Hot August Nights

Or so she thought until she came across his name two weeks later in a volunteer packet Shelter’s home office had mailed her. The sponsor material she had seen for the fund-raiser hadn’t listed Callaway Construction among its benefactors. She was almost certain of it. But right on the back of the single-page brochure that listed the basics for each volunteer, listed under project management was Callaway Construction, Matthew J. Callaway, President.

The connection certainly explained his presence at the auction. It did nothing, however, to ease the trepidation she felt about what she had to do.

Preferring to be optimistic, she told herself the disquieting little discovery had no effect one way or the other on her. Her own father had his name on dozens of companies. Some of which he rarely set foot in. He made the decisions, but other people did the actual work. When she arrived in Florida, Matt would be off building major real-estate developments in Newport News, Atlanta or somewhere equally distant.

That logic stayed with her until the second week of August when she stepped off a chartered plane at the landing strip outside the little backwater town of Gray Lake, Florida. She’d barely glanced through the heat waves rising from the tarmac when she saw him standing, arms crossed, beside a big, bull-nosed silver pickup truck.

Converging ahead of him were three reporters and a camera crew.

Chapter Three

“Ms. Kendrick. Paula Littleton. WFAZ out of Sarasota.” A tall brunette in a pale blue blouse and navy skirt stuck out her hand as Ashley reached the bottom rung of the commuter plane’s short flight of retractable steps. The woman had amazingly white teeth and a grip that could rival any man’s. “Will you be staying with the rest of the crew while you’re working here?”

Ashley made herself smile as she glanced at the foam-tipped microphone the woman thrust in front of her face.

“I imagine I am. I’m not being treated differently from any of the other volunteers.”

Pulling her hand from the Amazon’s grip, she tried not to glance toward the man watching her from fifty feet away and popped up the handle on her black travel bag. Her smaller bag hung from her shoulder.

“What is it exactly that you’ll be doing?” the reporter asked as Ashley started forward with her luggage.

“I don’t know yet. I understand that I’ll get my assignment at the site.”

“Are you really going to work on this project until it’s completed?”

Ashley kept her smile in place. “That’s my intention.”

“Miss Kendrick.” Another microphone appeared beside the first, this one in the hand of an attractive gentleman with thick dark hair wearing an open-collared dress shirt. He apparently used the same toothpaste as his female counterpart.

“Tony Shultz. Sun Daily News,” he said, not bothering with a handshake. “It seems Senator Kendrick’s constituents have welcomed his new wife with open arms. They’re calling her marriage to him a triumph for the working girl. How do you feel about having one of your servants as an in-law?”

“I’m perfectly fine with it,” she replied, deciding he wasn’t so attractive after all. He was after dirt.

“But doesn’t her background as your parents’ gardener and the daughter of their housekeeper make it awkward for some of you?”

“Addie Lowe Kendrick is family,” she replied, politely. “And I don’t discuss my family with the press.” She flashed him a smile. “I’d be happy to talk to you about the Shelter Project, though.”

Slanting her male counterpart a look that clearly said he should have known better than to ask a Kendrick about a Kendrick, the brunette edged herself closer—only to be aced out by another reporter half hidden by Tony.

“Susie Ortega. Evening Entertainment. Miss Kendrick,” came the voice attached to a white sleeve and a microphone, how do you feel about Jason Roberts’s engagement to Sarah Bradford-Hill?”

“They’re engaged? I’d heard he was seeing someone, but I didn’t know they’d made it official.” Her smile turned pleased. “I’m delighted for them both.”

Jason was Ashley’s ex-almost-fiancé, a charming, brilliant, socially prominent attorney whose rising success had ultimately made her realize how totally ill suited they were for each other. Over the two years they’d been together, the more well-known he had become, the more he’d craved the publicity and attention she had always sought to avoid. With him, parties and a constant stream of strangers would have been a major part of her life. She might have forced herself to cope with such a lifestyle had he been able to understand her need for occasional downtime. But he hadn’t, and they both eventually admitted that they simply weren’t being fair to each other.

They had broken up over a year ago, quite amicably—much to the disappointment of the tabloids.

“Are you still seeing Eric Parks?” asked the Entertainment reporter.

Eric? “I’ve only been out with him once.” And that had been over three months ago, if she remembered correctly. She’d met the young senator at a political dinner with her brother Gabe, and been totally impressed by his seemingly selfless interest in his causes. On a date, all he’d been interested in was himself and getting her influence with her brother.

“Will you see him again?”

Not in this lifetime, she thought. “I’m sure I’ll run into him somewhere.” And others just like him, which was pretty much why her social life was limited to a few highly trusted friends.

Paula closed the gap. Ahead of them two cameramen and three photographers walked backward, cameras rolling. “Why the Shelter Project, Miss Kendrick?” she asked, edging out little Susie and blocking the male reporter as Ashley continued across the apron of the runway. Heat radiated up from the black tarmac, adding twenty degrees to the already sultry air. Matt had been right. It was hot there in August. The humidity was also thick enough to cut with a stick. “There are a hundred different charities you could lend your name to,” the woman continued. “Why this one?”

“Because of what it does.” She did her level best to avoid the pull of Matt’s eyes. He was still watching her. She could feel it as she tried to focus on the question and the woman who’d posed it. When a microphone was in a person’s face, she’d always found it wise to avoid distractions.

“It’s actually one of my mother’s favorite causes,” she explained, terribly distracted anyway. “I’ve become interested through her. Shelter’s goal is to put decent roofs over the heads of the working poor and their families. A large percentage of that group is single women with dependent children. That’s where my passion lies.”

“With disadvantaged women and children?”

“Absolutely,” she said, and would have mentioned how privileged she felt to work with them had Matt and a dozen questions about his presence not eroded her focus anyway.

A fourth reporter and camera crew of two hung back near a van parked six sedans and a couple of SUVs away from Matt’s truck, all of which were lined up on the other side of the chain-link fence that separated the parking lot and tiny one-room terminal from the single runway. The man in charge of the crew appeared to be the short, baby-faced ball of energy in a backward baseball cap who bustled through the eight-foot gap in the fence and headed straight for her.

Refusing to let anyone ahead of him, Tony-the-Tactless jockeyed back into place. In the heat, his aftershave was almost overpowering.

“The Shelter Project is a nonprofit organization,” he began. “Are you or your mother on its board?”

“No,” she replied, not at all certain where the guy was going with that query.

“Are you friends with anyone on the board?”

“I’ve met the board members,” she admitted, couching her words carefully. “They were all at the fund-raiser in Richmond last month. I would say I’m acquainted with them.”

“What about your brother?”

“My brother?”

“Senator Kendrick.”

He was fishing. For what she had no idea.

“My brother has more friends than I can count. He also has a staff that is far better prepared than I to answer questions about him. I’m here to build a house.”

Taking advantage of his momentary silence, Paula popped back in.

“When do you actually start work on the project?”

“Today. I was told to arrive ready for work.”

The short guy stuck out his hand.

“Ron Conway. Network special projects,” he said in that terse way media people had of identifying themselves. “I’m directing the documentary. The guy in the red cap over there is Andy,” he said, nodding to a young man who barely looked old enough to shave. “He’s audio. The guy with the ponytail behind the camera is Steve. Just go about your business and pretend we’re not here. We can pick up most conversations from twenty feet away, so don’t worry about us missing anything. We’ll be with you the whole way.”

She couldn’t begin to tell him how thrilled she was to hear that.