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  thinking that as long as her possessions remained

  she would return. But that hadn't

  happened. She had finally come and claimed her

  life, a life away from him.

  He and Jean had been remodeling the first level of

  the house and pieces of drywall and lumber laid

  about haphazardly. He surveyed the house

  remorsefully, wondering if he should finish it at

  all. James walked down the hallway towards the

  kitchen and retrieved a beer from the fridge then

  went to the sliding glass door and let the dogs back

  into the house. Jean didn't like Sheba and Sabi, so

  had let them out into the yard to keep them from

  under foot. James took a swig of his beer, lit a

  cigarette and moved into the living room. The

  kitchen and living room were the only finished rooms in the house. He had arranged it so that

  the dining room would double as the living room

  until the formal living room was finished. The

  dogs followed him quietly and climbed onto the

  couch with him when he sat down.

  James closed his eyes briefly and a-flash-of Alex

  came to his mind. She had evaporated from his

  thoughts for a while, but returned when he calmed

  down. He was still worried about what had

  happened at the plant, but would be unable to talk

  to her until morning.

  "I hope she comes back," he said to the dogs,

  "When I find out who it was, I'll have his ass in a

  sling. "

  James settled deeply into the couch, stretching out

  and drinking more from his bottle. He dozed off finally, with the television off, still thinking about Alexandra Chambers.

  Chapter 4

  Alex moaned softly as the alarm went off. She

  knew she had to get up if she wanted the noise to

  stop. Alex had put the alarm clock on the dresser

  across the room to force her to get up and shut it

  off; if she had placed it on one of the night stands,

  she would have just hit the snooze button and gone

  back to sleep. Alex's night had been rough. She

  had slept fitfully, but tossed and turned as her

  memories created nightmares with endings of

  James holding her in his arms. Angrily, she threw

  the covers off and stalked to the

  dresser. Slamming her hand down on the clock,

  the irritating buzzer shut off and a flick of her wrist

  turned on the radio. Alex chose a pair of gray

  wool dress slacks from the closet and a black short-sleeved sweater from the drawer. She had

  just picked up her brush to do her hair, when the

  sight of faint bruises on her upper arms and her

  right breast caught her eye.

  "Damn," she said angrily stroking her long red

  tresses. She switched her sweater to a mauve

  longer sleeved one, brushed her teeth and got

  dressed.

  Alex was slamming out of her house, just as James

  was entering the plant. He stalked past Francine's

  desk and stopped in the center of the room. As

  Jeff entered the office from the plant, he found

  James stooping and fingering the carpet.

  "Lose something," he asked walking around him. "Nope," James answered non-committedly and

  continued into his office.

  Jeff stared after him briefly, shrugged his shoulders

  and went to his desk.

  The floor employees were going full throttle when

  Alex walked in through the receiving dock

  door. She was avoiding Francine's office

  purposefully and planned on going in through

  James' office, if he was on the floor. She didn't

  want to see him this morning, she wasn't prepared

  for that. Her experience here last night was

  nerve-wracking enough, but her dreams of James

  put her on edge.

  "Morning, Alex" came a voice from beside her. Alex stopped and turned to the voice but didn't

  recognize the face. She tried to think of the name

  that went with the face and glanced at the name

  tag on his shirt.

  "No peeking," he said mischievously, covering up

  the name with his clipboard.

  Alex looked over man in front of her. He towered

  over her by a good foot or so and was pencil

  thin. His brown eyes were kind, warm and old, but

  his mustache and smile, gave way to the fact that

  there was a little boy in there ready to play. He

  held a pinch of Skoal in between his lower lip and

  gum and wore a hat with the company logo

  emblazoned upon it.

  "You don't remember my name, I'm hurt," he said

  in a childlike voice. "Not for lack of trying," she replied smiling.

  "You should do that more often, Alex. You're

  really quite beautiful when you smile, like a ray of

  sunshine," he said before turning and walking into

  Larry's office.

  Alex stared after him briefly, got a coffee from the

  machine in the break area and opened the door to

  James' office carefully. The office was empty,

  much to Alex's relief. As she passed the desk, she

  noticed the absence of James' coffee mug and the

  still burning cigarette in the ashtray. She was

  about to snub it out, when she heard James talking

  with Francine from the inner office.

  "The work order book is on my desk Francine, just

  grab it. I need to see Jeff. " Alex quickly abandoned the office and continued to

  her desk. "Morning Francine," she said.

  "Morning, Alex," said Francine passing her and

  going into James' office.

  Alex smiled to herself at the still cold reception

  from Francine, as she laid her briefcase, purse and

  keys on her desk. She was in the process of

  hanging up her coat, when the man from the floor

  came in.

  "Have you remembered me yet?”

  "I haven't had time, Sam," she said glancing at his

  nametag before he could cover it up.

  "You cheated," he said smiling. "I know," she said smiling back, taking a sip of

  coffee and sitting down at her desk, "What can I do

  you out of?"

  "Do you remember the bill of materials you gave

  me yesterday? It's wrong this morning.”

  Alex shook her head at what was quickly becoming

  a routine and reprinted him the document he

  needed. She added that to her list of items she

  wanted to talk to Allen about. Alex was about to

  head into the plant when she remembered that she

  forgot the paperwork she needed. Turning too

  quickly, Alex caught her right arm on the filing

  cabinet that stood inside the door behind her desk.

  "Damn," she swore aloud as she bumped one of the

  bruises from the night before. "You okay," asked Allen.

  "Yeah, I just keep forgetting about this damn thing.

  "Slow down, you don't have to accomplish

  everything today," he said smiling, going back to his

  calculator.

  Alex grabbed the papers from her desk and headed

  into the factory to see Doug Slade, the inventory

  control clerk. As she approached him, she saw

  several of the other men detach themselves from

  his area and head back to their stations.

&
nbsp; "Must be my breath," she said jokingly as she

  reached Doug.

  "It's your hair," he said in reply, "They're afraid

  they'll catch fire.” Alex unconsciously brushed a lock of it behind her

  ear and smiled casually. She disliked her hair and

  comments about it.

  "Sorry," Doug said noticing her discomfort.

  "It's okay, I learned long ago learned to live with it.

  Alex plunged into the problem at hand, sat down

  with him at his desk in the inventory area and

  worked there for the next half hour. As Alex

  worked, she noticed, quite often, that several of the

  guys stopped and stared at her. She was still

  nervous about the attack last night, but there were

  so many people here now, that a sense of security

  enveloped her like a warm blanket.

  Doug had just finished entering the last part

  number, when she heard a page for her to return to

  the office. "Now what," she said with a smile, excusing herself she walked back to the

  office. "Yeah, Francine," she said as she entered.

  "Jeff wants you," she bit out.

  Alex continued into Jeff’s office and found him with

  James.

  "Close the door Alex and have a seat," Jeff said with

  concern in his voice and etched on his face.

  Alex did as was requested and sat herself down in

  the other armchair to James' left. "Alex, are you

  all right," asked Jeff.

  She looked hard at James, knowing what he

  did. The color rose to her face as she blushed at

  the scene that he must have painted for Jeff.

  "I'm fine. I didn't want anything said," she said

  pointedly at James. Jeff studied her for a few minutes. He saw the

  dark circles under her eyes and the shyness in her

  approach. She was slightly scared of being back

  here, but refused to say anything. He had to

  sympathize. She was alone, in a new town with

  new people and nobody she really knew that she

  could confide in. Jeff had not heard or discovered

  a similar incident happening to Francine, and hoped

  that this was an isolated incident. He hadn't

  thought about how to find out who had attacked

  her or how to reprimand him; he had, though,

  decided that the office doors were to be locked if

  one of the women stayed late to work. He knew

  Francine would never stay late, but Alex would,

  whenever she could and he wanted to prevent this

  from happening again. "Alex, this has never happened before. Francine

  has been here for two years and she has never had

  any problems like this.”

  "Jeff, I just want it forgotten. I already have and

  I'm fine," she lied. Alex stood and getting no

  argument from either of them, left the office.

  Francine had noticed Alex's hasty departure from

  Jeff’s office and heard the slamming of the

  bathroom door. She smiled to herself, thinking

  that maybe Jeff had smartened up and sent her on

  her merry way; either way, Alex was not a happy

  camper and that made Francine a very happy one.

  Alex stayed in the bathroom for several minutes

  before collecting herself and going back to her

  desk. Just as she was sitting down, in the still uncomfortable chair, James was leaving Jeff’s office

  and going into his own.

  Instinctively, Alex got up from her desk and

  followed James. He was sitting down at his desk,

  lighting a cigarette, when she walked in and closed

  the door.

  "How dare you," she hissed, "You had no right to

  tell Jeff anything.”

  "Alex, he is your boss and this stuff needs to be

  reported,” he said not believing his own

  words. He had told Jeff so that he could conduct

  an investigation without a lot of questions from

  him. James leaned back and took a heavy drag on

  the Marlboro while he studied the color that had

  flared into Alex's cheeks from her anger. She was

  furious with him and her attacker too. She had every reason to be. He had seen her run into the

  filing cabinet and assumed that her arms were

  bruised by the way she reacted to the bump.

  "I don't care. It was my decision to tell him or not

  and I thought no. I will not be coddled or treated

  differently. Francine isn't, she is treated the same

  as any man around here and I want the same

  thing. Leave it go, James. I won't ask again," she

  said finally and retreated from his office.

  Alex returned to the inventory area to work with

  Doug on the rest of the bills of materials and stayed

  there until 3:30 working through lunch. She was

  deliberately avoiding the office, Jeff and

  James. She didn't know who they had told, if

  anyone and didn't feel up to answering

  questions. Alex and Doug had finished outlining the problems in inventory and now headed back

  into the office to talk with Allen. Clutching her

  tablet to her chest, Alex walked from inventory to

  the break area to grab a Pepsi and a bag of chips.

  "Hi, again," said Grayson.

  Alex turned from the machines to find most of the

  first shift machine shop behind her. Slightly

  nervous about the numbers, but also realizing that

  she was basically in public, Alex paused a few

  moments to talk with the machine shop. Alex

  noticed more employees gathering around and she

  took the opportunity to study Grayson more closely.

  It seemed that all of the machine shop employees

  looked like heavy metal band rejects with their long

  hair or unshaven faces; some of them had both and combined with their blood shot eyes, seemed

  determined to live life now.

  She studied his features more closely, his blue eyes,

  behind wire rimmed glasses were alert, despite the

  fact that he smelled like he had fallen into a beer

  vat. His sandy blond hair hung loosely compiled

  into a gum band and pulled through the opening in

  the back of his hat, like Morgan's.

  "Hi," she said finally, "What's up?"

  Morgan stepped forward, took Alex by the hand

  and led her to the picnic table. "We just wanted

  to make nice, that's all," he said as she sat down at

  the table.

  "All of you," she asked, looking around at the

  group. She saw that they were not all from the machine

  shop, but in fact scattered all over the factory

  itself. They were all shapes and sizes and each of

  them seemed to contain the irrepressible desire to

  smile mischievously. Alex found it contagious and

  sat talking with them for several minutes before,

  one by one, they began to disperse.

  "There you are," said Allen approaching the table

  and finding Alex engrossed in a conversation with

  Morgan, Grayson and David Robbins, the machine

  shop leader. "I'm sorry, am I late," she asked

  glancing at her watch.

  "No, it's just that I had a few minutes and thought

  we'd start early, so you could get out of here on

  time. " "No chance of that. Have you seen the filing that

  needs done?"


  "Yeah, I put it there," he replied laughing.

  "I'm on my way in now," she remarked, grabbing

  her notes and Pepsi.

  Allen nodded his assent and walked to the machine

  to retrieve a Mt. Dew and went back into the offices

  through James' door.

  "We'll we gotta run. I have a date with a cold

  beer," stated Morgan standing up from the table.

  Alex walked with them around the offices to the

  front door, said good night and went into the office

  through Francine's door to avoid James. Allen was standing at her desk when Alex came into

  the office talking with James. She hesitated briefly

  and strode to her desk cautiously.

  "Allen tells me you're working late again tonight,"

  said James as she put her stuff down and collapsed

  into her chair.

  "Yeah, so?"

  "So?"

  "James, don't say anything. It's not your place,"

  Alex said icily and turned to Allen, "Shall we get

  started?

  Allen took in the exchange quietly, but felt the

  tension. There was something here that he was

  missing. James and Jeff had told Allen about the

  attack. They had also told Francine, to keep her aware of her surroundings and to leave the lights on

  in the front office.

  James left the center office as Alex and Allen dug

  into the pile she had accumulated in the past

  month. Allen excused himself after an hour, to

  pick up his boys from their day care. He had been

  divorced once, obtained custody of his two sons

  and was now making plans to marry again. Allen

  and Samantha, his new fiancée, were taking the

  boys to be fitted for their miniature tuxes tonight.

  "I want to see a picture of those two in their suits,

  Allen. They'll be so adorable," said Alex.

  "You will. I'll be taking a million pictures between

  now and the day they go to college," he smiled,

  grabbed his briefcase and left. Alex had heard him pop the lock on the door from

  the plant into the offices. She shook her head at

  the new precautions that were being taken because

  of her and felt slightly guilty. "Maybe Tad was

  right. I should have stayed in Washington," she

  said to herself, before moving to the table behind

  her desk to start her filing.

  "Alex, I'm leaving," hollered Jeff from his office.

  Alex shook her head and hollered back, "It's a good

  thing we have an intercom system.”

  "I know," Jeff said smiling from behind her.

  "Have a good night. "