Sultry Nights

Why he drove around in pretty much a circle for nearly twenty minutes, he would never tell anyone. He couldn’t get her scent out of his head or the way she ran her tongue across her lips. He considered himself well educated, comfortable in any situation and articulate. But for the life of him he’d barely been able to string a full sentence together.

Finally, he wound his way back onto the right road leading out of town to his office in New Orleans. It was a miracle that he hadn’t run over someone’s cat.

He pulled into the angled parking space in front of the three-story brick building that housed his construction company. There are some things you know in life, and the one thing that he’d known since he watched his uncle Reggie, who was a carpenter by trade, hammer a nail, was that he wanted to build things. Once he was old enough he spent his summers as an apprentice on construction sites, learning the trade, working, sweating, getting his hands dirty and loving every minute of it. But as his uncle had told him over and over, having brawn wasn’t enough. He needed brains to go with it. So he went to school, got a BS degree in Construction Management and an MBA in Economics, both from Louisiana State University. Within two years of getting his construction management degree, he worked out a business plan, presented it to the bank and landed a small business loan that launched his first storefront office. At the time he was his lone employee, other than when he needed an extra set of hands, until Max came on board and signed on as a partner. That was nearly ten years ago. He was twenty-five and still wet behind the ears. Now he had a permanent staff of fifteen artisans, and subcontracts with dozens of other tradesman. He had one of the most successful privately owned construction companies in the state. He had more work than he could handle, but the one job he never turned away was his community service work, his way of giving back. Otherwise, he and Ms. Dominique Lawson would have never crossed paths.

Max Hunt was stepping out of his office door with a handful of blueprints when Trevor came in.

Max and Trevor had been best friends since grammar school. They liked the same things, sports, fishing, good music, hard work, a stiff drink and beautiful women. They’d been dubbed the Black Knights back in college, a reputation they seemed to have maintained into full manhood, matching each other stride for stride in the looks and sexual charm department except that Max resembled the clean-shaven Shamar Moore.

Max briefly glanced up then returned his attention to the blueprints. “Hey, man, how’d it go?” he asked, walking to the industrial copy machine.

Trevor took the camera from around his neck. “Pretty good.”

Max lifted the cover of the copy machine and placed the blueprints facedown. The machine hummed and began spitting out copies. Max frowned and turned his head in Trevor’s direction. “Pretty good. That’s it?”

Trevor shrugged slightly and took the memory card out of the camera. “Took a tour, she told me what she needed. Said we got the contract. I told her I’d get back to her in about a week with some design ideas.” He shrugged again. “That’s it. Nothing to tell.”

Max gave him a sidelong glance. “Yeah, right, my brother. What really happened?” He half smiled.

“What are you talking about? That’s it.”

“What did she look like in person?”

Trevor’s eyes flashed for a moment but he couldn’t stop the smile that slowly moved across his mouth. “Edible.”

Chapter 4

Dominique spent the rest of the morning with her leg propped up on a short step stool beneath her desk with a plastic bag of ice on her knee, while she read over the latest inventory reports. Although her family, her father and oldest sister, Lee Ann, in particular, used to ride her relentlessly for her insatiable desire to shop, it was an obsession that was paying off with style in her business. All those days of racking up the charges in boutiques across Louisiana, and as far away as Milan and Paris, and cooing the sales reps, shop owners and up-and-coming designers, Dominique had, unbeknown to her, been building a foundation. Now it was all paying off in major ways. Her contacts were more than happy to accommodate her with their overstock, sample items and huge discounts for her non-profit organization.

The women who came to First Impressions with their heads down walked out turning heads. And now she was ready to take her business to the next level and offer an education component that would include GED classes, financial management courses and interview preparation.

She turned to her computer screen and brought up the spreadsheet that included the staffing that she would need, along with the list of vendors that would supply the materials for the courses. If Trevor Jackson was on target with his completion date she would have to begin interviewing for instructors sooner rather than later.

Trevor Jackson. She leaned back in her seat. For the past hour she’d done well in casting him to the back of her thoughts. But much like a thunderstorm that was on the horizon, as much as you wanted to, you couldn’t ignore it. You knew it was coming.

“How’s your knee feeling?”

Dominique glanced up at her assistant, Phyllis. She smiled wanly. “Better thanks.” She lifted the ice pack off of her knee and noticed that the swelling was all gone. Gingerly she lowered her leg from the step stool. “How’s everything up front?”

“Good. The five new referrals will be here shortly.”

Dominique checked her watch. It was nearly one. “Great. Let’s order lunch and we can set up in the conference room.”

“Anything in particular?”

“How about some wraps and salad?”

“I’ll put in the order.” Phyllis paused for a moment. “So, how did the meeting go?”

Dominique glanced up for a moment then looked away. “Pretty good. I plan on giving him the contract. Mr. Jackson is going to work on some designs and get them to me next week.”

Phyllis nodded slowly, noting that the very direct Dominique barely looked her in the eye. “So, you think he’s the one?”

Dominique’s head snapped up as if she’d been caught stealing. “Huh?”

“I mean do you feel he’s the right person for the job?”

Dominique swallowed. “Yes. Why? Is there something that you know that I don’t?”

“Hmm, nope.” She tugged lightly on the hem of her suit jacket. “I’ll go put in the lunch order.” She turned away to hide her smile.

“Phyllis, wait.”

Phyllis stopped at the door. “Hmm.”

“You’re always so good at first impressions—no pun intended—what…do you think of him?”

Phyllis folded her arms beneath her ample breasts. “I think if his work is half as good as his looks, the addition will be a real showstopper.”

Dominique chuckled. “That’s the best answer you could come up with?”

“First impressions, right? Well, that honey was my first impression. The rest is up to you.” She gave Dominique a wink and walked out.

Dominique leaned back in her seat, tugging on her bottom lip with her teeth. Phyllis had been straight with her from the day they first met when she’d come to First Impressions needing a dress to attend her daughter’s graduation. Even though she was in need, there was an assurance and a dignity about her that made Dominique feel that Phyllis was the one doing something for her and not the other way around. She reminded Dominique of her mother with her directness, warmth, plain words of wisdom and her ability to make everyone feel special.

They’d hit it off that very first day and while they talked and searched for the perfect dress, Phyllis subtly organized shelves and lined up the clothes on the racks as she moved through the space, answered the phone when Dominique was with another client and even showed a few around the establishment while Dominique was discussing inventory with one of her vendors.

“Seems like you could use a little help around here when it gets busy,” Phyllis had said while Dominique wrapped up her purchase.

Dominique tilted her head to the side. “Are you busy?”

“As a matter of fact I have nothing but free time on my hands. I’d be more than happy to come in a couple of hours a day—just to help out,” she’d added.

The couple of hours had turned into full days in no time, and quicker than that Phyllis had become Dominique’s right-hand assistant. She came to depend on her for more than help with running the business. Phyllis had begun to halfway fill the shoes that the loss of her mother had left empty.

Which was why Dominique was perplexed by Phyllis’s vague response to her question. Phyllis may be a lot of things, but ambiguous was not one of them.

As much as she wanted to dwell on Trevor Jackson, she didn’t have time. The women would be arriving shortly and she needed to be focused so that she could provide each lady with the attention that she deserved. But no matter how hard she tried to stay on point during the next two hours, images of Trevor kept popping up in front of her.

* * *

Trevor loaded the images from his camera onto the twenty-seven-inch iMac. He pointed out the major problems to Max and they both took notes. Trevor explained what it was that Dominique wanted and for the next few hours they worked on a series of sketches for the revised layout of the two floors.

“I want to give her at least two options for each floor,” Trevor said. He raised his arms over his head, stretching out the tight muscles in his back.

“By the looks of the walls and the plumbing issues that you mentioned, the problem isn’t going to be in the design but what we find behind the walls,” Max said.

Trevor nodded. “Exactly.” He closed the screen that showed the design plans and pulled up the file with their subcontractors. “We’re going to need a lot of hands on this one.”