Chapter 6
Warren woke with a happy but sick feeling in his stomach. Why had he written that note for Dorothy? It was madness! Plain and simple.
Perhaps he was sick. He wasn’t feeling like himself.
Something had come over him since meeting her.
Something like a fever that made him yearn to speak to her, to look at her and be near her.
He had lain in bed the night before unable to fall asleep for a long time, thinking about Dorothy and how wonderful she was.
He had to be sick. This had to be some sort of strange illness that had suddenly come over him and driven him to borrow one of Shakespeare’s poems to express how he felt that they were a meeting of like minds. How deeply he regarded her.
“Oh heavens, what if she doesn’t like me?” he asked the ceiling. “What if I’ve made a fool of myself?”
Wait! I didn’t sign the note. I can’t have made a fool of myself because Dorothy doesn’t know the poem was from me. She might recognize my handwriting from our letters … but maybe not!
Relief flooded through him. He could see a plan forming in his mind.
He and Dorothy were meant to spend the day working on the accounts.
Wonderful. If she mentioned the note, he could gauge her reaction without admitting it was him.
If she was somehow offended by the letter, then he could simply pretend that it wasn’t him.
Feeling much better, Warren got dressed and went to Michael’s room. He knocked on the door and it opened almost at once.
“Morning,” Michael said. “I have a plan for today. I think we should corner Mac and make him talk to us.”
“Um … okay, but …”
“No! Otherwise, we could be here for another week or three and then we’ll get snowed in,” Michael said. “I want to go home.”
“I understand,” Warren said, although thoughts of Unity had lessened since he met Dorothy. “Let’s talk about it over breakfast.”
Michael sighed. “There’s nothing to discuss. We’re going to sit down with Mac today and sort this all out. Okay? I’ve seen Sadie already, and she said that Jasper is on the job. He’s setting rat traps all over the hotel as we speak. We’ve solved his problem, so now he gets to help us with ours.”
Warren didn’t know what to say. He had the feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy to get Mac to sit down.
He seemed quite afraid of something, and that worried Warren.
What could unsettle a man like Mac? It was something that would have to be worked out before they could make any appreciable headway.
They headed downstairs and found the restaurant wasn’t busy. Either most folks at the hotel had already eaten, or they were sleeping in.
He and Michael were the only ones there, but there was a buffet of eggs, toast, bacon, cheese, and fruit laid out. Warren made a beeline for the coffee while Michael descended on the eggs and bacon.
They each filled their plates and then went to sit at a table.
“Okay, so I think we just need to find out where Mac’s office is,” Michael said, leaning over his plate and eating hungrily. “If we can catch him before he gets his day going, we can make sure that we get him to listen to us.”
“Hold on,” Warren said. “We can’t do that. Wouldn’t it be better to appeal to his logical mind? If we can show him the figures of what El Aguila interfering with our operation is costing him, then I think we won’t have a problem getting him to back us.”
“You want to use up our limited time with him talking about numbers?” Michael asked. “What about the stories we can tell him of how we’ve been blown up and shot at? Those are quite compelling, I think. Far more than cold, hard numbers will be.”
Warren shrugged. “I think numbers speak for themselves quite clearly.”
When they were about halfway through, Dorothy came into the restaurant. She spotted them and walked over.
“Morning,” she said brightly.
She looked so pretty that Warren found he couldn’t stop looking at her. She must have slept well because she looked refreshed and there was a light rose color in her cheeks.
Warren smiled at her and then remembered about the poem.
Suddenly he was terribly nervous. What would she think of it if she knew he had given her the poem? Would she be angry? Would she dismiss it as nothing? That might be even worse.
“Warren here thinks that you two should spend some time together today,” Michael said, sipping his coffee.
Warren frowned. He’d said no such thing. What was Michael doing?
“You’re both so good at accounting matters, and two heads are better than one when it comes to sorting out some numbers Warren seems to think are vital to present to Mr. McGregor,” Michael elaborated with a faint smile in Warren’s direction.
He flushed. “Only if you want to … There’s no pressure or anything like that,” Warren almost stammered.
Dorothy frowned at him. “What are you talking about? Of course there’s pressure. We need to get a compelling report put together for Mac.”
Warren swallowed hastily and it went down the wrong way. He began to cough and choke, burying his face in his napkin.
“Are you okay?” Dorothy asked. She patted him on the back. “Warren, do you need something? A drink of water?”
Warren shook his head, his cheeks burning and his eyes watering. He waved her off, shaking his head as he continued to cough.
“I think there’s been a change of plans,” Dorothy stated when she gave up on helping Warren. “We should go for a walk. It’s such a lovely day, it would be a travesty to miss it.”
“Are you sure?” he wheezed. “I thought we were going to?—”
“We were, but now we’re going to do this,” she said, giving him a stern look.
“Okay,” Warren managed, finally managing to catch his breath. “Are you going to eat something?”
Dorothy shrugged. “I’ll grab something from the buffet. Meet me in the lobby in five minutes?”
Warren nodded.
She headed for the door, grabbing a piece of toast as she went.
When she was gone, Michael turned to him. “Are you going to live? What happened?”
“I swallowed wrong,” Warren snapped. “It happens to everyone.”
“Oh sure, mostly when there’s a pretty woman around,” Michael said with an impish grin.
“Don’t stick your oar in here, Michael,” Warren warned.
“Just don’t. It’s not what you think.” Before Michael could weigh in with his opinion on the romance he’d clearly spotted brewing—a romance that didn’t exist and which Warren wasn’t sure even stood a chance after how clumsy he always managed to be around Dorothy—Warren went on, “She knows Mac well. I just think if she feels we shouldn’t be approaching him yet, then we should listen. ”
“But it’s a waste of time,” Michael protested.
“We don’t know that. Let’s just hear her out,” Warren said. “Let’s just talk to her and see if we can’t get her on our side. There’s no point being at war with Mac and Dorothy. Then we’ll really end up going home with nothing.”
Michael grudgingly agreed. “Fine, but we’re getting some answers today. That’s final.”
Five minutes later, Warren and Michael were waiting for Dorothy in the lobby.
There was a different person behind the reception desk from yesterday, and Warren just smiled nervously at the young lady.
He really wasn’t designed for socializing.
He never knew what to say that wouldn’t make him seem like an idiot.
And even when he stayed mum, sometimes he came across as a fool anyway!
When Dorothy appeared, she looked annoyed. “Let’s go.”
Without waiting for them, she headed for the door. Outside, they found her striding down the drive into the town.
“Are you planning to tell us what’s wrong?
” Michael demanded, and Warren checked the urge to snap at Michael to not be so rude.
Dorothy could defend herself. She’d proved that repeatedly in the short time they’d known one another.
Such a short time, not counting their many letters, and he was already head over heels. Heaven help him!
Dorothy looked around. “I think we should go this way. There’s a lovely place to look out over the lake. We can talk there.”
They set off on a trail that led into the woods on their left.
It went uphill for a while, and Warren was out of breath by the time they reached the top.
A large rock protruded out over the edge of the cliff face.
It stood out from the trees and allowed anyone on it to see at least a hundred and eighty to two hundred degrees around.
Climbing on the rock, Warren gingerly leaned toward the edge and then stepped back.
It wasn’t only elevators that he didn’t like.
Rocks that hung out over nothing were also not on his list of favorite things.
The view straight out in front of him was spectacular though.
Peak upon peak rolled out in front of him with valleys and dips and ridges all around.
They were covered in trees brilliant with fall colors.
It was truly awe-inspiring, and he whispered a prayer of thanks to God for His magnificent works.
He looked over at Dorothy and smiled. She smiled back at him, and their gazes locked. She was so lovely with the breeze in her hair, loose tendrils blowing gently and framing her face.
“Are you going to tell us what’s going on now?” Michael asked. “We had a plan to talk to Mac and now we’re out here. What is the problem?”
Dorothy sighed and sat down on the rock, letting her legs dangle over. Warren cringed. He moved closer to her and sat down too, hoping he could manage to grab her if she got too close to the edge.
“I didn’t want to talk about it in the town or at the hotel. People talk in this small town, and anything we say has the possibility of ending up as local gossip,” Dorothy said, looking grave. “I’m sorry to drag you all the way up here, but the view is kind of nice.”
“Yes, it’s lovely,” Warren said.
Did she even read the poem? Should I write her another one? Good grief, Warren. This is not the time.
For someone usually so focused, this giddy, erratic state of mind was very strange.
Both Dorothy and Michael gave him odd looks. He should stop looking at her. Maybe then he could think.
“Okay, fine,” Michael said. “We’re alone. There’s no one else here. Spill the beans. What the heck is going on?”
“I don’t know all of it,” Dorothy said. “I’ve had to work a lot of it out from overheard conversations and things, but I think there is a plan to get Mac kicked out of his own company.”
“What?” Warren asked in surprise. “Who would do that?”
“Devlin and Harding leap to mind,” Dorothy said.
“They’ve been treating Mac like he’s a senile old man for a while now.
It was subtle, but I think they’ve made him doubt himself.
That’s why I thought coming to the hotel would be a good thing to help clear his mind.
But he seems to have gotten worse. I don’t understand how that’s possible. ”
“Wonderful,” Michael said with a defeated sigh. “So, we came all this way for nothing.”
“No, you have to help me,” Dorothy pleaded.
“I can’t do this alone. Don’t you care about Mac and what he’s built?
He needs you to help him so that he can help you.
You understand that, don’t you? If he loses the company, then there’s nothing he can do for you and Unity.
And as you know, Devlin and Harding aren’t willing to lift a finger on your behalf. ”
Warren nodded. “That was made abundantly clear. You believe they’re trying to make Mac step down from the company?”
“I think so,” she said with a nod. “They’ve somehow made him doubt himself. I don’t know what they said to him before he came out here, but he’s rattled.” She paused and looked at Warren, making him shift awkwardly, only to stop when he remembered where he was sitting. “There’s more.”
“More?” he asked.
“I found some documents that are strange,” she said. “I think there’s money going missing. That’s where you can be the most help, Warren, with your accounting skills. If you can help me to figure this out, I will be so grateful.”
It was one of the few times someone had ever really appreciated his work, rather than teasing him about it, and it made him fall even harder for Dorothy.
“I’d be happy to help.”
“Wonderful,” Michael said. “Let’s go back, and you two can go through documents. I’ll try and find out if anything else is bothering Mac.”
“How?” Dorothy asked.
“I have ways,” Michael said. He sighed. “The one time we really need Kyle, he’s in Pennsylvania. Typical.”
“Kyle?” she repeated.
“He’s our friend. He has a … unique way with people and animals,” Warren explained. “They can’t resist him. If he were here …”
“Mr. McGregor would already have told us everything on his mind and more,” Michael confirmed.
“Useful skill to have,” she commented with a raised eyebrow. “All right. Let’s go back. But remember, we can’t talk freely in the hotel. If there is a plot to unseat Mac, there might be people who send word back to Harding and Devlin about anything we say.”
They nodded and set off back to the hotel.
Dorothy walked beside Warren. In the dappled sunlight filtering through the branches, she really was a vision of loveliness.
He couldn’t seem to stop looking at her.
What made it even harder was that she kept smiling at him.
His mouth ran away with him, and suddenly he was telling her all about the operas he loved so much.
“I saw Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra,” Dorothy commented, to his delight. “Its arias are very short, aren’t they?”
“Yes, because Thomaso Albinoni had never written an opera before. That was his first,” Warren began eagerly. “He?—”
A scream rang out so loudly that Michael, who had been looking into a store window, physically whipped around and gawked in the direction of the noise. Dorothy and Warren followed with their own rubbernecks.
A wheelbarrow lay on its side and a woman sat in the dirt, crying as a young man, hardly out of his teens, stood menacingly over her.
“Hey! Get away from her!” Dorothy yelled.
Anger rose in Warren and he held out a hand to Dorothy, quietly asking her to stay back. To his relief, she didn’t argue with him. With his hand on the butt of his gun and Michael beside him, Warren stepped out into the street.
“What’s going on here?” Michael demanded.
The young man turned to look at him. “Oh, we got some heroes, boys,” he sneered. “Why don’t you show them what happens to heroes here?”
They came out of seemingly nowhere. Eight youths, all wielding guns and knives, grinning like deranged hyenas, stepped into the road.
“Ah, now I see why no one was helping this woman,” Warren murmured, unperturbed. Funny how things like elevators and pretty women shook him up, but men armed to the teeth—he’d seen so many in Unity that he didn’t so much as blink at the sight. “What do you want to do?”
“Teach these hoodlums a lesson?” Michael suggested.
“Let’s do that,” Warren agreed, an unpleasant smile touching his lips.