Called Up Read Free Page B

phone rang as she was about to leave the ball field parking lot, and since she still had time before she had to meet Dorie for their run, she pulled over and parked. It was a Chicago number, not one she recognized. “Hello?”
    “Fitz, it’s Doug Blackler.” The headhunter she’d signed up with. “You’re never gonna believe where I’m calling from.”
    Um, okay. “Where?”
    “I’m in Sam Price’s bathroom.”
    “TMI, Doug.” She did not need to know that.
    “Not going to the bathroom,” he replied. “ In his bathroom.”
    Sam Price was the GM of the Chicago Watchmen, aka her big brother’s team. Fitz sighed. Not the kind of news she was looking for.
    She hadn’t told Nate she’d put herself on the job market—hadn’t told any one. She’d get to that part if and/or when it became necessary. Plus, the whole point of using a headhunter was to be anonymous. If she’d wanted to use Nate’s name to get a new job, she would have done it already. “You’ve been talking to Nate?”
    “Of course not,” Doug snapped. Most likely because he’d assured her he wouldn’t share her name with anyone until the time came to do so. “The reason I’m calling from the bathroom is that there’s a very private meeting happening right now. And the people in that meeting, which includes your brother, by the way, would kick me out if they knew I was on the phone with you. I just want to know if it’s worth my throwing your hat into the ring for the head of the private foundation they’re all brainstorming right now.”
    “What?” She sat up straight. Talk about burying the lead. “You have details?”
    “Only that the numbers they’re talking are about ten times bigger than anything else we’ve looked at to date.”
    Since the other jobs he’d put in front of her had been on the same scale of what she already did, they hadn’t been quite what she was looking for. Somewhere new was important, but she needed a challenge, too. Since “ten times bigger” put them in the hundreds of millions of dollars range, it definitely counted. Hell, yes, she wanted her hat in the ring. The bigger question was whether they’d even consider her.
    That would be the test, she supposed. And if they didn’t balk at her qualifications as the head of a smallish community foundation, then there was no reason she should. Right? “You won’t give them my name?”
    “I’d keep that secret wrapped up until the second I put you in front of them.”
    Which would be an absolute necessity because Nate would raise holy hell if he knew she was thinking of leaving Inspiration and the foundation they’d started together almost a decade ago. She couldn’t even imagine what the others would say.
    But there was a buzz of excitement running through her nevertheless. “I’m definitely interested.”
    As she hung up, she happened to look up to see Peggy staring at her from across the parking lot with a not very nice look on her face. Same old, same old. Except then Fitz turned her head and realized it was because Deke was looking at her in a way she wasn’t used to. And s he couldn’t look away. Deke was the one to break their stare, his eyes going down to the ground for a few seconds before coming up again. When they did, he gave her a slow, easy grin that made her feel, well... Different from how she usually felt, which was generally more along the lines of, Do I have something in my teeth?
    This was...not like that.
    With a shake of her head, she lifted her hand in a quick wave, then hightailed it out of there.

Chapter Three
    Fifteen minutes later, Fitz arrived at the library. She parked the car and got out, turning to head inside, and almost collided with... “Mrs. Bellevue.”
    The other woman was big, both wide and tall, and her booming voice actually sent fear running through Fitz’s veins.
    Maybe if Fitz hadn’t spent the first fourteen years of her life on an isolated homestead with only her parents for company, things like