Secrets and Lies (15 page)

“I’ll be sure to buy some condoms.”

 “Already taken care of,” he grinned.

“Good to know,” her voice was sultry, filled with lust and need, and desire. She had never before had this reaction to a man, and she knew that after Thomas she would probably never have that reaction again. This was that can’t eat, can’t sleep, just won Wimbledon feeling she only dreamed about. Good gracious have mercy; she could see herself marrying this man. She gasped, astonished by her own thoughts. Marriage? Was she crazy?

“Are you all right?”

“Um…yeah, peachy,” she smiled. What was wrong with her? How could one man make her go out of her mind with desire the way he did? This wasn’t love, it was lust. That’s what she tried to tell herself. It was just hormones running amuck, lust and passions igniting within her. Once they had one night in bed with each other they would probably be done. He would work her out of his system, and she would work him out of her system. But she didn’t want that to be true, as much as it should be true, she didn’t want it to be. She really did want more with this man—a lot more than one night of great sex.

“I’d better get your mind back on business before you come in your panties,” he laughed.

“You didn’t give them back to me,” she said absently. He laughed hard.

“You’re too much, Thena.” He shook his head. “I’ve never met a woman like you.”

“Is that good or bad?”

He looked her over, slow, methodically assessing her. “Good,” he confirmed. “Real good,” the slow grin spread across his lips once again. She wished he would stop doing that. Every time he smiled she wanted him more. He had perfect teeth, absolutely, perfectly white teeth. He was too sexy for his own good. Or more like, he was too sexy for her good. The man made her want to do all sorts of crazy things. He could tie her up, tie her down and she would let him. She had never thought she would ever give a man that kind of control over her body, but she wanted to with him. God, she had lost her mind. There had to be some psychological diagnosis and cure for her current ailment, some little orange pill to take away her cravings…even if there were some magic pill she doubted she’d have the good sense to take it. And miss out on Thomas McGregor? Not a chance.

“Mon Dieu,” he repeated her earlier words. “Are you fluent in French, or do you just know a few words?”

“Fluent,” she nodded. “I learned when I was a kid, did some more courses in college, and now I just try to stay as fluent as possible.” Sometimes she would spend a few weeks up in Montreal, or somewhere stateside closer to the boarder. “Did you know that French and English are the only languages spoken on five continents? How cool is that!” She laughed in a chipper tone.

“Do you come in French too?”

She gasped again. “Thomas!”

He chuckled. “Okay, back to business.” He pulled a blank notepad in front of him. “What do you know about a Doctor Harold Evans?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Should I know something about him?”

“Maybe not. He wasn’t a doctor at the time, but he worked with your mother. I just wondered if she mentioned him.”

“Do you think he killed my mother?”

He held up his hand. “Hold your water, Thena. I’m just checking out everybody who worked with her. No need to get your panties in a twist.”

“Thanks to you I’m not wearing any panties to get in a twist.” She said sarcastically. He laughed, completely unfazed by her sarcasm. He had no intentions of giving her underwear back to her.

“I just wondered if she said anything substantial about the people she worked with.”

“Some,” she nodded. “I knew mostly about the doctors, but not a lot. I met a few at the parties we had been invited to. And then they came to us when she vanished and offered their words of support. They all loved my mother.” She smiled. “She had that influence on people, that genuine honest to goodness friendly manner that people gravitated toward. But outside of the limited contact I had with those few doctors I really don’t know much about her work life. She didn’t talk about it much—not with me anyway.” She was only ten when her mother vanished. She didn’t imagine ten was the age where parents started discussing how good or bad their day was with their children. Sometimes, over dinner, they would give a round of “what was one good thing about your day,” and “what was one bad thing about your day,” but they didn’t do it all the time, and most times it was geared towards letting her talk about what was going on in school and what problems she was having.

“You know,” she hesitated. “No, it’s probably nothing.”

“What?”

“It’s silly.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“Well…about two weeks before she disappeared she started coming home looking, I don’t know—sad. I guess that’s the only thing I can remember it as. But maybe she was worried about something. Dad had asked her the first time if she wanted to talk about it. She just said no, that she just wanted to take a hot shower and wash the stench of the day off of her.”

“Did she ever talk to your father about what was bothering her?”

She shrugged. “If she did he never told me about it.”

He nodded. “Okay. I’m going to do a little more digging, and then I’ll be home around eight.”

She smiled. He had just called her place home. Was that good or bad? Wait, was he talking about her place or his?

“I have to work late myself,” she treaded cautiously.

“No way,” he snapped.

“Excuse me.”

“No way,” he repeated. “Somebody is trying to kill you—in broad daylight; do you think giving them access to you under the cover of night is such a brilliant idea?”

Okay, so he had a point. She could take work home with her. She did have an office to work in there as well. “Good point,” she agreed. “I’ll take it home with me.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled. “Do you want me to pick up something for dinner?”

He was talking about dinner, which meant he had definitely been referring to her place when he said home. “No. I have left over pasta from yesterday, so I’ll just heat that up; unless you want something different.”

“Pasta’s fine,” he licked his lips. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to have those lips on her body again.

What a man, what a man.
An old Salt and Pepper tune played in her mind. Oh yes, Thomas McGregor was indeed a man—a mighty fine man on top of that. She sighed. Thinking of the promise of what they would do tonight was going to be distracting, so much so that she wasn’t sure she would be able to get any work done for the rest of the day. Even now she couldn’t sit in a room with him without having wild fantasies race through her mind. Maybe she would explore some of those fantasies tonight. Maybe, just maybe, she would see how easy it would be to tie him down with some of those silk scarves she had in the drawer. They may not have been designed for that purpose, but tonight…tonight she wouldn’t mind making them a bit more multi-functional.

Chapter Nine

“A
re you sure you don’t want me to come over?” Kyle uttered those words as if this would be her last chance to say yes.

“I’m sure,” she said. She was sure of her answer the last ten times he asked her too. “I’m fine. Stop worrying so much.” She had never given Kyle the impression that she needed him to play her protector, but he always seemed to do it anyway. She just wanted a friend, not a big brother, but he was so lovingly protective that she had a hard time being angry with him. He worried too much, now more than before, and that worry was growing in severity even before anybody had tried to kill her. Of course, she had only told him about the one incident, the one with the car, not everything else. He didn’t need that burden on his shoulders, and she didn’t need him camping out on her couch.

He didn’t need to worry about her either. She could take care of herself, plus, Thomas would be spending the night—again. Thinking about Thomas made her lips curve upward into the most salacious smile. Before she left his office she had been sure he was going to kiss her again. He had stood up, looked at her so seriously and said, “Thena,” with that deep honey voice of his. When she acknowledged him he said, “Before you leave my office you might want to fix your hair. Otherwise Janet’s going to have a fairly good idea of what you were doing in here.”

She had gasped at her own lapse in memory. She had fixed her skirt, re-secured her blouse within the waistband, tried to make sure her cheeks weren’t too flushed by thinking about anything and everything other than what they had shared on his deep mahogany desk, but she had forgotten her hair.

She marched back over to his desk, picked up her clip, ran her fingers through her hair and quickly secured her hair loosely in the binding of the clip.

Just thinking about her painfully delicious afternoon had her checking the clock. The big, black roman numerals assured her it was only seven o’clock. Seven…that meant she had an hour before Thomas showed up. An hour…what could she do to take her mind off him for an entire hour? As it stood, before Kyle called she had been staring at the same floor schematics for twenty minutes.

“Kyle,” she smiled. “I’m going to get back to work, and you’re going to go do whatever it was you were getting ready to do.”

“Yes, mother,” he laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You will?” She didn’t remember making plans to see him at any point this week.

“Yeah, remember you offered to help me fix the design. I need you, you’re my genius.”

She laughed. “I forgot.” Or more like she hadn’t realized she had set a date for that already. She didn’t realize it because she hadn’t done it. They hadn’t finalized the details. “Okay, come by my office—”

“It’ll be after hours. I’d prefer to just stop by your place.”

She hesitated. Thomas would most likely be at her place again, and she was sure neither she nor Thomas would be thinking about work. “Okay,” she agreed. “But, I have an early morning Wednesday. I’m back on the construction site with the code inspector and I need to be bright as day for that meeting.” Eddie Mason was as hardnosed as they came. She hadn’t failed any inspections for any of her sites yet, and she didn’t plan to start with this project either. They were behind, finding a dead body in the walls would do that to any site, but finding her mother’s dead body…well that knocked everything out of balance, for her and for the construction site. She hadn’t been back since that night she almost ended up as road kill. She had left everything to the foreman, but now she had to get back to all of her responsibilities, back to her life. She couldn’t let current events ruin everything her father had worked so hard for—everything she was working so hard for.

Deciding a shower would be better than sitting around waiting for Thomas to get home she stepped into the glass blocked walk-in shower. The gray stone floor felt cool beneath her feet, but she knew it would quickly warm once the shower steamed it up a bit. She had installed a body spa system. “So many showerheads for one little body.” She smiled. Her little body loved the feel of all those shower heads, the cascading water down her naked body felt like a massage without the invasive feeling she always got whenever she went for a spa day. She couldn’t understand why the guys felt the need to give her a set of power tools and a voucher for a spa day every birthday. The power tools she loved, the spa day, not so much. She had told them they didn’t have to buy her anything. She knew how much they made—she wrote their checks out every week. They weren’t destitute, at least not because of her pay scale. Blue collar workers had always had better income than a lot of office workers. She had an apprentice working with her now who made twenty dollars an hour, and her more seasoned workers were pulling in close to eighty an hour. The profession paid well, she paid even better. Without these men buildings wouldn’t be built. She appreciated every sacrifice they made, every risk they took. Construction wasn’t an injury free business, and she knew it took a special kind of person to roll their sleeves up and get to work in a much underappreciated profession. Her father believed in showing his appreciation and she did too.

She spread the creamy powder fresh scented lotion on her body and then wrapped herself in her red, nineteen forties inspired satin house coat. She had the matching house shoes that looked as if they could be worn out to a party too. She loved glamour, especially the old fashioned kind. She had bought a few pieces from a swanky vintage clothing store while she was in New York and she loved all of them. Of course, being short, she found herself having to cut about three inches off every piece. It was a good thing she knew how to sew. Before her dad started taking her to work with him, and before she fell in love with construction, she thought she would be a fashion designer. She was eight when she visited her first construction site, she was there because school was out for spring break and her mother had to work, her father had to work, and it was either go to work with dad or go to a sitter. Her parents didn’t trust sitters so she went to work with her dad. She was hooked; from that day on she soaked up everything she could about construction and building codes. She soon realized she didn’t just want to build those buildings, she wanted to design them. She started drawing designs that her father would critique and show her how to bring them up to code. He would tell her that it wasn’t practical to put the toilet on the other wall, even if it was stylish, because all of her plumbing was on the other side of the bathroom. Between her style, and his know-how, she learned how to design before she even went to college for it. In fact, she could have skipped college and been happy doing so…but school was mandatory. Her father had said he wanted her to have an education, because even though it was a piece of paper, that piece of paper would help her go places, break down barriers, and help her be more than what people thought the color of her skin should allow her to be. Her dad, the philosopher; she smiled just thinking about him.