Bride by the Book (Crimson Romance) (15 page)

She must have an iron constitution. Either that or an iron will. Garner thought it was most likely the latter. From everything he’d learned about Angelina Brownwood last night, she wasn’t a woman who would let too much Peveto’s Punch get her down. She had probably arisen at her usual hour.

He watched her bend over the mower, apparently studying its parts. She walked around it a couple of times and bent over it once more. Then, she pushed the starter button.

The lawn mower won the match. The moment Angie started the motor, it took off on its own and tumbled Angie to the ground.

The mockingbird took the opportunity to dart out and scream, “Jay!” Angie flinched.

“Hey!” Garner leaped out of his Blazer and ran toward her. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re going to get your foot chopped off.”

Angie lay in a heap on the ground and peered up at him. “How can I hold on to a mower that wants to take off and mow the yard by itself?” She struggled to her knees, shaking a fist at the bird. “What’s wrong with this stupid machine?”

“Are you thinking this lawn mower is supposed to know how to mow the yard by itself?” he asked. He lifted her and set her on her feet, conscious of the feel of her softness in his hands.

“Isn’t it?” Angie regarded the mockingbird cautiously and brushed off her backside.

He stared into her face. She looked remarkably recovered, but the dark circles were still there. He was surprised they weren’t worse, considering her state the night before.

“Come on, Angie. Surely you don’t believe those TV commercials,” he chided.

She did. He almost laughed when the telltale color swept into her cheeks.

“According to the commercials,” she said, with dignity, “the lawn mower waits while you start it, then it leads you gently around the yard. What I want to know is what’s wrong with this one?”

“I don’t think anything is wrong, unless you’ve got more mower there than you can handle. Miss Culp bought that mower especially for her hired man to use. I’d suggest you rehire him and let him use it.”

“I don’t want a hired man,” Angie said stubbornly. “I want to mow this yard myself.”

“Jay,” the mockingbird commented, then sang out the trill of a sparrow.

Angie glared at the bird. “Without your help.”

He ought to offer to take over the job, but Garner could no more resist watching Angie learn how to mow a yard than he could resist watching her method of achieving a correctly punctuated letter.

“First, you get a good grip on the handle,” he said, showing her. “Then, you press the starter button.” He demonstrated, and the mower roared into life.

“I got that far,” Angie shouted, over the roar of the machine. “But when I put it into gear, it takes off without me.”

Garner pushed the gear lever that engaged the self-propelling device. The mower strained against his hold. No wonder she was having trouble. The mower had been built for a man accustomed to mowing yards—lots of yards.

He shut it off. “Angie, if you’re so determined to mow your own yard, I’d advise you to trade this mower in for a smaller one. This one is too much for a woman to handle.” He saw the mulish set of her jaw and realized he’d made a bad choice of words. “I mean, this mower was built for someone who mows yards for a living.”

Darn the woman. Did she think she could work on the mower and reprogram it the way she’d done his computer?

That was exactly what she thought, he realized. It was there in her sky-blue gaze as she considered the lawn mower once more. She probably thought all she had to do was reprogram the gears or something. Garner bit back admiring laughter.

“I’ll consider it.” She reached for the mower handle. “Hadn’t you better get going? I understand you spend Saturdays working your own land.”

Garner felt ridiculously heartened. She hadn’t wasted the time she’d spent making friends with Mindy and company last night. They’d evidently discussed him.

“I have a little free time today, thank you,” he said. “If you’re determined to mow the yard today, I’d better stand by with tourniquets and bandages.”

Angie acknowledged his grin with a reluctant smile of her own, then turned her back on him and bent over the mower. She gripped the handle, pressed the starter button and braced herself. The powerful grumble of the engine drowned out Garner’s warning to hold on. Cautiously, she reached around the handle and pushed the lever that engaged the front-wheel drive system.

The mower jerked forward, pulling Angie with it. She held on, leaning back with all her strength and digging in her heels.

It was no use. The machine took the bit between its teeth and set off at a fast trot. It shot across the yard, dragging Angie behind. The mockingbird followed, darting at Angie’s golden head every few feet.

The mower approached the back fence at a hard gallop. Garner watched, wincing, as Angie tried to leap forward ahead of the machine so she could push against the handle and turn it. She succeeded in partially turning the mower. Only the left front wheel tried to climb the fence.

She pulled back desperately, but the mower refused to respond to her shouted commands. It managed to get its right front wheel into the act and began digging a pit on the theory that if it couldn’t climb the fence, it might as well burrow beneath it.

When Angie made no move to simply let go of the handle and kill the motor, Garner judged it was time for him to help out. He ran over and jerked her hands off the handle. The motor shut off instantly.

“Well? Are you convinced?” he asked.

Once more, he’d chosen the wrong words. Angie wasn’t a woman who gave up when she ran into problems.

“No, I am not convinced. There has got to be a way to handle this machine, and I am going to find it.”

“Your best bet would be to trade this monster in,” Garner reiterated. “In the meantime, how about letting me finish the job?”

Angie glanced at the swath she’d cut through the tall grass. “Thank you, but I’d rather do it myself. I have a few other things to try.”

“After I’ve gone away, right?” Garner laughed. “Sorry, Angie. I’ve come to spend the day. There are a few things I need to talk to you about.”

Angie frowned. “Does this have anything to do with the events of last night?”

Garner backed off, laughing. It struck him that he hadn’t laughed this much in years. “Are you saying you remember any of them?”

The mockingbird strafed Angie’s head again. “Jay!”

“All right.” Angie backed off, gesturing at the mower. “It’s all yours. I can handle the mower, but this bird is just too darned much.”

• • •

Thoroughly disgruntled, Angie sat on the back steps and watched Garner handle the big mower easily. Adding to her failed lawn mowing experiment was the fact that the mockingbird didn’t strafe Garner. Instead, it darted down and snatched grasshoppers off the newly mowed grass. The two of them were cooperating to make her feel like a fool.

She should have listened to the advice in her secretarial manuals about socializing with the boss. She’d let her attraction to Garner override professional conduct. Her face burned with embarrassment every time she thought about the way she must have passed out last night. Talk about unprofessional.

She fanned her hot cheeks. He probably intended to fire her after mowing her lawn, probably as a kind of severance pay.

Garner wore his favorite cowboy boots with a pair of old jeans that looked molded to his long legs and a blue work shirt. He had no right to look so good and so vigorous while she felt like something better suited for a cemetery. It was unfair.

The telephone rang. Angie struggled to her feet and went inside to answer it in spite of her better judgment.

“Hello, Daddy.” This was all she needed to complete a horrendous weekend. Angie held the phone away from her ear. “Isn’t it a beautiful morning?”

The phone erupted. From arm’s length, Angie heard Vernon’s opinion of her perfidious behavior in siding with Peter Van Holden against her own father in the squabble over the updates for VP-Base.

“Does Peter know I’ve sided with him on using a new algorithm for VP-Base?” Angie asked, when the tirade faded. She wondered vaguely what had brought this on. “I’m not involved any longer in your fight with Peter. If that’s all you have to say … ”

The receiver levitated from her hands. Angie whirled. Garner had come in so quietly, she hadn’t heard him.

“Hello, Mr. Brownwood,” he said. “I’m Angie’s new employer, Garner Holt.” He listened a moment and grinned. “No, I don’t manufacture computer chips. I’m a lawyer.” He held the phone away from his ear a moment, frowning. “And I happen to believe family stands for something. So I’d suggest you cease and desist making those comments. Good day, sir.” He replaced the receiver and turned to Angie. “How long has he been like this?”

Angie had turned away, unable to face Garner any longer. This wasn’t the question, or the action, she’d expected.

“How long?” The question baffled her. “Forever, I guess.”

“Angie.” Garner grasped her shoulders gently and turned her to face him. “Think, darling. What was he like when you were a little girl? What was he like five years ago?”

Darling? Angie stared up at him, unable to think.

Garner stared back. His eyes were the gray of an overcast sky backlit by the sun. He framed her face with his work-roughened hands. The scents of sunlight and newly mown grass surrounded him.

The faintly scratchy, warm feel of his hands on her smooth skin electrified her. Angie trembled and knew he felt it. She lifted her face naturally. Everything she had reviewed in her secretarial manuals that very morning about professional conduct evaporated from her memory.

Garner’s lips touched hers gently then brushed lightly across her mouth. Angie parted her lips for him. Instantly, his arms went around her, locking her against him. She sighed with pleasure and put her arms around his neck. For this, she’d brave a dozen mean mockingbirds and maverick lawnmowers.

She kissed him back enthusiastically. BrownWare and her own embarrassment faded into the far distance of her mind. She was a woman, and Garner was the only man who had ever made her so keenly aware of that fact.

“This is what I looked forward to and didn’t get last night,” he said in her ear. He smoothed his hands across her back, making her quiver with feeling then moved them around to cup her breasts. “You owe me, woman.”

Angie couldn’t believe the sensations rioting through her while his warm hands palmed her breasts. “I do? Then please let me pay up immediately.”

She quivered with pleasure. Nothing in her life had ever felt like this. Not that she would know, given the fact that Vernon kept her working such long hours, she had barely even dated, much less had the time for extensive kissing.

Not that she had ever met anyone she wanted to hold extended kissing sessions with in the first place. One had to date in order to find a suitable partner.

According to Fonda Clancy, dating meant a woman had a life. Angie registered a thought that for the first time in her life, she had a life. Right now, she stood in her own kitchen getting kissed within an inch of her life. Could life get any more exciting than this?

A few minutes and a few kisses more, she realized it could. Garner kissed her eyelids, her ear, her neck, and returned to her mouth again, while his hands moved over her body, spreading fire in their wake.

Angie had never felt anything like it. She moaned when he nipped at her earlobe and at the same time rubbed his thumbs over the sensitive tips of her breasts. Swamped by sensation and unsteady on her feet, she leaned back to give him better access to her body.

He accepted her invitation by lifting her in his arms and using his foot to shove the back door closed. Disoriented, she rode in his arms to her bedroom, unaware of where she was until they arrived and not particularly interested so long as Garner kept kissing her. A kaleidoscope of light and color passed before her blurred vision when he placed her in the center of the bed. Then he came down beside her and she closed her eyes.

How had she managed to live so long without ever experiencing these feelings? If she’d had the faintest idea she could feel like this, she would have rebelled against the regime at BrownWare years ago. She tried to wrap herself around Garner’s body but he trapped her hands and held them gently above her head while he hovered above her.

“Angie, open your eyes, darling,” Garner said softly.

She opened her eyes and looked into his intent gaze.

“How many men have you been with in your life?” he asked.

“How many?” She frowned. “Why do you want to know? There’s my father, and Peter, and a bunch of guys in management and on the development team who come and go, but—”

Garner looked as if he was choking on laughter, but he managed to say, “That is not what I meant. I’m asking how many men have you made love to?”

“Oh. Well.” Angie thought a moment. “That’s different.”

“I’ll say it is.” Garner laughed openly now. “Just answer the question.”

Angie wondered what the best policy was in a case like this. If she said none, he was liable to stop what he was doing on the grounds that she was an innocent.

Never let it be said that she had wasted her time at Cal Tech.

“Work the answer out for yourself,” she said, lowering her eyelashes in what she hoped was a seductive manner and rattled off a mathematical equation involving velocity-squared, the speed-of-light-squared, and the square root of the entire bunch of squared items.

As she had hoped, Garner looked as if he had no idea that she had just given him a version of the Lorentz Transform. He stared down at her in thoughtful silence.

“I have a feeling the answer to that equation is going to boil down to the square root of zero,” he said at last. “And the answer is, of course, zero.”

Angie winced. Who would have thought lawyers knew anything about physics?

“Which is about what I figured,” he went on.

“Assuming that’s true, is there something wrong with that?” Angie tried to keep the defensiveness out of her voice. “There’s a first time for everybody, you know.”