Predicting Rain?

“Okay,” Rain said with a smile. “I’ll see you soon.” Then Rain left, quietly going past the sleeping children and out the entrance doors. The main reception area was to her right, more corridors to her left, and straight across the broad, marble-floored area, was a bank of elevators. She saw a lady step into the nearest car, and she called out, “Hold the car, please!” as she hurried past a couple of people.

The woman, thin with short, dark hair smiled at Rain as she kept the door from closing. Rain stepped inside and pushed the button for the sixth floor. Before the door closed she saw Jack Ford walking toward the center.

This Jack Ford wasn’t the same man she’d met in her ill-fated foray into the loft in the small hours of the morning. Now he was the image of what she’d labeled him that night, a corporate suit. He was in one of those suits, done in dove gray, double breasted, sleekly tailored and probably obscenely expensive, as expensive as the leather briefcase clutched in his free hand and the leather shoes on his feet. He was on a cell phone, and his face, even more sharply angular in the clear light, was set in an expression of extreme concentration. The tension in him the night before had only intensified, and she had the impression that whatever was going on right then, wasn’t good.

He stopped right by the doors to the center, and closed his eyes as the elevator doors finally slid shut. She was inordinately relieved that he hadn’t seen her. At least working in the center, she wouldn’t have to be around him at all. There was no way they’d get involved. Her use of words shocked her slightly. Involved? He didn’t even exist in the same reality she did and even more importantly, he wouldn’t want to.

Chapter Three

Jack knew the cat was at the loft to stay, at least until Zane and Lindsey’s lives calmed down a bit. The cat came and went as he pleased, and he only bothered with Jack when it came to food. Food ruled the cat, and the cat ruled his world as he perceived it. This morning he’d shown up and decided that it was time to eat, just as Jack was leaving the loft. Foolishly he’d gone to get the food, put it out for the cat, spilled some of the tuna on the sleeve of his jacket and had to change. All in all, it had made him more than fifteen minutes late getting to the office.

He’d barely come in the main entrance of LynTech when his cell phone rang and it was Eve. He’d been trying to make contact with her by something other than e-mail for the last two days, and now that she was on the line, he was rushed. He kept walking, and spoke into it, “Finally.”

“Yes, love, finally,” she said, her voice faintly tinny on the line. “I’ve been trying to catch you everywhere, and the cell phone number you gave me kept cutting off before it connected.”

“Well, I’m on another continent,” he said, nodding to the security guard at the front, a tall, well-built man in a tailored khaki uniform.

“I know. And that’s—”

A beep cut off her next word and he didn’t hear it. “Eve, I’ve got another call coming in. Let me call you when I get to my office. Where are you?”

“At Father’s.”

“Okay, give me ten minutes,” and he clicked over to the other call. But before he said anything, he heard a voice somewhere ahead of him. Her voice. Rain’s. He couldn’t make out the words, just that it was her voice, but when he looked up, he didn’t see her.

He hadn’t seen her again at the loft, either, and he’d thought she’d left with the old hippie for a trip. Someone on the bottom floor had said George was out of town, that he always took off like that. But for that single moment he’d been sure he’d heard her, then he’d realized how ridiculous that would have been. No one at LynTech would be walking around with bare feet, tie-dyed T-shirts or waist-length hair.

“Ford here,” he said into the phone as he stopped in the corridor by a set of brightly painted doors with Just For Kids on them.

It was Martin Griggs, the negotiator for EJS with LynTech. Jack pushed the elevator call button, hoped that he wouldn’t lose the signal in the car, and by the time he stepped out into the corridor, he’d forgotten about voices and was focused on business again. He assured Griggs that it wasn’t anyone at the top level of LynTech who let word of the deal leak out, and by the time he got to his office, Griggs had agreed to try to get E. J. Sommers in on a conference call.

Jack hung up, and put in a call to Quint Gallagher in New York, who was there for his son’s wedding. Gallagher had known E. J. Sommers in the past and he could be an edge for them. But all he got was a voice mail service and he left a message. He hung up, went into the office they’d given him for the duration and was just taking off his jacket when Rita Donovan, executive assistant to both Zane and Matt Terrell, came into his office.

“Mr. Ford,” the thin, dark haired woman said in her usual staccato voice. “I was looking for you. Mr. Holden needs to talk to you as soon as you’re in.”

“Okay,” he said as he put his suit coat over the back of his chair. “Where is he?”

“His office. His wife’s not feeling well, so he’s staying with her.”

“I’ll be down right away,” he said.

She turned to go, but stopped. “Oh, Mr. Ford, a Miss Ryder called about fifteen minutes ago. She’s been trying to reach you and couldn’t get through.”

He’d forgotten about calling Eve back, and that bothered him. He wasn’t sure why he thought it, but if he just talked to her for a while, some of the insanity that seemed to be falling into his life would disappear. “I need to call her back. Can Zane wait a few minutes?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

He glanced at his watch and then at Rita. “Okay, could you call Miss Ryder and tell her I’ll get back to her within the hour?” He scribbled her number in London on a sheet of paper and crossed to give it to her. “And tell her I’m sorry.”

“Of course, sir,” Rita said as she took the paper, then left.

Jack only took enough time to print out a file he’d e-mailed to the office earlier, before he headed for Zane’s office. Once he arrived, he thought no one was there. Then he looked past the cluttered desk in the large office, into another room across the way. He didn’t know what the original purpose of that room had been, but it was being used as a playroom of sorts for Zane’s son, Walker.

But Walker wasn’t there. Zane was with Lindsey who was all curled up on a thick mat on the floor. Zane was beside her, rubbing her back and talking softly to her. “Zane?” Jack said, hating to interrupt, but knowing they had to talk.

Zane twisted, nodded to Jack, then leaned over his wife, said something to her, kissed her quickly and stood. He came out of the room, closed the door quietly and shook his head.

“I don’t know why they call it morning sickness, because she has it all the time.” The rangy man was in a plain white shirt, with its long sleeves rolled up on his forearms, and navy slacks. His sandy hair was mussed as if he’d been running his fingers through it. “She had some tofu thing last night that Matt’s wife, Brittany, swore would stay down. Well, it didn’t,” he said as he crossed to the desk. “Nothing does.”

Jack always thought that Robert Lewis might have been angling to get him together with his daughter, Brittany, in the past, but despite the fact that she was beautiful, he’d avoided being anything more then friends with her. They had been around each other by default so many times, and Robert might have thought they were more than just friends. Robert was wrong. The Brittany he knew was flaky and self-centered, a woman who went through fiancées the way a lizard shed its skin. He’d probably been as shocked as Robert when she’d finally married Matt Terrell and actually settled down to her art career and a family that included a nine-year-old boy.

People changed. He knew Zane Holden had. The man he’d met before he married Lindsey, was vastly different from the one he was facing now. Business was still business, and he was good at it. But now his wife and child were his top priorities.

“I guess it’s rough,” he said, for lack of anything better to say about morning sickness. He couldn’t begin to imagine Eve in Lindsey’s condition. And it hit him that he’d never once envisioned Eve as a mother at all.

“Amen to that,” Zane dropped down in his chair. He sat forward, his elbows on the piles of papers sorted on the top of the desk and looked up at Jack. “How old is the little girl you’re taking care of?”

He had to think for a minute. “Four.”

Zane smiled slightly. “Cute age.”

Victoria was cute. Her mother had been pretty in a delicate way, and Victoria looked a lot like her mother. And Eve had said she was like a little doll. “Yes, a cute age,” he said, and put the papers he’d brought with him on top of the work Zane had been doing. “I got a call from Griggs,” he said, trying to get back to business and forget about why Eve and he hadn’t even discussed children. “I think he’s going to be able to get Sommers involved in this whole business.”

“Terrific,” Zane said, taking the printout Jack was offering him. “No way can we make this work with a middleman doing the talking and someone leaking the information before it’s set in stone.”

“I hope he can influence Sommers.”

“Word is, little influences E. J. Sommers beyond his play toys and a good party. You’d never guess the guy was a genius.” Zane sat back and glanced at the clock. “Matt should be back from court soon, then we can all sit down and go through this.”

“Court?”

“Nothing serious, just clearing up some things about the adoption of Anthony. As soon as he gets back here, we’ll—”

His words were cut off when Lindsey came out of the side room. Jack had seen Lindsey in February, around the time she’d found out she was pregnant and he’d thought she was pretty, in a slender, wispy way. But right then she looked miserable, her pregnancy showing despite the loose white shirt and leggings she was wearing. Her skin was as white as parchment, her eyes were smudged with shadows and an expression of discomfort etched her face.

“I’m so sorry,” she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “I know what you’re doing is really important, but I can’t stay here. I need to go home.”

Zane moved quickly, crossing to put his arm around her protectively and spoke in a low voice, “That tofu was a huge mistake.”

She looked up at him, and surprisingly there was a faint smile on her pale lips. “Now you tell me.”

He hugged her to him and spoke to Jack over her head. “Do me a favor and cover for me here until Matt gets back from court. Let Rita know I’m going home, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours?”

“No,” Lindsey said, protesting weakly. “I can go by myself.”

Zane acted as if she hadn’t spoken and when he did, Zane saw the morning going down the tubes. “I’ve got a call coming in from Tokyo,” Zane said over his shoulder as he helped Lindsey walk to the private elevator set off to the right in the room.

“Shegata?” Jack asked.