Snowbound with the Boss(13)

Family could be a real pain. Especially an older brother who saw too much and knew you too well. Shooting that brother a dirty look, Sean asked, “When did you get so insightful all of a sudden?”

“When Dave tells me you eighty-sixed the sketch of the Nightmare Pooka. Linda was crying at her desk. And oh, yeah, Dexter Stevens called to complain about your attitude.”

“That’s rich,” Sean muttered, deliberately refusing to pick up the gauntlet of guilt Mike was tossing him. “Dave’s drawing was mediocre at best—”

“Preliminary sketch,” Mike added.

“Since Linda got pregnant, she cries when the phone rings—”

“And so she doesn’t need you giving her more to be upset about,” Mike interrupted.

“As for Dexter,” Sean continued as if his brother hadn’t spoken at all, “he’s given us plenty of grief over the last two years, and we’ve never called him on it.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, “because his distribution network moved almost two million units of ‘Fate Castle.’”

Sean frowned, remembering their first major best seller game. All right, Mike had a point there. Dexter had given the beta version of the game to his teenage sons, and they’d loved it. With their recommendation, Dexter’s company had covered the entire northeastern portion of the country with “Fate Castle” at a substantial discount that had pushed Celtic Knot up to the next level. Was Dexter a jerk personally? Sure. But he was also hell on wheels at distribution, and they couldn’t afford to offend him.

In self-defense, though, Sean scrubbed one hand across his face and blew out a breath. “Dexter Stevens is a pain in the—”

“And has been for years,” Mike said, cutting him off. “Still no reason to give one of our best partners such a hard time.”

He was right, but Sean didn’t want to admit it. His first day back at work, and he was making everyone as miserable as he was. Upside to this situation? Dexter would be fine once Sean apologized—which he would do as soon as he could get Mike out of his office.

Normally, dealing with their suppliers, clients and distributors was something Sean enjoyed. He liked people and figuring out how to work with the different personalities he encountered. But today, he simply hadn’t had the patience to deal with Dexter, and that was his own fault.

“Yeah,” Sean muttered. “I’ll call him later. Offer to send him an early version of ‘The Wild Hunt’ for his kids.”

“Great. So want to tell me what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing. Everything’s good.” Sean sat back, kicked his feet up to the corner of his desk and folded his hands on his abdomen. The casual stance didn’t fool his brother.

“Sell that to someone who doesn’t know you.” Mike cocked his head to study Sean. “Things were fine before you got snowed in. So. Want to tell me what happened in the hotel between you and Kate?”

That’d be the day. Hell, looking back at it all from a safe distance, even he wasn’t sure what had happened between him and Kate. And he was really trying not to think about any of it. So, instead of answering, Sean asked a question of his own. “Want to tell me what’s going on between you and Jenny?”

For some reason, Mike and Jenny Marshall, one of the artists at Celtic Knot, got along as well as a lit match and a stick of dynamite. But Sean had the distinct impression something was going on between them. His first clue was the way Mike went cold and silent the minute Jenny’s name was mentioned. Like now, for instance.

Instantly, Mike’s features tightened and his eyes shuttered. Ha, Sean thought. Not so much fun prying when it’s your secrets being uncovered, is it?

“Jenny’s doing a good job at the Laughlin hotel.”

“Uh-huh. Nice stall and, hey, extra points for evasion,” Sean said with a knowing smile. “What’s she doing to you?”

Mike’s eyes narrowed, and he pushed himself to his feet. “Fine,” he said tightly. “You made your point. You don’t want to talk about Kate and I don’t want to talk about Jenny, so let all of this rest and get back to work.”

Satisfied, Sean nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

Mike headed for the door but stopped long enough to add, “And don’t piss off any more of our clients, okay?”

When he was alone again, Sean swiveled his chair around to look out the window at the backyard. The majestic old Victorian mansion where Celtic Knot made its offices sat on Pacific Coast Highway. Just across the wide, busy street, the ocean stretched out to the horizon and from the back of the house, the view was a large, neatly tended yard. Of course now, in the middle of a Southern California winter, the grass was brown and the gardens desolate but for a few lingering chrysanthemums. Overhead, the sky was clear with white clouds scudding along like sailboats on an endless sea. He was a long way from Wyoming, Sean told himself.

So why was he daydreaming about snow?

* * *

It was snowing again.

Kate listened to the Muzak coming through her phone while she was on hold and looked through the front window, watching as a thick, white blanket fell from steel-gray skies. It wasn’t a blizzard—she and her crew wouldn’t be snowbound here at the hotel. It was just another Wyoming winter storm, and it made her think of Sean and how only a few days ago the two of them had been alone here.

She missed him.

Kate hadn’t expected that at all. He had been such an irritation at first that all she had wanted was for him to leave, go back to California. Now? She wished he was there. She ached for him, and that was hard to accept.

“Ms. Wells?”

The music ended abruptly, and Kate dragged her mind back to work. Much, much better than thinking about Sean, which wouldn’t do her any good at all. “Yes. I’m here. And I’m wondering why my Dumpsters aren’t.”

“Well, now,” the condescending male voice on the other end of the line said, “I understand you’re a little impatient, but we won’t be able to haul the Dumpsters through the pass for another day or two at least.”

Kate gritted her teeth, took a slow, deep breath and said, “The pass is clear, Henry, and I need those Dumpsters on-site.”

He chuckled, and Kate wanted to scream.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, missie, it’s snowing again, and we don’t want to get halfway through the pass and find we can’t maneuver the rest of the way.”

They both knew this storm was no issue. But Kate was also aware that pushing Henry Jackson wouldn’t get her anywhere. “Fine. Then I can expect them here by Friday?”

“As long as the weather holds,” he said, managing to agree and not promise a thing.

“Fine. Thank you.” That cost her, but Henry was the closest supplier. If she had to arrange for someone else to deliver Dumpsters, it could take twice as long. So she’d make nice for the good of the job and hope he came through. Eventually.

When she hung up, she stayed where she was until her annoyance dropped a couple of levels. “If the snow was so bad, we wouldn’t be here working, would we?” she asked herself. “The pass is clear, Henry’s just lazy, which you already knew.”

If the pass was still blocked, she and Sean would still be trapped here, just the two of them. A ping of something sad and sweet echoed in the center of her chest, and she absently rubbed the spot, futilely hoping to ease it. It didn’t help.

“Yo, boss!”

Kate looked up, to where Raul stood at the head of the stairs. “What is it?”

“With no Dumpsters here, where do you want us to pile all the stuff we’re tearing out?”

Kate scowled, glanced around the hotel, then back up to the tall man waiting for her decision. “Right now, just toss everything out a window to a clear spot in the yard. We’ll load up the Dumpsters when Henry finally decides to bring them up.”

“You got it.”

Twice the work, twice the time, but there was nothing else to do about it. Kate figured she could do one of two things. Keep thinking about Sean and wondering what he was doing right now. Or she could get to work on this hotel and keep herself too occupied to think about the man who had so briefly lit up her world.

Grimly, she set off for the kitchen. Tearing out old cabinets ought to keep her busy enough.

* * *

Sean spent the next few weeks working on the Celtic Knot game plan. Focused, he could avoid thoughts of Wyoming and what had happened there until it was only in sleep that memories of Kate swung around to haunt him.

When he’d first returned home, he’d done his best to make images of her and those snowbound days fade from his mind by going out with other women. Lots of women. But none of them had managed to get his attention. He took them dancing, to fancy dinners and concerts, and within twenty minutes of every damn date, Sean was bored and his mind was drifting. After a few weeks, he stopped trying. Just wasn’t worth the effort. He figured it was a sign from the universe, telling him to forget about all women for a while and concentrate on his company. Sooner or later, he’d get back to decorating his bed with beautiful women. Until then, he poured what concentration he could find into the work.

He was still talking to companies about making a set of collectible figures based on the characters from some of their biggest games. He was also in talks about developing a board game based on “Fate Castle” to capture the imaginations of those few people who preferred their games in the real world rather than the digital one.