Читать книгу Working Romance - Susan Kohler - Страница 8

Chapter Three

The next morning was Kate’s first day of work in over five years, since shortly before Sam had been born. She was at various times: anxious, excited, and filled with nervous energy and secret anticipation at the prospect of seeing Bob again.

With all that going on, of course it turned out to be one of those mornings. The kind of morning working moms are all too familiar with. She had quite a struggle getting the kids out of bed, not to mention dressed and fed, before dropping them off at her parents’ house, and getting herself to the office.

First, the twins had a food fight with the cereal and she had to change their clothes. There was spilled milk, sugar, and corn flakes all over the kitchen table, and dirty dishes in the sink. Then she started to put the kids into the van but she couldn’t find Sam. When last seen, he had gone outside to play with the dogs so Kate went into the backyard to look for him.

When she found Sam, he was crawling under a hedge trying to retrieve a missing dog toy. He was muddy, dirty, and his T-shirt, his new T-shirt, was torn. She was running too late to bother trying to change him into clean clothes. Just to be on the safe side, she grabbed clean shorts and T-shirts for all three kids, gathered her brood and got them into her slightly battered van.

The kids were firmly strapped into their car seats but still cranky from being dragged out of the house at such an early hour, so the ride to her parents’ house was anything but peaceful and quiet. She was glad when she finally got there and deposited the little angels with her mother. She handed the spare clothes over to her mom with a sigh of gratitude.

“Thanks Mom, I’ll pick them up after work. Be sure to tell Dad I said that I love him.” She grinned ruefully. “I realized one thing this morning.”

“What’s that, dear?” Her mother’s eyes sparkled with humor as she took in the bedraggled kids; Sam still dressed in his dirty shorts and the torn t-shirt, and noticed Kate’s air of nervous frustration.

“I should have listened more closely to your lectures on birth control.” She said it absolutely deadpanned, and it took a moment for it to sink in.

“What a terrible thing to say about these little darlings!” Her mother laughed knowingly as she let the kids into the house. “But it does give me a small sense of justice to see them running you ragged. You were quite a handful.”

“Oh please, give me strength. I was nothing compared to Sam.” Kate rolled her eyes. “And that’s not even mentioning the twins. You had it easy. I’d better run or I’ll be late for my first day.”

Somehow, Kate made it to the office on time. She arrived at the large, glass-covered office building at five minutes to eight looking cool, poised, and professional in a navy pinstripe suit with an ivory silk blouse. Although she had been told that the office had a business casual dress code, for her first day she had decided to wear her most professional and businesslike suit. She wanted to try to erase all traces of her appearance from the day before out of Bob’s memory.

The truth was, however, that deep down she hoped it took a lot more than a dignified business suit to make Bob forget his first sight of her. The only hint of the fire in her nature was a hot pink bow that somehow managed not to clash with her deep red hair.

She walked up to a slender, young black woman who was drinking coffee at the receptionist’s desk.

“Hello, I’m Kate Winslow, I’m a temporary who’s starting work here today, and I’m supposed to ask for Mr. Simmons,” she said, smiling at the woman. “Could you please direct me to him?”

“Hi! Welcome to the madhouse. I’m Cheryl, the receptionist at this zoo. I’ll take you in to Mr. Simmons’ office. Please, follow me.” She led Kate to a corner office and knocked on the door. “Bob, the new temp from the agency is here.”

“Come in, I’m Bob Simmons. Welcome to Lassen-McRoe.” Bob looked wonderful in charcoal gray pants and a crisp, pale blue shirt. His tasteful, conservative clothes, however, were topped off by a wildly colorful tie. He shook her hand and then gestured at a chair and said, “Please, have a seat. Would you like some coffee?”

Cheryl, who was still standing at the door, volunteered to go get her some coffee and a donut. As soon as she had gone, Bob looked at Kate and gave her a wink that sent a chill clear down her spine.

“I hope you really appreciate how cool and professional I’m being today,” he said with a grin.

“I do, at least I guess I do,” Kate admitted, looking around. “But I have to confess, I hope it isn’t too easy. Nice, very nice, but is this a business office or one of those snooty British men’s clubs?”

Bob had a very large, formal office, with dark wood paneled walls. There were several framed oil paintings depicting fox hunting scenes hanging on the walls and a deep red plaid carpet on the floor. He had a dark red genuine leather armchair and a matching sofa. A triangular table in the corner had a brass lamp on it. Bob’s desk was mahogany, and huge. He also had a brass floor lamp. There was a large potted fern in the corner, and to top it all off there was a wood and brass ceiling fan.

“It is kind of anachronistic, isn’t it? It used to be the office of the Chairman of the Board until corporate was moved back to Texas. His wife thought she was a decorator. I inherited it. I’ll admit that I do like it, but I’m glad it’s not a men’s club where no women are ever allowed. If I had my way, I’d chase you around this big desk, and when I caught you,” he grinned, “I’d throw you down on the sofa.”

“You couldn’t chase me around the desk.” Kate flashed him a smile with a bit of the devil in it. “I wouldn’t run.”

“Vixen!” Bob laughed. “I can tell I’m going to have one heck of a hard time concentrating on my work today.”

“Good, that makes two of us.” Kate stopped talking abruptly as Cheryl brought in the coffee and some fresh buttermilk donuts, glazed of course.

“Let me finish explaining your job, then I’ll introduce you to Laura, my assistant controller. She will show you around the office,” Bob was saying calmly, just as Cheryl entered.

They sat there and enjoyed their morning coffee and each other’s company for a short time. For all their banter, when they finally got down to business, the sexual electricity sizzling between them turned out not to be a problem. Because they were both mature adults, their personal feelings didn’t interfere with their work. It was as if they had both tucked their awareness of each other away somewhere for future reference.

Bob went over the department structure with her, then showed her basics of the computer system, and assigned her a password. Lastly, he went over the last completed ledgers for accounts payable with her. He had been reviewing them at his desk.

Bob then took Kate to Laura’s office. It was a decided step down from his both in size and in lavish decoration, however it was more comfortable and tasteful. Laura had the same slate blue carpet as the rest of the office, but her walls were a pale rose instead of the eggshell paint that covered the rest of the offices. She had several framed pastel prints on her walls, and sleek pecan office furniture. The cool professional effect was only slightly spoiled by the stack of papers strewn all over her desk. Laura took Kate around to the workstations, most of them being small cubicles with a computer, a desk, file cabinets and several shelves.

All of them had various decorations and personal touches to provide clues to the personality of their occupants. Laura introduced Kate to everyone in the small accounting department.

Aside from Laura and Cheryl there were four, all women: Rita who did the payroll was an in her mid-fifties, plump and friendly. She had a warm motherly manner. Rita was wearing navy polyester stretch pants and a long flowing white blouse. Her cubicle was filled with potted plants and pictures of children. She told Kate they were all her grandchildren.

Mary and Jennifer, who shared an extra-large cubicle, did the billing. Mary was small, a Latino spitfire in tight blue jeans with long black hair. Jennifer was a young, pretty blond in a short red dress. Their cubicle had several pictures of Mary’s little girl and one of Jennifer’s boyfriend, and a Firefighting Hunks calendar.

Diana, tall and shapely with short brown hair and an engaging smile, did the bank reconciliations and would work with Kate on accounts payable until it was caught up. She looked neat and professional in a blue print dress. Her cubicle had several hand-drawn cartoons and pictures of her horse on the walls.

There were two other women who worked in the vault room down the hall, Sherry and Tonya. They handled the cash receipts from the eight retail stores in the district. Laura knocked at their door and identified herself, and one of them opened the door from the inside and let her in. She introduced Kate to them. Their office was stark, with only a framed picture of Tonya’s kids for decoration, but they had a stereo that was turned up loud, on a classic rock station.

Finally, Kate was shown to her cubicle. It would have been extra large, but she had one whole wall taken up with filing cabinets. Aside from a computer and a calculator, she had a long flexible sorter on her desk. It was filled to the bursting point with alphabetized invoices. There was also a bin on her desk overflowing with already filed purchase orders, packing slips and any other correspondence related to an invoice, also in alphabetical order.

Kate settled in and spent a fairly quiet morning matching the invoices to the packing slips and correspondence, then inputting the information from the ones that formed completed sets into her computer. While she worked, she was also keeping her eyes and ears open.

All she learned that first day was that her co-workers seemed to be good hard workers who enjoyed their jobs. Everyone seemed congenial; no one seemed to be hiding anything. They were all very helpful and pleasant to her. Shortly before noon Laura came over to ask her out to lunch.

“Won’t the, um, suspects think it’s strange? I mean supposedly we just met and you’re my supervisor,” Kate reminded her. “After all I’m supposed to be undercover.”

“No, it shouldn’t seem suspicious. I almost always take the new girls out to lunch,” Laura explained. “Just to welcome them to the company.”

“Even the temps?” Kate asked skeptically.

“Well, not the temps, but I don’t think it’ll give us away,” Laura replied. “Besides, I’m the boss, what can they say?”

“In that case, great. I’d love lunch.” The pair left quickly.

Kate almost had to run to keep up with Laura as she hurried over to her car. “Hey! What’s the rush?” she complained, as she stumbled in the high heels she hadn’t worn in almost five years.

“I’m trying to avoid any tag-a-longs, so we can talk.” They got into Laura’s car and she practically peeled out of the parking lot before continuing, “You are doing some investigating for us, remember?”

“James Bond never had to run to lunch,” Kate pointed out, still panting a little.

“James Bond was only trying to catch Russian spies, not avoid office gossips,” Laura laughed, “and spies are a lot easier to fool.”

“So? Are you buying?” Kate added, “After that fiasco on the beach yesterday morning, you owe me.”

“By my account, after taking the kids out for ice cream yesterday afternoon, you owe me lunch. I must be one helluva great matchmaker.” Laura looked over at her friend and noted her quick flush. “Aren’t I?”

“So what? You think I owe you lunch just because you introduce me to a nice man? I mean, sure, he’s very nice, and great looking, and single, has a good job, and kis. . .” Kate stopped quickly, blushing. “What I’m saying is, he’s not too bad.”

“So he did kiss you?” Laura was surprised. “Yesterday? I knew it! That’s fantastic! I thought so, I hoped so, but I wasn’t sure.”

“What’s so fantastic?” Kate was suspicious. “We were having a good time together and he kissed me. It was a great kiss, but what’s got you so excited? Men and women kiss all the time, you know. They’ve been doing it for centuries.”

“But not you, and not Bob. You see, well, Bob’s a bit of a flirt away from work, and he’s got a great sense of humor, but he’s always treated the women around the office very respectfully. He’s always been friendly, but very professional,” Laura stated. “I’ve never heard any gossip or rumors about him being involved with anybody at work, and with his looks and his personality, you know there must have been several women along the way who have tried to snare him. I know of at least three.”

“Sure. But did any of those women get naked and blush a lot?” Kate asked her. “That’s what got him interested in me. It can be a very effective way to get a man’s interest.”

“If I were still single, I’d keep it in mind.”

“Worked like a charm for me.” Kate was smiling. “And I wasn’t even trying.”

Laura parked the car and they went into an Italian restaurant.

As soon as they were seated, Laura asked, “Did it go farther yesterday than just kissing?” Laura studied Kate’s face, and noted another sudden flush. “It did! Good girl. I knew you had it in you.”

“It didn’t go that far.” Kate watched Laura’s eyes widen at the double entendre before she put an end to the discussion of her love life. “Now. About work, who’s a suspect?”

There was a pause as they studied their menus briefly. A waitress walked over and they both ordered chef salads and iced tea.

“Everyone,” Laura continued as if there had not been a pause. “They’ve all been here when money was missing. It’s hard to see how any of them could have done it. The shortages don’t have anything to do with payroll, and of course, the bank reconciliations and accounts receivable books always balance out. The only two areas where there have been unusual discrepancies are in accounts payable and cash receipts. The shortages usually seem to appear when a new girl has been on the job for about a week and a half.”

The waitress brought their food and left. Laura continued talking as she squeezed lemon and stirred some sugar into her iced tea. “I have a feeling this time it’s going to be sooner though, because we took so long bringing you on board. I think whoever is stealing the money must need it pretty badly by now.”

“Have you tried marked bills? Hidden cameras? Or drug testing?” Kate suggested. “This could very well be drug related.”

“I don’t know about marked bills, we can ask the Loss Prevention people about that idea, and I think it would be hard to install hidden cameras without alerting the guilty party. I’ll ask about that, too. Remember, all the employees passed a drug screening test when they were first hired, and we haven’t seen any behavior from anyone suggesting that we need to retest one of them.” Laura put butter on a roll and ate a bite before she went on. “We’d hate to put everyone through another drug test if we don’t have to. Besides if we do that, we’ll definitely warn the thief that we’re looking.”

“But it’s gone on so long,” Kate protested, “surely the guilty person must know you’re onto the thefts.”

“Well, the first time it happened, Bob and I thought it was the new girl we had just hired. Luckily, she was not a very good worker so we just let her go while she was still on probation. The next time it happened, we were sure it wasn’t the new girl. So when her husband was offered a new job in Houston, we transferred her to our Houston office. There hasn’t been any sign of embezzlement in Texas.” Laura paused. “The people in our local office were told she’d been sent back to the agency.”

The waitress came over to refill their iced tea and see if they needed anything else. Although they hadn’t finished their salads because they were talking, they both ordered warm apple pie. They focused on eating for a few minutes so that they would be finished with the salads by the time the waitress brought their pies.

Laura continued, “The third time we were completely convinced the thief wasn’t the girl but she was the one we mentioned that was having a rough pregnancy. So, we are letting her work at home on some special projects and using a little creative bookkeeping to keep her on the payroll and covered by insurance. Actually, she’s going to do most of the Accounts Payable work for us. That way she will help free you up to do your investigation. That is top secret too, of course.”

“If she’s doing the work, why is so much of it piled up?” Kate asked, filled with curiosity. “Payables is a mess.”

“Two reasons. First, she’s been sick a lot lately, and second, we didn’t want her to do too much until we had someone sitting at your desk. Otherwise, it would look suspicious.” Laura smiled. “I mean, why hire anyone if the work is all caught up? And who could be doing it? I doubt if anyone would believe we had elves coming in and doing AP at night.”

“What about the fourth girl?” Kate managed between bites.

“She was a temp, a very good one, so we fixed her up with another company. She wound up earning more money and working closer to her home. Once we figured out the temps were being blamed for something that someone else was doing we tried to make sure that none of them were hurt. That’s one thing about Bob, instead of that cold corporate mentality, he cared enough to try to make things right. Most bosses would just let the girls go without worrying about them. These girls never knew they were suspected of theft. They were spared that embarrassment.” Laura looked Kate straight in the eye. “Now this time we’ll handle it a little bit differently. This time we will make it seem like you are under suspicion.”

“Even as a ploy, that’s going to be hard.” Kate wasn’t looking forward to being accused. “Emotionally, I mean.”

“If you need to talk to either Bob or myself, call us at home.” Laura gave Kate Bob’s home number, adding innocently, “And you already know where he lives. Personally, I think the biggest strain is going to be on all of our acting skills.”

The waitress brought their check and Laura paid it. “We’d better get back to work.”

“Aw gee, do we have to?” Kate protested jokingly.

“No, but remember, Bob’s there,” Laura bribed.

“Okay, I’m ready.” Kate rushed for the car, laughing.

Laura settled in the car then got serious for a minute. “After Joe, I thought you never would be, ready for someone, I mean.” She started to drive back to the office.

Kate’s husband, Joe, had been hit by a drunk driver coming home late from work one night. At the time, Suzy and Sarah were eighteen months old, and Sam was three and a half.

It had taken about a year and a half, but Kate knew she was ready to get back to living again. She smiled to herself; it’s just that she wasn’t sure she was ready to fall head over heels in love again, and she was also partially afraid that’s exactly what was happening to her.

“I’ll never stop loving Joe, but I will go on with my life,” Kate replied with quiet dignity.

“Because Joe would want it that way?” Laura asked.

“Partly, as cliché as that sounds. It’s also partly because I believe that if I live my life to the fullest and have my own interests, I’ll be a better mother to my kids. I wouldn’t want to wind up a bitter old hag. And, last but not least, for myself.” She smiled, “Life’s too short not to fully enjoy it.”

“So how serious is it between you and Bob?” Laura quizzed her.

“Well, it’s way too soon to be sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion this could turn out to be major. The real thing.” Kate was suddenly very quiet, then finally she added, “It’s almost frightening the way I feel about him; after all, I only met him yesterday.”

“I remember that you fell in love with Joe almost the instant you met him. I swear I heard a click,” Laura smiled, remembering, “sort of like the click I heard yesterday, when you looked up and met Bob’s eyes.”

“It wasn’t his eyes I met yesterday when I looked up.” Kate laughed, flushing.

Laura parked the car. “Not then, you silly goose. In the pool, when we were tackling Jack. At one point in the game, you and Bob looked at each other and almost made the water boil.”

“I remember.” Kate laughed. “And you, my dear friend, notice too darn much. Let’s get out of my love life and go back to work.”

Shortly after lunch, Kate got a call from her mother. “I have a wonderful idea, dear,” she exclaimed. “Why don’t I come to your house to sit for the kids? That way you wouldn’t have to work so hard to get them fed and dressed and over to my house, while you’re getting ready for work.”

“Gee, Mom, why didn’t I think of that?” Kate had brought up the same idea before, but her mother insisted on having the kids brought over to her house.

“I don’t know, dear, but it’s going to be great.” She gave a sly little laugh. “And then your house will be the one that looks like a tornado hit it.”

“Golly, that will be great, thanks Mom.” Kate hung up laughing.

The rest of the afternoon passed without incident. Kate buried herself in her work. She made a sizable dent in the backed up stack of invoices in Accounts Payable, then she made a list of the type of reports she would like to begin studying from all the other desks. She gave her list to Laura, who said she would arrange for Bob to get the records to her.

She only met one other co-worker that day, Jerry Weisner, a tall, friendly man who was in charge of the purchasing department. He came into her office and introduced himself. He gave her a list of some of his special vendors, vendors that had unusual terms or ways of doing business.

He sat on the corner of her desk, and tried to give her the insight on some of the things that were peculiar to this company. He had black hair, brown eyes and an easy, relaxed manner that was matched by his attire of comfortable jeans and a well-worn green polo shirt.

Just as Jerry was about to leave her office, he smiled at her and remarked sadly, “I don’t know if you’re going to make it around here.”

“Why not?” Kate was indignant. “What’s wrong with me?”

“You’re dressed way too formally, and we’re a pretty relaxed group.” He smiled at her. “You’ll have to loosen up and wear something a lot more casual or you’ll make the rest of us peons look bad.”

“Okay, I will.” She had already realized that she was way overdressed for this particular office. She smiled at him. “I promise to be casual in the future but I had to try to make a good impression on my first day. You can’t blame a girl for that.”

“When I talked to Bob earlier, I got the feeling he was impressed.” Jerry smiled. “Tomorrow, wear tight jeans and you’ll knock him off his feet.”

Kate was shocked; did her infatuation show? “Do I want to knock him off his feet?”

“Why not? It couldn’t hurt.” Jerry waved a hand at her as he left.

Kate went back to work. She barely saw either Laura or Bob until it was time to leave, except for one time when she was at the water cooler and saw Bob coming out of his office.

She heard Laura whisper in her ear. “Careful! You’re making the water boil again.”

She was cleaning off her desk when Bob walked into her cubicle. “So, how was your first day?”

“Well, this is a simple job but there is something that I can’t quite put my hands on,” Kate answered. “I think it may be very hard for me trying to picture one of these women as a thief. They all seem so normal, very friendly and helpful.”

“Forget the co-workers. How about the boss?” Bob prodded as he looked out to see if anyone was nearby and began to move around her desk towards her. “Is he nice?”

“The ogre?” Kate teased, backing off. “I hardly saw him all day.”

“Ogre?” Bob pretended to be insulted, moving away, back towards the opening of the cubicle. “I heard he was a pretty nice guy. All the other ladies seem to like him.”

“No accounting for taste.” Coolly, she raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m out of here.” She picked up her purse and threw it onto her shoulder.

Bob took her arm and gently but firmly led her back to his office. He shut his office door and leaned against it. “Not so fast, come here. I haven’t kissed you all day.”

Kate felt her heart jump in her chest while she looked up at Bob with wide eyes.

“In the office? Isn’t that called sexual harassment?” Kate grinned at him. “Didn’t we talk about that last night?”

“Only if it makes working conditions hard on you,” Bob winked, “and that’s not what I had in mind.”

“What’s it called if I make it hard on you?” Kate asked, with exaggerated innocence.

“That’s called arousal.” He caught Kate in his arms and began to kiss her. “And I think you’re guilty of it already,” he managed between kisses.

“God, I hope so,” Kate whispered back, also between tender kisses, “because you’re guilty of it too.” She managed to pull away. “We shouldn’t do this here; if we do, sooner or later we’ll get caught.”

“You’re right. I don’t like it, but you’re right.” Bob gave Kate one long, wet passionate kiss and then pulled back leaving Kate feeling strangely rejected.

“You don’t have to agree so easily,” Kate complained, straightening her hair and lipstick before they left the office.

“Don’t worry, you’re not going to get rid of me so quickly,” he promised.

“Bob?” Kate said as they walked across the parking lot, “How could I get hold of some of the older financial reports to try and trace the lost money?”

“I’ll make copies and bring them to your house,” he offered. “But make sure you don’t work too much on them at home. Of course, I’ll pay you extra for the homework.”

“Is this just an excuse to come over to my house?” Kate asked, her head tilted to one side.

“Well, it works, doesn’t it?” Bob smiled. “But who needs an excuse?”

“Truthfully?” She met his eyes. “You don’t, consider this a standing invitation to come over anytime. The kids are in bed by eight,” Kate offered, grinning wickedly.

“Why did I ever think you were shy?” Bob was a little overwhelmed.

“It was probably those blushes, fools ‘em every time,” Kate teased, “but don’t get too carried away. I have three built-in chaperones, remember?”

“How could I forget?” He grinned.

“And the kids aren’t your biggest obstacles either,” she said mysteriously.

“What do you mean?” He was dubious. “Are there any other obstacles between us?”

“You’ll find out.” She winked and gave him a saucy grin. “Later.”

She got into her van and drove off, leaving him standing there puzzled.