Emerald Windows (6 page)

“I’m not taking the job, Nick,” she cut in quietly. “I’m going back to Columbia today.”

Nick’s face fell. At first he registered disappointment, then benign nothingness. It was almost as if he’d rehearsed the response he would give if she let him down. He’d expected it, she realized. “I see.”

“I think it’s best for everyone,” she said.

“Everyone?” he asked. “Who is ‘everyone’?”

She sighed. “My parents. My sister. You.”

“Me?” he asked, raising his eyebrows with the question. “Why is it better for me?”

“You can find someone else to do the windows. Someone who won’t bring a dark cloud to the project. Someone who won’t start everyone in town talking.”

Nick stood up slowly. “Do I look like I care what anyone says?” he asked. “I’m the one who stayed in town, remember? I’m still here, Brooke. They haven’t sent me running, yet.”

She leaned back against the door’s casing. “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “It wasn’t just you and me who were hurt seven years ago. There were other lives affected.”

Nick came around his desk and took her shoulders, his eyes trapping her with such force that she couldn’t look away. “Listen to me, Brooke. We didn’t do anything. I wasn’t some dirty old man taking advantage of a child. Neither of us deserved the pain they put us through. And if people were hurt by it, that wasn’t our fault.”

Those tears that had badgered her all night rushed forward again, and she caught her breath on a sob. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it was,” she said. “What matters is that it has to stop. And my working here with you isn’t going to stop it.”

“Wrong, Brooke,” he said, not allowing her to look away from him. “Think of yourself for a change. You’ll never find peace as long as you keep running away.”

“I’ll never find peace as long as I keep making the same mistakes,” she corrected.

He gazed at her for a moment, processing those words as if they held some hidden meaning. “Maybe you’re right,” he said finally. “But be sure you know what the mistakes really were. If you don’t take the time to figure that out, then you can’t help but repeat them. Why can’t we put it behind us and go on with our lives? We shared something important back then, Brooke. A love of art. Together we can create something that people will come from miles around to see. This is a career-maker, Brooke. It’s too big to pass up.”

She turned away again and tried not to let his tone sway her. Anguished, she ran her fingers through her hair. He took a step toward her and gazed down into her face. “There doesn’t have to be any intense involvement between us. You’re not a kid with a crush on me, and I’m not your teacher. We can be friends and partners. And we can show them all what we’re made of.”

“What is that, exactly?” she asked. “I’m not sure what I’m made of. That’s part of the problem.”

“Well, maybe I can help you find out. Come on, Brooke. Say yes.”

Suddenly, someone in the doorway cleared her throat, and Nick and Brooke turned to see Abby Hemphill, standing before
them just as she had seven years earlier, smiling with I-might-have-known smugness. Her permed, platinum hair was styled in a short bob, and the roots were slightly darker than the rest. Mrs. Hemphill might have been pretty if not for the antagonistic, ready-to-pounce expression she always seemed to wear and the shrewd arch of her pencil-thin brows. Her body was in good shape, though the suit she wore—too severe and authoritative—distracted from her appeal. She smiled now, though Brooke couldn’t remember ever seeing a smile so lacking in grace.

Nick crossed his arms. “Hello, Abby.”

Mrs. Hemphill pursed her lips and stepped into the small office. “Sorry I interrupted,” she said, her silver eyes sweeping critically over Brooke. “If it isn’t Brooke Martin. You certainly haven’t changed.”

Brooke lifted her chin, accepting that with the sting that was intended. “Thank you.”

Nick grinned and looked at his feet.

Mrs. Hemphill’s mouth grew tighter. “I heard you were back in town,” she said. “And that you were going to be working here…together.” She regarded a long, acrylic fingernail, then brought her eyes back to Brooke. “I thought it was only fair to warn you that I intend to oppose the church’s commissioning you for this project. I’m going to appeal to them to find another artistic development director.”

“It’s too late,” Nick said. “They’ve already commissioned me and approved my budget. They gave me authority to hire anyone I choose.”

Mrs. Hemphill laughed…a cold, hollow sound, and she leaned back against the doorway and regarded Nick again. “They may have hired you, Mr. Marcello, but that decision can be reversed. My family’s money keeps the church afloat. If we protest, you can rest assured that the committees will listen.”

Brooke flashed a furious look to Nick—silently asking if Mrs. Hemphill’s threats could be carried out—but Nick only smiled at the woman, undaunted. “Do what you have to do, Abby,” he said. “There are plenty of others who support the church.”

Her smile was a threat in itself, a promise that things would not go as smoothly as he thought. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?” she asked, then made her exit, leaving Brooke gaping after her, furious, and Nick only shaking his head in disgust.

Brooke spun around. “You see? I told you! I haven’t even taken the job, and already it’s started.”

Nick dropped to the corner of his desk and gave a helpless shrug. “The way I see it, if it doesn’t make any difference
what
we do, we might as well do what we want.”

“That’s not the answer!” Brooke cried. “You know it.”

Nick looked down at the desk, cluttered with papers and blueprints and measurements for the windows. He picked up some of the papers, tossed them up haphazardly and watched them flutter back down to his desk. “What I know is that I can’t afford to lose this job. I was counting on this, Brooke. And it’s not likely that I’m going to find anyone else to come in here and work under Abby Hemphill’s threats to pull the money. And yes, she’d threaten that whether you were here or not, because she has it in for me. I can’t do the windows by myself because stained glass isn’t my specialty. I guess if you decide to walk away from this, it’s over for me too.”

The words shattered Brooke’s resolve, and she knew that if he lost this job, it would be the second he had lost because of her. Fresh guilt surged through her. Her family would be disgusted and ashamed if she stayed. Nick would be hurt again if she didn’t.

Between those two options was a haunting cry in her heart that told her, unequivocally, what she really wanted. She wanted to take the job, create this masterpiece with Nick, and show Mrs. Hemphill and the whole town that they could knock her down, but they couldn’t walk on her. It was time she got back up.

Suddenly, her decision seemed clear.

“You won’t lose your job,” she told Nick finally, glaring out through the door where the woman had stood only moments before. “She won’t get away with this again. We’re going to fight her tooth-and-nail this time. And I’m going to tell her that right now.”

Without saying goodbye, Brooke stormed out of the office.

CHAPTER
   

I
f BROOKE COULD HAVE SKETCHED
the smells of old dust and mildew, she would have drawn Hayden City Hall. She walked down the hall, the heels of her sandals clicking on the cold Formica floor. A small sign on one corner directed her toward the left wing, where the town council members had their offices.

As she passed the office marked
Records,
she wondered if her sister, Roxy, was working yet. Because she only needed three more classes to graduate, the school allowed her to co-op and leave school early each day. If Roxy was already here, Brooke hoped her sister wouldn’t see her.

Unfortunately, just as Brooke passed Roxy’s office, she stepped out into the hall carrying an armload of papers and looked up in surprise. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice echoing in the wide hall. “I thought you had left again.”

“You thought wrong,” Brooke said, not slowing her step. “Where is Mrs. Hemphill’s office?”

“Over there,” Roxy said, breaking into a trot to keep up with her. “But Brooke, you can’t go in there. You’re asking for it if you do.”

“Asking for what, Roxy?” Brooke asked. “Gossip? Lies? I get those no matter what I do.”

Roxy fell behind as Brooke pushed into the cubicle-like office with Abby Hemphill’s name on the door. The woman, sitting behind her desk with the phone to her ear, gasped when Brooke burst in. She dropped the phone and shoved back her chair.

“No need to get up, Mrs. Hemphill,” Brooke said, leaning over the woman’s desk. “I won’t be here long. I just came to tell you that it’s open season on Brooke Martin. So go ahead. Take your best shots. I have to warn you, though—it won’t be quite as much fun sparring with a grown woman as it was with a high school senior. I’m not as easily intimidated now.”

Abby Hemphill bolted out of her chair. “How dare you speak that way to me!”

“I’m going to design the windows for the church because I’m good at what I do,” Brooke said, “and because I need the career boost. And no thanks to you, this town will have something to be proud of when I get through. Whether they deserve it is another story. Whether Nick and I do is without question. So I’ll be seeing you around, Mrs. Hemphill. The next few months should be interesting.”

And before Mrs. Hemphill could catch her breath to reply, Brooke had turned and left the office, pushing past Roxy, who stood stunned and speechless in the hall. But Brooke was sure as she passed her that the tiniest sparkle of admiration shone in her eyes.

For the first time in seven years Brooke felt good about herself.

A
bby Hemphill sat paralyzed for a moment after Brooke had gone, trying to contain the raging emotions Brooke had incited. Then her last thread of control snapped, and her arm swept across her desk, knocking off her telephone, her can of pencils, her calendar, her calculator.

“That slithering little tramp!” she bit out through her teeth. She set her face in her hands, felt the heat seething there, and knew that she had to get out of the office before something inside her exploded.

Grabbing her purse, she went to her car, then drove like a maniac to the superintendent’s office, adjacent to the high school. There were few cars in the parking lot—it was a school holiday, and only a handful of counselors and teachers were present. Slamming her car door, Abby walked as fast as she could in her high heels.

She stormed into her husband’s office. He was on the phone and looked aggravated at the intrusion. “I have to talk to you,” she whispered harshly.

Gerald raised his hand to silence her, and continued his conversation.

Abby folded her arms and began to pace across his floor— back and forth, back and forth, like an inmate waiting to be released from confinement.

When her husband finally hung up, she braced both hands on his desk and leaned over. “She’s back,” she said.

“Who’s back?”

“That Brooke Martin. Nick Marcello hired her to work on those windows for
our
church.”

Gerald Hemphill distractedly flipped through his Rolodex as his wife railed on, and without looking up at her, he muttered, “Sit down, Abby. I have to make another call.”

Abby grabbed his hand to stop him from dialing and forced him to look up at her. “She came to
my
office and chewed me out, Gerald!”

Gerald began dialing again. “Chewed
you
out? That sounds interesting. Abby, what is that on your skirt? For heaven’s sake, you look like you’ve been in a fight.”

Abby looked down at her skirt and saw the dust she must have picked up at the old church. She dusted it off with her hand. “Would you listen to me?” she said. “I have to stop this. It isn’t right that our building fund is going to be paying those two for
having their little affair. If they did that right in the school, what do you think they’ll do over there?”

“Yes, is Mr. Hartford in?” Gerald asked into the phone, flipping through some papers on his desk. “Bob, hi. Gerald here. I have those transfer papers you were asking about…”

Abby stood back, flabbergasted. “Gerald!” she whispered, but he didn’t seem to hear. Instead he lifted one index finger and pointed to the chair.

Abby dropped into it, crossed her legs, and began swinging her foot. The phone call dragged on, and finally she couldn’t contain herself any longer. She jumped up and began pacing again.

Gerald hung up and reached for another file, as if he had forgotten his wife was in the room.

“Gerald, I came in here to talk to you!”

“It’s not a good time, dear. I’m really swamped today. I’m trying to catch up on a million things while school’s out.”

“You’re always swamped!” she said. “I’m swamped too. But I’m upset about this! It’s our responsibility to see that our tithes and offerings are spent well, and I—”

“Could you hand me that phonebook on the table behind you, dear?” he cut in, pointing to the table.

Abby stopped mid-sentence and gaped at him. At times like these, she thought miserably, tears would be a welcome release. But she hadn’t been able to cry in years. Anger was the most vivid emotion she knew these days. “Never mind, Gerald,” she said. “Just forget it.”