Loe raamatut: «Heaven Can't Wait»

One

Something wasn’t right.

Her eyes on her feet, Prudence Sullivan took a slow turn across the concrete floor of the east wing of what was to be the Fifth Army’s new state-of-the-art communications center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. As a substitute for Eric Thompson, the government inspector normally assigned to the construction site, she wasn’t expected to do much except make sure nothing went wrong while Eric was on sick leave. She certainly wasn’t supposed to concern herself with a floor that had been approved weeks ago. But a familiar knotting in her gut warned her a mistake had been made somewhere. A mistake it was her job to catch.

Not liking her suspicions, she squatted to run her hand over the bare concrete. It felt fine, but she knew from experience that that didn’t mean diddly. If an unscrupulous contractor wanted to save some money and cheat on the specs, he could make a concrete floor that wouldn’t hold office furniture without cracking look like a work of art.

Still balanced on her haunches, she pushed her hard hat to the back of her head and frowned up at Roy Wilkins, the field superintendent. A bear of a man, he cast a shadow that would have done an oak proud as he returned her frown with a wary one of his own. The big boss was gone for the day, and Roy had obviously been told not to let her out of his sight. He’d stuck to her side like glue from the moment she’d shown up at the site an hour ago.

Another time Pru would have been amused by his watchdog hostility. She never understood why builders and contractors were so resentful of inspectors—she just made sure they did what they’d originally promised to do, which was put up a good building. But today, with the knots in her stomach drawing tight as a noose, she was anything but amused. “Who approved this floor?”

“Thompson.”

Pru nodded, her green eyes shifting back to the concrete. She didn’t know Eric personally, but that wasn’t surprising. She was new to the job, new to the city, new to Texas. In fact, if she hadn’t visited Laura, her college roommate and best friend, on Labor Day, she’d probably still be in Kansas City, where she’d been born and raised. But she’d taken one look at San Antonio and had instantly known that that was where she belonged.

Her family had thought she was crazy, of course, and she’d had to agree. But that hadn’t stopped her from moving. And the moment she’d driven into the city with everything she owned packed in the U-Haul trailer attached to her Jeep, she’d felt like she was coming home.

It was almost as if the powers that be were lighting her path, she’d thought whimsically. She’d stepped right from her old job as a city inspector into one with the government. She’d started two weeks ago and loved the work, even though it didn’t give her much of a chance to meet other inspectors. When she was on the job, the man she was replacing wasn’t.

Which meant she didn’t know a damn thing about Eric Thompson. He could be conscientious and dedicated...or an unethical jackass who took money on the side to look the other way when something wasn’t up to code. Torn, she pushed to her feet. She hated to doubt another inspector, but the feel of the concrete under her feet gave her no choice.

“You’re not going to like this—” she began, but before she could give Roy Wilkins the bad news, her beeper went off. One look at the number that flashed across the small screen and she swallowed a groan. Great. As if she didn’t have enough problems, she now had to deal with her boss. Wonderful.

Bruce James didn’t like her and probably never would. He’d resented her from the moment his supervisor had hired her...because she was a woman. A chauvinist right down to his shorts, he’d made no secret of the fact that he thought females had no business on a construction site and just as soon as he could find a way to send her packing, he would.

Wishing she could drop the beeper down the nearest open drain, she turned to Roy. “Is there a phone around here? I need to call my boss.”

Seconds later she was seated at the desk in the small portable shed that served as the contractor’s office, her voice coolly professional as she greeted her supervisor. “This is Pru, Mr. James. Is there a problem?”

“That’s what you’re getting paid to tell me, Sullivan,” he retorted coldly. “How’s the site?”

Later, Pru couldn’t say what set the alarm bells clanging in her head, but something in his tone jarred her. He knew, she realized suddenly, astonished. Somehow, some way, he knew something was wrong at the site and he was just waiting to see if she was going to turn in one of her fellow inspectors or keep her mouth shut. If she did the former, her name would be mud with her cohorts; the latter, and she’d be fired so fast she wouldn’t know what hit her.

The rat had set her up! she thought indignantly, clutching the phone as if it was his skinny neck. She could smell the stench from here. Wishing she had the financial independence to tell the jerk exactly what she thought of him, she asked sweetly, “What did you say Eric Thompson was out on sick leave for?”

“I didn’t,” he snapped. “Not that it’s any of your business, but he fell on the site about a month ago and cracked his head. He’s been having headaches ever since, so his doctor had him come in today for some tests.”

“The fall...was it before or after the cement was poured?”

“Before, I believe. Why?”

“Then that would explain why he approved this spongy cement,” she said, the triumph she couldn’t quite conceal turning her voice the tiniest bit smug. “His brains were obviously scrambled and he wasn’t thinking clearly. Don’t worry, though, I’ll take core samples just to make sure my instincts are right. Gotta go, boss. Talk to you later.”

“Damn you, Sullivan, don’t you hang up on me!”

Her dimpled grin full of mischief, Pru gently replaced the receiver in its cradle.

“You’re not serious.”

Lost in the satisfaction of the small victory, her eyes flew to the open doorway where Roy had appeared without her noticing. From his glare it was clear that he’d caught enough of the conversation not to like what he’d heard. “I’m afraid so,” she said quietly, her smile fading. “I’m pretty sure Thompson made a mistake approving that cement. I’ll need to see the results of the slump tests and the cylinders, but even if they’re okay, I’m still going to take core samples. You can’t pour any more, though, until the results come back from the lab. I’m sorry.”

He cursed, her apology offering little consolation when he was all ready to start pouring the west wing. Each day she held up construction cost them not only time but money. “If you think I’m ticked, wait till you have to deal with Murdock,” he warned. “He’s going to be madder than a rooster with a bee up its butt.”

* * *

An understatement of the grossest proportions. Zebadiah Murdock was, in fact, livid. “What the hell do you mean work’s been shut down!” he barked into the phone an hour later. “By who?”

Wincing, Roy held the phone farther away from his ear. “Pru Sullivan,” he said in disgust. “The new inspector who’s substituting for Eric Thompson. She’s being a real hard ass, boss. Going over everything with a fine-tooth comb, not giving an inch. She claims the concrete’s not right in the east wing, so she’s getting core samples. Until the test results come back, we can’t pour squat.”

“But Thompson already approved that!”

“I know,” Roy grumbled. “But try telling her that. Once the lady makes up her mind, you can’t move her with a forklift.”

Murdock swore long and hard. He’d had nothing but problems with the Fort Sam project from the very beginning—delayed permits, bad weather, missing blueprints and tools—and now this. A lady inspector with a chip on her shoulder, looking to prove herself in a man’s world by being hard as nails. Dammit, why his project? And why did this kind of crap have to hit when he was stuck in Austin testifying before a state committee? Trouble was brewing, and he was tied up with politicians who liked to hear themselves talk when he needed to be back in San Antonio.

“Put her on the line,” he ordered.

He could practically hear Roy swallow. “Uh, do you think that’s smart? You don’t sound like you’re in the best of moods and if you say something to get her back up, we ain’t ever going to get anywhere on this job.”

“Put her on, Roy. I want to talk to her.”

When he spoke in that tone, people—especially his crew—listened. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Hang on and I’ll get her.”

Murdock waited impatiently, promising himself he wasn’t going to lose his temper. He wasn’t like a lot of the other builders he knew. He had no problem with women on a construction site...as long as they did their job just like everyone else and didn’t get in his way.

“This is Pru Sullivan.”

Her voice in his ear was low and husky and sexy as hell. Surprised, Murdock felt a heat he was unprepared for streak through him like summer lightning. Stunned, he almost dropped the phone. This was a government inspector?

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

The throaty query snapped him back to attention, bringing an uncomfortable flush to his cheeks. “This is Murdock,” he said curtly. “The builder whose project you just shut down. You want to tell me what the hell you think you’re doing, lady? I know you’re just a sub, but you ought to check things out before you start throwing your weight around. That cement you’ve got a problem with has already passed inspection.”

Well used to dealing with angry men, Pru refused to let him goad her into a sharp comeback. “My title is inspector, not ‘lady,’ Mr. Murdock, and I’d appreciate it if you’d remember that in the future,” she said in a voice that was as cool as his was heated. “If you have a problem with that, then Pru or Ms. Sullivan will do. I don’t answer to lady.”

“What I have a problem with,” he said through his tightly clenched teeth, “is a woman who obviously doesn’t know what she’s doing and refuses to admit it. If you’re not qualified to do the job, have the guts to say so and let James send over someone who is. In case you didn’t know it, you’re costing me money, lady, and I can’t afford you.”

For just a second the temper that went along with the red glints in her mahogany hair flashed in her eyes before she brought herself up short. No, she wasn’t going to let the insufferable man get to her. After all, it wasn’t as if she had to work with him on a regular basis. She just had to get through today, and he wasn’t even on the site.

Cheered by the thought, her eyes started to dance. “Don’t blame me for your own incompetency, Mr. Murdock,” she said sweetly.

“Murdock,” he growled. “It’s just Murdock.”

Willing to be gracious when she was about to win an argument, she said easily, “Okay, Murdock it is. You should have seen how thin that concrete was when it was poured, so if you want to blame someone, blame yourself. And, yes, it’s true, Thompson did pass it. But he’d just suffered a blow to the head and couldn’t have known what he was doing. If he’d have checked the results of the cylinder tests, he would have seen there was a problem.”

“Thompson was the problem,” he stressed. “When those cylinders were filled, he didn’t handle them properly and everyone knew it. He had them rolling around like bowling balls in the back of his pickup, so don’t talk to me about test results. They aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.”

“Maybe not to you—”

“Dammit, there’s nothing wrong with that cement!”

His angry roar startled Pru’s heart into a crazy pounding and, unexpectedly, tugged up one corner of her mouth in a smile. Lord, the man had a short fuse! Did he think that just because he barked at her like a drill sergeant she would jump to attention and salute?

Grinning, she shrugged. “I wouldn’t take any bets on that, Murdock. I know my onions...and my cement.”

He’d have had to have been deaf to miss the laughter lacing her words, and he was a long way from that. “So you think this is amusing, do you? I—”

He broke off suddenly, cursing under his breath as a page announced that the committee was reconvening. “I’ve got to go,” he said shortly. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking this conversation is over, Inspector. I don’t lie or cheat or cut corners, and when I tell you that cement was poured according to specs, you can take it to the bank. But you go ahead and take your core samples and have them tested. When they come back, up to standard, I’m going to laugh in your face and have your job.”

It wasn’t an idle threat and they both knew it. She was holding up a government project worth millions of dollars solely because of a gut feeling that something was wrong. If she was right, she would have the satisfaction of throwing the truth in Zebadiah Murdock’s face. If she was wrong, then Murdock wouldn’t have to go after her. Her boss would beat him to the punch.

* * *

Standing at St. Peter’s side, his assistant, Joshua, shook his head sadly as the two souls hung up, each muttering about the other. “They seem to have gotten off to a bad start, sir. And they haven’t even met, yet. With Eric Thompson coming back in the morning, it looks like they never will.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” St. Peter gently disagreed with a smile. “I think things are coming along nicely. And don’t worry about tomorrow. I have a feeling that the wind is going to shift directions during the night, and you know what that means. Change is in the air. Watch.”

* * *

When Pru reported to the office the next morning, it was only to get her next assignment and get out of there. If she could do that without having to once lay eyes on Bruce James, all the better. Luck, however, wasn’t with her. The second she stepped through the door, her boss was there, almost as if he’d been waiting for her.

“I want to talk to you.”

It wasn’t, Pru decided, going to be her day. “If it’s about yesterday,” she began, “I’ve already taken the core samples—”

“I fired Eric Thompson this morning. The Fort Sam project is all yours.”

Pru couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d told her he was her Aunt Sally. Caught off guard, she just looked at him. He was lying. He had to be. As obnoxious as he was, even Bruce James wouldn’t be so cold as to fire a man who’d made a mistake right after he’d been injured on the job. But one look at his ferretlike face told her not only would he, he had.

She almost told him then what a low-life, scumbag of a weasel he was, and damn the consequences. But the slight curve of his mouth was expectant, his beady black eyes bright with anticipation, and she knew that that was exactly what he wanted her to do. Then he would fire her for insubordination and direct her to the nearest unemployment line.

Oh, no, you don’t. you little worm, she thought grimly, her expression carefully guarded under his watchful gaze. You’re not going to get rid of me that easily. “Fine,” she said indifferently. “I’ll get right over there.”

Judging from the way his already thin mouth squeezed into a flat line of annoyance, her reaction wasn’t the one he’d been hoping for. But Pru could find little satisfaction in the triumph. Now instead of just working with one irritating man, she had to deal with two. And there was nothing funny about working with Zebadiah Murdock.

Heading for the site, she tried to tell herself it wasn’t going to be that bad. She’d heard of Murdock long before she’d ever subbed for Eric Thompson, and what she’d heard, she’d liked. He’d started out as an ordinary carpenter, worked hard and learned fast, and gradually started his own small construction company. But with a talent for bringing projects in on schedule and under budget, he had become a success almost overnight. The Fort Sam project was his first with the government, but no one expected it to be his last.

In spite of the problems with the cement, he had a reputation for being honest and straight as an arrow. As the contractor, he could have spent his days doing paperwork in the air-conditioned comfort of his office, but Pru had learned from his men that he liked to work side by side with his crew in the hot sun. Evidently he hadn’t forgotten his roots, and she liked that about him. But it was also common knowledge that he’d never met an inspector that he thought was worth a damn.

They’d probably be at each other’s throats within an hour.

Common courtesy dictated that she immediately search him out and introduce herself as soon as she arrived at the site, but as she parked and plopped her hard hat on her head, she knew she wasn’t going to do it. She hadn’t forgotten their conversation of yesterday and she doubted that he had, either. She’d give him a little more time to cool off...and give herself a chance to adjust to the sudden change in her working conditions.

She learned from one of the plumbers that Murdock was handling a problem with one of the steel tiers in the west wing. Turning in the opposite direction, she intended to check the roughing-in the electricians were finishing at the other end of the building, but she’d only taken two steps when the distinct sound of a cement truck rolling onto the site stopped her in her tracks. Whirling, she turned just in time to see the truck rumble over to the west wing, where men were already waiting to spread the cement as it was poured.

Stunned that someone would dare to countermand her order that there would be no more cement poured until the results from the core sample came back, she started to run. “Who ordered this cement? Stop right this minute! Do you hear me? I said—”

Indignation blinding her to everything but the cement truck that was preparing to pour, she didn’t even see the man who cut across the compound with long strides to intercept her until she all but slammed into him. Staggering back a step, her breath escaped in a gasp. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t see—”

The words died on her tongue, whatever she was going to say next lost forever as her gaze locked with the most incredible blue eyes she’d ever seen. Her heart pounding crazily in her chest and the cement truck forgotten, Pru stood dumbstruck, as dazed and disoriented as if she’d been run over by a train.

He was tall, a good six inches taller than her own five foot ten, his body lean and hard and fat free in faded jeans, a navy T-shirt and work boots. The yellow hard hat he wore proclaimed him one of the crew, but even without that giveaway, she would have known he was a man who labored in the sun. His bronzed, weathered skin was stretched tight across his chiseled face, the crow’s feet that mapped the corners of his eyes and mouth a product of age and years spent working in the elements.

With a touch of gray in the midnight black hair that peaked out from underneath his hard hat, he could have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty, Pru acknowledged dazedly. But by no stretch of the imagination could he be considered old. Rugged, too roughly cut to ever pass for a polished diamond, he was the kind of man who could make a woman pant.

She knew him.

Recognition came out of nowhere, grabbing her by the heart, stunning her speechless. Oh, she didn’t know his name and she would have bet she’d never seen him before—she would have remembered those eyes!—yet somehow she knew all she needed to know about him.

He was the one. The one she’d been waiting for. The one she’d moved from Kansas to San Antonio to find.

The absurdity of the thought nearly knocked her for a loop. The one? she echoed wildly. Good Lord, was she out of her mind? She hadn’t moved to Texas to find anyone. She’d just been standing out in the sun too long.

Abruptly coming to her senses, she took a jerky step back, twin flags of hot color flying high in her cheeks. “Ex-excuse me,” she said huskily. “I—I didn’t s-see you.”

She might not have noticed him, but Murdock had seen her the second she’d started running toward that damn cement truck with one hand flattened on her head to hold her hard hat in place. And he’d guessed immediately who she was. He hadn’t been expecting her, but he would have known that velvety rough voice of hers in the bowels of hell.

So this was the hard-assed Prudence Sullivan, he thought irritably, surprised to find himself nearly eye to eye with her. His brows snapping together in a dark, intimidating line, he glared at her and realized too late that if the lady was hard-assed, you couldn’t tell it from looking at her. Dammit, why hadn’t anyone told him? Warned him? Dressed in khakis, she was tall and willowy, with her long, wavy, mahogany hair, caught up in a ponytail under her hard-hat, flashing fire in the sun. How she still managed to look soft and feminine in that getup, he’d be damned if he knew.

His gaze slowly sliding over her cream-like complexion, his jaw flexed in reaction. She had the old-fashioned, porcelain features of a china doll and a sweet, vulnerable mouth that a man dreamed of—and ached for—in the dead of night. And if she was a day out of her twenties, he’d eat his shorts.

Too young, he thought, taking a mental step back. He’d be forty-five next July, and he only had to look at the lady to feel like a lecher. Dammit, what was the government thinking of, assigning a woman like her to a building site full of rough, crude construction workers? Didn’t those paper pushers know the hard hats would eat her up with a spoon if given half the chance?

Disgusted with himself for noticing anything about her, he said flatly, “You’re Prudence Sullivan.” It was a statement, not a question, one that only gave her a second to nod in surprise before he continued. “I’m Murdock.”

Pru’s jaw dropped. This was Murdock? This devastatingly handsome, well-put-together hunk was the same jerk who’d yelled at her on the phone yesterday? He couldn’t be. There had to be a mistake.

But a second, closer look at those incredible eyes that were lit with expectation, and she knew there was no mistake. This was Murdock, all right, and he was all set to tangle with her like he did every other inspector who crossed his path. More than willing to comply, her gaze shifted to the cement truck fifty yards away before swinging back to him. “Then I guess I don’t have to ask who ordered the cement, do I?”

“That’s right. I’m in charge around here, and the sooner you get that, the better. Nobody shuts me down, Inspector. Nobody.”

It was a taunt, pure and simple, his blue eyes so confident Pru wanted to slug him. Who did he think he was trying to intimidate? She wasn’t some piece of fluff who folded like a wimpy house of cards just because a builder dared to challenge her. And the sooner he got that, the better!

“Waste your money, then,” she said airily, a smile starting to flirt with her mouth. “Because if those core tests come back the way I think they will, you’re going to have to tear it all out. And if you don’t think I can make you do it, then you’re not as smart as I heard you are.”

They stood nose to nose, the electricity sparking between them so volatile, the air all but sizzled. Her heart slamming against her ribcage, Pru was suddenly struck by the wild, inexplicable need to touch him. Horrified, tantalized, fighting instincts she’d never had for a man in her life, she almost stepped back again. But he could only take that as a weakness and every instinct she possessed told her she was going to have to stand her ground when it came to dealing with this man.

Not budging so much as a muscle, she met his glowering gaze unflinchingly and forced a smile that didn’t come as easily as she would have liked. “Do we understand each other, Murdock?”

If she wanted a battle of wills, she had only to look into his grimly determined eyes to know that she had one. Nodding curtly, he said, “Precisely.”

Without another word, he stepped around her and walked away, leaving Pru staring after him. Her knees were shaking, her pulse jumping. Later she would be furious that she, who usually treated most men like they were her best buddies, let this one get her hot and bothered without half trying. But for now, all she could think of was that she should have touched him when she’d had the chance.