Free Newport Dreams: A Breakwater Bay Novella by Shelley Noble Page B

out and send them to you.”
    “No need. I have a photo printer,” the lady with the cane said. She gave Geordie her e-mail addy and with another round of thanks, they walked away.
    Geordie watched them go and with them her brief flurry of excitement, which left her feeling bereft and more despondent than ever.
    She needed her job back. So what if she didn’t know much about architectural documentation? She could learn. And if it wasn’t the end all of professions, she might grow to like it. And at least it would be better than waiting tables or working in the corporate office.
    But would Bruce hire her back? Had she really gotten the job by herself, or was it like he thought, due to her parents’ influence? She’d thought she’d really aced the interview, but maybe she was full of it. Maybe she hadn’t gotten the job at all. Maybe . . . She reached for her phone. There was one thing she really needed to know.
    Her mother’s social secretary answered on the second ring.
    “Hi Val, is the lady of the manor at home?”
    “Good day, Geordie. If you’re looking for your mother, I’ll see if she’s available.” Without waiting for an answer, she put Geordie on hold.
    Geordie made a face at the phone. The woman had so sense of humor, no good moods, actually no bad moods that Geordie could remember. She was an automaton. The only sane way to work for the Holt family.
    Her mother’s voice came on a few minutes later. Before she could ask Geordie how her job was going, Geordie asked her own question.
    “Of course he didn’t,” her mother said. “If your father was inclined to pay anything it would be for them not to hire you. You know how stubborn he is.” A sigh that whooshed over the phone. “I suppose it’s my fault.”
    “Your fault?”
    “For giving him three girls instead of a son to take over the business.”
    Geordie looked up at Marble House. The Victorian “cottage” was a perfect setting for her mother’s attitude about women, a totally different era—at least a hundred years behind the times. Never mind that Alva Vanderbilt had held suffragette meetings in the teahouse before leaving Newport for good.
    “Actually I was half Dad’s fault.”
    “Not you, darling. You weren’t a fault. Anyway, you got that job on your own and should be very proud. How are you liking it?”
    I got fired after four days. “Fine. I’m really liking it. Interesting and challenging.”
    “Oh, I’m so glad.” Her mother’s relief was palpable. “You’ll have to come to dinner one night when your father and I are both here. God knows when that will be. I’ll put Val on and you can ask her to put you on the calendar.”
    She had to make an appointment with her parents through the social secretary. Surely this wasn’t normal. “I will, but I’ll have to call her back later. We’re pretty busy at work right now. I’ll see when I can get off.”
    They said their good-byes and hung up. Geordie returned the phone to her pocket.
    It was almost six and the grounds would be closing soon. She’d spent the whole day here following butterflies and strangers, when she should have been at work with the others.
    She must have been out of her mind to walk out like that. She had been out of her mind.
    And she’d have to do something to rectify her temporary insanity. Because if it was a choice between facing her parents knowing that she was again career-less or standing up to Bruce Stafford and making him take her back, it would go to the cranky architect.
    But she couldn’t approach him with things the way they were now. And she couldn’t challenge him when she was still land bound.
    No. She would do what she needed to do . . . somehow. She’d get up that scaffolding one way or the other. Then he’d have no reason for not taking her back.
    She would do it now, before she had time to talk herself out of it.

 
    Chapter 8
    I T WAS AFTER six when Bruce finally gave up looking for Geordie. The only thing he