“You’re not Valerie.”
Abby shook her head.
He advanced into the room, interest in his gray eyes, a winsome smile on his lips. “Come away with me anyway.”
“I—I can’t do that.” She closed the cabinet doors. “I haven’t finished setting up for the meeting.”
He looked around the room. “Chairs, table... what more do we need?”
“Water,” Abby said.
“Ah.” Shoving his hands into the pockets of his khaki trousers, he cocked his head sideways. “If I fetch the water, can we sneak away?”
Abby smiled in spite of herself. “Mr. Laird, you’re supposed to be at this meeting.”
He winced. “Jay, please.”
“Jay,” she repeated easily.
He regarded her, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You know who I am.”
“Everyone knows who you are.”
“But I, alas, do not know who everyone is.”
Abby abandoned the microscopic hope that he might have noticed her sometime during the past four years. “I’m Abby Monroe. Ms. Chippin is on a cruise and I’m filling in for her.”
“A cruise.” He looked skyward. “She left without me.” He met her eyes with a soulful gaze. “I’m devastated.”
Abby laughed, feeling the tension of the morning melt away for the first time.
“So, you’ve drawn the short straw.” He tucked her hand through his arm. “Come tell Uncle Jay all about it.”
“About what?” With a smile, Abby disengaged her arm and picked up two empty water pitchers.
“About slaving for my brother. Do you have a life left?” Jay followed her into the tiny coffee bar.
There was hardly room for one person, let alone two, and Abby was aware that he was standing close behind her as she filled the pitchers with ice and water. “This is only my first day.”
“Quick!” He grasped her shoulders. “Run! Flee! Get out while you still can.”
Chuckling, Abby handed him a pitcher. “I’m not afraid of hard work.”
“There’s work and there’s the rest of your life.” Jay carried the pitcher into the conference area. “My brother and I differ on how much time one should devote to each. You see, I work to live. Parker lives to work.”
It wasn’t her place to comment, though Abby thought fleetingly of the pictures of a smiling Jay that regularly appeared in the society news section of the paper. Parker always appeared in the business news section.
She followed Jay out of the coffee bar, positioned the pitchers on a tray and stepped back to examine the arrangement she’d made on top of the credenza.
“Looks like you’ve been doing this for years. Valerie couldn’t have done better.”
Jay had said exactly what Abby thirsted to hear. She exhaled and turned a brilliant smile toward him.
“Jay, I’ve been looking for you.”
Her smile vanishing instantly, Abby’s gaze flew to the doorway where Parker stood.
Something unidentifiable flashed in his eyes and she wondered if she should have announced his brother’s arrival.
“And now you’ve found me,” Jay said lightly.
“Pestering my assistant, I see.” Parker walked forward with uncharacteristic slowness and tossed file folders onto the oval conference table.
“Just giving her a hand with the meeting preps.”
Parker glanced at the credenza. “All appears to be in order.”
Though on the surface, both men were speaking in nonconfrontational tones, Abby sensed an underlying tension between them. Time to leave. “Do you need anything else, Mr. Laird?”
“Would you bring me the map I left on my worktable?”
Abby hurried into Parker’s office, uncertain whether he was angry or not. Surely she didn’t have to announce his own brother.
Abby rolled the map and headed back to the conference room. The two men were visible through the doorway. Parker had opened the files and was speaking to Jay, who wore a resigned look as he flipped through the papers in them.
“I would rather hire my own team,” he was saying as Abby quietly placed the map at Parker’s elbow.
“You arrive next week.” Parker’s voice was clipped. “You have no on-site support personnel and you have no experience.”
“I have experience,” Jay snapped. “It’s different than yours, so you discount it.”
The brothers locked gazes. Without blinking, Parker opened another file folder and pushed it toward Jay. “Ian Douglass is a good man with twenty-three years’ experience in remote drilling locations.”
“I’ll consider him. Thanks for the tip.”
“It’s not a tip. I hired him this morning.”
“Then you can un-hire him this afternoon.”
Abby held her breath and as discreetly as possible, tried to evaporate from the room.
“Abby, show everyone in here when they arrive.”
“Yes, Mr. Laird.”
He regarded her without expression, but Jay winked and Abby quickly turned away before Parker could see her smile.
CHAPTER THREE
AS THE men and women arrived for the meeting, Abby showed them in.
Both Laird brothers greeted them. Jay was a flirt and a backslapper with a contagious laugh and none of the intensity that surrounded his brother.
Jay made her smile.
Parker made her nervous.
He expected perfection and she was determined to give it to him. The pressure of wondering when she was going to make a mistake, as she surely would, was wearing on her.
“Here you go, Mr. Danvers.” She handed coffee to a man wearing a bolo string tie held by a clip with a diamond cut in the shape of Texas.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he boomed. “How’s school?”
“I took my final exam last Thursday.”
“Got your grade yet?”
She shook her head.
“You let me know, now, y’hear?”
Abby smiled. Diamond Don Danvers was a character. He loved playing the quintessential Texas oilman where all the younger women were his “sweethearts” and all the younger men his “boys.” A wildcatter from way back, he’d earned the right to his showmanship. Everybody knew Diamond Don—he made sure of it. Abby had a soft spot for him because he’d stopped and introduced himself the first time he’d noticed her sitting at her desk by the elevator. It didn’t matter to him that she was just a secretary, and it didn’t matter to him that Parker and his entourage had hiked down the hall. Diamond Don took the extra minute to learn who she was and ever after asked her about school.
Carrying his coffee, Diamond Don approached Parker and Abby shook her head, thinking that there couldn’t be two individuals more different in temperament.
Except maybe Parker and his brother.
She hovered around the credenza waiting to see if she should refresh the coffee before the meeting got under