, verifiable damage meant exactly that.

“I’m afraid you don’t qualify,” she said.

“Well, that hardly seems fair!” the caller huffed and hung up.

The whole help-the-Space-Tech-family thing had a few flaws, but every family had its share of kooks. You still invited them to Christmas dinner. Stephanie reached for the next in line.

“Will the day care be open?”

Ah, sanity. She took the caller’s phone number and promised to check into it.

By midafternoon she had guided fifteen qualified employees—including a grateful Paul—through the maze of paperwork required for additional time off. She’d explained the application process to three besides the guard who needed to tap their retirement, returned the call about the day care facility—it would be open—and reassured practically everyone that business would return to normal at Space Tech the next day.

Some were happier with that information than others. She bit the inside of her cheek, struggling not to laugh at the woman who demanded permission to wear a halter top and shorts to work “because it’s hot outside.”

Of course, it was hot outside. It was summer. In Florida. Where eighty-seven signified a cold front and people broke out their winter woolens if the temperature dropped to seventy. But with massive air-conditioning units pumping chilly air throughout the complex, the dress code—unlike the halter top—would remain firmly in place.

The busy day high-stepped its way toward five o’clock when all calls would automatically reroute to the answering service. Though she loved the warm fuzzies that came with offering reassurance and help, Stephanie looked forward to a nice, long break before she tackled the glut of reports George Watson, their CEO, expected by morning. She rubbed elbows that felt raw from propping the phone to her face all day. Her suit was rumpled. Even the minimal makeup she wore had long since disappeared. So had the doughnut she’d scarfed with her morning coffee, and the second one she’d downed at lunch.

Her rumbling tummy demanded real food, making her wonder if any restaurants were open in the sections of town where power had been restored. And if they’d still be open by the time she headed home. She reached for the Yellow Pages, but lifted her head when a quiet thumping sounded in the hall. The tall, thin man who entered the office suite ignited a blaze of instant recognition and Stephanie gulped. She fought the urge to duck behind her computer screen.

Company founders came out of retirement only when things were truly messed up. And there was no doubt the man who stood on the other side of the secretary’s desk was the company founder. The piercing gray eyes set in a long, narrow face, the shock of white hair, the shoulders held so straight their sharp angles could cut steel—his picture graced the inside cover of every company report.

Stephanie quickly smoothed her jacket. There was no smoothing her hair or her composure.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Sanders,” she said rising to greet him. Thinking the curt nod and accompanying grimace he shot her way were bad omens, she stiffened. Her hands dropped to her sides, her fingers gripped the edge of the desk and curled under it.

He crossed his own gnarled hands atop a hand-carved cane tall enough to use without stooping. “Where’s your boss?” he demanded, his voice gruff.

“I—” Her glance followed his to her darkened office. While she could claim the boss had never arrived, what would that make her? The receptionist? It was probably the position she’d land in if she missed a rung on the corporate ladder, but why give him ideas? She cleared her throat.

“I’m Stephanie Bryant,” she said. “I am the boss.”

“So.” Unhappy eyes ran the length of her. “It was your suggestion to create an emergency fund from company profits?”

Though her posture would never be as straight as his, Stephanie pulled herself erect, looked the company founder straight between the collarbones and gave him the textbook answer.

“Yes. I estimate increased employee retention and decreased turnover at ten percent. As you know, both of those numbers significantly impact profits—”

The pragmatic approach had worked with Corporate. It didn’t go over well with Mr. Sanders. His frosty look sent a chill down Stephanie’s spine and she wrapped up quickly.

“Over the long term, that is.”

“Very generous of you. Especially with my money.” The left side of his mouth shifted into a brief scowl. When it straightened, he peered down over the tall desk separating them. “Why are you working here?” he demanded.