Hard Habit to Break (13 page)

She tensed, her mind reeling with dreaded speculation. Her most acceptable thought was that Joe was going to fire her. Her worst was that somebody twenty feet tall had peeked through her bedroom window the night before and was now calling everyone in the western hemisphere to announce
what he’d seen. If ever there was a time for a cigarette …

“Yes?” she finally croaked out, and immediately cleared her throat. It didn’t help, and she felt the parched scratchiness all the way down to her stomach.

“When I suggested you to replace me after I retire, the bank directors were pretty enthusiastic about it.” Joe made a face. “But yesterday Ford Carson made a comment about your age hampering you with the other managers, in spite of your accomplishments with this bank.”

“Oh … ah … well, don’t worry about it, Joe,” she stammered, feeling a great weight beginning to lift off her. It wouldn’t be Joe’s fault or hers if the directors decided not to give her the job because of her age. That was just discrimination, and, under the circumstances, she had no urge to fight it. “With my low seniority at the bank, I really am a dark horse candidate—”

“That has nothing to do with it!” he interrupted, waving a dismissing hand at her words. “You are the
best
person for the job, and those idiots know it.”

“Joe, Joe,” she said with a desperate laugh. “As Mr. Carson pointed out, I’m young and, frankly, I’ve been a little worried about whether I’m too inexperienced for the job. In another couple of years, maybe then …”

In spite of Joe’s angry gaze she managed a smile. She kept smiling when he didn’t answer her at first.

“You’ve never realized just how good you are at your job, have you, Liz?” he finally asked, and
without waiting for an answer continued. “This branch is the most efficient and the most profitable of the six that I oversee. And, I believe the credit can go to you.

She shrugged again, not knowing what to say. She’d never felt so confused. Somehow her priorities were changing, and while she wasn’t sure what order they’d finally take, she did know they would never be the same again.

Matt had done this to her. He’d broken into her quiet, dull life just as easily as he’d strolled into her bedroom with his damn popcorn and beer. He stirred her body, stirred her emotions, made her fall in love with him despite all her resistance. She would have liked to claim that her response to him was only physical, a simple, long-denied need to be a woman in the most fundamental way. But it wasn’t. The game had been played out, and she had fallen in love.

Out of all the confusion, though, one thought was uppermost in her brain. Last night Matt had never once said he loved her. He’d said everything but that. She tried to dismiss his omission—after all, there’d been no time, there had been other things to discuss—but she found she couldn’t. “I love you” was such a short phrase. Three small words …

“Liz, don’t let it worry you.”

“But it takes only a second to say them,” she mumbled, then realized it was Joe who had spoken, and not some little voice in her head. Coughing to hide her embarrassment, she hastily added, “Just a tickle in my throat. I really appreciate
what you’ve done for me, but it’s up to the board now, and you know how they can be.”

Joe put up a hand, stopping her words. “I’m sorry I told you, but I did want you to be aware of what one of the directors might be thinking about your replacing me.”

“And I thought I had left corporate back-biting behind me in Chicago,” she commented with a chuckle.

Joe laughed. “I came here from D.C. thirty years ago for the country air and relaxing lifestyle. Sometimes I think I would have gotten a few less ulcers back in D.C.”

Liz grinned at him.

“Well, enough of brainless idiots.” Joe lifted his briefcase onto the desk and opened it. He handed her a sealed envelope. “Here’s the new Brinks schedule for the month.”

“This is different,” she said, looking at the envelope. Usually she’d just receive a phone call the day before from Joe to give her the time of a cash delivery.

He snapped the locks of the case shut before saying, “There’ve been a few misunderstandings about delivery times, so Central decided to set up a schedule.”

She saw a look of disgust cross Joe’s face, and couldn’t help agreeing with him. Setting up cash deliveries on a monthly basis, and worse, having it committed to paper meant more people would be aware of the delivery times.

“What am I supposed to do with the schedule?” she asked curiously. “Commit it to memory and burn it afterward?”

“Some clown actually suggested that,” Joe replied sarcastically. “You just have to initial it as being received and read, and then lock it in the bank’s own safety deposit box. At the end of the month you have to mail it back to Central.”

“This isn’t going to work, Joe,” she said as she reached for a pen. “Not that the calls were much better.”

“Short of wearing raincoats and meeting in dark alleys, nothing’s really better. But I like this method less than the calls. Too many people will see
all
the branch schedules, and I’m afraid someone might get greedy. Very greedy.”

It was her turn to make a face. “And you want to give me your job
now
? Thanks a lot, Joe. You’re a real friend.”

He chuckled and stood up. “I better get out of here before you have me thinking I’m pulling a dirty trick on you. Anyway, you’ve got a customer.”

Rising, Liz glanced over her shoulder at the lobby area. Seeing the woman who was sitting on one of the chairs, she momentarily forgot about Matt and the complication of Joe’s insisting she deserved the promotion.

“Problem?” Joe asked.

She turned back and murmured, “Millie Jackson. I was afraid she’d be in sooner or later. I wish it had been later though.”

“Jackson. The husband passed away a few months ago, right?” Joe asked. “I remember seeing the paperwork on the account taxes.”

“Yes, he did,” Liz replied in a quiet voice. Financially, her farm is in a very precarious position.” She smiled wanly. “Joe, how the hell do you
tell a person that no matter how you jiggle and juggle the finances, the only probable option is to sell the family farm before there’s real trouble?”

Joe smiled and patted her shoulder. “You’re worrying for nothing, Liz. This is exactly the kind of situation in which you shine. Knowing you, you’ll find the perfect solution for the woman. I expect it’ll be something especially creative this time too. Millie Jackson has nothing to worry about with you in her corner. Well, I better be going.”

As Liz said good-bye to him, she wished she had the confidence Joe had in her ability to help Millie. The only sensible and practical solution she could see was for Millie to sell the farm.

Realizing she couldn’t put Millie off any longer, she forced a smile to her lips and turned to the woman. Millie returned the smile with a nervous one of her own.

“Hello, Millie,” Liz said, gesturing for the woman to come to the desk. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

“That’s okay, Liz,” Millie replied, rising and scurrying over to sit on the edge of a visitor’s chair. Millie was in her late fifties, rail-thin, her face lined by a lifetime of perseverance and hard work.

As Liz walked back to the desk, she took a deep breath and steeled herself for the coming interview.

Five minutes later, the discussion every bit as painful as she’d suspected, Liz hesitated, not wanting to tell Millie that her best option was to sell the farm. She searched her mind for
any
other way she could change the reality of the situation for Millie. Nothing came.

“It isn’t the debts, Liz,” Millie protested before Liz could gather the right words to make the truth more palatable. “Even if the farm were making money, I just don’t think I could do even the managing. My girls are telling me to sell out, and my head tells me that they’re right. But the whole idea of selling just breaks my heart.”

“I know. But I think your girls are right,” Liz said in a gentle voice. She knew she was doing the best thing by agreeing with Millie’s children, but she still felt like a rat for it. There had to be something she’d overlooked. Something …

When they’d ended their discussion and Millie finally left the bank, Liz realized Joe was right. She’d never forget customers like Millie Jackson. No bank manager worth her salt could. Why
couldn’t
she find that financially creative something that would allow Millie to keep her farm? Even though Millie herself seemed resigned to selling out, Liz still felt as if she were letting the widow down—and Joe too. Clearly Joe had meant only to be encouraging about her interview with Millie. But she couldn’t help feeling as if he were depending on her to come up with a solution for Millie that would dazzle the bank’s board of directors, so that they had no option but to give her the promotion.

Liz felt a huge, invisible vise clamping down on her, allowing no relief for the pressures building inside. Nothing had been settled with Matt. Joe was expecting the impossible from her. And now Millie.

The urge for a cigarette stronger than ever, she yanked open her bottom desk drawer, where she
kept her purse. She didn’t even care if she was backsliding again as she took out a pack of cigarettes and matches. She lit a cigarette and inhaling deeply. While blowing out the smoke, she looked around for an ashtray and remembered why there wasn’t one. She had never allowed herself or the tellers to smoke while working.

“I’m taking a break,” she announced to Georgina and Mavis. Their eyes even wider because of her unusual behavior, they nodded.

“If I’m not back in ten minutes, I’ve gone quackers,” Liz added, and walked out the door.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Callahan.”

Matt’s head jerked up at the sound of a voice coming from where he’d least expected it. He’d been carefully squeezing his way through the hole in the side hedge, and now sharp twigs scratched his face and stabbed viciously at his belly.

“Dammit, Liz! What the hell are you doing out here at this time of night?” he grumbled while scrambling the rest of the way through the hedge. Silently he vowed to cut a nice big square in the boxwood, put in a gate, and to hell with any gossip. Crawling around on the grass like a two-year-old was ridiculous.

“I’m pondering the meaning of life,” she said in answer to his question. “And I’ve decided it’s the pits. Have a cigarette?”

There was no moon, and he could barely make out her shadow in the darkness even though she was sitting against her garden shed less than two
feet away from him. Unfortunately he couldn’t miss the small red glow that seemed to dance all by itself as Liz raised a cigarette to her lips.

“I gave up cigarettes when I was sixteen and realized they wouldn’t make me any tougher than the rest of the guys in the street gang I belonged to,” he said. He sat down next to her and leaned his back against the shed’s flimsy steel side. “When are you going to give up the things?”

“I hate secure people,” Liz said, taking another puff of the cigarette. “You’d probably be able to tell Millie Jackson to sell her two-hundred-year-old farm and not even flinch at all the years and memories she’d have to give up just because it’s best for her.”

Realizing Liz needed comfort and that he’d been lecturing at her again, Matt swore silently. He had heard Millie Jackson had been widowed just before he moved to Hopewell. Liz had had an extremely bad day, and she obviously was agonizing over it. Feeling like an ogre, he snatched the pack of cigarettes out of her hand, took one, and stuck it between his lips. “Gotta light?”

She chuckled dryly, then pulled the cigarette from his lips and crumbled it into pieces. “I won’t lead someone else astray. It was only a momentary lapse when I offered you a cigarette. From now on, leave the vices to me.”

“And you do them very well,” he said, placing his arm around her shoulders and settling her against his side. She wore a heavy sweater and jeans, and he resigned himself to the bulky wool that separated his hands from her silky skin. “You
have your cigarette, honey. Foreclosures must really be rough.”

“It isn’t a foreclosure, thank goodness.” She sighed. “Millie’s a widow, and she can’t keep up the farm by herself. What she needs is someone to manage the farm and hands to do the work, but she won’t get either without a dependable cash source. And farms work on speculation, which is borrowing from the bank and crossing your fingers that you can pay the money back. I ought to know, since I see more crossed fingers than money from the farmers.”

“What’s a nice girl like you doing in the banking business?” he asked quietly, and kissed her temple. He’d never realized before how much Liz loved the people in the area and wondered if they knew it.

“I like money and I like people, and I love pulling some strings to help them. My boss says that’s why I’m good at my job.” There was a short silence, and even though his eyes were adjusting to the black night, he sensed her wry grin more than saw it. “It makes me feel as if I’ve beaten the system on its own terms. I should be beating the system for Millie, dammit!”

Hearing the desperation in her voice, Matt instantly sought to dispel it. “You can’t be super-banker all the time. You told Millie what you really thought was best for her, right?”