Five
The movie was exciting. It was even funny. But all Emma could think about, while she munched popcorn and tried to pay attention to the screen, was Connor in bed with some other woman.
He’d ridiculed her idea of fun, listening to night sounds on the lake and enjoying the quiet landscape. He wanted noise, excitement, glitter. They were worlds apart on the things that really mattered in life. He had no faith. Her faith was all she had. He wasn’t going to settle down. He hated children. He was obsessed with making sure that he never fathered any. Emma loved kids. She wanted them more than anything.
In retrospect, she should have stayed in Jacobsville and gotten married. There were plenty of bachelors there. She could have married and lived on a ranch. She’d loved her father’s livestock, the cattle dogs he kept. If he hadn’t been so cruel, her life might have been very different. She’d been the only stability at home. Her father drank so much in her last years of high school that she often had to set jobs for the cowboys, even take care of payroll and things like shipping cattle and helping with branding. It had been like that for so long. He’d always been tight with money, but she didn’t remember him drinking so much when she was little, when her mother was still alive.
The last year she’d lived at home had been troubling. She hated to leave, but she couldn’t take any more of her father’s rampages. When he had too much to drink, she got the back of his hand for any imagined slight. He’d hit her just after graduation.
The bruise had been visible, and Cash Grier had gone out to the ranch to have a talk with her father. She’d worked for Barbara Ferguson in the café part-time while she took business courses at the local vocational school. Cash and Tippy saw her at lunch most days. She was like family to them. Cash was livid when he saw the bruise on her cheek, and the almost pathetic way she’d tried to hide it with makeup.
He came back with Emma’s suitcase, the very one she had in her closet right now, and he’d moved her in with his own family. She’d been nervous and shy and ill at ease the first day. But then Tippy’s brother Rory had taken her fishing, and Tippy had let her help with the baby boy and little Tris. And after that, she’d truly felt part of a family for the first time.
She’d probably have stayed there, living with Cash and Tippy, cooking for Barbara. But then she’d met Steven at the vocational school and started dating him. He’d just moved to town, with his friend Willie Armour. He’d been applying at the school when he and Emma started talking and found a lot in common.
Steven and Willie moved into an apartment in downtown Jacobsville. Steven didn’t start classes right away, but Emma was working at the café, and Steven and Willie went there for most of their meals. Soon afterward, Steven’s mother and father bought a small house near their son and moved there, as well. Emma liked Steven’s mother. In fact, she and her husband went to the same Methodist church that Emma attended.
Steven wasn’t much on church. But he and Emma seemed to have a lot in common. They started talking and Steven seemed to find her really interesting. Only two weeks after they started dating, he proposed. He didn’t buy her a ring. His people were well-to-do, he could have, but he said he didn’t really believe in all that stuff, so they could just let it be known that they were engaged.
He’d never mentioned a wedding date, and never asked questions about Emma’s family, even though he knew she lived with the Griers. Cash made some odd comments that never really registered about how close Steven was to his roommate, but they went right over Emma’s head. She was head over heels in love, probably because Steven was the first man who’d ever paid her any real attention. Besides that, he loved to plant flowers and trees and he loved coming to the Griers’ house, with Willie, of course, and watching a real-life fashion designing show on television that Tippy enjoyed so much. A famous model, Tippy had given up her career to marry Cash. Steven was fascinated with that world and was always asking her questions about clothes and makeup.
Cash was supportive, even when she got engaged, although he and Tippy were uneasy. Emma assumed that was because Steven was so vocal about animals being used for food, and he’d never asked about Emma’s real family or what they did for a living. She wasn’t sure Steven would understand if she told him her father kept cattle. There was another odd thing, that Steven insisted they have his friend Willie with them wherever they went. Honestly, there were times when she felt positively left out. She liked Willie. He was a kind, sweet man, very like Steven. But it seemed odd that an engaged couple would take the man’s best friend everywhere they went.
It didn’t matter, she reflected, because Steven hardly ever touched her. He said he liked her so much but he had a really hard time kissing her. He did it very rarely and even reluctantly. He thought such things should wait until after the wedding, he said once. But he wasn’t religious, didn’t go to church and hardly ever mentioned actually getting married.
They were just talking one day in the café on her break when it came out that her father owned a ranch. Steven, who’d been acting oddly for days, suddenly burst out that he couldn’t marry a woman whose family killed helpless animals to eat. He said he was very sorry, but he was moving back to San Antonio with Willie and he wouldn’t see her again.
He’d walked out without another word. Emma shuddered even now as she remembered how humiliated she’d been. Cash, strangely, didn’t seem surprised about the broken engagement, although he was sorry for Emma. He and Tippy did everything they could to cheer her up.
Jacobsville was small, like Comanche Wells, where Emma’s father ranched. Everybody knew what had happened. Nobody spoke of it to Emma, but everyone who ate at Barbara’s looked at her with sympathy in their eyes. It didn’t help that Steven’s mother was still around, making sure everyone knew that Emma and her son had been engaged, and wasn’t it such a shame that things didn’t work out for them? She was sympathetic to Emma and often apologized for her son’s odd reaction, but, she reminded the younger woman, he was an animal rights’ activist. However, Emma seemed to remember that he loved steak more than any other food, and never seemed to see anything wrong with eating it, despite saying he’d helped found the local branch of PETA.
Emma went on with her life, going to work and to church and trying to forget the heartache. But it wasn’t easy. She grew more and more depressed.
Tippy saw what it was doing to Emma. She had a Facebook friend who knew Mamie van Dyke, a very famous author who’d just lost her longtime secretary. She’d messaged her friend, who’d talked to Mamie. Tippy had told Emma about a job ad—a white lie, there wasn’t one—for a typist, and did she want to apply for the job? It was in the North Georgia mountains, far away from Jacobsville and all the painful notoriety.
Emma had agreed. Tippy, who’d saved Emma’s pride by not confessing that she’d interfered, had gone with Cash to put the girl on a plane for Atlanta. They’d arranged for a car to meet her at the airport, as well.
“But what if she doesn’t like me?” Emma had worried at the gate.
Cash chuckled. “She’ll like you.”
“Yes, she will,” Tippy assured her. “If she doesn’t, you come right home.” She hugged Emma. “I’ll miss you.”
Emma hugged her back. In a life desperate for female comfort, Tippy had been her fairy godmother. “I’ll miss you more,” she wailed.
“Enough of that.” Cash hugged Emma, too. “Get on that plane and call us when you get to Mamie’s, so we know you got there all right.”
“I will.” Emma looked at them with sad eyes. “Nobody was ever...so kind to me,” she said in a wobbly voice.
“Go on, before I start bawling, too, for God’s sake,” Cash said, and he wasn’t totally kidding. He and Tippy had become very fond of the shy, unassuming young woman they’d more or less adopted.
“Okay. Thanks. For everything,” she added.
She got on the plane. Mamie, delighted with what she’d been told and even more with what she saw when Emma arrived on her doorstep, hired her on the spot.
So Emma learned about clothes and deadlines and rich people. She called home every night for a week. Then she began to feel at home on Lake Lanier. She still missed the Griers. She talked to Tippy on Skype often, but she had to stop when she went to work for Connor. He’d mentioned once that a West Texas rancher named Cort Grier was a fellow investor in some new technology, and he knew him fairly well. Cash had a brother named Cort who ranched in West Texas. The name might be a coincidence, but if Cort was Cash’s brother, and Connor knew Cort, he might know Cash. She couldn’t risk having Connor find out that her family lived in Texas, because he might remember that the woman he’d warned about the speedboat also came from there. It might clue him in that his secretary was actually the woman who’d blinded him. So she sent emails and text messages to Tippy instead, explaining that her boss was eccentric and didn’t like her telling other people about him. She never said who he was, in fact. She simply told Tippy that she was doing a favor for this friend of Mamie’s who was blind and needed a temporary secretary while Mamie was out of the country.
She hadn’t contacted her father at all. When she’d moved in with the Griers, he’d washed his hands of her. People said he was still drinking like a fish. But in his sober moments, he managed to keep the ranch going. Gossip traveled into town. There was a woman, someone he’d met through an agent for one of the bigger meat packing companies, who’d moved in with him. So maybe she was keeping things running so he wouldn’t go bankrupt.
Emma put all that to the back of her mind and tried to forget the cloud under which she’d left home. She was still wounded by her memories of Steven. Their breakup had hurt her, especially in a small town where gossip ran rampant. Everybody knew he’d dumped her. It was heartless. She’d been in love with him, and he’d just walked away. She’d been crushed. It was as if her femininity was faulty, as if she wasn’t woman enough to keep a man. So she hadn’t tried again, after Steven, to attract men. On the rare occasions when a young man tried to flirt with her, she’d been shy and standoffish and not encouraging in the least.
Not so much since she’d gone to work for Connor. But he was wounding her even more. She’d never been this upset by Steven. She hadn’t cared this much...
She tamped down hard on those thoughts. She didn’t dare let herself get involved with Connor Sinclair, in any way. It was easy to forget why she worked for him. He was blind. He might never see again. It was Emma who’d blinded him. If he ever found out, her life would be hell. He never forgot people who crossed him, and he always got even.
Her heart fell as she realized how hopeless her situation was. She’d been driving a speedboat too fast and she’d run over Connor in the lake and blinded him. What would he do to her if he knew? She recalled how Mamie had felt when he went after her, and that was just about a newspaper article he didn’t like. Emma had cost him his eyesight. He would be out for blood. Her eyes closed and she shivered.
* * *
It was late afternoon the next day when Barnes guided Connor through the house to his bedroom.
Emma hovered, but he didn’t ask for her. He sent for Marie instead.
The older woman came out of his bedroom silent and uneasy. She glanced at Emma and made a face. Apparently his date hadn’t gone well. He didn’t act like a man who’d found satisfaction with his slinky brunette. Not at all. Emma tried very hard not to care.
In the middle of the night, she heard Connor groaning. The pain must be very bad, she thought, and wanted to get up and go to him. She even started to. But then she remembered how furious he’d been when she’d tried to guide him to his desk, and he’d bellowed for her to get Barnes. She wasn’t risking his temper again.
She lay back in the bed with a sigh. Poor man. It was a migraine, she guessed. He’d pushed himself very hard, then he’d gone nightclubbing. He liked places with loud music and that’s probably where the brunette had taken him. Combined with the pressure, that had probably brought on the headache.
She tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. She heard a door open down the hall and another door open. Voices, one loud and angry. She winced. She recognized that voice.
The door closed. Another door closed. Peace again. Until the groaning got even worse.
She heard another door open, closer to hers. Marie, she guessed as she heard soft footfalls go past her door. She knew that Marie had an intercom that linked to Connor’s room. So did Barnes, but apparently Barnes had failed to help his boss.
A door opened again and the loud voice sounded a little calmer. Minutes later, there was a soft tap at Emma’s door.
“Come in,” she called, turning on her bedside lamp.
It was Marie. “Can you come?” she asked gently. “I don’t know where his migraine medicine is or how much to give him, and he can’t tell me. He’s very sick.”
“Of course.”
Emma got her robe on and followed the older woman down the hall. Connor was in the bathroom, apparently losing supper and everything before it.
“I’ll take care of him,” she told Marie gently. “Go back to bed.”
Marie hugged her. “Thank you.”
Emma went into the bathroom and wet a washcloth. Connor was on the floor with one arm across the toilet seat, his forehead propped on it. His face was ashen.
She cleaned him up and flushed the toilet.
“The sink is three steps to your right,” she said softly.
“Emma?”
“Yes, sir.”
He groaned again. “I told Marie not to wake you!”
“She doesn’t know about the migraine medicine and I do. Here. It’s mouthwash.” She handed him a cup with a little in it to rinse his mouth. He made a face as he handed her back the cup.
“Come and lie down. I’ll get your medicine. Do you think you can keep it down?” she asked matter-of-factly.
“There’s ginger ale in the minibar. That usually works,” he said heavily.
She helped ease him down on the bed and back onto the pillows. “I’ll be right back.”
She got the capsules out of the medicine cabinet and paused long enough to get ginger ale before she sat down beside him on the edge of his bed.
“Maybe if I hit my toe with a hammer it will take my mind off how badly my head hurts,” he muttered.
“Then you’d have a sore toe to go with your headache,” she returned. “Here. Open.”
He opened his mouth and she put the single capsule on his tongue. He sat up. She handed him the ginger ale. “Top’s off,” she said.
“What, the ginger ale’s or yours?” he asked sarcastically.
She just sighed.
He swallowed the capsule and a little of the ginger ale before he handed her back the bottle. “That was crude, I suppose.”
“I have never considered that ginger ale was crude,” she said blithely.
He managed a faint laugh. He drew in a long breath, his hand over his eyes. “God, it hurts, Emma!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you? Why? It’s not your fault.”
It was her fault. She’d blinded him. It ground into her conscience like a hot poker. But she could hardly admit it now. “Figure of speech.”
“You don’t have a clue what’s wrong with me, do you?” he asked heavily.
“If I had to guess, your date threw cold water on you and put you on the porch.”
His sightless eyes opened wide and he laughed out loud suddenly, wincing when it hurt his head.
“Sorry,” she said demurely.
“You pain in the butt,” he accused. “I’m your boss.”
“You’re a grizzly bear in pin-striped suits.”
“Shame on you.”
“Nobody else will tell you the truth. They’re afraid you’ll fire them.”
“And you aren’t?”
“I’m temporary,” she reminded him. “That’s why I work for temporary agencies. I don’t want to be shackled for life to a man who thinks of women as disposable napkins.”
He laughed softly. “I’ve missed you, Emma,” he said.
“I’ve been right here,” she reminded him.
He leaned back with a long sigh. “I guess you have.” His pained eyes narrowed. “Just don’t build romantic dreams about me, Emma,” he added surprisingly. “I don’t believe in happily-ever-after, and you do.”
She was shocked that he’d say such a thing. He was a millionaire and she worked for wages. Worse, she worked for him. It was embarrassing that he knew how she felt about him.
She looked for a way to save face. “It’s the movies.”
“Excuse me?” he asked, scowling.
“Jane Eyre,” she explained. “I’ve seen the movie half a dozen times. You’re Mr. Rochester, with a permanent scowl and bad attitude. All you lack is the dog.”
He chuckled. “Is that so?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve been watching too many old movies on late-night television, and when you had the headache, I remembered that Jane Eyre saved Mr. Rochester from a fire in his room in the middle of the night. Except that I’m saving you from headaches in the middle of the night.”
“And you made romantic connections, is that it?” he asked, smiling.
“Absolutely.”
He managed a laugh. “Well, it’s one way of interpreting things. But we’d both do well to concentrate more on the aircraft industry than late-night romantic trysts, even if they’re provoked by headaches. Right?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’d better patent that word if you plan to continue using it,” he jibed.
“I’ll phone the copyright office first thing in the morning,” she promised. “Head any better?”
He shifted in the bed a little. “Somewhat. You’d better go back to sleep before Marie and Barnes start talking about us. We do need to stop meeting this way.”
“Yes, sir,” she agreed.
He laughed. “Friends again, Emma?”
“Friends again, sir.”
He had a whimsical look on his face. “I’ve never had a woman mop me up in a bathroom before,” he said.
“We all get sick sometimes,” she replied.
“Thanks, just the same.”
“You’re very welcome.” She got up, returned the prescription bottle to the bathroom, cleaned up the sink and turned out the light.
She paused beside the bed. “Doing okay?”
“Yes. I think I can sleep now. Good night, Emma.”
“Good night, sir.”
“Something I’ve been wondering...”
“Yes?”
He looked toward the sound of her voice. “Who broke the engagement?”
She hesitated. “He did.”
His eyebrows arched. “Why?”
“My parents had a few farm animals that they raised for food. He was an animal rights activist.”
“Didn’t he know that when you got engaged?”
“I guess not.”
“I suppose you missed the physical closeness when he was gone,” he fished, because it would help explain why she was so vulnerable with him.
But she wasn’t going to tell him anymore. It hurt her pride too much. “Yes, I did...miss it a lot,” she lied.
So she had been in bed with her fiancé. He’d suspected it, but it hurt him in some odd way to hear her say it. He closed up again.
“Good night, then.”
“Good night, sir.”
She went back to her room. It was good that he was speaking to her again. Maybe they could get back to the way things used to be between them. And maybe, someday soon, she could tell him the truth about why she’d taken this job. Maybe she could work up enough courage to admit what she’d done and ask forgiveness for it. Maybe.
* * *
Connor was more animated at the breakfast table than he’d been in days. He talked about a new design his team had come up with for a baby jet, a basic refit of a popular one. Emma wondered why they didn’t do a whole new design. He told her that lawsuits were supported when a completely innovative project came out. It was far safer, for many reasons, to adapt an older design than to create a new one.
“So that’s why they all look alike,” Emma began.
“Good Lord, woman, they don’t look alike! Any idiot can tell a Cessna from a Learjet!”
“I can’t,” she replied.
He sipped coffee. His expression was hard to read. “I can’t tell them apart anymore, can I, Emma? Only people with eyes can do that.”
She grimaced. “Mr. Sinclair...”
His fist hit the table. “Damn it!” he exclaimed. “Oh, God, why? What use am I without eyes? I can’t fly a plane, much less design one!”
Emma felt the guilt all the way to the soles of her feet. “You might regain your vision,” she said weakly. “Miracles still happen, if you believe in them.”
“I don’t believe in anything,” he said flatly.
“I know.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m so sorry,” she added huskily.
“Why? I wrecked the Jet Ski.” He put a hand to his head. “I remember that. I wish I could remember how it happened. It’s all a blur, everything.”
“Perhaps you will remember, one day,” she said soothingly, and then recalled that if he ever did, she would have to run for her very life.
He leaned back in his chair. “Maybe.” He was brooding again.
“There are about a hundred business emails sitting on the computer,” she began.
He grimaced. “That never ends. The damned phone’s been ringing off the hook since five a.m.,” he added. “It’s midmorning in several other places around the world. They don’t even look at the time difference when they phone me.”
“Why don’t you turn your phone off at night?” Emma asked, aghast. “People have no right to disturb you when you’re trying to sleep.”
“They think they do.”
“Just turn it on Silent.”
He chuckled softly, then drew in a breath and stretched, the muscles in his chest and arms rippling with the movement. He was so sexy that Emma felt a shiver go down her spine.
“I feel like a change. Got your passport with you?” he asked Emma.
She blinked. “Well, I do have a passport,” she ventured. “Steven said we might go to somewhere in the Caribbean for our honeymoon so I got it, just in case. Why?”
“I thought we might fly down to Cancún for a few days and soak up some sun,” he replied.
Her lips parted. “Mexico?”
“Or we could go to Jamaica or the Bahamas...”
“I would love to go to the Bahamas!” she exclaimed. “I’ve wanted to see them my whole life!”
He chuckled amusedly. “Why?”
“Pirates,” she returned. “Woodes Rogers was governor of the Bahamas back in the late 1600s and early 1700s, and he started out as an English sea captain and became a privateer. In fact, Henry Morgan was a notorious Welsh pirate in the 1600s, and became lieutenant governor of Jamaica.”
“You like pirates.”
She shrugged and smiled. “Well, yes.”
He pursed his sensuous lips. “Your favorite character in the Star Wars movie was Darth Vader, I’ll bet.”
She grimaced. “Actually, yes, he was. I always thought he was just misunderstood. So I bought this T-shirt that said Vader Was Framed. I wore it until the letters faded out.”
He chuckled. “You’re full of surprises, Emma.”
“I guess I am.”
He didn’t react visibly to the mention of her fiancé being the reason she had a passport. He hated the whole idea of her fiancé, and he didn’t understand why. She worked for him. That was why he felt protective about her. Now, if he could just manage to keep his hands off her! But even if he couldn’t, she’d already admitted that she missed intimacy with her fiancé, so maybe he could coax her into his bed if he took his time. He couldn’t remember a hunger so sweeping, not in his whole life.
Connor felt for his cell phone. “Barnes, have them get the jet ready. Tomorrow morning, first thing, we’re leaving. Do what you have to before then. Everybody hear that?”
“Yes, sir,” Marie and Barnes replied together, and then laughed because they had.
“You, too, young Emma,” Connor said with a smile.
“I’ll be ready!” she promised. “Do we take the office laptop with us?”
“We’ll have to,” he replied. “It’s my lifeline when I travel. There’s a case for it in the closet in the study.”
“I’ll find it today,” Emma promised.
“Barnes, you’ll need to drive me into town after breakfast. I need a new bathing suit. Have you got one, Emma?”
She did, but it was at the Griers’ house in Texas. “No,” she said baldly.
“What size and what color? We’ll pick you up something.”
“Medium,” she told him, “and I like blue.”
“Done.”
* * *
He came home with a bag from a famous department store and held it out for Emma. “I hope you like it. We had to go almost all the way to Atlanta to find the shop I wanted. It’s not that long a drive. Here.”
Her heart jumped when she pulled it out of the bag. It was a symphony of blue, a one-piece maillot with high-cut legs and a low-cut neckline.
“Don’t fuss,” Connor told her. It was a designer suit and probably cost more than she made in a month.
She sought for the right words. “Okay. Thanks, Mr. Sinclair.”
“Barnes says it’s a little risqué, but we’ll be on a private beach. Nobody will see you.” His face hardened. “Not even me.”
“It’s beautiful,” she replied.
“If you don’t like the colors, you can blame Barnes. I had to take his word for it.”
Barnes laughed. “Well, it is blue,” he defended himself. “I’m sorry about the style, Miss Copeland, but I had to take the saleslady’s word that it was the most conservative bathing suit they sold.”
“He doesn’t swim,” Connor said with faint sarcasm.
“Neither do I,” Marie called.
“Well, I swim,” he returned. “Emma may have to save me from sharks, but I’m not going to sit on the beach!”
Emma’s heart jumped. She laughed. “Not to worry, sir. I can take on three sharks at a time if I have to.”
“Liar,” Connor purred.
“I can take on one shark, if it’s been harpooned,” she amended.
He chuckled. “That, I’d believe.”
* * *
It wasn’t a long trip to Nassau. Emma was fascinated with everything, starting with the small jet that Connor owned. He didn’t like public transportation of any kind, Barnes had whispered, so he never used commercial airplanes.
Emma was grateful, because she didn’t like crowds. Her first airplane trip had been from Texas to Atlanta, and she still got nauseous remembering it. She’d been sandwiched in between a fighting couple and a mother with two toddlers. By the time the plane landed, she’d been listening to the in-flight radio with the volume turned up to maximum. She’d worried that she’d probably go deaf from it, but it was so much better than screaming preschoolers and cursing couples.
“You’re very quiet,” Connor remarked.
“I’m awed,” she replied. “I’ve never been on a private plane. I’ve never been over the ocean. I’ve never been anywhere, really, except Georgia and...” She hesitated. “North Carolina,” she added quickly. She was about to say Texas. Big mistake.
He smiled, apparently overlooking the hesitation. “It’s been a long time since I experienced anything for the first time,” he said. He leaned back in his seat. “But it’s nice to be free of the phone for a couple of hours.”
Just as he said that, his phone rang. He was laughing as he answered it.
* * *
Emma’s first glimpse of New Providence left her speechless. “It’s true,” she burst out as they started to land. “The water really is that color! I thought it was just a bad picture! It’s turquoise and dark blue and light blue and almost neon blue, all at once!”
Connor chuckled. “Yes. The water startles people seeing it for the first time.” His smile faded. “I used to love to watch people on the beach.”
“You still can,” she promised. “I’ll describe them all to you. Everything.”
His bad mood left him. “I’ll hold you to that, Emma.”
“Okay,” she replied. “You know, I’d give you my eyes, if I could,” she said so solemnly that his silence made her uncomfortable.
He drew in a long breath. “Thanks,” he said. It had just occurred to him that not once in his life had a woman nurtured him as Emma did. He remembered her holding a cold, wet cloth to his head when he’d gotten sick from the migraine, never leaving him until the pain eased. She kindled emotions in him that he was certain he’d never felt before, even with his first wife.
He wasn’t sure he liked it.