Bride by the Book (Crimson Romance) (12 page)

“Only in his mind,” Angie said through gritted teeth.

Garner grinned at her. “Well, I won’t say any more, since I can see you don’t want to talk about it right now.” He motioned toward the stack of items he’d brought. The top item was a book which bore the title,
The Business Executive’s Low-Fat, Low-Stress Diet
. “Now, Angie, I’ll be pleading a case in Little Rock for the next two days. While I’m gone, I want you going to the grocery store and buying some fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s time someone taught you how to eat properly.”

Angie couldn’t believe it. What adult female needed someone to teach her how to eat? “I already know everything I care to.”

The telephone rang again. Angie ignored it.

“Are you sure you don’t want to answer that?” Garner asked.

“I’m not about to answer it. You say you’re going out of town, and you have orders for me?”

The phone kept ringing. Garner glanced at it.

“Angie, that may be your father,” he said gently. “Why don’t you try talking to him?”

“I have talked to him. It doesn’t do any good.”

The ringing stopped at last.

“I’m not talking to either of them,” Angie said. “Their problems are no longer my problems. Tell me what you want done, please. And you can take that book away with you. I am not going on any low-fat diet. People need fat in their diets.”

“Just read it,” Garner said. “That’s all I’m asking. I have a feeling you’ll recognize someone in there.”

Angie took the book, moved against her will by the gentle pleading in his tone. “Did the author happen to make a case study of you, by any chance?”

Garner laughed. “Who have you been talking to?”

“No one.” She looked at him. “Are you saying you used to be on a high-fat, high-stress diet?”

“Believe it or not, I was in worse shape than you are right now. I slept about four hours a night, if at all, and drank coffee all day long. When I remembered to eat, it was a burger and fries I grabbed at the hamburger joint across the street from my office.”

The phone rang again.

Angie opened a cabinet and deliberately rattled plates. If she made enough noise, maybe Garner would ignore the telephone.

“Aren’t you worried about him? Your father, I mean,” he clarified, when Angie turned a genuinely baffled gaze upon him.

“I worry a lot more about the people in his vicinity than I do about him,” Angie said. She suddenly felt exhausted, that same soul-deep weariness she had suffered when she decided to leave California for good.

“Maybe you should call your mother back,” Garner suggested gently.

She shrugged and stared out the window at her wonderful back yard. The sight was almost enough to fully restore her newfound joy in living. “Don’t worry. She’ll call back this evening, when Daddy’s at work.”

“She might have something urgent or important to tell you.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Angie said in steely tones. “I moved here so I could be far away from my parents and my former—life.” She caught herself before she could say, “my former career.”

Garner nodded. “She may need to tell you something important.”

“I’ll call her after my father has left the apartment.”

She wouldn’t, but Garner didn’t need to know that. She was well aware Celia Brownwood was probably, at this very moment, tapping out a long, descriptive text message about the latest upheaval at BrownWare. Angie would read it later, after she’d fortified herself with a large pizza and a tall cola.

She reached for one of her toaster pastries and took a big bite. Hearing from her old life called for something more serious, like ice cream, but a toaster pastry would do for right now.

“Now, Angie,” Garner said. “You don’t have to eat that just to show me. You’ve got time to order a decent breakfast at the diner.”

“I do?” She brightened then regarded him suspiciously. “You haven’t bribed Dolly into feeding me chicken breast, have you?”

“When has bribing Dolly ever worked?” he asked, laughing. “I don’t know what the situation with your father is all about, but I do know that when a person is feeling stressed, the only foods that seem to taste good are sweets.”

Great. Now Garner was going to assume she was stressed out over the situation with her father, and she would rather let him think so than tell him the truth. On that thought, she took another bite of the pastry.

“Your father must be an important part of your life,” Garner observed.

Angie looked down at the half-eaten pastry in her hand and shrugged. “He
was
an important part of my life. Fortunately, I moved.”

• • •

Garner wisely gave up for the time being, in hopes that Angie would take herself off to the diner for a regular breakfast. After giving her the list of items he needed done, he backed his Blazer out of her driveway, wondering how he’d gotten himself into this. For a man who didn’t intend to get involved with a woman again for a long time, if ever, he was awfully concerned about Angie Brownwood.

No doubt about it. He was going nuts, and all because he’d been stupid enough to let a pair of innocent blue eyes and a rare enthusiasm for life sucker him in.

To her credit, Angie was behaving as if she hadn’t kissed him back yesterday. She had regarded the list of ordinary legal documents he’d given her with intense interest, as if she actually looked forward to the work. He had yet to research her on the computer, hoping she’d tell him the things he wanted to know on her own, but a man could only stand so much suspense.

Angelina Brownwood was a puzzle, all right, and Garner looked forward to solving it with an interest he hadn’t felt for anything in a long while.

• • •

The minute Garner’s battered Blazer disappeared, Angie hastily grabbed her briefcase, locked the front door, and hurried the few blocks to the diner. She barely had time for a good breakfast before she needed to be in the office.

“Hi, Angie,” Cliff called, motioning. A beautiful, dark-haired woman sat beside him. “Join me in misery. Garner was in earlier and left strict orders about your future breakfasts.”

Angie’s happy smile vanished. “He what?”

“This is my wife, Laura, Garner’s sister. She couldn’t resist the chance to meet the brave woman who took on Garner’s office.”

Laura Holt Jones was tall and slender like her brother, and her eyes were the same clear, silver-gray. Her face held none of her brother’s cynical charm. Instead, she sparkled with love and happiness and interest in Angie.

“Garner is absolutely fascinated with whatever you did to his computer.” Laura shook Angie’s hand. “And his
office
. I can’t get over it.”

“Both just needed a little attention.” Angie sat down, liking the other woman immediately. “He’s like most people, expecting the computer to keep on working smoothly, without any maintenance.”

“He says you ran a lot of maintenance programs on the hard drive,” Cliff said. “Can you teach me how to run them?”

Angie realized Garner had seen and understood a lot more of her operations than she’d supposed. “Certainly. Your computer will last a lot longer if you keep the hard drive in good shape.”

Dolly Sims stalked over to them. She slapped a plate down on the table before Angie. A glass of milk followed, then a small dish of extra butter.

“That isn’t what Garner ordered for her.” Cliff regarded the plate hungrily. “What’s up, Dolly?”

“I ain’t partial to these nasty low-fat diets.” Dolly glared at him. “Makin’ folks mean is all they’re good for.”

“Ouch.” Cliff pretended to cower. “How are you going to explain this to Garner?”

“I ain’t explaining nothin’.” There was a hint of triumph in Dolly’s voice. “What he orders for himself is his business, but when it comes to orderin’ for other folks, what he says don’t cut no ice with me.”

“Thank you, Dolly,” Angie said, with a beaming smile and a heart filled with gratitude. “This is exactly what I was going to order, butter and all.”

Dolly nodded proudly. “I knew you was a girl that knew how to eat the day I laid eyes on you.” She sailed back to the counter, righteous triumph in every line of her.

Laura and Cliff exchanged glances.

“You see?” Cliff said to Laura. “Old Garner is going to have an uphill battle if he wants to reform this one.”

Angie serenely heaped butter on her grits. “The reformee has to want to be reformed. I think I’d rather remain in my current corrupted state. Congratulations on your pregnancy, by the way. I think Garner is as excited as you are.”

“Thank you.” Laura smothered a chuckle. “No wonder Garner is going around in circles. I knew I was going to like you.”

Cliff regarded Angie’s plate, then his wife, mournfully. “Why is it that when I express a desire to remain corrupted, you and Garner both gang up on me?”

“Because, darling,” Laura said, winking at Angie, “Angie doesn’t have another five pounds yet to lose.”

• • •

Angie thoroughly enjoyed the week Garner spent out of town. She shelved the rest of his books. She filed all his outdated files. She took apart his computer and printer and cleaned them. She completely rearranged the files on the computer’s hard disk then installed a few programs of her own that made it perform like a newer, faster computer.

And she reread all the “Professional Conduct” sections in her secretarial manuals, just to remind herself of the folly of falling for her boss. The activity helped keep her mind off her mother’s constant attempts to get her to return to Palo Alto and “do something” about her father.

Don’t be afraid to show initiative
, her favorite reading matter adjured.
Your boss will appreciate your interest in helping his performance.

Angie took that advice to heart. She left nothing undone that would serve to prove what an expert, well-trained, professional secretary she was. She also wrote her mother a long e-mail, followed by a text message just in case the e-mail was missed, describing her total lack of interest in ever working in the software industry again, no matter what happened at BrownWare. She was burned out, she said, and needed a complete change. Thanks to Great Aunt Loretha’s generosity, she had achieved that.

She also drove to the larger city of El Dorado and signed up for a dictation class and a Business English class. The classes would begin in two months. If she was busy with classes and her yard, she wouldn’t have time to care whether or not Garner ever kissed her again.

In the meantime, she skimmed his book and decided to try incorporating a few aspects of the diet, such as more fresh vegetables and fruit, into her regimen. It couldn’t hurt, and it might help her dark circles.

She also decided she was never going to let herself be half-killed jogging with him again. She began a careful program of brisk walking every afternoon after work. After a week, she thought she noticed a difference in her already high energy levels.

Garner breezed into the office the following Friday afternoon. Naturally he had not seen fit to call and warn her of his return.

“Hi, Angie.” He headed straight toward her desk. “Did you miss me?”

Angie looked up from the book about English grammar she was studying and blinked a couple of times. Then her face broke into a radiant smile of welcome.

“I didn’t,” she said, “but all your girlfriends did.”

Garner halted at her side. “My what? You mean Mindy Adams, I suppose.”

“That’s right. Her party is tonight, and she wants to be sure you’re planning to attend.”

“Oh, Lord.” Garner circled her desk.

Angie half-rose, puzzled, and glanced around her desk to see what brought him closer in this determined way, other than her glasses, which she hadn’t been wearing the way she should. She grabbed for them, but her logical thought processes fell apart when he pulled her into his arms.

Her surroundings whirled. She had planned on holding Garner at arm’s length, and here she was back in his arms again, kissing him wildly. She couldn’t hold back. So much for her elaborate plans for projecting cool disinterest if he ever made a move to kiss her again. So much for all the rereading she had done of her secretarial manuals and her determination to improve her grammar skills.

Her arms went around his neck before she realized what she was doing. She didn’t know how it happened, but somehow her hands wound up inside his suit jacket to rest on the thin cotton of his shirt.

“How long have I known you?” he asked, between kisses.

“About a week and a half.” Angie wondered why he wanted to waste time talking.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Is there a problem with that?” Angie noted the change in atmosphere and tried to force her mind to work again. It wasn’t easy when her body still craved more of his kisses.

“The problem, I think, is going to be with you,” Garner said quietly. “How many men have you dated?”

It was another trick question, and Angie knew it. She considered her reply a moment. “Are you asking how many men I’ve dated, or how many men I’ve slept with?”

“Never mind. Angie—”

The door swung open. Garner stepped back hastily, and Angie quickly turned toward the door in her most professional manner.

“I knew she was lying.” A statuesque brunette entered the room like an avalanche. She wore a pair of tight jeans, a fitted yellow gingham blouse, and a pair of gold hoops that dangled from her ears. Her dark hair lay on her shoulders in perfect curls, and she wore high-heeled boots that added to her height. “You’ve been in town all this time, Garner Holt.”

“Hello, Mindy.” Garner sounded remarkably unenthusiastic. “I’ve been in Little Rock the past week, defending Arty Gierow in that embezzlement case—which you’d know if you ever read the
Gazette
. I just walked in five minutes ago.”

“Sure, you did.” Mindy approached, staring at Angie. “That’s your new
secretary
?”

“This is Miss Angelina Brownwood,” Garner said. “She moved here from California a couple of weeks ago.”

“She’s a
secretary
?” Disbelief lay heavy in Mindy’s voice.

“What makes you think she isn’t?” Garner countered, looking amused.

“Come on, Garner,” Mindy wheedled. “She didn’t buy that outfit on a secretary’s salary. Are you sure you can afford her?”