The Tycoon's Proposal

The gesture looked as if it hurt him, Lissa thought. Clearly this was a man who didn’t enjoy being left out of the loop.

“When are you planning to do this?”

“Well, that’s a bit more difficult. I can’t just lock the door and walk off. This house holds many years of memories to be sorted out, and only I can do that. But Lissa’s going to be my hands and feet while I get the job done—starting tomorrow. I’m going to go upstairs for a nap now, so you just entertain yourselves for a while, children.”

As her footsteps retreated up the stairs, Kurt turned to Lissa. “If you think you’re going to walk in here and get away with this—”

It was clearly time to take a stand. “Get away with what? I’d say Hannah’s the boss, and you’re not—so what she decides goes, Kurt.”

“Maybe I can’t contradict her orders. But I can darned sure try to make sure she’s safe. Put your coat on.”

“Why?”

“Well, we’re not going to go build a snowman. Before I let you start chauffeuring Gran around, you’re going to have to pass a driving test. Scare me, and you flunk. Got it?”

She would have told him to jump headfirst into a snowdrift, except that Lissa knew some practice behind the wheel would be a very good idea—and she figured if she could drive safely with a frustrated Kurt riding shotgun, then she wouldn’t be putting Hannah into any danger at all. And if his backseat driving got to be unbearable, she mused, she would just slam the passenger side of the car into a tree somewhere and walk home….

“Watch out for that truck,” Kurt said, and Lissa pulled her attention back to the street.

Hannah’s car was small and light, and as the afternoon waned and traffic grew heavier the packed-down snow which remained on the streets grew ever more slippery. But, after a false start or two, Lissa’s confidence began to come back, despite the silent and glowering male in the passenger seat next to her.

Maybe Hannah had been right after all, she thought, and driving a car—like riding a bicycle—was a skill which never quite vanished from the subconscious mind. If it didn’t bother her to have Kurt either issuing instructions or seething not quite silently—like a pasta pot just about to boil—then she could handle normal traffic along with Hannah’s chatter with no trouble at all.

“Well?” she said finally, after a solid hour of negotiating everything from narrow alleys to eight-lane freeways. “Since I haven’t smashed either you or the car, and you haven’t grabbed for the steering wheel or the brake in at least twenty minutes, I’m going to assume that the test is over and take you back to Hannah’s house.”

“Not quite. Parallel park in front of that diner up there.”

“Parallel park? Nobody ever has to actually do that.”

His level look said that she would do it or else, so Lissa sighed and took a stab at it. Two tries later she was quite proud of the result. “Good enough?”

“Shut the car off. Let’s have a cup of coffee.”

“I’m honored at the invitation, but—”

“Don’t be. This is the only way we can talk without Gran interrupting.”

“We’ve been riding around for an hour,” Lissa protested, “and you haven’t had a word to say the whole time. So why should I—?”

“I wasn’t going to risk taking your attention off the road. Come on.” He slammed the car door and kicked at the wad of snow and ice which had built up behind the front wheel. “Looks like this thing could stand some new tires. Would you like coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?”

She settled for tea and refused a piece of apple pie to go with it. Kurt surveyed her over the rim of his coffee cup and said, “All right, what’s really going on here? How did all this happen?”

Lissa sighed. “I didn’t stalk your grandmother, if that’s what you’re suggesting. It just happened to be my table she chose at lunchtime. There aren’t all that many of us working at the union, you know—not as regulars in the dining room, at least. It’s also the last day before the holidays, so a lot of the kids who work there have already gone home for Christmas.”

She waited for him to ask why she wasn’t going anywhere for Christmas. But he didn’t.

“Look,” Lissa said, “I’ll tell you exactly what happened. Mrs. Meadows left because she had an appointment of some sort, and your grandmother stayed to finish her coffee. I cleared the dessert dishes, she wished me a Merry Christmas, then she got up from the table and started to sway. I helped her back in her chair and offered to find a doctor. She said no, but would I just sit down with her for a minute, so I did. Then when she felt better she asked if I’d walk her out to her car. When I found out she was planning to drive herself home, I suggested she take a cab, and—”

“And she offered you a job? Just like that?”

“She’s not quite that fast a worker,” Lissa admitted. “It took her maybe ten minutes in all.”

“Why?”

“Ask her. How should I know why she offered me a job?”

“I will. But what I really want to know is why you took it.”

“Because I need a job—”

“But why do you need a job? You were the math whiz of the entire campus—why aren’t you a chief financial officer at some big corporation by now?”

All the plans she had made and the dreams she had dreamed…. Lissa had thought she’d come to terms with all the losses and the delays, but it wasn’t until now—when Kurt Callahan asked the question in that slightly cynical tone—that she realized how much it hurt that after so long she was still marking time.

“Did you get caught with your fingers in the till, or what?”

Lissa bristled. “No. I’m still here because I had to drop out for a while. I have one more semester to go before I finish my degree.”

He went absolutely still. “Why, Lissa?”

“Why should it matter to you? It’s long over with.” Then she bit her lip and said quietly, “I’m still here because my father got lymphoma and I had to drop out and take care of him in the last year of his life. That cost me my scholarships, because walking out in the middle of a term doesn’t sit well with the financial aid people around here. I worked for a while, and saved money to come back, but I was just getting up to speed again when I got pneumonia. That knocked me down for months. I couldn’t keep up with classes, so I had to quit again.”

He seemed to be waiting for something else. Finally, when the silence drew out painfully, he said, “That’s nasty luck.”

Was there a hidden meaning in his tone? She told herself it was pointless to try to analyze. “Yes, it was.”

“But hardly anything new for you. You dropped out of that calculus class, too.”

“Noticed that, did you?” Lissa said dryly. “I’m amazed you were paying attention.”

“Dammit, Lissa, I tried to talk to you, but you wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t even stop walking down the hall, much less let me apologize. And then before I knew it you were gone—”

“So what would you have said you were sorry for? Not making love, I’ll bet.”

“No,” he admitted. “Not that.”

“Then what? Getting caught? Making sure everybody in the class knew you’d won your bet?” She saw curiosity flicker in his eyes, and she took a deep breath and reminded herself that it didn’t matter anymore. The last thing she wanted to do was let him think she still cared. She’d buried those feelings long ago. “One-night stands happen, Kurt. I was quite a little more innocent than you were, that’s true, and it annoyed the hell out of me that you’d told everyone in class I slept with you—”

“I didn’t tell them.”

“Oh, really? Then how did they know? I don’t recall them being in your room observing.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Lissa, a brass band could have marched through my room that night and you wouldn’t have noticed.”

Heat swept up her throat, over her face. “The point is, it’s over. There’s nothing to be gained by dissecting what happened.” Though at the time I’d have liked to dissect you. “I believe, before we got sidetracked a few minutes ago, that you were asking why I need a second job. Right now my budget’s unusually tight, so—”

“Couldn’t you make more at some other kind of job, instead of working at the union?”