The Gift of Love Read online

  Bella and Summer had scheduled lunch the Monday after Bella’s family dinner to celebrate her birthday. It was the perfect opportunity for her to pick her boss’s brain about ideas for what she could do or people she should talk to who could help her figure things out. Summer knew everyone in Portland worth knowing and would be only too happy to help, Bella was sure.

  When she arrived at the BU/MU office, the very pregnant Darcy greeted her with a birthday card and a hug made awkward by her belly before waving Bella into the boss’s office.

  “Happy birthday, sunshine,” Summer said, barely glancing up from her computer. “Give me a few minutes to finish up what I’m doing here, and I’ll be ready to take you out for a birthday lunch.” When she looked up to get a response, she frowned and looked over the tops of her red-framed reading glasses. “Sorry. I guess I should say, happy birthday, raincloud. What’s up?”

  So much for putting on a good face.

  Bella shook her head, then nodded before shaking her head again.

  “Good to see you’re clear about what the problem is. Want to talk about it?”

  “I planned to wait until lunch to talk to you, but maybe it would be better to get it off my chest now. Mind if I take the victim’s chair?” Bella dropped into the seat in front of Summer’s desk where her clients usually sat.

  “You know I don’t like to call my clients victims. Well, not most of them. What’s going on?”

  “My brothers announced at my birthday party on Friday they’re selling my house—my dad’s—our dad’s—house. And they told me I’m a spoiled brat who needs to grow up and find herself.”

  “Ouch. Happy birthday from your loving family.”

  “Yeah, well, the truth is, however angry they made me by bringing it up on my birthday, they’re sort of right. I haven’t really gotten things together in the year since my dad died. I’ve let it slide because I could. And now I’m not sure how to start. I haven’t really had a lot of practice setting goals for myself. In the past, my goals have been dictated by what my family wanted.”

  “I thought you wanted to write.”

  “Okay, let me be more specific: I haven’t figured out what I want to do to make enough money to support myself. Writing fiction sure hasn’t done that and won’t for the foreseeable future. The payments for the dozen or so pieces I’ve had published barely cover the cost of gas for my car for a month. And even if I finish editing one of the novels I have drafted and get lucky enough to find a publisher, I’m not well known enough to make much money at it.” She waved a hand helplessly in frustration.

  “I’m sorry you had such a rotten birthday dinner. What do you need to cheer you up?”

  “Actually, I need more than cheering up; I need advice. I was going to ask you if you could help.”

  Summer had been sitting back in her chair with a funny look on her face. Now she took her glasses off and leaned forward on her elbows, staring across the desk for a few moments before saying, “Actually I might be able to give you more than advice.”

  Still lost in the memory of her disastrous birthday party, Bella didn’t pick up on Summer’s subtle change of subject at first. “If you have some ideas about a career counselor or someone else I could talk to, please, feel free to give me some recommendations. I’m totally at sea about what to do next. But whatever it is, I have to do it soon because I’m pretty sure the house will move quickly in the current market.”

  “I’d be happy to recommend a counselor if you still want one after I tell you about my idea.” Summer picked up a yellow legal pad, then flipped it back onto her desk. “I’ve spent the last couple days trying to write a job description for an ad to find someone to manage this place while Darcy is on her six-month maternity leave. She’s due at the end of September, and I need to find someone soon so I can get her—or him—trained before she leaves. But the more I tried to describe who I was looking for, the more I became convinced I was going about it the wrong way. You could be the answer to my problem.”

  “If you need help writing the job description or the ad, I’d be glad to draft it for you. Just tell me what you’re looking for.”

  “I’m not suggesting you write the copy; I’m suggesting you take the job.”

  Too stunned to answer for a few moments, Bella searched her friend’s face expecting to see a “gotcha” look or a smirk. Instead, Summer’s face seemed to say she meant it. “Why would you want to hire me?”

  “Playing down your abilities is not exactly how you get a job, girlfriend.” Summer tore several sheets of paper off the pad and crumpled them up. “If I’d thought of this days ago, I could have saved myself the struggle of trying to describe what I was looking for. All along, I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Me? How do I qualify for the job?”

  “Well, I want someone with experience managing an office—and from the way you’ve described your family’s real estate business in California, you were in charge of an operation a lot bigger than this one. Next, I want someone who’s a good writer—which you’ve certainly shown you are.” She lobbed the paper wad into the recycling basket. “And I want someone who knows what we do and is enthusiastic about doing it. Again, you fit the description.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. Don’t you see? We can solve each other’s problem. Working for me for six months will give you time to get your feet on the ground and figure out what you want to do next. And hiring you means I won’t have to go through the trauma of finding and training someone new for only a short time. Or, even worse, hiring people from a temp service who won’t be able to do what I need done. And I won’t have to get used to having someone strange in my office every day. I already like having you around. It’s a classic win-win.”

  Bella agreed with much of what Summer had said. She understood and supported what Summer was trying to do with her business. And the two women not only got along but also worked well with each other. They’d met at a City Club of Portland lunch. Bella had been there to connect with someone her brother Luis had wanted her to get to know. Summer had been there to pass out her business cards to people at the lunch table. The guy never showed up, but the two women had clicked.

  It was a big leap from part-time writer and friend to full-time office manager, though.

  “It’s simple: I need you and you need me.”

  “If I said yes, what would you be willing to pay?” Bella asked.

  “Exactly what I pay Darcy: $4,000 a month plus medical and dental. Does that cover what it would cost to rent an apartment and keep your little bit of metal you call a car on the road?”

  “I think so. Plus I still have some savings from what my father left me.” She closed her eyes as she realized, for the first time since her birthday dinner, she felt hopeful. “Okay. I’m in. Where do I sign?”

  “Think about it while we have lunch. We can talk contract when we get back.” Summer stood up and grabbed her purse. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand. I’m starving.”

  “All of a sudden, so am I,” Bella said.

  Maybe, she thought as they walked toward Twenty-First Avenue, this wasn’t the worst birthday of her life after all.

  Chapter Two

  As he strode down Spring Street in downtown Seattle, Taylor Jordan was on a high having nothing to do with artificial stimulants. He’d just done a ninety-minute presentation followed by a Q and A session with the management committee of CloudCo, one of the up and coming high-tech firms in the city. They’d loved his recommendations for a strategic business plan and growth strategy for the company. Loved him. It had been worth every single hour he put into the damn thing to hear them praise his work and insist he continue on with them to implement what he’d recommended. The president of CloudCo had been on the phone raving about him to one of the senior partners of Taylor’s firm, MBA Consulting, as he left the conference room. The odds of making partner at MBA had gone from “possibility” to “sure thing” in the course of one meeting.
r />   He’d spent over six months working on the project. Long days. Few weekends off. Eighty hours most weeks for the past couple months. Well, maybe the last three months. His personal life had paid a high price. He hadn’t done anything socially for months. Had barely managed to return phone calls, never saw friends.

  And he’d neglected—her word, not his—Allison, the woman he’d been dating for the past year, while he slaved away, first on the research and then on the report he’d just presented, while also juggling his other projects and responsibilities. Even though he thought Allison understood he was doing it for them, to ensure their future together, he had a sense she was getting tired of being alone on the weekends, conducting way too much of their relationship by text and e-mail supplemented by the occasional late night phone call and dinner when he could squeeze it in.

  However, now that he’d presented his report, he was ready to make up for lost time. He had a surprise for her that he was sure would fix things.

  The idea had come to him one night after he’d gone home so wound up from working on the CloudCo project he couldn’t sleep. Wired for sound after too much coffee and the adrenaline surge he got from writing the perfect introductory chapter for his report, he’d found himself at his laptop writing out a “to do” list for the weekend he was planning for Allison after he did the final client presentation. As he typed, he got an idea. Why not make it perfectly clear to Allison what he had in mind for them as a couple? And what better way to show her he’d researched all the important things they’d need to consider than to give her a report on his ideas.

  He began with a cover letter telling Allison how much he cared for her and how happy he would be to partner with her as her husband. Then he Googled “engagement rings” and uploaded images of rings he could afford—without including the price, of course—and asked her to select the one she liked the best.

  Next he researched honeymoon sites and added his pick of what he found to the report, complete with pictures of beaches, restaurants, and tourist activities at each location. For good measure he listed Zillow links for half a dozen houses around the Puget Sound as examples of the home they’d buy when they got back to Seattle. He even had a list of proposed groomsmen and a few open dates for their wedding the following summer.

  Thinking it would be fun to make it look like a real consultant’s proposal, he had it printed and bound with a bright red cover and their names inside a heart on the front. The guy at the FedEx Office store looked at him a little oddly when he explained what it was but he knew Allison would love it when he presented the finished product to her sometime during their long weekend at the coast. He’d known from the first time he’d met her how perfectly she fit into his plans for his life. All he had to do was show her, with his research and report, the logic of their being together permanently as a married couple.

  Ever since high school, Taylor had planned each step of his life with the same care he gave each client report. He was determined not to end up like his father had, making and losing several fortunes with asinine business decisions and harebrained investments. Only too aware his childhood could hardly be called stable, Taylor had done everything within his power to minimize the risks of things going wrong in his adult life.

  For example, to ensure he’d get into the right college, he participated only in high school activities that looked good on his college applications or gave him experiences he deemed important to his goals. He researched classes, teachers, and colleges with a thoroughness astounding to his advisor in high school. She gave up trying to give him advice when she discovered all the groundwork he’d already done before he came into her office.

  In college he never put a foot wrong. No stupid drunken parties. No bad grades. No careless relationships with inappropriate women. Grad school was the same.

  His plan included work for a high-tech firm in some capacity for a short time then a switchover to a management-consulting firm where he would focus on helping high-tech businesses start up, grow, and succeed. No one associated with any business he helped would ever end up the way his father and his family had.

  When he left grad school, he had offers from a dozen or more firms in his field of choice. He carefully vetted each one and chose a small company where he worked for two years. Then he signed on with MBA Consulting. It had been the right move. He was challenged by the variety of clients he worked with, able to use his extensive education in business management, and was considered an asset to the company. He would only miss one goal. He set out to be a partner by the age of thirty-five. If he made it this year, as it now looked like he might, he would only be thirty-four.

  Part of his plan had been to find a woman sometime in his middle thirties who could appreciate his commitment to his career as well as to his future with her. Of course he hoped they’d care for each other, but love wasn’t at the top of the list of things he was looking for. Love hadn’t played much part in his parents’ relationship. It never could if there was no financial security, in his opinion.

  He was sure he’d found everything he wanted in Allison. An engineer with the Bellevue office of a big international firm, she was as much a professional as he was. She worked hard, knew what it took to get ahead. Craig, an old college friend of hers and an acquaintance of his, had introduced them at a business-after-hours cocktail thing, and she’d impressed the hell out of him. They had so much in common it was astonishing—even having attended Stanford at about the same time and on full-ride scholarships, although they’d never run into each other on campus in the year they’d overlapped. Both were Seattle born and bred; both were enthusiastic fans of their hometown and everything in it (although her favorite sports team was the Mariners baseball team and his, the Seahawks football team).

  She was smart and ambitious. She dressed professionally for work and attractively when they went to dinner. In heels, she was only a couple inches shorter than his six feet four. And her blond hair and blue eyes, which almost perfectly matched his, would guarantee, genetically, children who would be tall, fair, and good looking.

  All the signs were there. This was the relationship he needed for the next stage of his life because Allison Lindberg was, in short, the girl of his—and any other ambitious man’s—dreams.

  Everything was falling in place. The perfect job and the perfect woman added up to the perfect life. He had it all under his capable control. He’d never have a life like his father’s.

  Eager to share with Allison the results of his successful meeting at CloudCo, Taylor called her cell as he walked back to his office. He immediately got voicemail, which he assumed meant she was on another call. But when he tried again after he returned to his office, the same thing happened. Finally he called her office number. The department’s administrative coordinator was cool, saying only that Allison was gone for the rest of the day. Which didn’t explain why she wasn’t answering her cell, but Taylor couldn’t get any more out of the adco.

  By the time Taylor got back to his office, the news of his success had already made its way from one cubicle to another in his firm. It had even penetrated to the offices on the outer edge of the floor where the big girls and boys played and plotted behind their closed doors while they looked out the windows at the cityscape only they were privileged to see.

  The chairman of the firm’s partnership committee, Nate Benjamin, led a parade of committee members into Taylor’s cubicle. “You won’t believe what the CloudCo guys are saying about your work. I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much glowing bullshit from a client.” The grin on his face belied the backhanded compliment.

  “Thanks, Nate. I was happy with what they said, even if it was B.S.”

  “You earned your pay this month. Nice work.” He stuck out his hand. Taylor stood to shake it, and Nate clapped him on the back with his left hand. He’d been slapped on the back so many times since he’d returned from his meeting, he was sure his suit jacket was wearing thin from the pounding. And as he winced, he wondered if h
e’d even have a bruise or two in the morning. Which reminded him somewhat painfully of his need to get back to the gym. If a few slaps on the back were bothering him, it was past time to make up for the months of not working out.

  “A couple members of the partnership committee and I would like to take you out for a drink after work tonight. You won’t even have to use any of the bonus you’ll be getting to pay for it. You free to join us?”

  Drinks with the partnership committee? Even if he’d had plans, Taylor wouldn’t have turned that down. “I’d love to. Thanks.”

  “Great. I’ll stop by about six thirty, and we can go downstairs together.”

  As soon as Nate left, Taylor made one more attempt to talk to Allison but, when he got voicemail again, left a message asking her to join them at the bar on the ground floor of his office building so she could be part of the celebration, too.

  This was turning out to be one of—maybe the best day of his life.

  • • •

  Taylor was a little buzzed. Three Manhattans in an hour and a half on an empty stomach will do that to a guy. Luckily, he used public transportation to get to and from work. But being a responsible transit rider didn’t help with opening the two security locks on his apartment door. Somehow the keys didn’t seem to be working right tonight. Eventually, he got the right key into the correct lock without putting a dent into either his euphoric mood or the door. He was happy. Very, very happy. Which is also what three Manhattans and the best day of his life will do.

  He knew he should get something to eat, but he didn’t want to lose the glow so he plopped down in his favorite chair and replayed his personal highlight reel from the day: The look on the faces of the CloudCo management committee when he finished his presentation. The conversation he overheard between his boss and the president of CloudCo as he left the conference room. The kudos from Nate Benjamin when he got back to the office. The drinks and praise from the members of the partnership committee. The congratulations from his girlfriend.