Mary Wilson - Winning Sara's Heart

“Why didn’t you check with me first?” E. J. asked, his exasperation showing in his tone.

The son faced the father, each the echo of the other, but with twenty-six years of aging separating them. Ray almost matched his son’s six-foot height, and they were both lean. Both had brown hair, with Ray’s laced with a good dose of gray.

“You’re right, E. J., dead right,” Ray conceded, catching E. J. a bit by surprise. His dad seldom backed down on anything. “You were busy with…” He shrugged. “Well, you were with Heather, and you seemed busy.” A sly smile touched his lips. “I’d never interrupt that.”

“When was this?”

“A few days back. I came out, saw the two of you at the pool and figured you didn’t need to talk business then.”

Ray made it sound as if they’d been having an orgy. Heather McCain had come out to see him before she left for New York. What Ray didn’t know, and what was none of his business, was that they’d decided it was time to move on, that their relationship had run its course. He had a feeling she’d been waiting for some declaration of love, but it never came, so she’d cut her losses. “So you just agreed for me?”

“They were asking, and I didn’t want to interrupt you about something like that, so I said it would be okay.”

“Just let LynTech use my place in Houston for a charity ball for some day-care-center thing?” he asked, still annoyed but starting to think that it might not be a totally rotten idea. He didn’t have much to do with kids, and probably never would, but it couldn’t hurt to help out that way. He just hated being volunteered.

“They’re doing stuff for a pediatric wing at the hospital, sort of sharing the donations or something, and the only place they had to hold it in was an old auditorium. That wasn’t right.”

“They use the place, and that’s it?”

“Sure, mostly.”

“Mostly?” E. J. shook his head with a sigh. “What else?”

“Nothing big. They just asked if you could be there for the ball. I said, sure you would.”

“Dad, why in the hell—”

“Why not? You can be there in a blink of an eye on that fancy helicopter you got waiting for you now. And you’re going to be heading to Houston off and on during the year, now that the deal with LynTech is going through, and you agreed to stay involved for the first year. I just didn’t know you’d be going up there before the ball and staying at the house.”

“You were wrong,” he muttered.

“Yeah, sure, I know. I thought you’d fly in, just zip there and zip back. Even so, the place in Houston is the size of a small country. You can have all the privacy you need, and you can do whatever you want. Have Heather there if you want, and no one’s the wiser.”

He was right about the size of the sprawling estate in Houston. “Heather’s in New York.”

“Well, women always seem to find you irresistible,” Ray said with a sly smile.

“They find my money irresistible,” he muttered.

“Hey, you’re my son, and the women find the Sommers men irresistible.”

“Sure, Dad, sure,” he said. But he knew one woman who didn’t. The blond waitress with those aquamarine eyes. He remembered all too well her anger at him for trying to help, a memory that had sneaked back into his mind at the strangest times this past week. “I’m going for business,” he said firmly as he turned and reached for his suitcase.

“And if Heather shows up there?”

“She’s in New York and we aren’t seeing each other anymore.” He wished he hadn’t said that last part when Ray came closer.

“Sonny? What did you do now? She was nice, real pretty, and you would have had great kids.”

“Oh, Dad, I’ve told you, we just had fun. No marriage, no kids, nothing. And it’s over.”

Ray shook his head. “Sonny, you’re almost forty. You should be thinking of settling down, thinking about my future.”

He turned to his dad. “Your future?”

“Hell, yes,” he said with a gruff laugh. “You’re my only kid, and I want to be a grandpa before I’m too old to enjoy it.”

E. J. brushed that off quickly. “Don’t even go down that road.”

“You’re quite a catch, Sonny. Even that dang magazine listed you as one of the most eligible men in the state last year.”

“Sure, and so was that singer with the shaved head and a lobster tattoo,” he muttered.

“It was a scorpion,” Ray said.

“Whatever.”

“I’m glad you’re doing this,” his dad said.

He glanced back at Ray. “Doing what?”

“The deal with LynTech, you getting back on track with Ford after the fiasco of the leaks.”

Ray hadn’t given him any feedback when he told him he was thinking of scaling down his holdings or when he’d told him about the mess last week. “Why?”

“If you have less work to do, maybe you’ll have more time to start looking around for someone to have those grandkids with.”

“What part of ‘that’s not going to happen’ don’t you understand?”

Ray frowned. “Never say never, Sonny. You’ve got a few months before you’re forty.”

E. J. laughed at that. “And you’ve got a few months before you’re sixty-five.”

“So?”

He crossed to the dressing room and disappeared inside to get his leather jacket, then came back into the bedroom. “So? Why don’t you get married again? You’re still quite a catch.”

Ray shook his head. “Don’t have no desire to do that. Your mother was the one woman who—”

“Could rope your heart,” E. J. finished for him as he put his wallet in his pocket and crossed back to the bed to get his suitcase. “I know.”

“She sure did,” Ray said.

He’d heard that since he was five and his mother had died. That was it for Ray. There had been women now and then over the years, but as Ray said, “None worth bringing home.” He faced Ray and nodded to the door. “I’m leaving.”

“I’m walking you out.”

The two men went together through the sprawling main house, their boot heels clicking in unison on the terra-cotta floors of the heavily beamed, adobe-walled rooms.

“You want me to come with you?” Ray asked as they crossed the great room, which was done in a southwestern decor and took up the center of the house and cut toward the back of the building.

“No, just take care of things here, and don’t volunteer me for anything else.”

“There was one other thing,” Ray said as they got to the side exit, the one that led across a stone patio to a helicopter pad beyond a breadth of rolling lawn. “But it can wait.”

E. J. didn’t open the door, even though he could hear the throaty vibration of the helicopter ready to take him to Houston. He turned to look at his father. He didn’t remember much about his mother, except her voice when she sang to music, but Ray had been the rock in his life. They’d been in the oil fields together, worked side by side, and when he’d “struck it rich,” Ray had been there. But over the years, he’d learned to never let a casual “one other thing” pass unchallenged.

“Spill it,” E. J. said.

“You gotta go, Sonny. You said you didn’t want to be late for the meeting this morning.”

“Don’t call me Sonny,” he said tightly. “And I’m not going until you tell me everything.”

Ray shrugged. “I sort of told them you might be able to get some of your friends to come to the ball.”

E. J. rolled his eyes and sighed with exasperation. “Dad, for the love of—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ray said quickly. “I can make some calls and ask them to—”

“No,” he said quickly.

“But they’ll expect—”

“No! Just tell me that’s it, that you didn’t offer me for anything else.”

“Just that you’ll participate in a few things.”

This was going from bad to worse. “Like what?”

“An auction they’re going to have.”

“And?”

“That’s it. Everything.”

“Nothing else?”

Ray spread both hands palms-up to his son. “I swear.”

E. J. shook his head. “No more volunteering me for anything. Got it?”

“Got it,” Ray said.

“Okay, I’ll be back in a few days. If anything comes up—” he paused, looking his dad right in the eye “—anything, you call me.”

“Absolutely,” Ray said with a nod, then held out his hand. “Can you leave the key to the SUV? My truck’s acting up and I need to do a few things while you’re gone.”

“Sure, but get the spare key from the drawer in my dressing room. I can’t find the original anywhere.”

“Okay. Have a good trip, Sonny,” Ray said.

“That’s the plan,” he said as he opened the door and the throaty engine of the helicopter made the air around them vibrate. He hurried out onto the patio and jogged toward the waiting helicopter. Damn it, he loved his dad, but he never knew what he’d get them into. Or get him into. This had turned out to be a rough deal, from leaks to miscommunication, and probably the decided perception the top brass at LynTech had about him. Truth be told, if Jackson Ford hadn’t been there to talk him into reinstating the negotiations, this would have been over long ago.

He ducked low, climbed into the passenger seat of the helicopter and nodded to his pilot, Rick Barnes, who handed him a headset. He slipped it on and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Any word from Martin?” he asked Rick.

“He’s in Houston already and will meet you at the car when you get there. He’s got all the papers.”

E. J. nodded, then, as the motor’s rpms increased and the helicopter took off, he glanced back at the house. Ray was still there, lifting a hand toward him, and he waved back. Ray’s assurance that there were no more surprises waiting for him in Houston hadn’t rung true, but he hadn’t had the time to dig. When he got back, he’d straighten everything out, including his dad.

SARA HURRIED INTO THE BACK of the restaurant, past Hughes’s office and into the small room used for employee lockers. She quickly changed from her waitress uniform to jeans, a pink T-shirt and running shoes. “Wear something comfortable,” Mary had told her last night when she’d called to check to make sure Sara would be bringing Hayley into the center before going to the restaurant for her shift. “Nothing good. Fingerpaint tends to find its way onto everything.”

Sara had dropped Hayley off at the center before her shift, and was relieved when her daughter had been thrilled with the array of toys in the playroom, a wonderful climbing tree in the center of the space, with “tree houses” off in each corner. She’d squealed at a huge black-and-white pet rat in a fancy cage decorated with ribbons and with the plaque reading Charlie that hung over the door.

The three-year-old had barely spared Sara a hug when Sara had said she was leaving, but she’d be back. “She’ll do just fine,” Mary had said with a smile as Hayley ran off with a group of kids. “And we’ll see you when your shift is done.”

Sara had fought the urge to check on Hayley on her break, but now she was anxious to get over to the center. She tugged the pins out of her hair, freeing it from the knot, then she turned to the mirror by the stand of metal lockers. She was shocked to see she was actually smiling. It seemed forever since she’d smiled for no reason. She smoothed her hair, tugged the T-shirt down, then gathered her things, pushed them in her backpack and headed out of the room.

Ten minutes later, she was entering Just for Kids. At the moment it was a quiet space, with soft music playing through hidden speakers. In the main playroom, murals of children holding hands and laughing hung on the wall, and soft carpet covered the floor where the real children lay on colorful pads at the base of the huge, handmade, paper tree. Mary was sitting on the floor with her back against the trunk, her eyes closed. A large storybook lay open on her lap. The child was lying on her stomach on a bright pink pad, sleeping.