Mary Wilson - Predicting Rain?

Rain didn’t hesitate. She’d done this impulsively, but it had been absolutely the right thing to do. “No, you aren’t. I’d love to be part of this.”

Mary touched her arm. “Wonderful, wonderful, now all we have to do is take care of the formalities. Wait right here,” she said and hurried off toward the office area.

Rain watched the children, enjoying the sense of peace in the space, then Mary was back with the folder Rain had brought with her containing her credentials and references. “After you called yesterday, I talked with Lindsey, Mrs. Holden, and she would be very grateful if you could help us out for a bit.” She handed the packet to Rain. “We’re growing so quickly and with new children coming in, we could use someone on call that could help if there was a problem.”

“Well, I’ve got plenty of time now, but once I’m on at the hospital, any help will have to be planned around my schedule there.”

“Of course. That’s understood,” she said. “I wonder how you heard about us.”

Rain didn’t need anyone’s preconceived ideas about her father tainting her. As much as she loved her father, when people found out about him and his lifestyle, they automatically included her in the equation. The way Jack Ford had. She was a clinical psychologist specializing in helping troubled children. That was all the credentials she needed here.

“I actually heard about you at the hospital when I was going through the interviewing there. They’re very excited about the charity ball.”

“We’re all very excited about it.” She tapped the top of the folder in Rain’s hands. “Just take that all up to Personnel and they’ll give you some paperwork.”

“Personnel?”

“Even though you’re not getting paid, we still need you to be on staff. Insurance, I think that’s what Lindsey said. The center has an office in LynTech Personnel for now. When you’re through there, Mrs. Holden would like to meet you. She’s in her husband’s offices on the top floor. She’s pregnant and been having morning sickness day and night, poor thing.” Mary told her how to get to Personnel and to Zane Holden’s office, then said, “Ask for Charles Gage or his assistant. They work for us. They’ll be expecting you. Take the elevator just across the corridor outside the main doors.”

“Okay,” Rain said with a smile. “I’ll see you soon.” Then Rain left, quietly going past the sleeping children and out the entrance doors. The main reception area was to her right, more corridors to her left, and straight across the broad, marble-floored area, was a bank of elevators. She saw a lady step into the nearest car, and she called out, “Hold the car, please!” as she hurried past a couple of people.

The woman, thin with short, dark hair smiled at Rain as she kept the door from closing. Rain stepped inside and pushed the button for the sixth floor. Before the door closed she saw Jack Ford walking toward the center.

This Jack Ford wasn’t the same man she’d met in her ill-fated foray into the loft in the small hours of the morning. Now he was the image of what she’d labeled him that night, a corporate suit. He was in one of those suits, done in dove gray, double breasted, sleekly tailored and probably obscenely expensive, as expensive as the leather briefcase clutched in his free hand and the leather shoes on his feet. He was on a cell phone, and his face, even more sharply angular in the clear light, was set in an expression of extreme concentration. The tension in him the night before had only intensified, and she had the impression that whatever was going on right then, wasn’t good.

He stopped right by the doors to the center, and closed his eyes as the elevator doors finally slid shut. She was inordinately relieved that he hadn’t seen her. At least working in the center, she wouldn’t have to be around him at all. There was no way they’d get involved. Her use of words shocked her slightly. Involved? He didn’t even exist in the same reality she did and even more importantly, he wouldn’t want to.

Jack knew the cat was at the loft to stay, at least until Zane and Lindsey’s lives calmed down a bit. The cat came and went as he pleased, and he only bothered with Jack when it came to food. Food ruled the cat, and the cat ruled his world as he perceived it. This morning he’d shown up and decided that it was time to eat, just as Jack was leaving the loft. Foolishly he’d gone to get the food, put it out for the cat, spilled some of the tuna on the sleeve of his jacket and had to change. All in all, it had made him more than fifteen minutes late getting to the office.

He’d barely come in the main entrance of LynTech when his cell phone rang and it was Eve. He’d been trying to make contact with her by something other than e-mail for the last two days, and now that she was on the line, he was rushed. He kept walking, and spoke into it, “Finally.”

“Yes, love, finally,” she said, her voice faintly tinny on the line. “I’ve been trying to catch you everywhere, and the cell phone number you gave me kept cutting off before it connected.”

“Well, I’m on another continent,” he said, nodding to the security guard at the front, a tall, well-built man in a tailored khaki uniform.

“I know. And that’s—”

A beep cut off her next word and he didn’t hear it. “Eve, I’ve got another call coming in. Let me call you when I get to my office. Where are you?”

“At Father’s.”

“Okay, give me ten minutes,” and he clicked over to the other call. But before he said anything, he heard a voice somewhere ahead of him. Her voice. Rain’s. He couldn’t make out the words, just that it was her voice, but when he looked up, he didn’t see her.

He hadn’t seen her again at the loft, either, and he’d thought she’d left with the old hippie for a trip. Someone on the bottom floor had said George was out of town, that he always took off like that. But for that single moment he’d been sure he’d heard her, then he’d realized how ridiculous that would have been. No one at LynTech would be walking around with bare feet, tie-dyed T-shirts or waist-length hair.

“Ford here,” he said into the phone as he stopped in the corridor by a set of brightly painted doors with Just For Kids on them.

It was Martin Griggs, the negotiator for EJS with LynTech. Jack pushed the elevator call button, hoped that he wouldn’t lose the signal in the car, and by the time he stepped out into the corridor, he’d forgotten about voices and was focused on business again. He assured Griggs that it wasn’t anyone at the top level of LynTech who let word of the deal leak out, and by the time he got to his office, Griggs had agreed to try to get E. J. Sommers in on a conference call.

Jack hung up, and put in a call to Quint Gallagher in New York, who was there for his son’s wedding. Gallagher had known E. J. Sommers in the past and he could be an edge for them. But all he got was a voice mail service and he left a message. He hung up, went into the office they’d given him for the duration and was just taking off his jacket when Rita Donovan, executive assistant to both Zane and Matt Terrell, came into his office.

“Mr. Ford,” the thin, dark haired woman said in her usual staccato voice. “I was looking for you. Mr. Holden needs to talk to you as soon as you’re in.”

“Okay,” he said as he put his suit coat over the back of his chair. “Where is he?”

“His office. His wife’s not feeling well, so he’s staying with her.”

“I’ll be down right away,” he said.

She turned to go, but stopped. “Oh, Mr. Ford, a Miss Ryder called about fifteen minutes ago. She’s been trying to reach you and couldn’t get through.”