Read Online What the Cat Saw by Carolyn Hart - Free Book Online Page B

spent a lifetime collecting pearls of many shades, white, black, green, purple, and greatest prize of all, the golden tone of champagne. After her last newspaper job, Nela had waited tables at a swell café on Melrose Place in Hollywood. That job, too, was gone. But someday she would find an editor who would give her a chance…
    Immersed in her thoughts, she’d taken a good half-dozen steps before she realized that Cole’s high tenor had broken off in midsentence.
    Voices rose on the sidewalk from the cabins and around a curve came a very pretty girl and a lanky man in a light blue cashmere sweater and gray slacks. Nela knew him at once. Chloe’s description had been right on.
The director’s kind of like James Stewart in
The Shop Around the Corner…
He’s tall and angular and has this bony appealing face.
His companion looked up at him with a happy face and her words came quickly. “…I haven’t seen the Chihuly exhibit either. That would be such fun.”
    Perhaps it was the stillness of the trio standing by the building steps that caught their attention. Abruptly, light and cheer fled from her delicate features. The director’s face reformed from boyish eagerness to defensive blandness. Nela wasn’t personally attracted, but many women would find his cleft-chinned good looks irresistible.
    Nela sensed antagonism in the men beside her, though outwardly all was courtesy and good humor.
    “Good morning.” Francis Garth’s deep voice was pleasant and impersonal. “Nela, here is our director, Hollis Blair, and”—his dark eyes moved without warmth to the blonde’s delicate face—“our new assistant curator, Abby Andrews.”
    In the flurry of greetings, Cole Hamilton hurried up the steps, held the door. “Almost eight o’clock. We’re all on time this morning.” The dumpy little man with thick white hair suddenly looked as if his blue suit was too large for him.
    As the door closed behind them, Hamilton veered toward a door marked STAIRS . “Have to see about some things.” He was subdued with no echo of the pride that she’d heard when he’d greeted her in the parking lot.
    T he new grant applications are in the first filing cabinet. The applications are made online but we print out copies for our records”—Louise gestured at the filing cabinet—“and we make copies for the members of the grants committee. Marian says they can look at them online but as a courtesy we also provide printed copies. The committee meets every fourth Thursday of the month. We have fifteen new applications to consider. Whenever a new application is received, Chloe prepares a one-page summary. I placed the remaining applications that need summaries in Chloe’s in-box. The top folder holds one Chloe had already prepared and you can look it over for the format. You can—”
    “Louise.” The deep voice was gruff.
    Francis Garth stood in Nela’s doorway, making it look small. Hisheavy face was stern. He held up several stapled sheets. “There is an error in today’s agenda.”
    Louise’s face registered a series of revealing expressions: knowledge, discomfort, dismay, regret.
    Francis raised a heavy dark eyebrow. There was a trace of humor in a sudden twisted smile, but only a trace. “I take it there was no mistake. Why was the proposal removed?”
    Louise cleared her throat. “I understand the director felt that opposing the wind farms was at odds with the foundation’s support of green energy.”
    “Wind farms can ruin the Tallgrass Prairie ecosystem. Isn’t that a green”—it was almost an epithet—“concern? Hasn’t Haklo always respected tribal values? The Tallgrass Prairie is the heart of the Osage Nation.”
    “Oh, Francis, I know how you feel about the Tallgrass Prairie. But Hollis persuaded Blythe that it was important for Haklo to rise above parochial interests to fulfill its mission of nurturing the planet.” Clearly Louise was repeating verbatim what she had been told.
    “Nothing in this