The Good Father

Chapter Three

Jane gasped. In the span of two heartbeats she’d gone from glowing with pride to cringing with mortification. She’d left off the client’s logo? How could that be possible?

Just then Kaylee let out an unexpected shriek-right in Jane’s ear. She strengthened her grip around Jane’s neck, putting her in a wrestler’s stranglehold.

“That man is mean!”

“What?” Max asked. “Did she just say I was mean?”

But Jane’s mind was shifting back to the ad and the final steps she’d taken, and she remembered something. “I think I know what the problem is. Give me five minutes.”

She dropped everything but Kaylee and ran back to her office. “Kaylee, honey, please be good for another couple of minutes while Mommy fixes this disaster.” How humiliating would it have been to show the client an ad with no logo?

While her computer booted up, she tried to convince Kaylee to play quietly, but the child was crabby now and wanted none of it. Jane had to work with Kaylee in her lap and Max standing in the doorway, glowering at her.

If she didn’t fix this problem in two seconds, she was fired. She knew it.

She called up the file from the graphics program. Yes, there it was! She’d made the logo transparent while she was working on the background, and she’d simply forgotten to restore it. One button click, and the problem was fixed. With a huge sigh of relief, she sent it to Max.

“It’s fine now. The corrected version should be in your inbox.”

He didn’t rush to his office, as she’d expected, but continued standing in her doorway staring at her, an inscrutable expression on his handsome face.

Oh, God. He was going to fire her anyway.

He opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it and turned away.

Jane wanted to get herself and her fussy child out of there-before the day got any worse. But she forced herself to wait until Max had okayed the ad. If he wanted her to do more work on it, she would, but she would find a babysitter first.

At least Kaylee had stopped crying. She was now flopped across Jane’s shoulder, her little body relaxing muscle by muscle as drowsiness took over. Poor thing, today had been long and confusing for her.

Still carrying her daughter, Jane tiptoed to Max’s office. He was at the computer, but he must have sensed her presence because he looked up.

“Is it okay now?” she asked.

“It’s fine. I’ve sent it to the client.”

“Do I still have a job?”

He actually smiled. “Yes, you still have a job. I shouldn’t have reacted like I did, not on your first day. I’m sure things will go smoother once you settle in.”

Jane smiled back. “Absolutely. See you tomorrow, then.” She turned to leave.

“Oh, Jane. One more thing.”

Shoot, what now?

“I’m courting a new client, a children’s clothing manufacturer from Houston. If I land the account, it will be by far my biggest.” He pointed to a folder sitting on the corner of his desk. “That’s some of the print advertising they’ve done over the past couple of years, along with some concepts I’ve brainstormed. Would you mind looking them over tonight? I’ll want you to do some mock-ups for a presentation. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Sure, of course.” What sort of mock-up was he talking about? Sketches, or something more polished? She should ask, but she didn’t want to look any more ignorant today than she already had.

Jane grabbed the folder, which she would study after Kaylee was in bed. “Have a great evening.” Did he have a date? Oh, Lord, why did she care about that? He could have ten dates, and it was none of her concern.

As she made her way to her car, the day’s events floated around in her brain, but the one she focused on was when Max had said her ad was beautiful. Maybe his praise hadn’t been sincere, but she’d gone all tingly inside.

For a moment, she imagined how it would feel to hear him say she was beautiful. The tingly feeling returned. It was a miracle she got her car home in one piece.

OLD SALT’S BAR & GRILL was nothing like the ultra-hip clubs in SoHo and the Village Max used to frequent when he lived in New York. But it had its good points- like a big deck that looked out over the ocean, decent food and drinks that didn’t cost your whole paycheck.

Although lots of bars dotted Port Clara’s coast and downtown area, Max and his cousins had adopted Old Salt’s as their home away from home.

Max worked long hours these days trying to get the agency up and running and profitable-profitable being the point that interested him most at the moment. He had walked out on his job at Remington Industries, his family’s New York conglomerate, with a lot of big promises about how he was going to make it on his own with no help from them.

He remembered how his older brother, Eddie, had stared at him slack-jawed, and his father-vice president of marketing-had clenched his jaw in anger, then declared Max would come crawling back before six months was out.

He’d thought their reactions kind of amusing back then. Now he didn’t.

By eight o’clock Max felt worn thin, and he decided to call it a night and head for Old Salt’s for a beer and some commiseration.

He found the whole gang there-Cooper and Allie, unwinding after a full-day charter on their boat, the Dragonfly; and Reece and Sara, relaxing after a long day running their various businesses-between them they had three.

“Max!” Allie greeted him with a quick kiss to the cheek. “How goes the advertising biz?”

“A bit grueling today,” he admitted as he swiveled a chair around and straddled it. The waitress caught his eye, and he pointed to Cooper’s beer. She nodded.

“It’s not easy, running your own company,” said Sara. “The B and B isn’t so bad, since I took over an already- thriving business. But the catering…all I can say is, I’m glad Reece has some business sense or I’d be in serious trouble.” She put a hand to Max’s shoulder. “How’s the new artist working out?”

“Oh, you know about that?”

“Of course. I was there when you called her to offer the job. She’s incredible, isn’t she?”

“Incredible…yeah, that’s one word to describe her.” Slow would be another word.

“You’re not pleased with her work?” Allie asked, reading between the lines. “Oh, Max, please don’t fire her. She really needs that job. You have no idea what a financial mess Scott left her in. That boat was supposed to be hers free and clear, and now she’s discovered all kinds of debts and expenses related to the boat she knew nothing about. Of course, Scott kept her totally in the dark about their finances-”

Cooper clamped a hand over his wife’s mouth to silence her tirade. “Allie. Perhaps Jane doesn’t want her personal life bandied about in public.”

“We’re not public,” Allie objected, flipping her long red hair over one shoulder. “We’re Jane’s friends. Everybody here knows what a jerk her ex is. Max experienced it firsthand. First fist, that is.”

Max rubbed his jaw, which was even now, months later, a little tender. He couldn’t argue that Scott was a bastard, all right. Not only had the guy sucker-punched Max, but he’d used Max as leverage to take advantage of Jane in their divorce.

“The fact Jane needs a job shouldn’t be a factor in whether Max keeps her on or not,” Reece pointed out. He was the accountant in the family, the hard-nosed one who kept the rest of them financially on track.

“So he should just cast her out into the street?” Sara asked, with a look bordering on outrage.

“No, of course not,” Reece said. “But you can’t expect him to keep her on the payroll if she’s not an asset to his business.”