A Bargain With The Boss

He definitely wasn’t Dixon. Dixon’s confidence was never cocky. And Dixon had never made her heart pump faster and heat rise up her neck.

“I need your help,” he stated without preamble.

Amber immediately came to her feet. “Is something wrong?”

“Come with me.” His walk was decisive and his voice definitive.

She experienced a new and completely inappropriate shiver of reaction.

This was a place of business, she told herself. He wasn’t thinking about her as a woman. He sure wasn’t thinking the same things she was thinking—that his commanding voice meant he might haul her into his office, pin her up against a wall and kiss her senseless.

What was wrong with her?

Tuck headed into Dixon’s office and she forcibly shook off her silly fantasy.

“Do you know his password?” Tuck asked, crossing the big room and rounding the mahogany desk.

“His password to what?” she asked.

“To log on to the system.” Tuck leaned down and moved the mouse to bring the screen to life.

She didn’t answer. Dixon had given her his password a couple of months back on a day when he was in Europe and needed her to send him some files. She still remembered it, but she knew he’d never intended for her to use it again. What she technically knew, and what she ought to use, were two different things.

Tuck glanced up sharply. “Tell me the password, Amber.”

“I...”

“If you don’t, I’ll only have the systems group reset it.”

He made a valid point. As the acting head of Tucker Transportation, he could do whatever he wanted with the company computer system.

“Fine. It’s ClownSchool, capital C and S, dollar sign, one, eight, zero.”

Tuck typed. “You might want to think about whose side you’re on here.”

“I’m not taking sides.” Though she was committed to keeping her promise to Dixon. “I’m trying to be professional.”

“And I’m trying to save Tucker Transportation.”

“Save it from what?” Had something happened?

“From ruin without my father or Dixon here to run it.”

“What are you looking for?” she asked, realizing that he was exaggerating for effect and deciding to move past the hyperbole.

Tucker Transportation was a solid company with a team of long-term, capable executives running the departments. Even from the top, there was a limited amount of damage anyone could do in a month.

“Clues to where he went,” said Tuck.

Then Tuck seemed to have an inspiration. He lifted the desk phone and dialed.

A moment later, a ring chimed inside Dixon’s top drawer.

Tuck drew it open and removed Dixon’s cell phone, holding it while it rang.

“How does it still have battery power?” he asked, more to himself than anything.

“I’ve been charging it,” said Amber.

His attention switched to her, his face crinkling in obvious annoyance. “You didn’t think to tell me his cell phone was in his desk drawer?”

Amber wasn’t sure how to answer that.

“And how did you know it was there anyway? Were you snooping through his drawers?”

“No.” She quickly shook her head. She was intensely respectful of Dixon’s privacy. “He told me he was leaving it behind.”

Tuck’s piercing gray eyes narrowed, his brows slanting together in a way that wrinkled his forehead. “So he told you he was leaving? Before he left, you knew he was going?”

Amber realized she’d spoken too fast. But now she had no choice but to give a reluctant nod.

Tuck straightened and came to the end of the desk, his voice gravelly and ominous. “Before you answer this, remember I’m the acting president of this company. This is a direct order, and I don’t look kindly on insubordination. Did he tell you where he was going?”

Dixon had given her an emergency number. And she’d recognized the area code. But he hadn’t flat-out told her where he was going.

“No,” she said, promising herself it wasn’t technically a lie. “He needs the time, Tuck. He’s been overworked for months, and Kassandra’s betrayal hit him hard.”

“That’s not for you to decide.”

She knew that was true. But it wasn’t for Tuck to decide, either.

“He doesn’t even know about our father,” said Tuck.

“If he knew, he’d come home.”

Tuck’s voice rose. “Of course he’d come home.”

“And then he’d be back to square one, worse off than he was before. I know it must be hard for you without him.”

“You know? You don’t know anything.”

“I’ve worked here for five years.” It was on the tip of her tongue to say that it was a whole lot longer than Tuck had worked here, but she checked herself in time.

“As an assistant.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have the full picture. You don’t know the risks, the critical decisions.”