DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN (23 page)

A gunshot
was heard.
 
“Jesus!” Nikki yelled as she
turned toward the sound.
 
A crowd, who
heard the gunshot too were running toward her, running as if they would not be
stopped. Nikki turned to run herself, but the push of the crowd caused her to
drop her phone.
 
She wanted to pick it up
but it was kicked away by the stampede of feet.
 
So she just ran.
 
Daniel’s voice,
growing louder and graver, was yelling one word, over and over.
 

“Nikki?”
 

“Nikki?”

“
Nikki
!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The aftermath
stunned even Nikki.
 
It looked like L.A.
after the Rodney King verdict, or even Beirut.
 
Trash-like confetti littered the streets, buildings once on fire were
still smoldering, broken glass, torn down fences, cars torched to rubble.
 
It was all over now, the damage was done, and
the cops and paramedics were everywhere.
 
They finally came, finally moved in after the crowd, terrified of the
gunshots, had moved out.
 
Three people
died, one from a gunshot wound, two others trampled to death.
 

Nikki could
have easily been in that number and she knew it.
 
That was why she was stunned.
 
She sat on the sidewalk near a burned out
liquor store, waiting for the paramedic to take a look at her.
 
She had no cuts, no bruises, just fear.
 
Just memories forever etched in her
brain.
 
The seriously and critically
wounded were long since carted away.
 
Now
the walking wounded, and the stunned, were getting a look over.
 
Nikki wanted to leave an hour ago, but they
wouldn’t let her.
 
She just didn’t look
right to them.

The last
thing she remembered was a young man grabbing her hand and pulling her into a
building.
 
She thought he was her
guardian angel because, at that point, the crowd was just pulling her along - a
sure prescription for a stumble, fall, and trampling.
 
But then the building the young man had
pulled her into was torched too, and before she knew it they were running out
again, and the crowd was pushing her along again, until they ran one way and
she ran another, and what she just knew was the grace of God Almighty forced
her to give up and fall back against a crevice in a wall.

The
paramedic was just about to come to her next, and she was about to let him take
that good look at her they insisted on, but she saw Daniel.
 
He was cleared in by a police sergeant and
began walking into the war zone, his brown suit coat flapping wildly though he
moved cautiously.
 
He was looking at all
of the destruction, amazed by what he was witnessing.

Nikki saw
him before he saw her.
 
She left the
medic’s side immediately and began, as if she was on autopilot, to walk toward
Daniel.
 
When he saw her, he stood there
and finally was able to breathe again.
 

And she ran
to him.
 
Ran with energy she thought she
no longer had.
 
Ran with determination
she thought had died in the crowd.
 
Ran
until she jumped into his arms, knowing that he ordered her to get away from
there, certain that he wouldn’t hold it against her now.

Daniel
unlocked the front door of Nikki’s townhome and then followed her
upstairs.
 
She was so emotionally
exhausted that she stumbled back, causing Daniel to clutch her around her waist
and pull her forward.
 
He kept asking if
she was okay, but she kept insisting that she was just fine.

“You don’t
look fine, Nikki,” he said as they entered her bedroom.
 

“But I am,”
she said.
 
“I just need to take a
shower.”

“I want
Doctor Lowden to have a look at you.”

“I told you
I don’t need a doctor.”

“I know what
you told me.
 
But he’s going to take a
look at you.”

Nikki rolled
her eyes as she took off her earrings and bracelet and tossed them on her
dresser.
 
She looked through the dresser
mirror and saw Daniel picking up her telephone and then lying on top of her
bed.
 
“I need to be doing that,” she
said.

“You need to
take a bath,” Daniel said, and Nikki managed to smile, although the memories of
the day were still haunting her.
 
She
remembered all of those people running.
 
She remembered some being trampled.

Daniel,
stretched out on Nikki’s bed, dialed the number to his office and then placed
his hand inside his coat lapel.
 
Nikki
stood at the mirror looking at herself, lifting up her hair and dropping it
down, rubbing her hands across her cheeks as if she, too, could see the look of
terror that still had not left her gaze.

For Daniel
it was a different feeling.
 
He was
grateful that she was okay, but he still felt queasy because he knew her.
 
Because he knew as long as there was some
perceived injustice somewhere, Nikki would find a way to forget about the
danger and run to the cause.
 
It was a
similar risk he took when he fell for a woman her age.
 
Twenty-four year olds still think they can
change the world.
 
Twenty-four year olds
still think they’re indestructible.
 
He
loved that about her.
 
He loved her
spirit, and her exuberance, but living out loud like that came with a
price.
 
And he was bound and determined
to quietly keep her safe, despite her seemingly boundless determination to keep
seeking out the danger.

“Dreeson
Corporation,” the voice on the other end of the phone proclaimed.
  
“This is the office of the Vice
President.
 
How may I direct your call?”

“Hey, Madge,
it’s Daniel Crane.
 
Put Whitney on the
phone.”

“Mr. Crane,
yes sir.
 
One moment, please, sir.”

Nikki began
undressing slowly, removing her shoes, blouse, and bra, and then she was
shimmying out of her pants.
 
Daniel
watched her.
 
He watched her brown, juicy
breasts and black nipples.
 
He watched
her soft, flat stomach.
 
And as she slid
out of her panties and turned away from him, her ass a perfectly rounded ball
of tight plumpness, he crossed his legs to lessen the impact of his
reaction.
 
But it was already too
late.
 
His pants had tented.

She went
into the bathroom just as Whitney’s voice came onto the phone and quickly
informed him that Phillip Grayson had been calling all afternoon.
 

“Phillip?”
Daniel asked.

“Yes
sir.
 
All afternoon.”

“Get him on
the line.”

“I’ll
connect you, sir.”
 

And she
did.
 
Daniel had a good idea what the
problem was, but he didn’t realize the gravity until Phillip’s high pitched
voice came onto the line.
 

“I can’t
believe you, Daniel!
 
Where were you?”

“Just slow
down.
 
Tell me what happened.”

“What do you
think happened?
 
It was a done deal.
 
All you had to do was show up and accept your
coronation.
 
But not Daniel Crane.
 
That would be too simplistic for him.
 
He’s got to make me look like a pure fool in
front of the entire board of directors!”

“You aren’t
even on the board, what are you talking about?”

“The
meeting, Daniel!
 
The meeting!”

“I missed a
damn meeting.
 
I had Whitney inform them
that I wouldn’t be able to attend.”

“But why the
hell not?
 
This was vital.”

Daniel
hesitated.
 
He wasn’t about to tell
Phillip anything, especially something as implausible as the truth.
 
He wasn’t going to tell him that he couldn’t
make perhaps the biggest meeting of his career because he had to pick up his
girlfriend from a riot.
 
“Just tell me
what happened,” he ordered.

Phillip
paused, probably, Daniel believed, to calm himself down.
 
What always frustrated Daniel was Phillip’s
assumptions.
 
Why Phillip assumed that
Daniel’s success somehow automatically translated into his own success was
beyond unreasonable to Daniel.
 
He never
so much as mentioned such an ascendancy to Phillip.
 
He never promised him shit.
 

“They won’t admit
this but they changed the plan in the middle of the game,” Phillip said.

“English,
Phillip.”

“The board
has decided not to name an interim replacement for Murdock after all.”

Daniel
sighed.
 
It was disappointing to be
sure.
 
“Did they?”

“They
did.
 
The chairman will handle the duties
of the CEO’s office until a permanent replacement can be named.
 
They’re compiling names now, but it could
take months.”

“Okay.
 
That’s surprising.”

“But not
disappointing?”

“Of course
I’m disappointed, Phillip.
 
I had no idea
they would react this way.”

“I don’t
know why the hell not.
 
You slighted
them, Daniel.
 
Having your secretary tell
them you couldn’t make it!
 
And no
explanation.
 
Nothing.
 
You know better than that.
 
Tell them that your mother died, your daddy
was in a car wreck, something unavoidable.
 
But oh no.
 
Not Daniel Crane.
 
He doesn’t sweat the small stuff.
 
Well the small stuff just sweated you, my
friend.”

Daniel
didn’t respond to that.

“We’ll have
to see if your name makes the final cut.” Phillip went on.
 
“My hunch is that it will, but I can’t be
sure about that at this point.
 
I’m not
hearing anything right now.
 
They were
highly pissed with you, Daniel.”

“And I’m
sure you, the great PR man that you are, has a recommendation?”

“Call for a
private audience with the chairman.
 
Apologize.
 
Explain to him why you
couldn’t make the biggest meeting of your life.
 
Even if he doesn’t understand, he’ll at least forgive you.
 
He’s your biggest supporter.
 
He views your absence as a personal affront
to him.”

“Okay.”

“So you’re
going to do it?”

“I’ll see.”

“I know you,
Daniel.
 
That means no.
 
It won’t be groveling.”

“Sounds that
way to me, kid.”

“But it
won’t be.
 
You’re just playing the game,
that’s all.”

A game.
 
Young guys like Phillip thought of everything
as a game.
 
But there was nothing playful
about this to Daniel.
 
Even as VP of
Dreeson he was stretched too thin.
 
He
could only imagine what life would be like for him if he were to take the full
reins.
 

But before
he could respond to Phillip, a loud, agonizing sound suddenly cried out.
 
Daniel, startled, looked toward the
bathroom.
 
“I’ll talk to you later,” he
said, and tossed the phone on the bed just as Phillip shouted his name.

He hurried
into the bathroom.
 
He knew it was
Nikki.
 
Her voice was carrying even above
the sound of the running water.
 
His
heart pounded as he slung open the shower stall.
 
Nikki was dropping to the floor sobbing, the
water splashing down upon her narrow, brown back.
 
She looked up at Daniel.
 
The tears in her beautiful eyes made him
shutter.
 

“People died
today,” she said through her sobs.
 
“People died.
 
And for what?
 
For what?
 
It was awful!”