His First Choice

Jem was a baseball man, but when he’d thrown out his rotator cuff after making it as far as the farm team of a major league California baseball team, he’d had to face the fact that even though he’d healed well enough to have a normal range of activity, he’d never be able to throw a baseball the same. He then became a water-sport man.

“Listen, Mick, I know Tressa comes on strong sometimes, but you know as well as I do that she’s gifted when it comes to knowing when, where and how to move money around.” He shot wide and pretended to care.

“She told him to fuck himself.”

He cringed. Closed his eyes a

nd pictured himself and Levi sailing the ocean on a finished schooner that looked amazingly like the half-built one in his garage.

“She went that far?” he asked as the bank’s regional director, in from LA, made a perfect shot to the green and picked up his bag. With his own bag on his shoulder, he followed along, letting the older man set their pace.

“She didn’t tell you?” The gray-haired man gave him a sideways glance. Mick Hunter, in his late sixties, had a gaze that was as sharp as any Jem had ever seen. Wrinkled skin and slowed pace aside, the man was as strong-willed as ever.

“Only that she’d been understandably upset and had said more than you thought appropriate.”

Nodding, Mick walked in the direction of Jem’s misplaced ball. He’d do better to get the game right so that he didn’t wear out the man he was there to appease—on his ex-wife’s behalf.

“She needs this job, Mick.” He couldn’t believe even Tressa had lost her composure to that extent. Not at work.

And wished he couldn’t believe that she’d let him come into this meeting ill-prepared.

“I can’t have the head office getting calls from wealthy investors because one of my managers doesn’t have the ability to reel herself in.”

“He called her a thief.”

“He’s a bit senile, Jem, and he wasn’t understanding his most recent investment statement. All she had to do was listen to his concerns and explain things to him. And then, when he saw how upset she was by his accusation, he apologized. In person and in writing.”

“Didn’t he offer to pay her off for her trouble?” Jem said, dropping his bag as they reached his ball. Pulling a nine iron out of his bag, he lined up a shot for the tee. If he focused, he’d make it. “That’s bribery.” If he gave a rat’s ass about the game, he’d probably be good at it. “Usually when a man offers a bribe, he has something to hide.” Jem played his best card.

“He doesn’t want his kids to know that he forgot about moving money from one fund to another. And he only offered her money after her response to his apology was...so inflammatory.”

Straightening, Jem looked over at the other man. Mick’s hat shaded his forehead, but not the serious light in his eyes, or the frown beneath that grayed mustache. That afternoon was the first he’d heard that the man had apologized at all, let alone in writing. Tressa said he’d tried to “pat her on the head” afterward.

“She mouthed off when he accused her,” he clarified. She’d specifically said she’d been a bit tactless when the elderly investor had first accused her. Tressa wasn’t one to admit to wrongdoing. So when she did, he knew she was telling him the truth.

“That’s when she called him an asshole.”

Obviously the “tactless” reference. Oh, hell. Tressa, will you ever learn to hold your damned tongue inside your mouth?

She wasn’t anything like her parents; he’d give her that. And couldn’t imagine what it had been like growing up with them constantly berating her, withholding love on a regular basis.

But how much did she have to lose before she realized that people did not tolerate the verbal lashes that seemed perfectly normal to her?

Lord knew he’d tried to tell her. She thought he was the one who didn’t get it. Until she was in trouble. Then she came running to him.

And so he came out to play golf. Or find some other way to chew on her crow.

“Okay, look, Mick, she made a mistake. She was pretty shaken up, a banker being accused of theft. She said the conversation took place where other customers could have heard him.”

Tressa thought she had a case for slander. Jem didn’t agree. He just needed her to be able to keep her job. He made good money, but he wasn’t going to support Tressa forever. They were divorced. She had to learn to take care of herself.

But still, she was the mother of his child, and a woman with a good heart.

“And other than this one incident, she’s been good for the bank,” he continued. “She tells me your accounts have grown a third in the year and a half she’s been there.”

“She’s good at helping people see how to get their money to work for them.”

“Right.” At least she had given that to him straight. “They benefit and so do you. Everyone wins. Which is a hell of a lot better than having a salesperson who can convince people to do anything, but then later have it not be good for them.”