“No.”
“Then it was great to see you again, Tucker. Thank you for your time.”
With that, she turned and walked out of the conference room. She kept her head high and her shoulders back. No one looking at her would guess that on the inside she was both humiliated and defeated.
Having to relive that embarrassing night with Tucker was bad enough, but to lose the chance at her dream job was even worse. She’d wanted the opportunity to work with Janack Construction. They were a great company and she would have been able to stretch herself professionally without having to leave Fool’s Gold. Life didn’t get much better than that.
Instead he was going to dismiss her without considering her qualifications, which was just like a man. Talk about unfair.
She spun on her heel and marched back to the conference room. The door was still open. She saw Tucker slipping a folder into his briefcase.
Her folder, she thought grimly. Sheets of paper representing her hopes and dreams.
“I’m good at what I do. I work hard and I know this town,” she told him when he looked up and saw her. “I understand the people and I could have been an asset to you. But that’s not going to happen, is it? All because of a meaningless act that took place years ago. So much for integrity.”
Tucker watched Nevada turn her back on him for the second time in less than a minute and walk away. The door closed firmly behind her, cutting off his view of her cropped blond hair and stiff back.
“Not a bad exit,” Will Falk said, coming through a side door. “When did you two have sex?”
Tucker glared at the other man. “It’s none of your business.”
“You think I wanted to hear all that? Based on what she said about your performance, you need to do something.” Will, a forty-two-year-old friend of the family and Tucker’s assistant, grinned. “Five minutes? Pretty humiliating.”
Tucker ground his teeth together. “Thanks for the recap.”
He wanted to shout that it had to have been longer than five minutes, even though, technically, he couldn’t remember much about the evening. As Nevada had pointed out, he’d been drunk. Not to mention out of his mind, lost in a tempest named Caterina Stoicasescu. Unfortunately, Nevada had also been caught up in the hurricane of Cat’s life, however briefly.
“You really blew it,” Will offered helpfully. “I thought she had potential.”
“She does. I’m not done with her.”
Will chortled. “Seriously? You think she’ll come work for you now?”
“She wants the job.”
“No. She wanted it. Past tense being the key here. Now she knows it means working for you. Hell, Tucker, five minutes?”
“Would you let go of that?”
“I guess I’m going to have to. Still, you were a smart kid, not ugly enough to crack a mirror. I figured some woman somewhere would take pity on you and show you the ropes. Guess I was wrong.”
Tucker pointed to the door. “Out.”
“Or what? Going to pull my hair?”
Will was still snickering when he limped out of the room.
If it had been anyone else making fun of him, Tucker would have been pissed. But Will was practically family. Barely ten years older than Tucker, Will had been working for Janack Construction since he’d left high school, and Tucker had always thought of him as the older brother he’d never had. Will had quickly moved up the ranks, until an accident six years ago had broken both his legs and fractured his back.
The company medical insurance had taken care of the bills, and Tucker’s father had kept Will on the payroll. Even after a year of healing, Will hadn’t been able to go back to working at a site.
Right about then Tucker had started running projects on his own. He’d offered Will the job as his right-hand man and they’d been working together ever since. They were a good team, which was why Tucker was willing to take so much crap from his friend. All of which was interesting, but didn’t solve the Nevada problem.
The casino-resort project was huge. The biggest one he’d ever run. He needed a good team in place and Nevada brought a lot to the table. The fact that he knew her and trusted her made him unwilling to let her simply walk away. But how to convince her to let go of the past and come work for him?
As he followed Will out of the conference room, he realized once again the trouble in his life could be traced back to Caterina Stoicasescu. Cat had always been hell on wheels. Those around her had the choice of ducking out of the way or being run over and left broken and bleeding on the side of the road. He’d been run over plenty of times, until he’d realized he was done being a fool for love. The emotion wasn’t worth the trouble. Unfortunately, Cat had left him one more mess to clean up.
NEVADA STOOD OUTSIDE of the hotel and wondered where to go next. If she returned to work, Ethan, her brother, might be there. He would want to know how the interview had gone, which was a pretty reasonable question, given the circumstances. Unfortunately, the answer wasn’t easy. What, exactly, was she supposed to say? Ethan might consider Tucker a friend, but there was no way he was going to take kindly to the fact that Tucker had slept with his baby sister when she was an eighteen-year-old virgin.
With work out of the question, she searched for another retreat. Going home was an option, but she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts. That way lay madness, or however the quote went, she thought grimly as she started down the street.
Ten minutes later, she entered Jo’s Bar. As always, the open bar was well lit and female friendly. Until recently, Fool’s Gold’s guilty secret had been the town’s lack of men. Jo’s Bar took advantage of that fact and catered primarily to women. The appetizers came with listed calorie counts, the TVs were tuned to reality shows and shopping channels, and low-calorie versions of drinks were offered whenever possible.
At a little after three, in the middle of the week, there weren’t many customers. Jo Trellis, the owner of the bar, had moved to Fool’s Gold about four or five years ago. She’d redone the place, ignoring conventional wisdom that said bars should cater to men, and opened her doors to great success.
No one knew very much about Jo’s past. She was tall and muscular, pretty, in a quiet way. The only thing everyone knew for sure was that Jo kept a shotgun behind her bar and she knew how to use it.
Jo came out from the back room and spotted Nevada sliding into a booth.
“You’re here early,” the bartender said.
“I know. It’s been one of those days when getting drunk seemed like a sensible option.”
“You’ll pay for it in the morning.”
While the advice was sound, right now morning seemed a long time away. “Vodka tonic. A double.”
“Want anything to eat?” Jo asked, sounding more like a concerned parent than a woman who made her living serving liquor.
“No, thanks. I don’t want to slow the process.” If she drank enough, she would forget. Right now, forgetting seemed really smart.
Jo nodded and left, only to return seconds later with a large glass of water.
“Hydrate,” she growled. “You’ll thank me later.”
Nevada dutifully sipped the water until her drink arrived and then carefully gulped about half the contents. Now it was just a waiting game, she thought. Waiting for the vodka to cloud her brain and make her awful afternoon fade away.
As a rule, she was a big believer in facing her problems head-on. Figure out what was wrong, come up with several solutions, pick the best one and act. She’d always been a doer. She did her best to keep her complaining to a minimum and to be a team player. That meant exactly jack shit when it came to Tucker Janack.
She couldn’t fix the past. There was no game plan for going back in time and undoing a bad decision. The reality was, she’d been crazy in love with the man and she’d acted rashly. The fault was hers. She could accept that. What really fried her was having to pay for it now.