Quade (The Jacksons Book 4)

Chapter One

“I need a housekeeper. Sheila is leaving me,” Quade said to his secretary, Marjorie. “I work too hard to be worrying about my domestic affairs. Fix it for me, please.”
Marjorie widened her eyes in consternation. “You need a housekeeper today?”
“Yes.” Quade nodded. “The person needs to be around for Sheila to train, and he or she, I am not hung up on gender here, just needs to be there for eight weeks until Sheila gets back.”
“So, Sheila is not leaving you for good?” Marjorie followed behind him as he sat at his desk. Quade's office was clearly visible from whoever was passing along the corridor. He usually drew the blinds if he wanted privacy; this morning, he did not.
He smelled good; Marjorie took a deep inhale. She had asked Quade what kind of perfume he wore so that she could buy it for her husband. It didn’t smell the same on her man. Apparently, Quade had a certain scent all by himself. She was on the verge of giving her husband a complex with her constant whining about him not putting on enough or too little perfume, to smell just like Quade Jackson.
Quade smelled like nostalgia, first love, first kisses, and carefree days in sun-soaked Negril. The scent of Quade made her feel like twenty when she and Andrew had just met instead of fifty-five.
Quade snapped his fingers. “Marj, I know you love how I smell, but we can't spend time on that today. You have your eyes closed, and that spaced-out expression again.”
“I just took a deep morning sniff. I am good now… focused.” Marjorie looked at him with what she hoped was alertness.
She knew she was an acquired taste; other people found her zany. Until she worked at Jackson Development, she had not held down a single job for more than a few months.
They usually fired her because she had no filter. People thought she was too blunt. She spoke exactly what was on her mind; she usually didn't keep it in. She was deemed inappropriate for a business environment too many times to count.
One person even suggested that she should find a solitary profession, but Quade tolerated her, and they had been working together for years.
Quade smirked. “You need help, Marj.”
Marjorie grinned, really focusing on him this time. “I thought you were the one that needed help.”
“Oh yes, a housekeeper for two months.” Quade sighed. “Sheila's daughter is getting married in The Gambia, and I foolishly offered to send her to spend some time with her daughter before the wedding. I didn't know she would ask me for eight weeks of leave.”
“The Gambia in Africa!” Marjorie smiled. “I envy her. I heard The Gambia is a lovely place. When are you going to send me and the hubs to Africa?”
“Are any of your sons getting married on the continent?” Quade asked patiently.
Marjorie grinned. “You have taken on your exaggerated patient voice, so I will not bother you further.”
“Thanks,” Quade said sarcastically.
“You have an urgent message.” Marjorie held up a Post-it note. “It’s from Carmen Rose Cordova. She is inviting you to lunch.”
Quade nodded. “Okay.”
“She wants to meet you at her townhouse. You know where it is?” Marjorie read the message exactly as she got it, a disapproving tone to her voice, which was not lost on Quade.
“That's fine. I have been there before,” Quade murmured. “Is that all?”
“No,” Marjorie pursed her lips, “I am not one to pry in my boss’s personal life.”
Quade laughed. Big guffaws that probably could be heard all the way outside.
Marjorie waited him out.
“That Carmen Rose Cordova is bad news. I don’t like her for you.”
Quade chuckled. “We want to do business with Cordova Development. They are looking for a partner to build luxurious villas in the Blue Mountains. Carmen is the head of Cordova Development, and I am the head of Jackson Development, a smaller company. You can call this an audition and not a courtship.”
“But that doesn’t mean you should get in bed with her,” Marjorie said disapprovingly. “And I mean a literal bed, not figuratively.”
“I know what you mean. I have not reached that far with the lovely Carmen yet.”
“She is not lovely,” Marjorie shook her head. “Getting involved with her is a bad idea. There is a rumor that she killed her stepdaughter.”
“That’s not true,” Quade said, “who knows if her stepdaughter is even dead. She ran away.”
“And one has to wonder why,” Marjorie narrowed her eyes at him. “You are a handsome man with so much potential. Don’t let that female vampire suck you dry.”
Quade grunted; he wasn’t listening to Marjorie anymore. Since he heard that Cordova Development was looking for a partner to develop luxurious country cottages, and he met Carmen Cordova, this was Marjorie's daily mantra.
Grace Gail walked by his office and he definitely tuned out Marjorie. Grace did not walk; what she did was more of a glide. She was poetry in motion and easily the prettiest woman he had ever seen. Her dark brown skin and perfectly proportioned oval face usually garnered several appreciative looks. He was no exception.
She was slim but curvy, and she did things to a simple pair of jeans that usually had him pausing to take her in as she walked by.
She wore her signature style of two ponytails, which hit her at her tailbone. Every day she tied a ribbon at the ends of her two ponytails to match whatever she was wearing
Today it was red because she was in a red peasant top. The asymmetrical neck of the thing showed one shoulder blade. He wondered if people could be attracted to shoulder blades. Apparently, he was one of them.
He tried to drag his eyes from that exposed area of brown skin but could not.
She stopped to talk to Lee Wiley, who was going in the opposite direction. Lee showed her a piece of paper and was gesticulating wildly.
It made her laugh.
Jealousy tore through him, and he instantly felt awful for it. Quade was jealous of Lee Wiley because he was talking to Grace, an irrational response that had been happening more and more frequently when he spotted her around the property.
He had stopped pretending a year ago that he was not fascinated with her. He just didn’t want to breach the employer/employee relationship in any way. Danica had rescued Grace two years ago when she had hopped on a tour bus and hidden in the back until she reached Golden Acres. She had been injured.
He knew there was a back story there, he knew she had escaped from the cult in Trelawny, but he didn’t know much else about her. Whenever he tried to talk to her, she clammed up. Usually, she looked at him with a hint of panic creeping into her chestnut brown eyes.
He didn’t want to see the fear. He did nothing to warrant that look. He was an affable person to all his employees, but he didn’t date them. Never had. He was never tempted to until now.
Lee continued to talk to her, and she turned slightly and looked into his office and right at him. He knew the instance that she realized he was looking at her. She went perceptibly still.
He expected her to turn away instantly and pretend that their eyes hadn't met, but she kept eye contact.
The air around him went still as if nothing mattered but the clinging of two pair of eyes across a span of corridor.
“I feel like I should fan myself,” Marjorie whispered in the silence.
Quade dragged his eyes away from Grace and sat up straighter. “What were we talking about again?”
“Sheila needs a replacement as soon as possible, and I think I know who I am going to ask.”
“Who?” Quade asked faintly. His eyes skittered to where Grace was standing, but she was gone.
“Grace, of course,” Marjorie said. “I heard that Danica gave her three months off to finish her accelerated online degree. You remember the online degree, the one that Danica had you pay for because she said that Grace had potential.”
Quade nodded. “Yes, I remember.”
“Grace has two months left from her three-month vacation.”
“So?” Quade raised an eyebrow.
“She is not doing anything. She could be your housekeeper. Try to keep up, Quade. I know that every time you see her, your brain gets scrambled, and that's a good thing. It gives me hope that Carmen Cordova doesn't stand a chance.”
“She is my employee.” Quade looked at Marjorie exasperatedly. “I don't date my employees. Besides, Grace took time off to keep up with her schoolwork. I don’t want to interfere with that.”
“And there was a need for her to take the time,” Marjorie leaned forward eagerly, “she was working on the janitorial staff and then Danica had her in recreation. She was juggling too much.
“You live alone in your house, when you manage to go there, and you never eat there. She will have the whole place to herself. It's not as if she has anything much to do now. She can study and pass her exams quite fine as your housekeeper. I’d take the job if your empire wouldn’t collapse without me here. Working as your housekeeper is like being on a perpetual vacation.”
Quade laughed. “Is that the way you are going to sell it to her?”
“Definitely.” Marjorie nodded.
“Well, if she says yes. I am fine with it.” Quade shrugged.
He hoped it came off as casual, but his heart rate had suddenly picked up speed as he thought about Grace being in such close proximity to him.

 
Chapter Two

Grace sat down to the back of the staff dining room area, at a table for two. She didn't want to be noticed, a few persons from the admin department were having a late lunch, and they were talkative.
She usually avoided the talkative set at all cost. Still, it was gab season, everyone was talking about the staff talent show, it was the brainchild of Danica Jackson. It had quickly become the major event of the year at Golden Acres. This year would make the third staging, and the prizes were attractive as usual.
Last year the winning act got a hefty prize money and second and third place were nothing to sneeze at. And this year it was even better. It was all everyone on staff cared about these days, it seemed. Even the residents were excited. Last year’s show had drawn quite a crowd from the glitterati, the who’s who of the celebrity set.
Grace had to admit that even though she was acting pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, a fissure of excitement gripped her now and again because she was going to participate this year. She would conquer her shyness and bite the bullet because nothing could stop her from doing this.
She needed the money. It was time to make enough to execute the plan. The reason she had escaped from Machseh. Money meant freedom and a chance to right what was wrong.
She looked at her lunch voucher and then at the clock. She had an hour left to use it, but she wasn't feeling as hungry as she should. She would have preferred a dinner voucher instead, but unfortunately, the vouchers could not be exchanged for dinner, nor did they roll over into the coming month.
This was her last set of vouchers for the month, and there was no way she would be going to Stella in HR for additional vouchers. She had two months to go; she would have to exist off ramen noodles from the tuck shop.
Stella was the most inquisitive person this side of planet earth; to get the vouchers for the month she would have to recite her life story and endure the skepticism in her eyes. Eating ramen noodles was preferable to facing Stella.
Stella liked to brag that she was a natural lie detector, and though she hadn't come out and said anything, Grace was sure that she was silently calling her a liar. It was a complete one-eighty from her initial attitude when Grace had just escaped from Machseh and arrived at Golden Acres. Back then, Stella had been cordial, kind, and sympathetic to her plight.
The suspicion and skepticism had grown when she had joined the list of employees who took the mock SATs and aced it. Stella had been astounded at her mock grades, but she had been even more baffled when Grace had taken the real thing and passed with quite a high grade, so high, in fact, that she automatically qualified to be one of the two employees chosen to further her education under the Golden Acres Employee Upgrade Initiative.
She had chosen to do an accelerated associate degree in business online. Stella had been side eying her ever since.
“How can someone who recently escaped from a cult pass the SAT's in the ninety-fifth percentile?” Stella had asked out loud.
And once again, Grace had to explain that she read through the material and remembered it; that was her gift. She had a near-perfect recall for things she read.
Stella never really seemed to listen to that.
“How old were you when you got there?”
“Twelve.” She would say patiently.
“And you stayed there for how long?” Stella usually developed a small crinkle by her left eye when she squinted, trying to figure out if there was something different to her answer.
“Seven years, give or take a few weeks.” Grace would reply.
“Ah,” Stella would fold her hands under her cheeks, the monthly lunch vouchers lying forgotten on the desk. “Tell me about education up in Macvay.”
Grace inhaled. She was tired of giving Stella the right pronunciation to Machseh. It seemed as if Stella took delight in mispronouncing the name of the place a bit too much. She dealt with the education question instead.
“We were taught a wide curriculum, history, languages, music, mathematics.”
“What did you need those for?” Stella asked, still in that exaggerated wide-eyed pose. “I thought you guys were not a part of this world and all that it entails; why learn more about it?”
Whenever she made that particular face. Grace wondered how it was possible that Stella and Danica were such good friends. Stella was inquisitive and skeptical, and a bit hard, Danica was sweet and caring and friendly without judgment.
“Not being a part of the world doesn’t mean that we couldn’t be informed and educated.” Grace always sounded defensive when she answered Stella. And Stella loved it. To Stella there was nothing better than when she showed some emotion when Stella thought she was becoming worked up.
“I thought you said that women at Macville were not allowed to get an education.” Stella rocked back in her chair and looked at her smugly.
“They weren’t allowed to be in certain classes.” Grace would look on the vouchers. Usually, hunger pangs would be tearing through her. She always waited until the very last minute, a day or two after using her last lunch voucher before going to Stella.
“The heavy religious classes were taught to the men.” She tacked on weakly because Stella seemed to be waiting for more.
“A cult that thinks that women are inferior.” Stella rolled her eyes. “I really, really despise it. How brainwashed are you? You think you are inferior to men?”
“I don’t think I am inferior; I am not brainwashed at all. Maybe a little, I lived there for seven years, not everything they taught was wrong. I remember when I escaped, it took a bit of getting used to living on the outside. I guess I felt a little like how a released prisoner would feel.”
“Mmph,” Stella was not finished with her questioning. “So why weren't you married to one of those Maclay men? And already had a bunch of kids? You came here at nineteen. You are certainly pretty. All the men around here seem to notice.”
Grace had to bite her tongue to ask if all the men included Quade. She had a fixation on Quade Jackson from the very first moment she had seen him. It was the kind of fixation she had not managed to shake, and it was going on two years.
“So aren’t you going to answer?” Stella insisted.
“I er…” she didn’t remember the question.
“Did you run away from Macpen and leave behind a bunch of kids and a husband?” Stella folded her arms and looked at her contemplatively.
“No.” Grace grimaced. “I was promised to marry Abner, that’s Brother Cyrus’ brother. I ran away the same day I was supposed to marry. I wasn’t prepared to marry anyone.”
Stella whistled. “I heard this Cyrus guy was handsome, how is his brother?”
“They look nothing alike,” Grace said dismissively. She had never warmed up to Abner; he was a year younger than her and had an arrogant attitude. From the moment she had heard that she would be paired up with him, she had started plotting her escape in earnest. She hadn’t even thought of what it would mean to be on the outside, the wider society that had so badly let her down.
“Did you love him?” Stella asked.
“No,” Grace said it almost aggressively.
Stella smiled. “Do you love Lee Wiley?”
Grace sighed. It always came down to Lee Wiley. Stella had a mammoth crush on the man, and it seemed as if everyone in the place did. Lee was handsome and quite friendly; several persons thought his friendliness translated to him wanting them.
“I don’t love Lee Wiley, I don’t love anyone…” her voice trailed away; she didn't know what she had for Quade. Surely if it were a crush, it should have faded by now. It had grown stronger over the years, but she couldn’t call that love.
Stella looked at her knowingly and handed her the vouchers. “The boss is out of your league; he doesn't date his employees. Lee would make a better match, but I am still holding out hope in that direction, so I would never encourage it.”
“What are you talking about?” Grace took the vouchers and wondered if it would be undignified to run out of the office.
“Quade.” Stella grinned, “I heard about the incident at Ace’s wedding.”
Grace closed her eyes in mortification. “The rumors are wrong. The version of the story currently circulating is highly embellished.”
“So, you weren't staring helplessly across the room at him while you were serving at the reception?” Stella chuckled, “and then when he walked into your direction, you stiffened and dropped all the glasses you had on your tray?”
Grace had mumbled something and ran out of the room with Stella cackling behind her.

****

“Earth to Grace.” Diondra, her roommate, was waving her hands before her eyes.
Grace dragged herself back from memory lane and to the present. She couldn't believe that she had been so immersed in her memories that she hadn’t realized that Diondra was in front of her, grinning.
“Huh?” Grace felt embarrassed. Diondra was not the only one looking at her; Debbie and the others from accounts were staring at her as well. She hated being the center of attention. What had she missed?
“Is it true that you are going to dance the Lambada with Lee Wiley at talent night next week?”
“No,” Grace spluttered. “He is dancing with Yvette. I am just playing the violin for them.”
“And splitting the prize money three ways? Diondra shrugged. “Not me, I want to do something alone, it’s a pity my talent is not entertaining.”
“Even splitting it will still be good money,” Debbie walked closer to them and folded her arms. “The girls and I are going to be singing the Supremes, He’s All I Got. We sound like the real thing too.”
Diondra laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“More than one resident here who was alive in that era says so.” Debbie grinned, “and that is all the confirmation I need that we are on to something. What’s your talent, Diondra?”
“Apart from talking?” Diondra grinned. “Juggling. I can do eight oranges at a time for twelve minutes.”
Grace chuckled. “It is still a talent. Diondra practiced hard with the oranges. It was something to see her with them.”
“Yeah, I know, but it is not first prize-worthy. I wish I could play the violin or any instrument.” Diondra looked at Grace. “I am jealous, you get to play something and work with Lee. Such a pity Lee doesn’t stand a chance when the boss is around.”
“Stop it,” Grace whispered, stricken. “When is this stupid rumor going to die? I didn’t faint at Quade’s feet. I…”
Grace bit her lip. “You know what, carry on, I am going to get lunch.”
She got up from the table.
Diondra and Debbie laughed.
“Relax,” Diondra said loudly enough that even the serving ladies heard, “the talent show is bound to get us talking about other things. Somebody will embarrass themselves on stage, and you fainting at the boss's feet will be yesterday's news. Anyway, I am going back to work, just came to collect my food. I’ll see you tonight.”
Grace nodded.
Somehow, she wasn’t buying Diondra’s reassurances. There would always be talk about her fainting at Quade's feet, but only part of that story was true. They had no idea why she had made such a spectacular fool of herself, and she wasn't going to tell them.