Undeniable by Julie Elizabeth Leto

Author:Julie Elizabeth Leto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises, Australia Pty Ltd
Published: 2004-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

A CROWD OF two dozen workers loitered outside the building on the steps, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and shaking their heads, undoubtedly discussing how fatal the accident would have been if anyone had been on the scaffolding when it tumbled to the ground. A brownish-gray haze of dust and smoke lingered in the air, which smelled of concrete and metal. Danielle’s primary foreman, a brawny redheaded Irishman named Doyle, stood like a sentinel just inside the doorway, his arms crossed and his expression dire. He moved aside only when Danielle jogged up the steps, darting around workers without a single word.

The destruction shocked even Nicholai.

Yesterday, the scaffolding had created a steady, crisscross matrix of steel and wood across the entire west wall of the building, two stories high and nearly ninety feet in length. Workers had swarmed over the structure like bees on honeycomb, replacing out-of-code wiring, refurbishing pipes, repairing years of neglect and damage to the concrete wall by applying sealant, paint and tile, and masking the upgrades so that, after the restaurant opened, not a single patron would notice the painstaking work. Nicholai guessed that when he’d been in the building yesterday, no less than ten workmen had traversed the framework at one time, and ten more had crossed under, around and beside it on their way to other tasks in the building. No doubt, if the scaffolding had given way during the day, the body count would be nothing short of tragic.

“How did this happen?” Danielle asked, her voice choked either from the air or from the emotions of the destruction.

Doyle shook his head, his jaw tight. “No word yet. I paged the engineers.” With a nod, he indicated two men picking through the rubble wearing hard hats and thick leather gloves. “They’re still looking things over.”

“Has OSHA been called?”

“Cecily Divine came by this morning just after we discovered the accident. She’s filing a report from her office, but since no one was in the building when this happened, they aren’t rushing over until after the engineers work up their theories. But we’re shut down, Ms. Stone. No way is this place going to be fit for work anytime soon.”

Danielle grunted and hitched her hands on her hips. “We’ll see about that. Can I get to my office?”

Doyle shook his head. “Not in those shoes. What do you need?”

“My hard hat and my steel-toed boots. I want to check out the damage for myself.”

Doyle nodded and marched around the debris to fetch her things. Nicholai sidestepped a few inches to stand directly beside her. He watched her scan the destruction with slow precision and observed how keenly she listened to the chatter of the two engineers as they pored over the destruction with careful consideration. All of the fear and uncertainty he’d witnessed in her eyes the night before had disappeared. Facing hard truths in her personal life was obviously harder for her than confronting the possibility of failure in business.

Not that Nicholai thought for one minute that she’d fail.

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