Czytaj książkę: «One To Win»

Chapter 1

“Budget cuts!” Detective Fiona Reed couldn’t believe what she’d heard.

Frustration pumped anger through her veins. Her pulse pounded, accenting the soaring beat of her temper. Words bubbled up and pushed against the verbal barrier that kept her civil and respectable.

“Watch your step,” Captain Baxter warned, “before you spew words that you can’t pull back.” His glare sparred with hers and won.

“Sir, this budget cut is...is...plain stupid. We can’t get our job done with fewer hours—no overtime is nonsense. That’s just dumb. Most of the victims who are listed as missing in our case files are minors. Cuts along the support staff? We need more help. It’s not rocket science, what we need to solve these cases. And it’s definitely not about the counselor’s sound bites harping on government waste and effective management.” Her voice had escalated probably beyond the walls of the captain’s closed office. Oh, well—it wasn’t the first time that she’d delivered a vehement one-way pitch here.

“Your area isn’t the only one affected.” Baxter ran a hand over his bald head. His haggard features spoke volumes as to his own misery as the messenger. “Every area, department, everything, has been whittled down. It’s how things are now. We all have to deal with it. That means you, as a team player.” He stabbed at the space between them. His thick black eyebrows drew down over his fierce gaze.

Fiona heard the words. She listened to the message, but none of it satisfied her. None of it deflated her irritation. The Missing Persons Unit of Essex County, New York, needed more than the three detectives and two clerks assigned to it. The shortage in manpower had almost cost the lives of a set of twins who were habitual runaways, but had thankfully been found. Working around the clock wasn’t the exception. Day, night and the seconds in between, Fiona had followed every lead to track the sisters. The fifty dollars she had to pay here and there to get information came out of her pocket. Whatever it took to find any of these kids, she’d try.

Bottom line, the shrinking budget mattered. With other social services around the county getting eliminated or slashed, too many cases of the missing remained unsolved with stomach-churning frequency. The deep tar pit of bureaucracy into which these people sank and disappeared from everyone’s attention twisted her gut in knots of frustration. After six years on the job, at times it felt like an insurmountable climb to have successful endings to the cases. If she had her wish, she’d do anything she could to double the funds to run this unit.

Fiona studied her boss’s face, trying to read, trying to test, trying to gauge her footing. Where did his loyalties lie?

“Are you fighting to keep the funding?” Fiona took the plunge into volatile depths.

“Detective, watch your step.” Baxter spoke softly, but his displeasure radiated like an overheated sunlamp. His neck and shoulders were rigid with his annoyance.

“We need the money.” She pounded her fist into her open hand. “What we do is worth fighting for.”

The captain tossed aside his pen, poised over the paperwork on the desk, and shot up with such force that his chair hit the credenza behind him. His body rose to its full towering height. His shoulders squared and his chest puffed up with his indignation. Dark brown eyes pinned her in place. Baxter clenched his hands and leaned on the desk. His breathing was heavy, nostrils flaring, as he angled into her space.

They faced off across the desk. Seconds felt like minutes. His eyes narrowed into a squint. No doubt she was in deep trouble. Not a particularly unique event in the life of her career. A stubborn streak in her refused to back down, even as the warnings flashed through her consciousness like a gaudily lit sign. She held her ground, despite a slight tremor in her knees that threatened to take over her entire body.

“You’re overdue for your vacation. Take it, effective immediately,” Baxter delivered with his quiet anger.

Fiona flinched from the swift punishment. “Sir, I’ve got a crazy caseload on my desk. You need everyone here.” Obviously, it was too late to retract or soften her belligerence.

“This isn’t up for negotiation. Boggs and Fogarty will divvy up your files. You need to walk away and get your mind back in the game.”

“Sir...” She was used to arguing with her captain. Those clashes might have ended in threats, scoldings, but never this...banishment.

“A vacation or a suspension. And don’t try my patience. I understand that I didn’t exactly come onto the scene in the best of circumstances after Captain Doyle suffered a massive heart attack. You didn’t get the promotion that you wanted. And the media hasn’t been supportive of the strides made by this unit. The last thing needed around here is this implosion.” He folded his arms. “Now, I agree with everyone that you are a damn good detective. You’ve deserved every commendation. However, lately, you’ve been...”

“Doing my job.” Fiona wasn’t going down without a fight.

“Intense. Belligerent. Insubordinate. I know about your off-the-record tirade with Counselor Jenkins.”

Each criticism was shot at her ego like a well-aimed dart.

“So take two weeks. Get your head together and rejoin the team.”

“I don’t—”

The captain held up his finger. The gesture was a distant reminder of her days in school when the teacher reprimanded her for talking out of turn.

“Yes, sir.” Fiona clenched her jaw. Logic pried its way in, past the hot rush of her impatience.

“Effective immediately. Please close the door on your way out.” Every syllable Baxter uttered had its own beat.

With no other choice, Fiona walked toward the door, turned the knob and opened it. Taking a deep breath and exhaling to put on a stoic face, she stepped into the hallway. But then her hand shook and she opened and closed it to steady her nerves before pulling the door shut. Then with her chin up, she returned to her cubicle.

The walk of shame was self-made. She couldn’t blame a drink, a drug or lack of sleep for her brash behavior. Her colleagues avoided eye contact with her. Some even slowed and seemingly pressed their bodies against the wall as if she were contagious.

Inciting the captain’s ire was a stupid career move. Instead of focusing her anger on the annoying obstacles outside of the unit, she had thrown her net wide enough to show her disrespect to the captain. She had overstepped, to put it mildly.

Acknowledging her rash behavior now didn’t change her current status.

Back at her desk, she flipped open the twins’ file. It could now be moved from active to closed. That should have had her doing backflips in celebration. Maybe when the turbulent emotions flagged, the brighter side of things would emerge. All she could see at this point were the photos, testimony and visual evidence of sad lives and raging emotions.

She pinched the bridge of her nose right between her eyes to inflict her own punishment. Her boss was correct. She had to deal with anger and disappointment more appropriately. Otherwise, the negative emotions would consume her, gnawing on her soul until only bitterness overtook contentment. The job and its sidecar BS got to her and screwed up her judgment.

“Hey, chica, you’re good?” Her coworker, Detective Jacinda Mehta, asked in a husky whisper.

“Yeah.” Fiona took a deep breath, doing her best to shake off the sucky vibes of failure.

“You were in there for a quite a bit.” Jacinda rested her chin on the cubicle wall. “I’m making sure you still have your head.”

Fiona coaxed a smile out of herself. “Still got it.” She pointed upward to said body part. “Barely.”

“I tried to talk you out of it.” Jacinda shook her head, as she entered the cubicle. “But you were hell-bent on taking on ‘the man.’” She provided air quotes that just emphasized to Fiona how harebrained and impulsive her actions had been. “So, did you get away with it? I had to head down to the evidence locker.”

Fiona knew Jacinda might be worried about her, but her coworker also was ready to share a laugh at her streaks of stubbornness. “I said what I had to say.”

“Fist bump, chica.” Jacinda extended her hand.

Fiona complied. “And...I’ll be taking a two-week vacation.”

“Hot damn. You got a double win—telling off the boss and heading to the beach.”

“Who said anything about the beach?” Fiona shook her head at Jacinda’s excitement.

“That’s where I’d go.”

Fiona shrugged. The response seemed appropriate, given she hadn’t weighed her options. It had been a while since she took time off. Real time off that lasted for more than a long weekend. The sun hadn’t warmed her body in a while. And as for walking barefoot in the sand, that hadn’t happened in a couple years. The idea of kicking back felt strange and wrong to entertain when she had a caseload the height of a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper. But the matter was no longer hers to consider.

“Look, do I need to give you a list of destinations to visit?”

Fiona shook her head. Any suggestions courtesy of Jacinda might land her at an expensive resort halfway around the world. Her colleague loved to cherry-pick interesting male partners on her various trips.

For her part, Fiona preferred a good book and a glass of wine—alone. She was over the manhunt for a good while. Her recently ended relationship with a man who was oversexed, uncommunicative and bad at kissing helped to instill her current priority system.

Desperate wasn’t her middle name.

* * *

Later that day, Fiona gathered at her cousin’s house in Midway, New York, where her other cousins waited. Belinda’s place was often their mutually agreed setting to catch up. After her latest drama, the others wanted a blow-by-blow account of her issues on the job.

“Wow. What a story. You are lucky that your boss didn’t write you up.” Her cousin Dana interrupted for the umpteenth time, no longer trying to hold in her amusement.

“Humph!” Fiona hadn’t stopped fuming, although she had to admit that her punishment could have been worse.

“Now you can go with us to the Hamptons.” Belinda emerged from the house and stepped onto the deck. One hand balanced the drinks and the other held a plate with slices of her homemade peach-almond cake.

“Grace doesn’t know my situation changed.” Fiona accepted the proffered iced tea and helped by taking the plate of sliced cakes and setting it on her lap.

“No, you don’t.” Dana promptly removed the plate and placed it on the small table centered in front of the three women. “Belinda, you always have the best snacks for our gab sessions.”

“My pleasure, ladies.” Belinda looked pleased at their murmurs of appreciation as they munched and washed down the treats.

The September weather still held on to the last dregs of summer’s humidity. Upstate New York hadn’t escaped the oppressive blanket of hot and sticky temperatures. But for Fiona, the hellish conditions felt right for sitting on the deck, soaking up the sun, pigging out on cake and drowning her sorrows in iced tea.

Belinda’s home was always the cousins’ fun hangout place. Although her cousin’s charming boyfriend had become a familiar presence, Jesse Santiago knew when the women needed their alone time. Now that Jesse had permanently closed the door to his soccer career to run his father’s construction business, he had blended into Belinda’s world and shared her love for horses. Most of his free time, except for when he was with Belinda, was spent riding around the large property or performing any rehab needed on the physical structure of the equine therapy facility.

After sampling another slice of cake, Fiona pointed at Dana. “I don’t hear you confirming my statement that Grace doesn’t know about my situation.” Fiona unfolded her legs from her seated position and sat up. “Please tell me that you didn’t throw me under the bus with our grandmother.”

“Way under the bus, like six feet under.” Belinda tossed back her head as she expelled a hearty laugh.

“Why should we be the only ones that have to go to the Hamptons?” Dana’s mouth closed into a pout.

Belinda took up the defense against Fiona. “You know Grace feels that it is a family tradition to have one vacation together—our annual Meadows family duty.”

“But it’s not really a vacation. Our family under one roof is chaos. Drama with a capital D. That’s not a vacation. Besides, let’s stop pretending that we are this family dynasty, like the Kennedys or Rockefellers, operating like we are like this.” Fiona held up her hands pressed together with interlocked fingers to indicate closeness.

She didn’t care that the family did show up to the various gatherings. If her grandmother didn’t insist on having her usual expectation heeded, the family wouldn’t operate like a close-knit unit. The reason they did was clear—it wasn’t because they wanted to be together.

Despite all of Grace’s accomplishments, she couldn’t brag about the bond between her and her three daughters. Their mothers all had a mixture of respect and awe for Grace, but all had endured her hands-on, sometimes manipulative nurturing.

Verona, Fiona’s mother, who also was Grace’s eldest daughter, had the most strained relationship, with no signs of improvement over the years. Whatever history had passed between her mother and Grace remained unknown, although their measured approach to each other was quite visible. Regardless of her cousins’ endorsement, going to the Hamptons did not rank as one of Fiona’s favorite ways to spend family time.

Dana leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “What else would you be doing? You are now a benched superhero of the police department. And for the record, I plan to continue this family-vacation tradition when that time regretfully comes.” Her dark brown eyes reflected sincerity.

“Okay, now that you’ve taken over from Grace to be the CEO of the family media conglomerate, don’t let it go to your head. You’re supposed to be on our rebel side,” Belinda reminded her.

“Yeah, well...” Dana swallowed the rest of her defense in a long drink from her glass.

“Maybe I can grovel and get my vacation postponed.” Fiona’s forehead was still furrowed as she resumed reclining with her legs tucked to the side. She munched on a piece of ice.

“From what you’ve told me, I foresee that if you step foot into that office, you’ll regret it. Your boss may be new, but he seems to be as tough as a junkyard dog. So go ahead and disobey his order. I’ll sit back and wait to tell you ‘I told you so.’” Dana’s mouth pursed full of smugness.

“You were always the mean one,” Fiona accused. Defeat set in, ratcheting up her grumpiness.

“That’s why she’s running the Meadows empire. Someone’s got to walk in Grace’s queenly footsteps.” Belinda jabbed her thumb in the air toward their youngest cousin.

“Stop calling Meadows Media an empire. And I’m not mean. I’m doling out the appropriate advice, that’s all.”

Fiona ignored the bickering and drained her glass to chew on more ice. “Looks like I’m going to the Hamptons.” Something she’d suspected she’d get roped into when the invitation had come from Grace two months ago.

Grace had a reputation for approaching each granddaughter with an invitation to join Meadows Media. Her invitation was predictable and always managed to tweak a bit of guilt from the ones who didn’t join the company after graduating from college.

“Let’s move this inside now. I’m melting and I just got my hair done. My honey and I are going on a date tonight.” Belinda stood and brushed off the crumbs.

“I don’t want to hear about any lovey-dovey stuff.” Fiona hurried ahead of Dana into the cool indoors. “I seem to attract men who can’t handle a woman working a demanding job or men who need to be put on a pedestal to be worshipped.”

“It’s a bit more than that, Fiona.” Belinda was busy in the kitchen, retrieving fresh glasses for the delicious fruit punch spiked with a touch of white rum. “You, my dear, are a workaholic. You thrive off of four hours of sleep. You are prone to canceling dates. And you’d rather spend your free time with us than staring deeply into a sexy, horny man’s eyes.”

Dana puckered her mouth and made kissing sounds.

“Well, sue me for thinking that y’all were cool with hanging out together.”

“Stop whining. I’m not the one giving you a diagnosis. However, I will say that you need to take these two weeks to relax. Then you can go back and be refreshed for the never-ending wave of cases that come across your desk.” Dana grabbed hold of Fiona’s shoulders and massaged them.

“Maybe I should change what I’m doing.” Fiona wanted to test the waters with her cousins about the latest thoughts burdening her.

“What?” Belinda walked out with the second round of drinks and handed one to each. “Okay, you really need to come to the Hamptons. We should talk about all this in a different setting. You sound like you need a life intervention when absolutely nothing is wrong with you.”

“Oh, right, like I really need to figure out my future under Grace’s nose. If I recall, she has been all over both of you about holding down the family business. You, Dana, stepped up, but it was a no-brainer because you have the passion and business brains to run Meadows Media. And you, Belinda, you stood your ground to build your equine therapy center from the ground up. Now that leaves me to hold my stance with her or surrender and take the offer to be the head of Meadows security.” Fiona batted her eyelashes at Dana. “May I be your bodyguard?”

Dana waved off her silliness.

“Oh, this is going to be fun.” Belinda was too cheerful for Fiona’s liking. “Consider the exercise of finding your path a rite of passage. And you get to go through it at a prime beachfront location.”

Although Belinda’s buildup sounded good, from Fiona’s headspace, the “rite of passage” didn’t fill her with a cheery disposition. She really was questioning her future and to be faced with Grace’s intense focus on the family’s legacy and the cousins’ roles in continuing the decades of success made her stomach flip and flop and tie itself into knots.

“Would it help if I said that Leo Starks will be there?” Dana’s voice dropped low and seductive.

“Leo? The same Leo Starks?” Fiona kept her gaze on the golden liquid in her glass, a mix of naturally sweet tropical fruits. She couldn’t blame the splash of alcohol for the instant flush to her cheeks. “Why will he be there?”

Dana’s expression just about glowed over the news. Her animated hand gestures added emphasis. “Word is that he’s there at Grace’s invitation. She was always impressed with him, from his days as a legal intern several years ago at Meadows to landing a job at Grayson, Buckley and Tynesdale after he earned his law degree. No real information about the reason for his presence, though. And Grace is not telling. But that will make it more fun for you to sniff out why your onetime Brazilian Sweet Lips is coming to the Hamptons.”

“Don’t call him that.” Fiona had to agree that the moniker was 100 percent accurate, but she wasn’t sure if said lips were still one of Leo’s most attractive points. “So Starks will be there? For the entire stay?” Her cheeks remained warm. The sensation spread over her entire face and down her neck, as if she sat too close to a roaring fireplace.

Memories of Leo Starks didn’t float away into the black hole of forgotten experiences. Falling in love had the power to keep its hook in for the long haul. Though she’d allowed doubt to creep in like wild weeds and fracture what they had between them, she couldn’t close the door completely on their special time.

Dana shrugged her slender shoulders. “I don’t know if he’ll be there for the entire month. I can only stick around for the first week.”

Belinda raised her hands. “I’m there for two, but Jesse will come back to the center after one week. And, yes, I’m making him attend. He might as well see us in all our glory if he’s going to be a permanent part of this family.”

“Oh my gosh, did he propose?” Dana asked, while Fiona screamed with joy.

“No. Don’t rush us. But we are truly committed to each other. I haven’t been this happy in a long time.” Belinda’s voice dipped with a tender note.

The two cousins had stopped their excited outbursts, but they grinned at Belinda’s declaration.

“I’ll stay as long as you all are there.” Fiona loved seeing her cousins immersed in their loving relationships with the special men in their lives.

Love had played the chasing game with all of them, but now her cousins had nabbed their perfect soul mates. She tried not to wonder when she’d get so lucky. Or maybe the reality was if she would get so lucky. The thought of falling in love without a safety net, revealing the inner private side of her life, caused a queasy, weak-kneed reaction in Fiona. Not her thing. She’d rather convince herself that the tender side of life, where soulful sighs and sensuous cravings resided, wasn’t a high priority.

“I suspect that you’ll stay as long as Leo is there,” Dana teased in a singsong voice.

“He means nothing to me.”

“Don’t toss that out so fast. You’re not fooling us. I know you sampled those gorgeous lips when he was an intern at Meadows.” Belinda took up the baton of teasing and echoed Dana with a series of exaggerated kissing sounds.

“Who’s got gorgeous lips?” A familiar deep male voice interrupted the noisy exchange among the cousins.

Silence. Then the women erupted into fits of giggles.

“You, baby.” Belinda opened her arms in invitation to Jesse. Without hesitation, he stepped into her embrace, where she locked him to her chest. No complaints came from him as Belinda planted a wet, sloppy kiss before releasing her man.

Fiona and Dana groaned and made a show of shielding their eyes.

“On that note, Dana, let’s go. Take me home. I think the lovebirds are not going to wait for us to leave before the scene turns into Mature Audiences Only. And I’m too young to see any of this.” Fiona grabbed her cousin’s arm for their quick goodbye. “Besides, I’m sure your love muffin is also home waiting for you.”

“Now you sound like you’re hatin’. But yeah, Kent is home. Tomorrow he’s heading back to England to be a coach for the executive staff of an airline. Fingers crossed that he’ll be back in time to spend a few days at the Hamptons. We both need the time off.”

Fiona nodded. How would she survive being surrounded by couples madly in love?

As they walked to Dana’s car, her cousin playfully bumped Fiona’s shoulder. “Thinking about the owner of those wicked cheekbones and that chiseled jawline? I remember when those females at Meadows Media were salivating every time he arrived. Emails would whip through the office with the announcement. Yet you were the only lucky one from the company to road test those lips. Maybe more than that?” Dana aimed the car remote at her Audi and popped open the locks. She leaned against the car and continued, “And that’s my dose of encouragement for you to look forward to the Hamptons. In two days, your secret nighttime thoughts and the sexy reality can become one.”

“And that’s what I’m afraid of,” Fiona mumbled as Dana got into the car.

“I’m rooting for you.”

She took a moment longer than Dana to get in the car. Her imagination wasn’t waiting for the darkness of her bedroom to go to work. If the embarrassing memories of those hot kisses kept up, tonight she’d suffer a sleepless night, tossing and turning in her bed from reawakened delicious torment.

On the ride home, she was mostly silent. Along with recalling the unusual passionate response to Leo’s touch, she also couldn’t ignore the thought that she’d ultimately rejected him three years ago. Back then, her fear of love and all its side effects was more potent and undisciplined. Now the fear had become ingrained like a habit that could be relied upon in other relationships, but one that provided zero comfort to her soul. A year and a few days with Leo as a friend and lover had changed her life, her outlook and what she desired in her heart. She’d never moved on, knowing that she’d made a huge mistake. All she’d wanted was to let him go so he could fulfill his dreams of being a top-notch lawyer without the added stress of an unlikely romance. All around her, women—her mother, aunts, even grandmother—had life stories where career and romance were two colliding forces that demanded their time and energy. Their men seemed the exception to the rule of finding that precious balance, without setting conditions on their partners. Fiona didn’t ever want to force sacrifices or obligations on anyone. In an impulsive move, she’d taken a stance and lived to regret it.

In two days there would be a chance for a do-over or maybe a continuation of this unresolved episode between them. The possibility of an amended ending, however, didn’t hold any promise of a change of heart. There still would be no commitment. She didn’t believe in surrendering every part of her soul into the heady mix of deep emotions; love would eventually get ripped apart, either because a couple grew distant and fell out of love or because the randomness of life had a way of snatching someone away. Her job taught her that one, while her childhood with an emotionally distant mother and emotionally constrained father left her unsure of what was best when it came to opening up and being vulnerable and in love.

On the other hand, Leo had been so hurt by her rejection that he’d probably moved on to someone who appreciated him. Someone who didn’t live life with that undercurrent of fear guiding important decisions.

By the time Fiona climbed into bed for the night, she toyed with the thin sliver of a chance that she would have a change of heart. Dare she entertain the possibility? Was she up for a second attempt with Leo Starks? She hugged her pillow and closed her eyes. His face filled her memory. A small smile curved her lips. She could hear the unique cadence of his voice in her head. And he was the best kisser...ever.