Sherryl Woods – The Backup Plan (страница 9)
He’d never want to go back to that sad time period, but now that he was all grown up, he liked knowing that he could preserve a little piece of it as a reminder of another era. More than that, he liked saving structures that had been meant to last, restoring their beauty and craftsmanship for future generations to enjoy.
Usually this half hour before his crew arrived was a tranquil time, but ever since Dinah Davis had come by the house in search of Bobby, there hadn’t been a peaceful moment in his life. That woman had gotten under his skin, just as she had years ago. A part of him wanted to put her in her place. Another part—the very male part of him—wanted to kiss that uppity expression off her face. He’d struggled with the same dilemma as far back as he could remember.
Okay, maybe not quite as far back as elementary school, but it had definitely crossed his mind starting with puberty. Even then he’d somehow known he would be better for her than Bobby, who’d followed her around like an adoring puppy. When he couldn’t stand his brother’s attitude a minute longer, he’d done something about it, something that had almost caused a permanent rift with his brother and had left Dinah hating his guts.
When his cell phone rang, he glanced at the caller ID and suffered a pang of remorse.
“Hey, Bobby,” he said, stuffing down the faint trace of guilt he felt over keeping his mouth shut about Dinah’s return. What was a little guilty silence, when the end result would be his brother’s happiness? “How’s it going in Atlanta?”
“We’re on schedule and under budget,” Bobby announced. “Which you would know if you read the reports I fax over there every damn day.”
Cord grinned. He enjoyed keeping up the pretense that he ignored all Bobby’s carefully detailed paperwork. It drove his brother nuts. “I believe I swept up a whole bagful of those reports just the other day. Summarize for me.”
Bobby did just that in tedious detail.
“Sounds like everything’s under control, then. You’re doing great work,” Cord praised. “That project’s going to be a real showcase for us and you deserve all the credit.”
The truth was that they made a great team. Bobby knew the construction trade almost as well as Cord did, but while Cord loved working with his hands and considered himself a skilled craftsman, Bobby excelled at staying on top of the details, working out cost projections and smooth-talking their backers. He was a natural for the Atlanta renovation project.
The Atlanta development was the most ambitious they’d done so far, encompassing an entire section of old buildings that had been destined for a wrecker’s ball until Bobby and Cord had put together a proposal and bid on the property. When it was finished, there would be shops, restaurants and apartments in high-ceilinged old buildings with glowing hardwood floors, beautiful crown molding and a dozen other historic touches rarely found in this day and age. They and their backers stood to triple their investment, to say nothing of what the finished project would do to move them into the ranks of the elite historical preservationists in the country.
Suddenly Cord recalled one of the first things Bobby had said. “Just how far ahead of schedule are you?”
“A few weeks. I’ll be back home before you know it, bro. I’ve got to tell you, I can’t wait. Living in a hotel room is getting on my nerves. I was thinking I might drive over this weekend. It would give us a chance to go over those other projects we’ve got lined up. We need to think about assigning someone to oversee them. There’s too much work for us to do it ourselves.”
Cord flinched. “No rush on that,” he said at once. “Just concentrate on wrapping things up in Atlanta. I’ve got everything here under control.”
“You still on speaking terms with the board at Covington?” Bobby asked worriedly.
Cord laughed. “Haven’t insulted anybody in a couple of days now, as a matter of fact.” Unless he took into account Dinah, but that was definitely not something he cared to share.
“You sure about that?” Bobby asked, his skepticism plain. “I know there was a big meeting this week and I know how you hate that kind of thing.” “We all survived it.”
“Any ruffled feathers need smoothing over?”
“None,” Cord assured him. “I was on my best behavior. I swear it.”
“Why don’t I find that nearly as reassuring as you evidently want me to?”
“Because you’re a suspicious kind of guy?” Cord suggested. Because he feared that sooner or later he’d slip up and mention Dinah, Cord balled up a piece of paper beside the mouthpiece of the phone. “Hey, Bobby, the connection’s going. We’ll talk again soon, okay?”
“Don’t you dare hang up on me. I know that trick,” he declared just as Cord hit the disconnect button.
Cord sighed, thanking his lucky stars that Bobby wasn’t the kind of man who asked about the latest gossip. When his phone immediately rang again, he ignored it.
The last thing Cord wanted to do was utter an outright lie. It was better for Bobby to keep right on working his tail off in Atlanta in blissful ignorance. Since Bobby also happened to have a fiancée, Cord could even tell himself he was being noble and protecting her interests as well.
Just then another fleeting image of Dinah Davis with her endless legs and lush curves popped into his head and made a liar out of him. That didn’t mean he intended to do anything about the attraction, he assured himself. He surely wasn’t going to go chasing after her.
But the best part of having known a female since childhood was the long-standing awareness of her weaknesses. Sooner or later frustration and indignation were going to kick in and Dinah was going to come to him.
Cord lifted his cup of coffee in a silent toast to predictability. God bless it! He’d gotten more women just by waiting them out than most men had with flowers and candy. Patience was a gift, no question about it. Luckily, he’d been born with an abundance of it.
4
Two weeks passed without a word from Bobby. Dinah was disappointed that he didn’t seem nearly as eager to renew their old relationship as she was. Or as she
Acknowledging that possibility gave her a momentary twinge of guilt. Maybe Maggie was right. What right did Dinah have to disrupt Bobby’s life after ten years when she merely
No, a relationship with Bobby was all about her desire to fill up her days with something that wouldn’t get her killed, to be around people who weren’t in danger of dying on a daily basis, to get her own equilibrium back.
Suddenly her reasons sounded damn selfish, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to meet Bobby and see how she would react. What was the point of having a backup plan if she wasn’t going to use it? If Bobby wasn’t interested in sticking to their deal then she’d have her answer. But how was she supposed to know how he felt without talking to him? Surely, after all they’d once meant to each other, he would at least tell her face-to-face that she was too late. He wouldn’t leave her twisting in the wind like this. It wasn’t one bit like him.
It was, however, a lot like Cord. There was always the very real possibility that Cord hadn’t gotten around to mentioning her visit to Bobby. It would be just like him to deliberately keep her message from his brother just to annoy her. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something totally underhanded to the two of them.
Another woman might have waited longer for Bobby to call on the off chance that he had made a conscious decision not to see her. Another woman might have feared being totally humiliated by the prospect of laying her heart bare and risking rejection, but Dinah wasn’t most women. She’d braved far greater risks than rejection.
Besides, she was growing restless and increasingly tired of trying to evade her mother’s worried interrogations. She’d come home on a mission. Perhaps it was a misguided one, but it was time she made something happen. Sitting around idle or being evasive wasn’t her style.
She intended to take Ray’s well-meant advice to heart. She was going to seriously consider getting married and having babies and put her dangerous, nomadic life behind her. She was beginning to wonder if she wouldn’t prefer being shot at, rather than bored to death but the instant that thought crossed her mind, she knew that she needed to find Bobby immediately. She couldn’t leave her fate in some other person’s hands, especially when that person was Cordell.
With that in mind, Dinah went shopping, found herself the prettiest little sundress in all of Charleston, then drove right back out to the Beauforts'. She planned on busting right past Cord if he was guarding the threshold again. This time she would see Bobby or find evidence that would point her in the direction of wherever he was.