Free The Red Hot Fix by T. E. Woods

month’s eye tuck. “Even Reinhart got swept away. He waltzed me around every corner of that owner’s box.”
    She played with the pearls around her neck, lost in the memory of a tender moment with her husband. Pierce knew they were rare and allowed her the time.
    “We’ll have coffee and dessert in the living room.” Ingrid Stinson-Vogel spoke absently to her housekeeper and urged her son away from the dining table. “Let’s watch the sunset reflected across the skyscrapers.”
    “Hildy, the salmon was spectacular,” Pierce said. “Your béarnaise would make any Frenchman remember home.”
    The rotund Hungarian’s smile was a mixture of embarrassment and pride. “Herbs from my own garden is secret. Your father likes, too.”
    Pierce flinched. Hildy’s limited English and lack of Stinson family lore led her to refer to her employer as his father. Indeed, Pierce knew no other man in that role but Reinhart, and he’d been a good one. Still, the vacuum of not knowing the slightest information about the man who had contributed half his DNA left Pierce vulnerable whenever any reference to his father was made.
    “You needn’t hand her your plate.” Ingrid linked her arm through his. “Blurring boundaries confuses the staff.”
    Pierce let her lead the way and settled his mother into her favorite spot in the oversized living room: a wingback upholstered in golden silk chenille. Carved legs, tailored to his mother’s height, lifted the chair higher than the norm and afforded an unobstructed view of both the room and the seventy-foot-wide panel of glass that served as the far wall. He took his accustomed spot on a love seat just to her right and spent a few moments drinking in the twinkling lights of the Seattle skyline. In the middle distance, a ferry churned through blueberry waters, retrieving another batch of brokers, attorneys, and corporate giants home to Mercer Island.
    “You needn’t have come for dinner,” Ingrid said. “I don’t require babysitting.”
    It was as close to a thank-you as his mother would offer. “I’m glad you had the time.”
    Ingrid leaned back on her throne. “Reinhart didn’t ask you to come? Keep me company while he’s off doing who knows what?”
    Pierce counted brown diamond shapes on the antique oriental carpet. He hated being the puck in their twisted hockey game. No matter which of them scored, he was the one slammed into the net. Any need to reply was eliminated when Hildy entered the room.
    “You are lucky two times, mister.” Hildy waddled behind the dessert cart that had been a wedding gift to his great-great-grandmother when she married the barrel-chested Swede who, before his fiftieth birthday, would become the largest timber exporter in the world. “First you get my salmon. Now you get my carrot cake.”
    Pierce rose to help but was stopped by his mother’s glance.
    “Leave the tray, Hildy,” she said. “I’ll serve my son.”
    Ingrid waited until her housekeeper was gone to cross to the cart. She poured coffee from a sterling pot given to her grandmother by the emperor of Japan in 1946 when the family firm negotiated the first postwar trade agreement and Stinson Lumber began rebuilding cities rotting in radioactive rubble. Ingrid took a sip from a china cup decorated in roses surrounding a gilded “S.”
    “Perfect,” she declared before handing it to Pierce.
    “Tell me about the Chicago expansion.” Ingrid returned to the dessert cart. “I’m proud of your ambition, Pierce. Your grandfather would be, too.” She cut a wedge of carrot cake and placed the cream-frosted delight on a plate. She removed the tip of the slice with a heavy sterling fork and tasted it. “He always was the first to spot an opportunity.” She handed the plate to Pierce and returned to pour herself a cup of coffee. “You get your business acumen from him.”
    Pierce grimaced at the crimson swipe of his mother’s lipstick staining his fork. “I don’t know if ‘proud’