She zipped her suitcase shut on the bed when Trudy stormed in the next morning.
"What in a hootin' Tuesday is goin' on? Stevens said you're staying in the village, don'tcha know." The woman folded her arms and scowled.
Rubbing her slightly puffy eyes from not enough sleep and terrible nightmares, she pulled herself to her feeting using the crutches. "I go at five o'clock after work." The exhaustion and heartache made it too much work to put any feeling into her words. How stupid had she been to be attracted to someone who despised you, to think that he was different and...well, it didn't matter anymore.
"This is his doing, don'tcha know." Trudy threw up her arms. "I knew it like my granny is dead that he'd do this."
"Trudy, please, just let it be," she sighed. The clock struck eight. "I have to start work." She didn't want to see him again. An office a thousand miles from here sounded far better than having to face him.
Trudy didn't reply.
She went downstairs to find Stevens lingering in the foyer.
"Good morning, Ms. Hoplin. Mr. Port asked me to show you to where will be your office." He came up the steps and took the crutches, offering his hand instead.
"Thank you." She held tight and leaned into him a bit as she limped. "Has Mr. Port departed for his trip already then?"
"No, ma'm."
"Emma," she corrected. "How am I to know what needs to be done?" She frowned and looked at him when they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Stevens handed over the crutches. "He left instructions on the desk."
Her lips pressed together. He'd taken the coward's way out instead of facing her. If he wanted to avoid her for the next three months, she wouldn't object. Stevens led her into the study from the previous night. She smothered a sigh. Out of all the rooms in the mansion, he'd given her the one she least wanted to remember.
Several pages of elegantly handwritten notes lay on the desk next to a laptop, with boxes of files stacked behind the L-shaped desk. He'd gone to a length of trouble to avoid conversation, that was certain. She sat in the leather chair worn down to fit his body intimately. It even smelled like him. This day couldn't get much worse.
"Let Ms. Van Hoodie or I know if you need anything, Ms. Hoplin," he said and left.
She sighed and started reading the instructions that covered everything from the password for the laptop to what needed to be done with the files. Firing up the computer, she swiveled in the chair and pulled out a small stack of files to start. Then she set them on the desk and reached to type in the computer password. Then she paused. The desk sat about six inches too high. "For the love of..." she muttered and fumbled for the lever to raise the chair. There wasn't one. Try as she might, there wasn't a way to raise the chair.
Heaving a sigh of frustration, she limped over to some books on the shelf. They appeared to be thick like encyclopedias or dictionaries. She was too irritable from lack of sleep to care to look. Plopping one down on the seat, she tried it. Still too low, she plopped another book down. Finally set up, she opened the first file and started making a spreadsheet of all the transactions. The minutes melted into hours.
Papers covered every inch of the desk. She dug out a calculator and pencil from the desk, along with a pad of paper. These numbers didn't make sense. Adding the twenty credit card reimbursement request receipts, five grocery receipts, utility bills, seven bed purchase receipts, and a very expensive toy store receipt in the first month didn't match what was on the daily records for those thirty days. Beds? Toys? What kind of business was this? And that was only a fraction of the first box.
She jammed the pencil in her hair and twisted it to make a messy bun just to get it out of her face. Then she opened the top desk drawer, pulled out another perfectly sharpened pencil, and jotted down numbers on the scrap paper. Swiveling her chair to the right where the laptop faced the window, she stuck the pencil between her teeth and punched in more numbers into the spreadsheet. The numbers started falling into place. She snatched another receipt from the box and typed it in. Row after row, she typed and reviewed receipts and categorized.
A hint of a pattern began to emerge. She smiled with excitement and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
When the room grew dim from the sun setting, she flipped on the desk light.
A heavy footstep entered the room after dark.
"I need a bit longer, Stevens. I think I'm figuring out the pattern." She didn't look to the left at the doorway but kept typing. Then she pulled one of the three pencils out of her hair and wrote down some more numbers. Holding the pencil between her teeth for a moment, she typed in a sum. Whoever did this embezzeling was a pure genius. The mathematics were so backwards that no one should have noticed anything was off.
Someone's hand tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.
She jumped nearly a foot with fright, sending a stack of papers flying off the desk. She whipped around in the chair.
"It's just me." Mr. Port raised his hands in surrender. "My apologies." He bent and picked up the papers.
She laid a hand over her heaving chest to stop the mad hammering of her heart. Then she glanced at the computer. Three minutes to seven o'clock. "Sorry, I lost track of time." She hit Save and shut down the computer. Then she reached for her crutches to make a fast escape and avoid awkward conversation.
"I didn't come to kick you out of the house, just to kick you out of the office. There's no need for you to work past five." He set the papers on the desk, caught her elbow, and helped her stand.
"Oh." She blinked, confused by his manner after last night.
He did a double take of the chair. "If you need a different chair, you can have one." He set aside the thick books and lifted the large chair with ease to turn it upside down. Pulling open the bottom desk drawer, he dug out a screwdriver and adjusted the underside. Then he flipped the chair upright. "Try it now."
She sat, the chair at the perfect height. "Thank you."
"It has a pressure mechanism that gets stuck sometimes." When she started to stand, he held out a hand for her to stay. He leaned back against the desk, his hands curling around the lip of it. "My apologies for last night." He looked her in the eye. "I said you can stay here if you wish, and I shouldn't have revoked my word."
"It's fine," she lied and looked away to avoid awkward eye contact. "I spoke out of turn, and this is your home and you aren't obligated to let an employee stay here—"
"Emma," he said softly, cutting into her nervous babbling.
Closing her mouth, she clasped her hands tight and stared at his hand holding the lip of the desk, unable to bring herself to meet his eye. The truth was that the thought of staying alone in a hotel surrounded by complete strangers was enough to make her stomach churn. It felt safe here—aside from the demons that visited her dreams last night.
"I promised that I wouldn't bite, and I did your first day here. You're welcome to stay." He hesitated and his voice grew quieter. "Sometimes with you, I forget about this." He waved a hand to the ski mask covering his face. "Your question about needing to know the rules reminded me, and I had a knee-jerk reaction to push everyone away. I'm sorry that I made you cry."
It all made more sense now. She frowned and looked up at him with her heart on her sleeve. "You didn't make me cry. Sending me to a hotel isn't why I was upset," she added before he could ask why she had wept.
He looked down at his feet for a minute. "I know." A soft sigh escaped him. "I've been giving mixed messages and said things yesterday that hurt you. I..." He seemed to stop and consider his words carefully. "I don't have relationships of any sort besides business. Stevens and Ms. Van Hoodie are the closest I have to family." His blue eye rose to meet hers.
Tilting her head slightly, she searched his face. "That's a lonely road to chose," she said sadly.
A sarcastic snort filled the room. "Far from a choice."
She shook her head, and pity rose up in her chest. "It's a choice. The moment I started to get too close, you threw me as far as you could without going so far you couldn't forgive yourself. You make a choice every day to shut out the world." She stood eye level, with him leaning against the desk. "I don't know what accident befell you or if you were born with something wrong with your face, but I think people were so cruel that you hide now."
His expression gave nothing away.
Her voice remained patient and soft. "For every thousand who are cruel, there is one who is extraordinarily kind. But you already know that because you've found Stevens and Trudy." She looked into his eye and said gently, "Goodnight, Mr. Port." Then she hobbled out on her crutches and left him to digest those words.
Stevens waited outside the door with her suitcase. "Should I return this to your room, Ms. Hoplin?"
"No, I think Mr. Port needs some space." Leaving him alone for now would be best, but it was hard to go. "Sally forth." She followed Stevens out to the car.
"Just twenty minutes there. Any charges for anything you need can be billed to your room." He helped her down the steps and held the back car door open for her.
"Am I not allowed in the front?" she teased.
The corner of his mouth curled, the closest he'd ever come to smiling so far. This gruff man seemed to be a softie inside. He closed the door and opened the passenger side.
"Thank you." She got in, and he shut the door. As he walked around, something in the doorway of the house moved. Yellow light from the inside poured over Mr. Port's silhouette onto the front steps. He stood there with his hands in his pockets.
Stevens got in and they drove away.
She glanced back in the side mirror. He leaned his back against the doorframe and tilted his head back against it to look up at the ceiling. He'd obviously wanted to stop her, but couldn't bring himself to be so vulnerable. Part of her heart lifted to know he cared, even though it was just as an employee.
No one will ever want you now after what I've done to you, the dark memory whispered.
The two-story hotel held eight rooms and appeared to be an old renovated house. Stevens helped her check-in and get up the stairs to her room.
"It's nothing fancy, but it's clean and the owner is a kind old woman. It's the only hotel in town. She lives next door, and there's just one other tenant downstairs, she said. You should have some peace and quiet." Stevens set the suitcase on the floor in the small room. "Shall I come at seven-thirty tomorrow?"
"Sure. Thank you for bringing me." She smiled and extended her hand.
This man, who looked like trouble at a bar fight, smiled and shook her hand with enthusiasm. "Ms. Van Hoodie said you make amazing chocolate chip cookies, and maybe you'd make some tomorrow if I brought you back?"
A belly laugh bubbled up. "I don't know if they're amazing, but I won second place in a local baking contest. I'm sure I can pull myself away from work for an hour to make some."
He grinned and gave a nod as he left.
With a shake of her head, she got things out to go to bed. Mr. Port certainly kept interesting company.