The Boss's Daughter

She rushed home to change her clothes and found the red light blinking madly on her answering machine. Remembering how the simple act of picking up her messages that morning had fractured her life, she almost ignored this batch. But habit made her push the button anyway, turning the volume up so she could listen from her bedroom while she changed.

Her mother had called. Just to chat, she’d said, and to invite Amy to stop in over the weekend and see her new furniture. She sounded almost normal, Amy thought. Only someone who knew her very well would have detected strain in Carol’s voice.

The second call was from the head curator of the museum. She swore under her breath. Dylan had kept her so buried in files that she’d completely forgotten to make the necessary calls to warn her prospective employers of the sudden hitch in her plans.

Funny, she thought, how it had taken that speed bump to help her see what it was she really wanted to do. She didn’t mind calling the museum and the college to let them know that she wouldn’t be available after all. But the magazine…the magazine was a little different.

Connoisseur’s Choice was far from being the stuffy old publication that Dylan had suggested it was. It was a glossy, sophisticated monthly magazine which covered an enormous range of both genuine antiques and interesting collectibles. A sort of reference book which happened to be published in segments, the magazine had actually become a collectible itself, for there was a brisk demand for secondhand issues—even ten-year-old ones. If in doubt, buyers and collectors consulted Connoisseur’s Choice, and they ignored its suggestions at their peril. Just to be associated with the magazine was to become an instant authority.

As for the position of roving expert, it might have been fashioned especially for Amy. “We’re looking for someone who has experience with everything,” the editor had told her. “Not just priceless paintings or hand-hammered silver or Tang horses. Our readers are interested in those things, certainly, but not many of them will ever own one. We need someone who’s interested in, and knowledgeable about, things like political buttons and movie posters and patent medicine bottles.”

“Someone exactly like me, Brad,” Amy had said. And though Brad Parker hadn’t committed himself at the time, he had seemed to agree.

Earlier in the week, he had called to tell her that the publisher liked her credentials and he expected to be able to make her an offer within a few days. And now she was going to have to tell him that she wouldn’t be able to take the job for a month at least—and hope that he wanted her badly enough to wait.

It was a rotten shame, she thought, that Dylan Copeland hadn’t jumped at the chance to prove himself by taking over the helm at Sherwood Auctions. Odd, too. The one thing she would never have suspected of him was a shortage of initiative.

She hailed a cab to take her to the Maxwells’ apartment tower rather than risk finding a place to park, because she’d cut things a little finer than she’d planned. She was still trying to catch her breath as she rang the Maxwells’ doorbell on the top floor just a couple of minutes after the hour specified on the invitation.

A bluff, hearty man greeted her, and Amy apologized for being late. “I’m afraid I didn’t allow time for a security check, but the guard downstairs was quite troubled over the fact that I don’t look like a Mr. Sherwood.”

Rex Maxwell laughed heartily. “I’m glad to know Pete doesn’t need his eyes examined,” he said and guided her over to the bar. Immediately the doorbell chimed again and he moved off to answer it.

Just as well, Amy thought. She could hardly ask him straight off whether he’d decided to auction the Picasso.

With a glass in her hand, she began to wander through the apartment. The rooms were huge and bare-looking, with blocky steel furniture and the occasional modern painting on the walls. She saw nothing of the caliber of a Picasso, though. Did they keep it in a vault somewhere? If so, she understood why they were thinking of selling it, because there was little point in owning a painting like that if you couldn’t see and enjoy it.

Or had the painting already gone to some other auction house?

Until now, her feelings about Gavin’s fears of losing his clients had been almost academic, but suddenly the threat had become much more personal. She felt her chest tightening.

Remember the size of that stack of files, she reminded herself. Her father must have been working on a hundred prospective clients. Some of them simply had to come through; the percentages were in her favor.

Still, the sheer size of the number was not as reassuring as Amy would have liked it to be. If—despite all his experience and contacts—Gavin needed to work on a hundred prospects in order to end up with just a few auctions, then how could she hope to snare enough business to satisfy his needs?

She saw a familiar face here and there in the crowd, mostly people that she’d happened to notice when they had attended auctions but a few that she’d worked with directly in the last couple of years.

One of them, a blue-haired matron, came up to her. “How’s your mother doing these days, Amy?”

Amy flinched. Why, she wondered, did people insist on asking her about Carol’s health and Gavin’s marital plans? Because they felt uncomfortable calling up Carol or Gavin, she supposed. But did they honestly expect Amy to spill the gory details?

“I haven’t talked to her for a few days,” she said honestly.

The woman sniffed. “I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise, now that you’ve taken sides with your father.”

Unbelieving, Amy stared at her. “What on earth makes you think that?”

“My friend called me a few minutes ago. Cell phones are wonderful things, aren’t they?” She patted her handbag. “Our whole bridge club has them now. She was in the waiting room at Sherwood Auctions a few minutes ago and heard that you’ve started working there again.”

“News certainly travels quickly,” Amy said.

“And what does Carol think of you making up with your father?”

If she knew the whole story she’d probably be thrilled.

“Why don’t you ask her?” Amy said coolly. “I’m sure she’d love to hear from her friends.”

The matron fixed her with a stare. “I don’t know what your father is thinking of, the old goat,” she said. “Taking up with a bimbo, at his age. No wonder his heart attacked him.”

She’s just fishing, Amy told herself. Trying to get a reaction. “Shall I tell him you’re devastated that another obligation will prevent you from attending his wedding?” she asked gently. “Excuse me, I see someone I must speak with.”

She moved through the crowd, nodding and smiling at people she didn’t even see, still shaken by the encounter.

She’d known, of course, that the Sherwoods’ friends would be startled by the divorce and stunned by Gavin’s choice of a new wife. And not only their friends objected, either—on the night of his heart attack, Amy had heard one of Gavin’s nurses mutter something about Honey being so dim she couldn’t spell CPR. But it hadn’t occurred to Amy that so many people would take the matter personally, much less feel they had a right to comment.

That very direct animosity wasn’t going to make her job any easier, Amy reflected. It wasn’t only Gavin’s heart attack that had threatened his business.

She reached the far end of the room and turned back, and her gaze snagged on the Picasso. It was hanging alone on a stark white wall, and nearby stood a woman who looked as much like the figure in the painting as it was possible for a living human to resemble the modernistic form. Her face was all sharp angles and shadows, and the individual features—though not unpleasing—didn’t seem to belong together. As Amy watched, the woman waved a hand casually toward the painting and spoke animatedly to the man standing next to her.

Amy studied the man and, recognizing him, allowed herself to breathe again. He was a bright light of local industry, not an appraiser or art expert or auctioneer, as she’d feared. For the moment at least, the Picasso was still within her reach.

“It’s a very nice painting,” said a man standing next to her. “But you shouldn’t look at it with that covetous expression, Amy. Mrs. Maxwell might object.”

Amy looked up at the editor of Connoisseur’s Choice. “Hi, Brad,” she said, trying not to sound breathless. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Oh, we get invited to all the best parties. It’s one of the perks of working for the magazine.”

“Speaking of the magazine,” Amy began, “I was going to call you tomorrow.”

“Getting anxious? It does seem to have taken the publisher forever to make up his mind. But he finally gave me the go-ahead this afternoon to offer you the job at the salary we discussed. When can you start?”

“That’s the problem, I’m afraid. Until my father’s back on his feet…”

She tried to explain why she was needed so badly at Sherwood Auctions for a while, but the hollow feeling inside her expanded as she watched Brad’s face darken.

“I was hoping to have a new roving expert on board next week,” he said. “Waiting a month or more…I don’t know what the publisher’s going to say, Amy.”

“He’s the one who’s taken three weeks to make up his mind that he wanted me at all,” she argued.

“As far as that goes, Mr. Dougal’s getting old and a bit unpredictable these days. We’ve learned not to expect him to make snap decisions. But when he does make up his mind—”

“But what’s the difference if it’s a little longer before I can start? Almost everyone you hire must have some loose ends to tie up before they can start work.”

Brad swirled the ice cubes which were all that remained of his drink. “I’ll have to run it past him again and let you know.” He turned toward the bar.

“Good,” Amy called after him. “By the time he gets back to you, I’ll be free. In the meantime, you can find me at Sherwood Auctions—working hard so I can get out of there in a hurry.”

With a sigh, she set her own glass on the tray of a passing waiter. The party was already starting to break up, she realized. The Maxwells, it seemed, not only expected their guests to arrive punctually but to depart the same way.