Page 7 of My One and Only

Jo looked down at her hands, twined together in her lap. “Guess we didn’t,” she said quietly.

He’d been pissed off when she said she’d been married. Jealous. What was wrong with him? He’d been married, too. And it had been a nightmare.

Except for Fiona. The one good thing to come from his marriage to Ashley.

“So what brings you to my office?”he asked.

She drew a deep breath and lifted her head. Stared directly at him. “It was nice to catch up, but this is a business visit. My mom is having a house built in your subdivision near Elburn.”

He nodded. “The Gardens.”

Jo shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t know what it was called. Mom just told me where it was. Anyway, I drove over this morning to look at her house.”

She pressed her lips together, and Cam knew that expression from their high school days. Pressed lips were not a good omen.

“What’s up, Jo? Is something wrong?”

She tilted her head as she studied him. “I’m not sure, Cam. Maybe you can tell me.” She drew a deep breath, then leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. “When I pulled up at the address my mom gave me, there was a truck parked on the street. I pulled in behind it just before a man got out of the truck. He walked up the driveway, and the guy working in the house came out to meet him.”

She swallowed and looked uncomfortable. “The guy from the house offered the man from the truck a pack of cigarettes. And it looked like truck guy was taking one, but instead he pulled a wad of cash out of the cigarette pack. Truck guy looked at it, flipped through it as though making sure it was all there, then folded it and shoved it into his shirt pocket. Then he got into his truck, turned around and drove past my car. The truck was from the City of Ogden. The Building and Permits department.”

Cam frowned. “And you saw the workman hand him cash.”

Jo nodded. “I didn’t see it up close, but pretty much nothing else it could have been. Pretty hard to mistake cash for anything else.”

“You’re saying the workman in the house bribed the inspector.”

She was shaking her head before he’d stopped speaking. “I’m simply telling you what I saw.” Her steady gaze drilled into him, and Cam wanted to squirm. “If that’s your conclusion?” Jo shrugged. “It’s probably a good one.”

“What the hell do you know about bribes, Jo?”he asked, anger stirring in his belly.

“I happen to know a hell of a lot about bribes, Cam,” she said, her voice that cool tone that he remembered all too well. It said she knew what she was talking about, so shut up and listen instead of giving her shit about it.

“How the hell would you know about bribes and bribery?”he asked.

“Learned more about it than I cared to know in my previous job,” she answered, her voice a cool counterpoint to his hot tone.

“And what was your previous job where you learned so much about bribery?” He scowled at her, daring her to answer him.

To his surprise, she sat up straight. Stared him in the eyes. “In the U.S.Army,” she said. “In the Middle East. Bribery is a way of life over there. I became an expert in bribes. How much was appropriate. Who was the best person to bribe. What was the right time to offer a bribe. How to do it so the recipient was flattered and not insulted.”

“What the hell were you doing in the Army, Jo? A smart woman like you didn’t belong in the Army.”

“Smart doesn’t get you money to pay for college,” she said, her voice sharp. “I figured I’d go to college on the GI bill after I got out of the Army.”

“So why didn’t you?”he asked.

Her eyelids flickered, but she didn’t look away from him. “Life got in the way, Pierce.” Her mouth tightened. “Probably just like it did for you. Never thought you’d go into business with that worm Kincaid. But here you are.”

He sank down onto the edge of his desk, holding her gaze. “Don’s not so bad,” he said. “He grew up. Like all of us did.”

She opened her mouth like she had something to say about his cousin, then pressed her lips together. “Glad it’s working out for you.”

“Is that the reason you came by, Jo? To warn me that one of my workmen was paying a bribe?” He crossed his arms over his chest. One thing about Jo Finster hadn’t changed -- she didn’t let anyone jerk her around.

“Nope,” she said, leaning toward him. “Seeing that exchange of money was just a bonus. I came to talk to you because I’m concerned about the quality of the materials you’re using to build my mom’s house. I’m guessing she didn’t agree to number two or three quality wood studs. The ones I saw were full of knots and defects. A lot of them weren’t even straight. And that’s not all that looked wrong. The plumbing pipes were crooked. Dented. Don’t look like they’re going to last for more than a few years. Same with the electrical service. The boxes were dented. Flimsy-looking.”

She took a deep breath. “My mom is stretching to buy this house, Cam.” She leaned closer to him, and those amazing green eyes of hers drilled into his chest. “She doesn’t have a lot of money, but she was excited that she was buying a brand-new house. Said she’d never lived in a brand-new house before. I don’t want her to get two or three years down the road in this house and start having all kinds of problems with it. I don’t wanna hear about pipes bursting. About walls sagging. About the smell of something burning behind the drywall. And right now? That’s what I’m seeing out there.”

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