Barbara Dunlop - A Bargain With The Boss

There was silence, and she realized Tuck didn’t recognize her name. It figured. But this wasn’t the time to dwell on his lack of interest in the company that supported his playboy lifestyle.

“I’m Dixon’s assistant,” she said.

“Oh, Amber. Right.” Tuck sounded distracted.

“You need to come to the office.” She stopped herself.

What Tuck really needed to do was to go to the hospital and meet the ambulance there. She searched for a way to phrase those words.

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s your father.”

“My father wants me to come to the office?” His drawling tone dripped sarcasm.

“We had to call an ambulance.”

Tuck’s voice became more alert. “Did he fall?”

“He, well, seems to have collapsed.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know.” She was thinking it had to be a heart attack, but she didn’t want to speculate.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“The paramedics are putting him on a stretcher. I didn’t want to call Mrs. Tucker and frighten her.”

“Right. Good decision.”

“You should probably meet them at Central Hospital.”

“Is he conscious?”

Amber looked at Jamison’s closed eyes and pale skin. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Good.”

The line went silent and she set down the phone.

The paramedics wheeled Jamison past. He was propped up on the stretcher, an oxygen mask over his face and an IV in his arm.

Amber sank down onto Margaret’s chair, her knees wobbly and her legs weak.

Margaret and the nurse emerged from Jamison’s office.

Margaret’s eyes were red, tears marring her cheeks.

Amber rose to meet her. “It’s going to be all right. He’s getting the best of care.”

“How?” Margaret asked into the air. “How could this happen?”

The nurse excused herself to follow the paramedics.

“Do you think he has heart problems?” Amber asked quietly.

Margaret shook her head. “He doesn’t. Just last night...” Another tear ran down her cheek.

“Did something happen yesterday?” Amber assumed Margaret had meant yesterday, maybe late in the afternoon.

“He was in such a good mood. We had some wine.”

“You had wine in the office?”

Margaret stilled. Panic and guilt suddenly flooded her expression, and she took a quick step back, glancing away.

“It was nothing,” she said, focusing on some papers in her in-basket, straightening them into a pile.

Amber was stunned.

Jamison and Margaret had been together last night? Had they been together, together? It sure looked like it.

Margaret moved briskly around the end of her desk. “I should... That is...” She sank down in her chair.

“Yes,” Amber agreed, not sure what she was agreeing to, but quite certain she should end the conversation and get back to her own desk.

She started for the hallway, but then she paused, her sense of duty asserting itself. “I’ll call the senior managers and give them the news. Did Jamison tell you about Dixon?”

Margaret looked up. “What about Dixon?”

Amber decided the news of Dixon leaving could wait a couple of hours. “Nothing. We can talk later.”

Margaret’s head went back down and she plunked a few keys on her keyboard. “Jamison had a lunch today and a three o’clock with the board.”

Amber left Margaret to her work, her mind racing with all that would need to be handled.

Dixon was gone. Jamison was ill. And that left no one in charge. Tuck was out there somewhere. But she couldn’t even imagine what would happen if Tuck took the reins. He wasn’t a real vice president. He was just some partier who dropped by the office now and again, evidently giving heart palpitations to half the female staff.

* * *

A week later, Tuck realized he had to accept reality. His father was going to be weeks, if not months, in recovery from his heart attack, and Dixon was nowhere to be found. Somebody had to run Tucker Transportation. And that somebody had to be him.

The senior executives seated around the boardroom table looked decidedly troubled at seeing him in the president’s chair. He didn’t blame them one bit.

“What I don’t understand,” said Harvey Miller, the finance director, “is why you’re not even talking to Dixon.”

Tuck hadn’t yet decided how much to reveal about his brother’s disappearance. He’d tried calling, text messaging and emailing Dixon. He’d had no response. And there was nothing to go on except the cryptic letter his brother had left for their father, saying he’d be gone a month, maybe even longer.

“Dixon’s on vacation,” said Tuck.

“Now?” asked Harvey, incredulity ringing through his tone.

Mary Silas’s head came up in obvious surprise and chagrin. “I didn’t hear about that.”

She was in charge of human resources and Tuck knew she prided herself on being in the know.

“Get him back,” said Harvey.

Instead of responding to either of them, Tuck scanned the expressions of the five executives. “I’d like a status report from each of you tomorrow morning. Amber will book a one-on-one meeting for each of you.”

“What about the New York trade show?” asked Zachary Ingles, the marketing director.

Tuck’s understanding of the annual trade show, a marquee event, was sketchy at best. He’d attended a couple of times, so he knew Tucker Transportation created and staffed a large pavilion on the trade-show floor. But in the past he’d been more focused on the booth babes and the evening receptions than on the sales efforts.

“Bring me the information tomorrow,” he said.

“I need decisions,” said Zachary, his tone impatient.

“Then, I’ll make them,” Tuck replied.

He might not have a clue what he was doing, but he knew enough to hide his uncertainty.

“Can we at least conference Dixon into the meetings?” asked Harvey.

“He’s not available,” said Tuck.

“Where is he?”

Tuck set his jaw and glared at the man.

“Do you want a full quarterly report or a summary?” asked Lucas Steele. He was the youngest of the executives, the operations director.

Where the others wore custom-made suits, Lucas was dressed in blue jeans and a dark blazer. His steel-blue shirt was crisp, but he hadn’t bothered with a tie. He moved between two worlds—the accountants and lawyers who set strategic direction, and the transport managers around the world who actually got things from A to B.

“A summary is enough for now.” Tuck appreciated Lucas’s pragmatic approach to the situation.

Lucas raised his brows, silently asking the other men if there was anything else.

Tuck decided to jump on the opportunity and end the meeting.

“Thank you.” He rose from his chair.

They followed suit and filed out, leaving him alone with Dixon’s assistant, Amber.

He hadn’t paid much attention to her before this week, but now she struck him as a model of fortitude and efficiency. Where his father’s assistant, Margaret, seemed to be falling apart, Amber was calm and collected.

If she’d wandered out of central casting, she couldn’t have looked more perfect for the part of trustworthy assistant. Her brunette hair was pulled back in a tidy French braid. Her makeup was minimal. She wore a gray skirt and blazer with a buttoned white blouse.

Only two things about her tweaked his interest as a man—the fine wisps of hair that had obviously escaped the confining braid, and the spiky black high-heeled sandals that flashed gold soles when she walked. The loose wisps of hair were endearing, while the shoes were intriguing. Both could have the power to turn him on if he was inclined to let them.