Читать книгу Yours Forever - Farrah Rochon - Страница 10

Chapter 2

Matthew Gauthier searched through the chaos cluttering his desk, lifting files and thumbing through mail that had lingered unopened for well over a week.

“Matt, are you still there?”

“I’m here,” he called in the direction of his cell, which lay on his desk in speakerphone mode. “Why didn’t you leave the papers with Carmen? You know she’s better at keeping track of things than I am.”

“Because you told me to leave them on your desk,” Benjamin Keller answered. “If you have a chance in hell of getting through this campaign successfully, you will have to get it together, Matt.”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Matt ran across a file he’d been looking for last week, and underneath it found the forms his campaign manager had left on his desk. “I found them.”

“Thank God.” Ben’s sigh came through the phone.

Matt had made public his plans to run for the state-senate seat in his district some time ago, but had held off filing the paperwork until today. He would drive out to Baton Rouge this afternoon so he could officially file with the state.

“Log in to instant messenger,” Ben said. “I’m sending you a link to a YouTube commercial your future opponent’s camp released today.”

“Another one?”

Matt ran a hand down his face, cursing as he turned to his computer. He clicked on the link as soon as the message bubble popped up. The video began with a baby screaming at the top of his lungs and the words Little Matthew Gauthier just keeps whining in bold print across the bottom.

Matt’s blood pressure escalated as the commercial continued. It was the same old crap his opponent, Patrick Carter, had been spouting since the moment Matt made it known that he would run for the state-senate seat that had become available following a bribery scandal the former senator had become embroiled in. Carter was a career politician who was used to running unopposed for whatever public office he deemed worthy of his greatness. The man had held nearly every political seat there was.

In this latest ad, Carter attacked Matt’s age, claiming that at thirty-two, Matt was still too wet behind the ears to do any good for the people of District Twelve. But what really pissed him off was his opponent’s insistence that because Matt had been born into Gauthier’s wealthiest family, he couldn’t possibly understand the struggles the rest of the residents faced. He would not allow Carter to pull that silver-spoon-in-the-mouth bullshit on him.

“I’m not even officially in the race yet,” Matt said.

“He’s doing this because he knows you’re a threat,” Ben replied. “You know what this means, right?”

“Forget it, Ben.” Matt put his elbows on his desk and massaged his temples. “I already told you I’m not stooping to Carter’s level.”

“Dammit, Matt, when are you gonna listen to me? Politics is a dirty business. If you want to win this seat, you’ll need to sling some mud. Stop trying to be the stand-up candidate. That candidate never wins.”

“He will this time,” Matt said. “Don’t worry about Carter. The people here can see right through him.”

“Really?” Ben drawled. “If that’s the case, how has he been able to hold nearly every public seat in local government?”

Ben had a point.

Unable to come up with an adequate response to his campaign manager’s very valid argument, Matt said, “Be here at three so we can leave for Baton Rouge.” He ended the call with Ben and buzzed his office manager, Carmen Mitchell. “Carmen, can you get me the file for Mrs. Black’s case? I think the insurance company is about to cave.”

“Will do,” Carmen said.

Matt pushed his chair away from the desk and stood, luxuriating in a total-body stretch. It was just after 10:00 a.m., yet it felt as if he’d already put in a full day. He knew he should have started turning down cases when he’d made the decision to run for office months ago, but his was the only law practice in town. In fact, for more than a century and a half, the Gauthier Law Firm had been the only means for legal representation in a twenty-mile radius. How could he turn anyone away?

He thumbed through the messages Carmen had handed him when he’d come in this morning and ran across at least one person he was pretty good at turning away. He crumpled the green slip of paper with yet another message from that nosy Professor West and tossed it in the trash.

The woman had been the biggest pain in his ass for the past six months. Ever since it had been discovered that this building had once been a part of the Underground Railroad, she’d been calling and emailing, digging her nose in his business. If not for all the stationery he’d have to replace, Matt would have changed the office’s phone number.

He didn’t have time to concern himself with Professor West right now; he had more than enough to worry about. The first item on his plate was to bring some semblance of order to his desk. Carmen had straightened it out yesterday. If she came in and saw the mess he’d made, there would be hell to pay.

Matt did his best to get the files back in order. He opened the bottom drawer and retrieved a can of the energy drink he kept stashed in there. As he chugged half the can in one large gulp, he replayed the YouTube video again, his jaw clenching as he watched the ridiculous commercial.

Carter might have more years on him, but he was the exact opposite of what the people in this area needed. He was one of Leroy Gauthier’s old cronies. Matt’s father and Patrick Carter had had a falling-out years ago, but the two men were cut from the same cloth. Their way of thinking tended to provide more benefits for themselves than their constituents. It was time for a change in the way politics was played around here.

Carmen gave two short raps on the door before she entered the office, carrying a file.

“Thanks,” he said as he captured the beige folder she held out to him. His high-school English teacher, Mrs. Black, was suing the school system’s health-insurance company for lack of coverage. Matt wanted to read through the file again before his telephone call with the school board’s attorney.

He looked up at Carmen, who’d remained standing in front of his desk.

“Yeah?” Matt asked.

“You have a visitor,” she said. The smile tipping up the corner of her mouth sent a tremor of unease down his spine.

“Who is it?” he asked, hoping to God it wasn’t his father. Although his father would never wait in the lobby like a guest. He’d officially passed the Gauthier mansion on to Matt, but the old man still took ownership of this office. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t practiced law here since becoming an appellate-court judge in New Orleans several years ago.

“It’s Professor Tamryn West,” Carmen answered.

“What?” Matt shot out of his chair. “You’re kidding me.”

“I am not,” Carmen said. “Should I send her in?”

“No.” He came around the desk. “What the hell is she doing here? Doesn’t she teach somewhere up on the East Coast?”

“Boston,” Carmen answered. “The woman came all this way, Matt. You have to see her.”

“No, I don’t.”

Carmen gave him a look. He hated that damn look. It was the same look his mother used to give him when she thought he was being stubborn.

“Shit,” Matt cursed. “Send her in. But if she’s not gone in five minutes, you’d better make up some excuse and come rescue me, Carmen. I mean it.”

She laughed. “What are you so afraid of when it comes to this professor?”

“Nothing. I just don’t like people snooping around in my business.”

“Fine. But she traveled well over a thousand miles. The least you can do is give her ten minutes of your time.”

“Seven,” Matt countered. “If she’s not gone in seven minutes, I want you to bang on the door and yell fire.”

Carmen shook her head, still laughing.

Matt went around his desk and sat, then immediately sprang from the seat. He didn’t want to feel as if he was at a disadvantage when he faced an adversary. He went around to the front of the polished oak desk that had occupied this office for the past sixty years and perched against it, crossing his feet at the ankles.

Carmen knocked on the door and opened it. “Professor Tamryn West is here to see you,” she announced.

Matt’s stomach bottomed out as he stared at the woman who’d just walked into his office. “You have got to be kidding me.”

* * *

“You’re Dr. West?”

Tamryn just barely held in the laugh that was precariously close to spilling from her lips. The look of shock on Matthew Gauthier’s face was priceless.

The rest of him looked...amazing.

Yesterday’s jeans and black T-shirt had been the stuff of carefully choreographed fantasies, but this morning’s charcoal-gray suit, Tiffany-blue shirt and striped tie were fantasy-worthy in their own right.

“Good morning to you, too, Mr. Gauthier,” Tamryn said. She strode over to the desk that occupied the center of the vast office, stopping a couple of feet in front of him.

“Good morning,” he said with a note of apology, as if he’d been reprimanded for forgetting his manners. “You’re Tamryn West?” he asked again.

She nodded and extended her hand out to him. “Dr. Tamryn West, professor of African-American and women’s studies at Brimley College.”

He accepted her handshake, disappointment and disbelief clouding his face.

The office manager, who had introduced herself as Carmen, cleared her throat. “It looks as if my employer has misplaced his manners,” she said. “Can I offer you a seat, Dr. West?”

“Thank you,” Tamryn said.

“Yes, I’m...I’m sorry,” Matt said. He shook his head as if to clear it and gestured to one of the high-backed leather chairs. “Carmen, is there coffee?” He looked to her. “Would you like coffee?”

“I’m fine.” She waved off the offer.

“Well, I’ll leave you two,” Carmen said as she backed out of the office.

Matt’s brow dipped as he studied Tamryn for several moments before rounding the desk and settling into the chair behind it. The brown leather gleamed, but it was obvious from the many cracks and faded spots that it was well used. He picked up a pen, tapped it twice on a thick file folder and then tossed it onto the desk.

“I never put two and two together,” he said with a bemused shake of his head. “Even after you told me your name yesterday, I still didn’t make the connection.”

“I must admit that I didn’t recognize you right away, either,” Tamryn said. “In the few pictures I found of you online, you were always in a suit and tie, never on a Harley.”

“Ducati.”

“Excuse me?”

“My bike is a Ducati, not a Harley.” He waved it off. “Never mind.”

“Well, whatever the brand of motorcycle, I never pictured you on one. Coupled with the fact that I was beyond exhausted and frustrated, it isn’t all that surprising that I didn’t recognize you right off the bat.”

And in those few online pictures she had found, never once had he been smiling. If he had been, those dimples would have been a dead giveaway.

“But you did recognize me after a while?” Matt asked.

She nodded.

“Well, if you recognized me, why didn’t you say anything yesterday?”

Tamryn couldn’t contain her wry smile. She crossed her legs and folded her hands over her knee.

“You’ve spent the past six months avoiding me. I was afraid you would leave me out on the side of the road if you knew I was the professor you’ve been thwarting at every turn.”

An offended frown tugged down the corners of his mouth. “I never would have left you out there.”

Tamryn held her hands up. “Forgive me. That was a poor attempt at humor. I know you wouldn’t have left me stranded. Thank you again for coming to my rescue yesterday.” She tipped her head to the side. “You must admit it’s rather funny that the only person I have any knowledge of in Gauthier just so happened to be the one who found me. Either this town really is that small, or it’s an amazing coincidence.”

A hint of amusement flashed in his light brown eyes. “Maybe a little of both,” he said. “Believe it or not, I almost didn’t go for a ride yesterday. I decided at the last minute that I needed to clear my head and just hopped on the bike almost without thinking.” His penetrating gaze eased its way along her body. “It’s as if I was meant to find you.”

His voice resonated with meaning, evoking a shimmer of interest that cascaded along her exposed skin. Tamryn surreptitiously sucked in a breath as she straightened in her chair and damned her tingling spine to hell.

The laugh that escaped her throat was much huskier than she’d intended. “Interesting how that turned out, isn’t it?”

He nodded slowly, reclining in his chair. “Very.”

His stare was probing and filled with enough heat to sear her skin. Usually, being on the receiving end of such intense scrutiny would creep her out. This time it did the exact opposite.

Tamryn cleared her throat and twisted yet again in her seat.

“So, what brings you here?” Matt asked, folding his hands over those abs that her fingers already had intimate knowledge of. “I doubt you came all this way simply because I’ve been avoiding your calls.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re important to my research, but not that important.”

His brows lifted. “So you’re here doing research?”

“For the entire summer,” she answered.

He groaned and ran a hand down his face.

“How quickly that charm disappears when you put on a suit and tie. Maybe you should come to the office in a T-shirt and jeans.”

“Forgive me,” he said, straightening once again and running a smoothing hand down his tie. “If my old nanny were still alive, she would have plucked me on the ear for being so rude.”

“Happy to know I bring out the worst in you,” Tamryn teased.

“You just took me by surprise showing up here at my office,” he said. “Although, now that I think about it, I shouldn’t be surprised at all to see you in Gauthier. To say that you are persistent, Dr. West, is an understatement.”

“I can deal with being called persistent. I’ve been called worse.”

“I’m not sure I believe that. Now that I’ve met you, I can think of a dozen more appropriate adjectives that would apply.”

The lazy grin that traveled across his lips caused all manner of naughty things to stir within her belly.

This was so not what she had predicted when she’d imagined her first face-to-face meeting with Matthew Gauthier. Based on his evasiveness these past few months, she’d prepared herself for adversarial at best, but had been expecting downright caustic.

What she had not expected were those killer dimples or that smooth-as-butter voice. She surely had not anticipated having to practice keeping her heart rate at a reasonable level while in close proximity to him.

“What is it that led you to Gauthier?”

“I’m researching the Underground Railroad,” Tamryn answered.

“I know that from your many, many, many phone calls and emails,” he said, softening the veiled reprimand with another infectious grin. “But why make the trip all the way down here? There’s a professor at Tulane University who is working on this already. He’s put much of what he’s found online. You could have just connected with him and saved yourself a lot of time and money.”

“Actually, I’ve been in contact with Professor Lawrence since the discovery was made. I find the work he’s doing with his students fascinating, but this is something I need to see with my own eyes. My research is in a different vein from that of Professor Lawrence’s. I have a lot of my own questions.”

“I’ve hardly ventured to that side of the building since they started digging around over there,” he said. “I’m sorry to break this to you, but I won’t be much help.”

“How do you know how much help you’ll be? I haven’t asked any questions yet.”

He choked out a shocked laugh. “You haven’t asked any questions? What about those many, many emails?”

She waved him off. “That was just a little harmless digging.”

His eyes brightened with amusement. “Harmless, huh? Does that mean what you have next up your sleeve is going to cause me some real pain?”

There was a single knock at the door before it opened. The office manager poked her head in. “Excuse me,” she said.

Tamryn looked over at Matt just in time to see him subtly shake his head.

A knowing grin flashed across her face as she turned to the office manager. “Let me guess, he told you to come in and rescue him in ten minutes?”

“Actually, it was five,” the woman answered.

Matt shot her a bland look. “Thanks a lot, Carmen.”

“And I’m not rescuing you,” she said. “I wanted to make sure you have everything you need for the conference call on Mrs. Black’s case.”

“I do. Thanks.” He rose from behind his desk, buttoning his jacket. It fit his frame to perfection, molding to those muscular shoulders that had been displayed underneath his T-shirt yesterday. He rounded the desk and gestured with his head for Tamryn to follow. “I’m going to take Professor West on a short tour of the building so she can see the room that was unearthed last summer. If the attorney representing the school board’s health insurance calls early, please come get me. It took weeks just to set up this call.”

He held the door open. “After you,” he said to Tamryn.

She slipped past him, then waited for him to lead her down a somewhat narrow, paneled hallway. It was obvious that the building was old, but it was also well preserved.

“The room is still the equivalent of an archaeological dig site,” Matt called over his shoulder. “It’s been roped off since it was confirmed that it was an actual stop on the Underground Railroad. I doubt I’ll ever get my entire building back.”

“It’s not yours anymore,” Tamryn said.

He stopped and turned. “Whose is it?”

“This type of history belongs to everyone. You can’t claim ownership anymore.”

“But I can pay the property tax on it?”

“Consider it your small part in preserving the past,” she said.

He shook his head, his soft chuckle reverberating in the air around her. “You sure you chose the right field of study, Professor West? Maybe you should have been an attorney.”

“Never once considered law,” she answered. “History is my...passion.” Tamryn’s voice trailed off as she stepped into the darkened room, her eyes trained on the far wall, where another door was open, but cordoned off by several strips of yellow caution tape.

She walked slowly up to the entrance, her lungs constricting as she came upon the tiny room. Tamryn brought trembling fingers to her lips, willing herself to keep it together. She’d vowed she was not going to cry.

But how could she not be overrun with emotion? Her great-great-great-grandmother had likely been in this very room—not as a slave fleeing to the freedom that awaited in the North, but as a conductor, assisting others on the Underground Railroad. Everything she’d uncovered over the years that she’d spent researching Adeline West indicated that she had ushered hundreds of slaves out of this area.

“Are you okay?”

Tamryn jumped at Matthew’s softly struck question. She hastily wiped at the moisture dampening her cheeks as she turned and smiled up at him.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t prepared for how this would affect me.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and hunched her shoulders. “I’ve seen dozens of sites like this, and I’m always overwhelmed.”

The sound of footsteps tapping on the hardwood could be heard for a few seconds before Carmen appeared. “Matt, the school board’s attorney is on the line.”

He held his hand up. “I’ll be there in a minute, Carmen.”

“No, go ahead,” Tamryn said. “I appreciate the quick tour. I’ve spoken to Dr. Lawrence, and he’s invited me to join him when he returns.” She swiped at her cheeks again. “However, I would like to set up an interview with you.”

“Me?” His eyes widened. “Why me?”

“Well, you’re a Gauthier, for one thing. Your family founded this town.”

“The Gauthiers who founded this town died a long time ago, and unfortunately, I’m not what you would call a history buff. I won’t be able to tell you anything that you can’t find out on your own.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Tamryn said. “It all depends on the questions I ask. I’ll bet you know more than you think you do.”

He buried his hands in his pockets and sucked in an uneasy breath.

“Look, there was a pamphlet created for Gauthier’s anniversary celebration this past summer. Ask Carmen to put you in touch with Mya Dubois-Anderson. She’ll be able to tell you everything you need to know.”

“But—”

Carmen came to the door again. “Matt, do you want me to have the attorney call back in a half hour?”

“No,” he said. “I’m coming.” He turned back to Tamryn. “Sorry, but this is the end of the tour. Carmen will see you out.”

And with that he took off, leaving Tamryn with even more questions than she’d had when she first walked through the door.