Out of the Ashes Read online

  For the first time in a while, he'd felt . . . good. "You know that's out of whack." Is that how normal people felt? Last night—despite the pending surgery, the worry over whether his business could survive his absence, the pain he would endure—Curt had simply let it all go. To enjoy dinner with a beautiful woman.

  This morning, the admission worried him. Enjoyment was something he'd gotten used to denying himself. It was his version of punishment. The sole exception to that rule had been his relationship with Travis. For too many years after the accident, he'd kept his brother at arm's length—to avoid contaminating him with the toxic mess his life had become. But, his brother had refused to give up. When Trav and MaryJo pulled him back into the fold, he'd finally stopped fighting it. The relief over belonging to a family again—a normal, loving family—had been overwhelming.

  The joy had been too good to resist. Curt had embraced it, becoming a brother again. A brother-in-law. And now, an uncle. "A favorite uncle," he corrected. Three times and counting. He would never give them up. There were plenty of other ways he could find to punish himself.

  Hobbling into the kitchen, he switched on the coffee maker. He'd hired an efficient, funny, beautiful woman to help him get through the next several months. Hired, he reminded himself. Which meant no more dinners with that particular beautiful woman. He couldn't have it both ways. As the scent of brewing coffee filled his kitchen, Curt readied his travel mug. He was looking forward to getting in to the office. He had twenty-seven days left before the surgery. Twenty-seven days to organize his life. His business. Today, he wasn't dreading it nearly as much. Shannon's smiling face floated before his eyes. He'd made the right choice.

  THREE HOURS LATER, Curt was questioning his decision.

  "Hey, boss?"

  For the third time that morning, he lost his train of thought. Seated together behind Shannon's computer, they were disrupted once again. "What is it now, Joe?"

  The young apprentice entered the reception area once again, his gaze on Shannon as he asked yet another stupid, obvious question. She listened politely, her encouraging smile failing to sooth Curt's aggravation at being interrupted. Since the moment she'd stepped through the door, the guys had been filing through the office as though in parade formation. She'd arrived on time, smelling great and looking amazing. A smile on her face, she was ready to get to work. And he'd been eager to oblige. If only his crew had the same work ethic.

  "Joe—go ask Felix." Not hiding his abrupt tone, he glared at the young apprentice when he would have loitered near the coffee station. "Shut the door on your way out."

  "I'm gonna put a lock on that door," he muttered after Joe took his sweet ass time retracing his steps to the shop. When Shannon smothered a chuckle, he turned back to her. "I want a new coffee pot for the shop. Put that at the top of your list."

  "Yes, sir." Her fake salute brought an unwilling smile to his lips. "I'll get one this afternoon." She jotted a note on the legal pad she'd kept by her side.

  "Where was I?" Still disgruntled, Curt settled back in the chair. This was his livelihood. He'd poured what little remained of his soul into Four Seasons. For six years, there had been little room for anything or anyone else. Too much was at stake. There was so much for her to learn. And the clock was ticking. Each hour felt one step closer to the end. He knew he shouldn't be looking at it that way . . . but it was damned hard not to.

  "You were about to show me your accounting system," she reminded, sliding her chair over to allow him access. His bulky brace slowing him down, it took a minute for him to get re-settled.

  "Right." He scrutinized the screen. "Okay—so, here's the system we use." He clicked the mouse, glancing her way. "Once the contract is signed, we enter it here . . . on the pre-construction side. When the project becomes active, we move it over."

  Shannon shifted closer, shiny hair gleaming in the overhead lights. His gaze followed when she absently tucked an errant lock behind one ear. She'd done it twice already, his brain acknowledged. But, the silky strand seemed to have a mind of its own. Curt rolled his eyes, shaking off his sudden lapse. Okay—she's pretty. No wonder his guys kept finding excuses to trail through the office.

  "So, the project side feeds the accounting side, right?" Taking the mouse from him, she clicked to the next screen. "Here's your payables and . . ."

  When she turned to face him, he was hit with a subtle waft of the floral scent he'd inhaled the previous night. Light and refreshing, it made him think of flower petals. And warm skin. Her warm skin. His own suddenly prickly, he scrubbed the back of his neck.

  "Do you run payroll here? Because you have the capability with this software."

  Forcing his disjointed thoughts back to business, relief trickled through him. She hadn't been exaggerating. Shannon clearly knew her way around the software. "I outsource to a payroll service." He studied her. "But, if you're saying you know how to use that module, then I'd love to bring it back in-house." Her running payroll would save several thousand bucks a year. "How would you have time to do payroll along with everything else?"

  A fleeting frown marred her smooth skin. "How many employees?"

  Like a baton, she rotated her pencil between her fingers, before she began drumming the legal pad. Curt hid his smile. Shannon McCarty was a fidgeter. "Including you, we're up to thirty-seven."

  "And you pay weekly?"

  He nodded.

  "Okay, so I probably won't try to tackle it the first month," she admitted, a studious expression overtaking the prettiest brown eyes he'd ever seen. "But, once I get a good understanding of everything, it won't take long to set up the pay records—maybe two days if I'm missing records from the employee files."

  "You can count on there being stuff missing," he confirmed. Hell, she'd be lucky to even find files on half the guys. Until now, he'd been keeping track of pay rates and increases on spreadsheets.

  Shannon appeared unfazed. "So, I'll contact each of the guys once I figure out what's missing. I can probably email the missing forms," she explained. "As I get stuff back from them, I'll set up the pay records." She shrugged. "After that, it's a pretty straightforward process every week."

  "What about the taxes?" His accountant would either wig out or throw him a party.

  Her gaze shifted back to him. "Once everything's in the system, the taxes won't be time consuming. The system generates the reports, just like your outsourced payroll company is doing. It'll be easy."

  "Wow." Curt checked his watch. Less than four hours in, and he was already contemplating boosting her salary. "I have a client meeting in an hour that I need to prepare for. Are you okay on your own for a few hours?"

  She gave him a distracted wave. "Go ahead." She eyed the file cabinets lining the walls. "I want to review all the files and figure out where everything is, so I can get organized."

  He hoisted himself up on the crutches, his mind already on the mountain of work on his desk. "If you have questions, just call my cell. If I'm not back when you want to go to lunch, just switch the phone over to night ring and put a sign on the door."

  "I brought my lunch today, so I'll just stick around and get settled in." Shannon pointed to the leather tote on her credenza. "But, I'll make sure I run out later and pick up the coffeemaker."

  "Good." He managed to maintain a straight face when her aproachable, amber eyes brimmed with amusement. "Petty cash is in the filing cabinet in my office. Second drawer. The key is in my desk."

  "Are you okay with me moving files around so they make sense?" Tapping the legal pad, she glanced at her notes. "I'd like to have a system. But, I don't want to change everything—and then you can't find what you're looking for."

  Hell, she was seriously going to whip this place into shape. Curt couldn't suppress the surge of hope. If Shannon was half as good as she sounded, she could organize the office any damned way she pleased. "Do whatever makes sense, then you can show me where everything is." He maneuvered out from behind her desk, careful not to bump into
anything that would start his knee flaring again. Extending his hand, he met her surprised gaze as she shook it. "Shannon McCarty? Welcome to Four Seasons."

  Chapter 3

  Releasing a gusty breath she felt as though she'd been holding for hours, Shannon watched him hobble back to his office. Curtis wielded his crutches like someone who'd spent several years getting to know them. Taking advantage of a lull in the ringing phones, she stepped from behind the desk. Four Seasons Electric—her new home for the foreseeable future. Strangely, it already felt like home. She'd sensed it that morning as she'd walked through the storefront doors. Something about the run-down, dated, cluttered office felt familiar. Comforting. As though one of the big question marks in her life had just been erased.

  "He did say I could arrange things how I want," she muttered as she walked a slow 360 around the room. It was both reception area and her desk. Define the space, she jotted on her pad. Though she was itching to give the place a good scrubbing, Shannon decided that job could wait until she'd gotten everything else organized. She would have the office to herself for several weeks while Curtis was out for his surgery. By then, she'd be up to speed on the office management part. The cleaning and decorating would be a fun project to keep her occupied. Despite the busy phones and constant stream of guys traipsing through, she suspected she'd be able to take on even more tasks once she had a system in place.

  "Keep it simple, McCarty." Establish a few easy goals and accomplish them. By the time Curtis left for his surgery, she wanted to see the worry clear from his eyes. She wanted him to believe his business would be left in good hands. Between his foreman, Felix and her, they would keep everything running smoothly. Curt would have enough obstacles to deal with in the coming weeks. It would be heartless of her to add to his burden.

  Her revenge fantasy had been plotted by her seventeen-year-old self. Now, it was difficult to maintain her dislike. Her grief and anger over losing her grandmother had been directed toward a sullen twenty-year-old man. The timing couldn't have been worse. The year her grandmother died, she'd been coming of age in a family falling apart.

  With her parents' pending divorce, her mother had been more bitter than usual, using Gram's death as yet another weapon against her father. Embracing her cloak of 'wronged woman'—she'd worn it like a badge of honor.

  She and Kerry had been left to fend for themselves. Their father, claiming to have suffered enough over the previous two decades, had abandoned the family home, glad to throw money at the insatiably greedy woman he left behind. Bernie's assumption— that Marilyn would do the right thing by his children—had been delusional. "As if," she muttered.

  Her brother Randall, already enrolled in law school on the opposite coast, used his distance from the misery at 58 Bowler Street to fawn over Marilyn, commiserating about the divorce—just long enough to extract the tuition money he needed. Their narcissist mother had lapped it up, devouring his false sympathy like a box of chocolates. Later that winter, on a cold March night, her beloved grandmother—who Shannon had been leaning on more than ever, had been killed in the accident.

  Shaking off the distracting memories, Shannon opened a drawer on the first filing cabinet. "There's no point." Methodically leafing through the files, she was relieved to shut down the jumble of emotions that surfaced when thinking about Janey Marshall. All the ways her life might have been different—had her grandmother lived.

  As she itemized the file drawer's contents on her pad, she began to suspect there was no logic to the files residing there. Most drawers contained a hodge-podge of files that didn't seem to belong together for any reason. Proceeding to the next drawer and the next, eventually to the next cabinet, Shannon slipped into a groove. Itemize. Regroup. Stop to answer the phone. Meet with another, over-caffeinated electrician as he wandered through the office.

  Hearing Curtis on the phone in his office, she glanced over her shoulder. Guilt was a difficult emotion to assess, though she suspected he'd experienced his fair share. Just as she was no longer the angry, frightened seventeen-year-old who'd lost her only ally, Curt was no longer a brooding, selfish, young man. Along with the devastating physical injuries he'd suffered, there were likely emotional wounds as well. Some of them—inflicted by her.

  You stole the only person who loved me. Cringing with the memory of what she'd done, Shannon set a stack of files on top of the dusty cabinet. Resisting the urge to pace the dull, concrete floor, she tried to forget. The letters she'd written . . . the terrible accusations she'd laid at his feet. Gram had called her Elizabeth back then. She'd been happy to answer to her middle name, especially when her grandmother had called Shannon her Lizzie. It became her signature on the letters she'd addressed to Curtis—first at the rehab hospital where he'd gone to recover. She never saw me graduate high school. Then, in prison. I'm in college now. Gram will never know I made Dean's List. Later, she'd sought him out at any address she could find. As time passed, the urge to write him every time she was miserable faded. But—every so often, despite knowing better, impulse overruled her brain. Shannon would dash off another—unable to stop reminding him of what he'd cost her. Each one—signed, Elizabeth Marshall.

  Her face heating with shame, she resisted the urge to run. Heart suddenly pounding, she released a shaky breath. "What are you doing here?" A thousand times—she'd wondered if he'd ever read them. Through it all, Shannon had always avoided questioning the possibility she'd made his life worse. At the time, she'd felt justified—pouring her fury and sadness into blaming him. Now, thirteen years later, she prayed Curtis hadn't read them. Prayed they hadn't reached him. Because her grief-stricken words had been cruel. Dramatic. And attributing far more blame than he'd ever deserved.

  Guilt had a way of eroding hope. From stinging personal experience, Shannon knew how that felt. How hard it made the act of forgiving yourself. For mistakes. Or careless actions. "For sheer stupidity," she muttered. Her troubled thoughts drifted to her ex. Just thinking about how Brad had taken advantage of her . . . how she'd allowed herself to believe every lying word he'd said-

  Pacing the reception area, she acknowledged the war within herself. Yes, she could hurt Curtis if she set her mind to it. She could damage his business. But, that would mean hurting thirty-six other people who worked there. "And me." She worked there now, too. Could she live with her actions?

  Not that she was letting Curt off the hook, she admitted. She still wanted answers. Reasons. Why it happened. What had he been thinking that night? Could the crash have been prevented? And the biggest question: Why was she still- Blinking back a sudden rush of tears, Shannon swiped her eyes, startling when she heard footsteps in the hallway.

  Risking a glance over her shoulder, she heard voices. Diving into the next cabinet, she pretended to review a stack of files until she the hot, painful lump in her throat dissolved. With it, came the confirmation that she couldn't hurt Curtis' business. He'd worked too hard and come too far. He would be counting on her. She couldn't sabotage that faith. Hell—she'd hadn't been able to abandon Brad's business. "And he stole your money." And cheated on her. Shannon raised her gaze to the ceiling. "Is that pride? Or stupidity?"

  No, she would have to find another way to learn the answers to thirteen-year-old questions. Perhaps from Curtis himself. Were the answers in his home? Or locked away inside himself? There had to be records of that time—stored somewhere. When the phone rang again, she retraced her steps to the desk. Over the next four weeks, she could befriend him. Assess what he might be willing to reveal. Seek out his weak spots. Everyone had them, she reasoned. Discovering Forsythe's should prove relatively easy. Once she proved reliable, she could get him to confide in her.

  How hard could it be?

  "LET ME HELP YOU WITH that, Shannon."

  With an exasperated sigh, Curt raised his head, distracted by the murmur of voices. Immersed in the plans on his desk, the banter from the lobby wasn't helping his concentration. After only two weeks, Shannon McCarty seemed to have his en
tire crew eating out of her hand. Despite the shiny, new coffee pot she'd purchased for the shop, most of the guys insisted on swinging through the front office every day—as though the coffee somehow tasted better out in the lobby. It didn't help that she'd brought them donuts the first week. Another afternoon, she'd left a tray of cookies in the shop for the crews returning at the end of their day. This morning, a cheerful bowl, overflowing with fruit had materialized by the coffee pot. A new set of mugs—all of them matching—had mysteriously appeared. The dishwasher in the break room was finally getting a workout, the first time in probably two years. He'd been surprised the shriveled up hoses hadn't exploded the first time she'd dared to run it.

  "Wow, you hit for the cycle? That's amazing, Billy. What position do you play?" Shannon's melodic voice drifted through the open door.

  Rolling his eyes, Curt threw his pencil down, losing interest in the electrical system drawings for the new grocery store he planned to bid. Instead, he listened shamelessly as Billy droned on in endless detail about his softball game the previous night. Whether she was actually interested or faking it, Shannon responded with several follow-up questions that only served to make Billy brag even more.

  Seriously? What the hell was wrong with his guys? Like they'd never seen an attractive woman before? To her credit, and her ever-present legal pad, Shannon knew everyone by name. As he'd overheard more conversations due to the increased traffic through the lobby, he realized she'd learned a great deal about his crew. Like—David Robinson had a baby? Hell, he hadn't even known Dave was seeing someone. And Cliff's girlfriend was pregnant.

  When he was locking up three nights earlier, Curt hadn't resisted the impulse to drift by Shannon's desk. Catching an intriguing whiff of her perfume, he realized her space already seemed to belong to her. Not that the tantalizing, floral scent was his reason for snooping. It was merely a bonus. His discovery of her legal pad had offered a window to her thoughts. Perusing through her endless pages of lists, he was able to formulate a map of her plans. A picture of how Shannon operated. There were reminders she wanted to add to her calendar. Dates she wished to remember. Most of them to do with Four Seasons. Setting up different ledger accounts. Project files. Some sort of color-coding system she planned to implement. The collection of employee records. But, several were personal. Like Joe's mother's hernia surgery. And Felix's birthday. And . . . Cliff's girlfriend's due date. Wait—those weren't personal- They were about his guys.