“Hello. You must be Derrick Bertrim. I’m Laurel Hillman. Since you’ll be staying here at my house for the next few months, I guess I’m something like your tour guide while you’re in Maryland.”
“Hi. Y-yes, I’m Derrick, but I go by Deke.” He shook the hand Laurel extended as he mentally chastised himself for stuttering. He had met beautiful women before. Hell, he dated beautiful women. Seeing one out of context shouldn’t short-circuit his brain like this. “It’s nice to meet you, but you don’t have to worry about showing me around. Once your husband directs me to the factory, I’ll be fine on my own.”
Laurel grimaced. “I’m sorry. I guess no one told you, but I don’t have a husband. I’m L. Hillman. I’m the Shipping and Receiving supervisor at Graham Metals. I’m also the person who takes in the executive trainees.”
Deke froze. When he’d agreed to this assignment, he thought he would be living with a grizzled old man and his family. Somebody with enough years at the plant that he had earned the position, and somebody with enough professional savvy that he did the favor of allowing executive trainees to room with him so they would remember him when they got to the top. He didn’t have a clue he would be spending the next three months with a tall, thin woman with luscious auburn hair that curved at her shoulders and eyes so green Deke could see their color even though she stood in the shadow of her front door. Because the top two buttons of her white blouse were open, her long slender neck was exposed for his perusal. Well-worn jeans hugged her trim hips.
“Come in,” she said, still smiling pleasantly as she opened the door of her home a little wider so he could enter.
“Thank you.” Deke stepped into the foyer, carrying his duffel bag and suitcase, stifling the urge to loosen the collar of his shirt because he was incredibly uncomfortable and warm. Very very warm.
“Follow me,” she said, and Deke nodded.
Okay, Deke thought, as Laurel led him down a corridor decorated with plants, wall hangings and knick-knacks. So he had to regroup. No big deal. Lots of executives and plant supervisors were women. He didn’t even have to think about that to know it wasn’t an issue. The issue was that he was about to be living with this particular supervisor who was a woman, and hadn’t she said she wasn’t married?
Since every other executive trainee stayed here, Deke reminded himself that if there was a problem, it was his, not hers. She had already proved herself to be trustworthy, but more than that, no matter what curve this situation threw him, he had to handle it.
When they stepped into her spotless yellow-and-white kitchen, he said, “You have a beautiful home.”
“Thank you. I like it,” Laurel said, leading him past a round table surrounded by low-backed captain’s chairs, then built-in maple cabinets with white countertops to a hidden stairway. “Let’s take your things upstairs and I’ll show you your room.”
At the top of the steps, Laurel told him that he would use the bedroom on the right. She explained that the second-floor bathroom would be his and that the room across the hall with its lounge chair, television and desk, would also be at his disposal for the duration of his stay.
“You’re giving me the entire second floor?”
“The company pays me a lot of money.”
“I know, but this is your home,” Deke protested.
Laurel only laughed. “This home belongs to the bank. The money I get for your stay here will pay down some of the principal on my mortgage, and I’ll get the deed a lot sooner. I’m more than happy to let you use the entire second floor.”
Studying her lovely, innocent face, guilt flooded Deke. Though it was necessary to covertly infiltrate the plant to discover the reason for the discrepancies detected during the last audit, he suddenly felt incredibly wrong about deceiving this woman. In fact, he felt like a criminal. It was the first time since his stepfather’s assistant, Tom Baxter, created the plan to have Deke pretend to be an executive trainee that he realized he wouldn’t simply be lying to an entire plant, he would also be taking advantage of someone in an extremely personal way. A woman, no less.
He wondered if that wasn’t the real reason he became so flustered when he met her, and decided he wasn’t so much attracted to her as guilt-ridden. His family didn’t use, abuse or take advantage of anyone. If Deke was uncomfortable, overly warm and stuttering, it was because spying went against his beliefs.
Unfortunately neither he nor Tom could think of another way to ferret out the problem without alerting the person creating it and giving him or her time to cover his or her tracks.
“I don’t need the entire second floor.”
“Trust me. I have two young daughters. You will be happy for the sanctuary.”
“I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”
“Well, don’t,” she said simply, and led him downstairs again. “I’m fine.”
Deke heard a slight quiver in her voice, and intuition he didn’t want to possess about this woman kicked in. She wasn’t fine. Something was wrong in her life. Part of him considered that if he could ascertain her problem and fix it, he could return the favor she was unwittingly paying him and his family. The sense of guilt he felt would leave him. He could get on with his mission, and all would be right with the world again.
But he dismissed that because he didn’t know for sure she had a problem. He was only guessing. And if she did, he didn’t know that he could fix it. Besides, it wasn’t his intention to get too involved with her, the town or the plant. He simply wanted to figure out why the audit was off by so much money and get back to the corporate office where he belonged because he didn’t have time for this. His stepfather, Roger Smith, planned to retire in two years, and in twenty-four short months, Deke would become responsible for the jobs of three thousand people and his family’s fortune. Having spent the past ten years traveling the country, playing minor-league baseball, only working for Graham Industries in the off-season, he wasn’t current with all the company’s projects. And he wanted to be current. Actually he wanted to be brilliant.
No, the truth was his family expected him to be brilliant. And he always did what his family expected. If he had been older than thirteen when his father died, he would have taken over his mother’s family’s company right then and there. But he had only been thirteen, his grandfather hired the man his mother eventually married, and Deke got a two-decade reprieve. He worked summers for his stepfather, got the right schooling and even worked in the off-seasons while he amused himself with his passion for baseball. Still, everybody knew he would drop that when the time came, and everybody knew he would do what was expected. Because he always did.
Which was exactly why he was here in Maryland.
“Mother, is dinner ready?” Laurel called, leading Deke into the kitchen.
“Ready to be put on the table when you’re ready to eat,” the woman who was obviously Laurel’s mother said. As tall as Laurel, with gray hair and the same fabulous green eyes, she stepped forward, wiping her hands in her apron as Deke and Laurel entered the kitchen.
“This is my mother, Judy Russell,” Laurel said, introducing him. “And this is Deke Bertrim. Like the other trainees, Deke’s agreed to stay with us while he’s at Graham Metals.”
“That’s nice,” Laurel’s mother said. “You two want to set the table?”
“Yes,” Deke agreed, jumping at the chance to help her because that was an easy way to pull his weight and maybe temper some of his uneasiness.
“That’s okay. You take a seat,” Laurel insisted when he followed her to a cupboard