So that really didn’t fill the lonely hole in her heart. She’d prayed every night for a brother or sister, until she’d finally gotten old enough to begin to understand why that wouldn’t ever happen. So she’d attached herself to the Allmans.
“You seem to have grown up okay despite losing your mother,” she told Rafe now. “And being left to the untender mercies of your father.”
He shrugged. “Pop’s okay.”
That almost made her angry. It wasn’t the way she remembered things.
“He can’t hit you anymore, can he?” she said softly. “You’re bigger than he is now.”
He reacted as though she’d said something crazy.
“What? Ah come on, he never hit me all that much.”
He turned to lean with his back against the railing, his arms crossed over his chest. This was something no one would ever understand. His father had always been rough on him. But that only made the times he came through and surprised the old man all the more satisfying.
“Anyway, that was the way his generation dealt with things. Say what you want about Pop, he’s a man of his time.”
She shook her head, wondering how he could defend the man. Jesse Allman was a character, a legend around their hometown of Chivaree, Texas. A hardscrabble sort of guy, he’d managed to work his much-scorned family out of poverty and up into dizzying success. He was a genius in his own way, and adept at turning his life around and making something of himself. But he hadn’t been a gentle father.
“You wouldn’t hit a child, would you?”
He gave her a look of weary resignation. “It’s called spanking, Shelley. And no, I don’t suppose I would do that. How about you?”
She shrugged. “I’m never going to have children.”
He stared at her, then shook his head. “Going for that big career in the sky, are you?”
For some reason, she felt like shivering. Was she really considered a career woman now? Oh, well, she supposed that was better than some things she might be called.
“Something like that,” she admitted reluctantly.
He turned back to look at the water. “You’re doing pretty well. I’ve heard good things about your work from Clay in Legal.”
Clay Branch, her supervisor in the legal division, another bothersome man in her life. “Maybe if I do a good job at this competition, Clay will finally pay some attention to my requests to get management training.”
“You want to be a manager?”
“I want to move up in my field. And that’s pretty much my only avenue, don’t you think?”
“Maybe so.” He grinned. “I guess that’s why you’re jumping at the chance to boss me around, huh?”
“I didn’t set up the framework for this competition.” She gazed at him challengingly. “But I’m not running from it, either. Do you feel threatened by that, Mr. Boss Man?”
Rafe didn’t respond but he moved restlessly, indicating he was ready to walk on, and she obliged. They passed a small club. Pieces of acoustic guitar music floated out into the night. The crowd was thinning out and the lights were not quite so bright in this direction.
“You used to live here in San Antonio, didn’t you?”
She nodded, feeling suddenly wary. It was not a period of her life she relished discussing. “Not for long,” she murmured, looking away.
“And you worked for Jason McLaughlin during that time, didn’t you?”
His question hit her like a slap in the face and she gasped softly. She sneaked a quick look at him. How much did he know?
Back in Chivaree, the McLaughlins were the family who founded and ran the town, and the Allmans were the outcasts. Things had changed over the last decade, and now the Allmans were riding high, running a company that was putting the McLaughlins into the shadows.
But the old legends still hung on. The McLaughlins were considered legitimate. The Allmans were the outlaws. And the two families had always hated each other.
So it was a big deal for Shelley, who had grown up identifying with the Allmans, to have worked for a McLaughlin. In many quarters, that would be considered the move of a traitor. Looking back, she considered it the move of a crazy person, a woman who had temporarily lost her mind and good sense. It certainly wasn’t something she bragged about, or wanted to remember fondly.
“That was a long time ago,” she said evasively.
“Only a little over a year, isn’t it?” He stopped, hands shoved into his pockets and looked at her searchingly. “So I guess this will be a reunion of sorts for you.”
Her heart was thumping in her chest and she reached up to finger her gold necklace nervously. “What are you talking about?”
“I just noticed it on the roster. McLaughlin Management is in the competition.” His stare was hard and penetrating. “Jason is here. Didn’t you know?”
“No, I didn’t know.” She wanted to reach out for something to lean on but she knew she couldn’t allow herself that luxury. This was something she hadn’t prepared for. She knew Jason’s business was doing very well, but they had never entered the competition before. Why did they have to decide to start now?
“Or is that exactly why you asked to be included in the team even though you had your turn last year?”
She looked into his face, bewildered. Did he really think she wanted a chance to get close to Jason McLaughlin again?
Then he knew—or at least suspected—about her past relationship with the man. That was embarrassing.
Still, a lot of people knew, so why wouldn’t he? It wasn’t anything she was proud of. And she certainly didn’t yearn for a repeat performance, if that was what he was implying. Anger shivered through her.
“Don’t worry, Rafe. I won’t be taking time off from the competition to dally with our competitors. We’ll put up a good fight for your beloved trophy.”
She started to stomp off but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“Shelley, don’t act like I’m all alone in this. Of all people, you should understand. We both come from dirt-poor backgrounds. We know what it’s like to scramble for a little dignity.”
She turned her face away, unwilling to join him in this, even rhetorically, as he went on.
“We’re not like the McLaughlins, either one of us. No silver spoons for us. We fight for every inch. So I think you understand me when I say we’ve got to win this thing. And a good part of the satisfaction in that will be beating the McLaughlins.”
“Beating the McLaughlins,” she echoed softly.
“Sure. They’ve always got the establishment behind them. We’re the little guy. We have to try harder.”
That was Rafe to a T—always trying harder. Always trying to show his father that he could be good at things. And the funny thing was, he was very good at just about everything. Too bad Jesse Allman never seemed to notice.
But she didn’t want to waste her time feeling empathy for Rafe. He was studying her reaction and she knew it. He wanted to know that she was on the side of Allman Industries, that she wasn’t going to defect to the enemy. Rebelliously she refused to give him that comfort.
She looked out at the water again. “I thought maybe, now that Jodie is marrying Kurt McLaughlin,