Page 36 of Purchase Power
Noah was up and bowing his head in apology to his friend before stepping around his desk. His hand absentmindedly smoothed down his tie, not that he had anyone to impress outside his door.
“Dr. Stevenson!” That name rang through the main hall of Gabriel Manor, where every employee within a thirty-second run came rushing forward to catch the young woman dashing through the front doors. “Where are you? Dr. Stevenson! It’s time to sit on the couch and draw!”
Stacey’s sing-song voice wouldn’t have put the fear of God into someone who didn’t know her. They may have been confused – all right, definitely confused – since Stacey was easily in her mid-twenties and acting like a kindergartener, but even a stranger would detect the flight or fight risk assessed by everyone slowly creeping up behind her. Noah pushed past them all and launched himself onto the front step, where he caught a glimpse of Stacey running out into the driveway, barefoot. The only things she wore were a loose silk camisole and a pair of white cotton shorts. For God’s sake, she was still in her sleepwear!
“Dr. Stevenson!” She hopped behind a topiary, her butt wiggling in the air and her cheers of childlike mirth asking the shrubbery to tremble with her. “Are you back here? You shouldn’t play hide and seek with people without telling them first! It’s not very nice!”
“Stacey!” Noah was already out of breath when he reached her.I need to workout more. I already workout three times a week, but it’s not enough. I have to be prepared to catch up with her.A nice body meant nothing if he couldn’t race with all his might across the front yard of his manor and catch a woman on the run.
“Noah!” She leaped up, hands clapping and squeals of excitement tickling the air. “You came to play with me and Dr. Stevenson!”
“No… Stacey…” He didn’t dare touch her when she was like this. Whether she was overjoyed over something not happening, or bawling her eyes out at the memories she didn’t share with anyone, she was liable to explode into a fury of dangerous proportions if pressed too much. Noah had known this side of her for most of his life, yet he was still never prepared for the more erratic sides of her behavior. Perhaps he was too close to her. Yet he was also one of the only people in Gabriel Manor who could redirect her in a timely manner. She trusted him, after all. “Dr. Stevenson isn’t here yet. He’s going to be a few minutes late. Come one, Stace, let’s go inside and wait for him together.” He would have to rearrange his schedule, but it was worth it. Also wouldn’t be the first time he had to delay a teleconference or a video call because Stacey’s safety, and that of everyone else’s, came first. Everyone at the head office knew this. No one knew it better than CEO Clark Robinson.
She looked up at him with those big, blue eyes that had the power to keel him over from the moment he first saw them twenty-something years ago. “He’s not coming?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that.” Noah reached for her hand. She let him take it, but not without a glance at his actions. “I said he was going to be a little late. He’s very excited to come see you, but he called Candace and told her there was an important reason he couldn’t come right now.”
“He called Candace?”
“That’s right, honey.” Candace was soon behind Noah, the only other person in the house who could ask for one of Stacey’s hands and not be kicked to the other side of the room. “We need to go inside and get you ready. There’s plenty of time for you to get dressed so you look nice when Mr. Stevenson gets here. Let’s go. We’ll go with Noah, hm?”
One time, when Candace happened to be relaxing in the same room as Noah, he asked her why she had never married and had children, since she was so good at housekeeping and looking after difficult people. She had bluntly said,“When I go back to my room, or to my home at the end of the day… I need to know that nobody will disturb me. I can’t be asked to look after others in my private time the way I have to during my day job. Even if I quit, some of the things I’ve seen happen to little children have certainly given me a distaste for what might happen to my own. It’s not worth it, Mr. Gabriel.”
He knew she was referencing what had happened in Gabriel Manor twenty years ago, when he was boy too young to do anything about it.
Yet he still blamed himself. He always did.
“See?” He held Stacey’s hand to his chest as they entered the house, where staff warily watched after them before going back to their chores. “Everything is all right. Candace will help you get dressed. That way, when Dr. Stevenson arrives in a few minutes, you two can maybe go for a walk and you won’t get cold.”
“He said we could draw today.”
That pouty demeanor was always strange coming from a grown woman. Noah had never quite gotten over it, not even when he gradually watched Stacey grow up from an elementary schooler having daily tantrums to a twenty-year-old holing herself away in the closet because it was still the safest place in the house.
The day I saw her in there, clutching a teddy bear I gave her when we were young…It had once been his. When he decided that nine years old was much too old to have a teddy bear, he had given it to five-year-old Stacey, who treasured it ever since.
“Whatever you want to do.” Noah did not look directly at David as he showed himself out of the house, yet he caught the apologetic smile and the slight wave of the hand. Stacey didn’t notice him at all, thank God. David did Gabriel Manor no favors sneaking out like that.
He hoped to any deity listening that nobody else would be making a grand escape anytime soon.
