Beneath the Surface by Sherwood Kate

Author:Sherwood, Kate [Sherwood, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2012-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

PETER spent that night and most of the next day scrambling to make up lost ground. He’d been overconfident, and was caught flat-footed when he should have been poised and ready in the starter’s blocks. He’d let himself get distracted.

But the meeting with Jayne Blythe had gone well. After a rocky start, Peter had been able to use his charm, and Riva’s strong arguments, to explain how the province needed gravel. He’d admired Ms. Blythe’s generous work in raising money for the new wing of the children’s hospital, and pointed out the many tons of gravel that had been needed for the construction there. He’d talked about global warming and fossil fuels and shown the amount of oil that would be burned if they tried to ship gravel from way up north. And wasn’t she from Northern Ontario, herself? She must not appreciate the way these southerners referred to the north as if it were some sort of wasteland, good only for supplying the rapacious southern cities with raw materials.

He’d walked out of the meeting, his arms still warm from the hug he’d exchanged with the Northern Nightingale, and everything had been right with his world. It was like a drug, the rush he got from talking to people—persuading them, winning them over. His whole body felt alive; hell, he was a little bit turned on.

But thinking about sex led to thinking about Caleb, and then the rush was gone. The glow of achievement dimmed and faded away as he thought about Caleb’s quiet intensity, his innocent enthusiasm for his seahorse chess set… his sweet, simple kiss. Damn it. Peter had seen the movies; a new romantic interest was supposed to make you feel good, not bad. What was the point of any of it if it didn’t make him happy?

But he remembered that short time in Caleb’s shop, and didn’t think unhappy was the right word to describe his feelings then. Not at all. It had been a different sort of happiness, maybe; a calm, peaceful feeling instead of the jittery thrill he got from his job. Maybe he was being greedy, thinking he could have both sorts of joy. Certainly he was being incredibly optimistic, at least in this situation.

Because Caleb was going to be pissed. Getting Jayne Blythe on board had been a huge achievement. If things had gone badly enough, if the locals had been able to take the publicity Blythe had given them and they’d used it properly, they might actually have won this thing. Peter’s company wasn’t a one-trick pony, with only the gravel quarry to worry about. They were big, with their fingers in a lot of different pies, and they wanted a positive public image. Needed it, for some of their more consumer-sensitive endeavors. Sure, those were all run under different corporate names, with positive advertising and all the rest, but if the publicity for the parent corporation got bad enough, it would affect the whole group. Nobody was going to

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