Second Chance Christmas Read online

  “Mommy takes me there, and Grandma picks me up cuz Mommy’s working.”

  No filter. Damn. Too late now. She’d hoped to keep the job on the down low until she felt more secure.

  “Yes . . . Uh-huh . . . Oh . . . ” Kelly Anne glanced up at her, a worried frown marring her fresh skin. “I want to see you, too, Daddy. But Mommy has to come with me.”

  “That’s enough, sweetie. Let me talk to Daddy again.” Whatever was going on, it was time for it to end. “Daddy will call again another day.”

  “No. I want to. I miss Daddy.”

  Her daughter clutched the phone with all the fierceness she possessed.

  Having a tug of war with her daughter while her father was on the line was a bad idea.

  “Okay, honey. But only a few more minutes. It’s bedtime.”

  No doubt about that.

  Kelly Anne finally ran out of steam five minutes later and quietly handed the phone to Findlay. Her face was blank.

  What was she thinking? What had Chris said? All this disruption wasn’t good for her. Findlay walked back outside. Somehow she needed to keep her daughter safe from her father’s disappointment.

  So what if she wasn’t perfect? Nobody was.

  “I’ll be there next weekend,” he said. “I can’t wait to see her. I know you don’t believe me, but I do miss her.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll have her ready to see you.”

  “You’re not going to leave us alone, are you?”

  “Not on your life.”

  “That’s going to change, Findlay. I’ll see you next week.”

  After he hung up, her hands shook so badly, she sat on the graying picnic table bench.

  God, she wished she smoked.

  The light was dimming as the sun slipped toward the western mountains. Northern Missoula shadowed first, leaving the southern valley lit. She longed for the broader streets and brighter atmosphere of the University District where she’d spent the first sixteen years of her life.

  If only . . .

  No point in thinking about it—there were too many if onlys that followed the first.

  Pushing herself off the bench, she walked toward the kitchen where her mother’s voice comforted Kelly Anne. She pulled open the door and knelt by her child. Tears stained her baby’s cheeks.

  “It’ll be okay, sweetie,” she said as she wrapped her arms around the small body.

  “I miss Daddy.” Kelly Anne’s voice was muffled.

  “I know. It’ll get better. I promise.”

  Whatever it took, she was going to make her daughter’s life okay.

  • • •

  After getting Kelly Anne settled down, Findlay walked into the living room where her mother was watching an action show on television and knitting a newborn cap for the hospital. Ever since her father had died, the knitting needles had clacked far into the night.

  “How are you doing?” her mother asked after Findlay lowered herself into the sagging couch cushions.

  She shrugged. What was there to say?

  “While you’re here, you might go through your old things in the back closet,” her mother said. “I didn’t want to give them away, thinking you might want them for Kelly Anne someday, but a few are probably out of date.”

  “Sure, I’ll take a look. Tomorrow’s Saturday. A good time to start.” Probably a good idea. Clear the past totally away, resolve this stupid custody thing, and begin life again.

  “Mmm.” Her mother drifted back into her action series.

  Was this what her life was going to devolve into—sitting next to her knitting mother every night?

  Depressing to be that old at twenty-eight.

  Maybe the best time to start clearing her clutter was now.

  She pushed herself up from the couch and made her way to the closet off the kitchen. It had probably been intended as a pantry, but her father her taken it over as his office. Later, it had become a seldom-entered storage closet.

  Pulling down a box, she propped it on the surface of her father’s old desk and retrieved a kitchen chair. The top layer was random awards she’d won in elementary school—math awards, most-read books, best behaved.

  Best people pleaser.

  She dumped the papers in the recycle pile. Souvenirs from a trip to Washington D.C. in eighth grade were in the next level. The excitement of her first plane ride, seeing buildings in real life she’d only seen in pictures, and museum memories of Dorothy’s red ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz clung to the pages of old programs and souvenir guides.

  Keep pile. Definitely. Something to remind her of the good times when she was in her dotty old age.

  Her journal of her freshman year.

  With trembling hands, she opened the stiff black and white cover. The early pages were filled with normal first-year jitters. Trying out for junior cheerleading and failing mightily. Getting lost through the stairways and hallways of Hellgate High School. Good teachers and less-than-stellar ones. Finally finding her niche on the cross-country team.

  Reese.

  She slammed the notebook shut and shoved it back into the box.

  “Mom,” she said as she walked back to the living room. “Do you have a spare box I can use for sorting? And where’s your recycling?”

  “There’s a few folded boxes next to the old desk. Packing tape’s in the top right drawer.” The needles clicked faster. “I don’t do recycling. Too much bother.”

  That was going to change.

  “Thanks.”

  She found markers in the same drawer as the tape.

  After shoving the full box back where it had been, she put together two boxes, labeled them, and dumped her D.C. mementos in one, the paper trash in the other. Hand on the light switch, she stared at the piles around her. All were neatly labeled in her mother’s handwriting, and most were covered with some layer of dust.

  Three boxes shelved near the top were labeled “Frank Office.” She pulled the chair over to climb on it but stopped.

  She’d already spent enough time tonight on dusty old memories, but this Saturday she’d start tackling the boxes. Maybe the key to securing her future lay in proving her father’s innocence in the past.

  • • •

  Reese jogged the first eighth mile of the Maclay Flat trail before stretching out to full speed, awakening birds chirping a melody to the rhythm of his pounding feet. The six a.m. July sun lengthened the shadows of the aspens bordering the irrigation channel.

  An eagle swooped past him at the far end of the loop.

  When they were teens, Findlay had loved the fierce-looking birds, whooping whenever she saw them. She’d sworn they were her spirit animal. Sure enough, the swooping bird would spur her stride to lengthen, and the challenge would be on.

  She’d won as many times as he did.

  An unbidden smile slid across his face, and he pumped to full speed, just as if Findlay’s spirit ran beside him.

  A deer bolted from the brush.

  He ran out the stress and tension of his father’s criticism and threat of Findlay’s return.

  Most of it, anyway.

  After a second loop, he wiped the sweat from his face with his tee shirt and returned to the Jeep to drive back up Blue Mountain.

  He needed his own place. When he’d first arrived back from Paris to help his father, taking one of the spare rooms in the overlarge house had seemed like the right thing to do.

  His own place would force him to forge his own life. He’d hoped to do that in diplomacy, but if he were honest with himself, he’d never really fit.

  You can take the boy out of Montana . . .

  Besides, how would it look to a woman for a twenty-eight year old man to still be living with his parents? And finding the right woman was part of the plan. Face it. He was lonely. Most of his old friends had moved on with their lives while he was investing time in a doomed foreign affairs career. He’d never really made good friends among the embassy staff. He’d dated for a while, but that had
n’t turned out any better.

  His father’s illness had given him an excuse to come home without embarrassment. And now, he found himself fascinated by the whole business thing—the challenges of meeting a deadline and dealing with personalities. His diplomacy training came in handy for that at least. He wanted to keep doing it.

  All he had to do was convince his father, make him sit up and take notice, see that he wasn’t a screw-up, that he was just as adult as the next man. Of course, he had to prove it to himself as well. How could he do that when Findlay triggered the past every time he saw her?

  How could he ever erase the memory of hurt in her eyes when he’d dumped her at his father’s command? Or the memory of the keening wail he’d heard when he’d gone to offer his condolences on her father’s death? Her mother had refused to let him in.

  “Haven’t you people done enough?” she’d asked as she slammed the door in his face.

  “Weakling,” his father had growled when he’d heard about Frank Callahan’s suicide. “Proves what I believed—he was out to get whatever he could—not interested in a partnership at all.”

  Reese had gone to the bathroom and thrown up.

  He’d tried to see her at school, but her friends warned him off, several offering to make sure he’d never have children if he bothered her.

  He’d stepped back.

  Coward.

  Maybe not taking a stance back then had been the root of all his problems since. While he couldn’t go back and change the past, maybe he could make amends to Findlay now . . . and head off any revenge she might be planning.

  After showering in his private bathroom, he joined his parents at breakfast—a somber affair with hardboiled eggs, dry toast, and electronics. He wolfed down his food as fast as he could.

  “How’s that new girl doing?” his father asked as Reese slipped his plate into the dishwasher.

  His muscles twitched. He’d become the political correctness police all of a sudden. Must be all the work in diplomacy.

  His lips tightened in a wry smile.

  “In spite of what you think, Dad, the feminist movement occurred,” he said. “At twenty-eight, she’s a woman, not a girl.”

  “How do you know her age?”

  His father didn’t miss a thing.

  “After you asked about her last week, I looked at her HR records.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Her credentials are solid. She’ll do well for us.”

  His father clicked through a few more messages on his phone. “Keep an eye on her. Sam thinks there’s something we don’t know about her. He seems to think he recognizes her from somewhere.”

  Sam was still withholding the information from Brian. What was he up to? He had to realize Reese would find out. Maybe Reese could use it to his advantage.

  “Sam should mind his own business.”

  “Still my company,” his father snapped. “Once this damn doctor says I can work again, you can go back to your playground in Paris.”

  “Oh, no,” Reese said. “You’re stuck with me. Once I left, they made it clear there was no going back. I’d have to start at the bottom again, and I’m not ready to do that.” No need to mention he’d only made it a few rungs up from the bottom, so it wasn’t a big surprise when they didn’t encourage him to come back.

  “Too willing to back down during negotiations,” one of his reviews had stated.

  “Your decision.” His attention went back to the phone.

  How could he prove himself when his father wouldn’t even pay attention to him?

  “I’m glad you’re home for good,” his mother said. “Your father needs you, even though he’s too blind to see it.” She slipped past Reese, slid her dishes in the racks, and left the room.

  His father watched her leave, the muscles in his face sagging.

  They used to be happy together.

  “I’ll be back at the usual time,” Reese said as he followed his mother out of the kitchen.

  “Keep an eye on her,” his father called out.

  Time to call a Realtor.

  • • •

  “There’s something weird going on.” Anita Little Bird, the HR director, stood in Reese’s office, her hands twisting together.

  “What do you mean, weird?”

  “A few employees have called to say their paychecks are off.”

  “What do you mean, off?” He tossed his pen on the desk, where it bounced to the floor.

  She stooped to get it.

  “Never mind about the pen,” he said. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, they said the numbers don’t add up—you know, the gross minus deductions.”

  “Must be a mistake.”

  She nodded then completed her mission to scoop up the pen and put it back on his desk.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Did you verify what they said?” he asked, taking the pen and rolling it around the desk. The clacking noise soothed him as much as it seemed to rattle Anita.

  “I didn’t do the math, if that’s what you mean,” she said, her gaze following the rolling object.

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “Why would they lie to me? Besides, Mr. Novak called me, too.”

  Good question. Too bad Sam was aware of the problem. Another bad report to his father. Crap. He couldn’t get ahead. Had Findlay started eking out her revenge already? She worked in the department that handled payroll.

  “Why don’t you ask Mr. Novak to stop by?”

  She started to back out of the office, nodding.

  “Never mind, I’ll go myself.”

  “Okay.” She scurried from the room.

  He needed to find her another job in the company. A place where he didn’t have to deal with her.

  “Hey, Sam,” he said after he knocked on the division manager’s door. “Got a minute?”

  “For you? Of course.”

  “Anita said you had some issues with your paycheck.”

  “I didn’t mean for her to get you involved,” Sam said. “You’ve got a lot going on. She said some others had complained—accounting. So I checked mine. Sure enough, it’s off.”

  Reese nodded.

  “I’m going to look into it. Probably a computer glitch. No need to worry,” Sam said, his gaze sliding back to the computer screen.

  “Can I take a look?”

  “Oh, sure.” Sam smiled at him, the same grin he’d always given Reese, even when he was a child. The older man had always had a candy stashed somewhere for him.

  His shoulders relaxed. Probably right—a simple programming error. And as for Findlay, maybe Sam was being kind by keeping the information to himself.

  Sam clicked a few keys and turned the screen toward him.

  Pulling his phone from his pocket, Reese did quick calculations. The numbers were off—not more than a dollar but off.

  “I’ve already got Wayne looking into it,” Sam said. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “Sounds good. Thanks, Sam.”

  He’d have to follow up tomorrow. Word didn’t need to get back to his father that he couldn’t solve a problem with so many ramifications. It would destroy the image he was trying to build.

  Chapter 4

  “I have only one rental in the University District,” the Realtor told Reese when he called her a few days later. “It’s a small house, two bedrooms.”

  “I’ll see it.” Anything to get away from his father.

  Had it really been worth it to leave Paris . . . and Genevieve, a Chicagoan with French ancestry? The relationship had just begun, but she’d set all his hormones on fire. Smart and fun, she would have been the perfect diplomat’s wife.

  If only he could have figured out how to be a diplomat. When he realized that wasn’t happening, he asked her to come back to Montana with him.

  She’d turned up her nose as if she’d stepped in a cow pie.

  So here he was, back at the beginning.

  After he hu
ng up the phone with the Realtor, he wended his way to Wayne Johnson’s cubicle.

  “Sam told me you fixed the paycheck problem,” he said, taking the lone guest chair.

  “One of my team did. She said the problem was with a module that wasn’t doing what the documentation said it did. It didn’t take her long.”

  “Who was it?”

  Wayne hesitated for a second. “Findlay Callahan.”

  “I thought she just started. You let her work on payroll?”

  “That’s where we need her. She worked in the financial sector at her old job—and that firm’s way bigger than this one. When I checked her references, the manager sang her praises as an excellent analyst . . . even though they aren’t supposed to do that anymore.”

  Reese drummed his fingers on his thigh. Of course it was Findlay. She was going to wind up in his father’s direct line of fire again. Not that his father would be wrong. There were so many unknowns. Too bad Wayne wasn’t around when the mess with Findlay’s father had gone down. He would have known better than to invite her for an interview.

  But Sam had been around. Why had he let the hire go through once he’d seen her last name? He must have known the trouble it would cause.

  “Does Sam know?” he asked.

  “He knows it’s fixed, he doesn’t know who fixed it. When he asked, I told him it was a team effort.”

  “Why?” As Wayne’s boss, Sam had a right to know who fixed the problem. Reese didn’t need people skirting chain of command, no matter what the motive.

  “I don’t know.” Wayne shrugged. “She’s new. Maybe it’s a fluke. I bring her to Sam’s attention, and he’ll be expecting more. You know how he is.”

  True. Sam and Reese’s dad were cut from the same demanding cloth.

  “Yet it was okay to tell me.”

  “You two have a history, don’t you?” Wayne pushed his keyboard to one side. “At least that’s what she told me when I asked why you were hanging around so much.”

  Reese kept quiet, but unease settled over him. This entire situation had disaster written all over it. He’d reach out to his contacts to see if anyone else had a job that would fit her talents. He didn’t need her bad karma getting in the way of his plans for the future.