Bride by the Book (Crimson Romance) (16 page)

“I know.” He smiled tenderly. “The question is, are you ready for this?”

“Garner, a couple of things ought to be obvious by now. One, I’m twenty-si—seven years old and more than capable of handling the natural progression of events between us, and two, you’re about to destroy the mood.”

“Peter Van Holden says you’re twenty-five,” Garner said.

“Actually, I’m twenty-six.” Looking into his face, with its high forehead and sensitive, bracketed mouth, Angie thought again of a sunrise after a stormy night. That expression made it difficult for her to put her mind on the issue at hand. “You talked to Peter? When?”

If Garner talked to Peter, there was no telling what he’d found out. Peter was the world’s worst about forgetting what he was supposed to say when he was in the middle of a programming fit.

“Don’t worry.” Garner laughed. “He was very careful to read me the sheet you gave him about your previous job experience with ‘Van Holden Software.’”

“Garner—”

“It’s more than obvious, Miss Brownwood, that your capabilities know no bounds. Therefore, I think it’s best to continue with the task at hand.”

Angie let out her breath. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Now is not a good time to bring up Peter or anything else going on back in Palo Alto.”

He released her hands and kissed her again with due attention to reestablishing the mood. Angie found his efforts so satisfactory, she locked her hands behind his neck and sought to bring him closer still.

Now that Garner had decided on a plan of action, Angie found herself in total agreement with it. She signified her pleasure with every means at her disposal and never thought once about what the professional secretary ought to do when her boss lay beside her on a bed and began removing her clothing, item by item.

The midday sunlight filtered through her bedroom curtains. Angie discovered that making love with a man in broad daylight was extremely exciting. She could see everything they did together, and that fact increased her desire.

She had never been naked with a man before and found it a novel sensation. Nor had she ever had a man look at her as if she was something he wanted to immortalize in marble or devour in one gulp. In fact, she had never seen such a look on a man’s face before, and she rejoiced that the look was for her alone.

He had enormous patience, she realized through the haze of desire that swamped her mind. Every touch, every kiss brought her to higher and higher peaks of excitement, until she knew she couldn’t stand much more.

At that moment, he withdrew his incendiary touch for a moment while he stripped off his own clothing. Angie stared at him, entranced, and reached out to touch him experimentally.

Garner groaned. “Maybe you’d better not try that until later.”

Before she could ask what he meant, he kissed her again and touched her intimately. Angie bowed up, shaking all over. If he stopped now, she would surely die.

Fortunately, Garner did not stop. He touched her in new and even more exciting ways, and when he finally joined his body with hers, she could only be thankful for her ability to feel his hair-roughened skin against her own smooth body.

The pleasure drew to a tiny point that suddenly exploded into a thousand shards of brilliantly colored light interspersed with stars and exclamation points. Angie had never felt anything like it in her life. That, she decided later, was probably why her brain almost totally shut down, until she felt, saw, and heard nothing unconnected to Garner Holt and the feel of him inside her.

When it was over, she lay very still, panting for breath and contemplating the decisions that had brought her to this time and this place. She really, really owed Fonda a huge birthday present. Or Christmas present. Whichever came first, she decided lethargically.

As if he read her mind, Garner held her, spooning his body around hers, and kissed her temple. “I’d really like to know what gave you the idea of becoming a secretary. It’s been driving me crazy.”

She smiled, drifting on a sea of warmth and pleasure that was unprecedented in her life until now. “It’s very simple, really. Out of all the people I came into contact with at BrownWare, the only one who had a life that looked like any fun at all was Fonda Clancy, my father’s secretary.”

“That bad?” Garner feathered his fingertips over her forehead. “One of these days, you’ll have to tell me about life at BrownWare. But first, I’ve got to find out why you seem to be having such a good time being a secretary.”

“Fonda ruled the roost at BrownWare,” Angie said. “Not even my father dared to cross her. She knew everything, and what she didn’t know, she had in her files or her little desktop Rolodex. When five o’clock came, Fonda went home. Nobody dared tell her she had to stay after hours to finish a software update, or ditch her plans to travel to Los Angeles on a weekend so she could meet with some industry executive on Monday.”

“I suppose I can see the attraction.” Garner sounded as if he was smothering laughter. “Go on, please.”

“I had begun to realize I was going to have to leave BrownWare, but I didn’t know what to do because software development is all I’ve ever done.” Angie sighed and let herself float on the cloud of warm contentment that surrounded her. “From all I could see, going to work for another software company wouldn’t have been any improvement, plus I really didn’t want to stay in the field any longer.”

“Not even after Ra-thor and Lenora hit the big time?”

“You know about that?” Angie considered this with supreme disinterest. “The Ra-thor and Lenora game is what really sent Daddy off the deep end. For some reason he thinks Peter and I are conspiring to take over BrownWare, and it really frosted him when the game started selling.”

“Because BrownWare wasn’t selling it?” Garner asked.

“You’ve got it.” Angie sighed again. “So he tried to tell us the company owned the game because we created it while employed by BrownWare. But since Peter owns half the company, he told Daddy to go fly a kite on the freeway. Not to mention that we never worked on the game at BrownWare. It was just an idea I had that I did some programming on in my spare time, and Peter put the finishing touches on it in his own spare time.”

“I think I see a lawsuit approaching,” Garner said.

“And you don’t even need a telescope to see it coming,” Angie agreed. “Anyway, things got worse and worse, and no matter what we said, Daddy stayed on the warpath.” She drew in a deep breath and snuggled against him. “So I started doing some research into job openings, even though I knew Daddy would make getting one anywhere in California almost impossible. Then Great Aunt Loretha died and left me her house. I researched Smackover and realized there were no openings anywhere around here for someone with my particular skill set.”

“So you talked it over with someone,” Garner said. “Someone who told you that good secretaries were needed almost everywhere.”

“Fonda said it was too bad I hadn’t learned how to type letters and set up filing systems, because then I could hire out as a computer-savvy secretary. And the more I thought about it, the more I knew I could do it.”

“That’s amazing. You actually learned to do secretarial work out of a book.”

“Fonda showed me what to study.” Angie felt a twinge of defensiveness and banished it. After all, Garner had told her she was the best secretary he’d ever had.

“You didn’t want to move here and become a lady of leisure?” he asked.

She felt Garner’s lips on her shoulder and smiled. “Where’s the fun in that?” She turned back to face him. “The best way to become an accepted member of a new community is to get a good job where you can meet people.”

Garner drew her closer. “I’d say you’ve achieved that. Mindy’s crowd loves you, and Dolly at the diner has officially adopted you. She actually told me to keep my filthy paws off your breakfast plates or she’d have my head.”

“I think you’re absolutely right.” Angie smiled and reached out to touch his face with her fingertips. “And the best part about it is that I can now truthfully say I’ve got a life.”

In the midst of a peaceful doze, Angie heard the telephone in the kitchen ringing and automatically started to slide from Garner’s embrace. Then she remembered where she was and relaxed once more.

“Are you going to just let it ring?” Garner asked. “Don’t you have an answering machine?”

“Not on the house phone,” Angie grumbled. “I haven’t wanted to buy one yet. The peace when I come home has been wonderful.”

“You’d better answer it. It might be important.”

“I doubt it.” She threw on her robe and hurried to the kitchen.

“Angie, darling, you have to come home,” Celia Brownwood said, without ceremony. “This can’t go on any longer.”

“I’m not coming home, Mom. This is my home now.” Angie sought for patience. “I don’t ever care to work in software development again.”

“It’s that man.” Celia sounded resigned. “I knew something like this would happen if you ever got out of Vernon’s sight.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, Angelina. I should have realized what was happening at BrownWare, but with all my responsibilities at Stanford, I’m afraid I didn’t keep an eye on things the way I should have. Vernon is going to lose the company if he doesn’t—”

Angie heard her mother’s gasp of outrage and the sounds of a struggle, then her father’s voice came on. The moment she heard his voice, she hung up the phone. “Someone you don’t want to talk to?” Garner stood in the door, clad only in his jeans.

“It’s my parents again.” She came toward him and slipped her arms around his neck. “I’m not answering if it rings again. Let’s go back to the bedroom.”

He smiled against her hair then moved his hands to her waist to set her gently away. “Sit down, Angie. There’s something I have to talk to you about.”

Angie remained standing with her arms around his neck a moment, hoping he’d kiss her again. Maybe she could entice him back into the bedroom so he could continue helping her develop a life.

“We need to discuss where you go from here,” he said.

She frowned. “What do you mean? I’m not going anywhere from here.”

He went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Even if I hadn’t looked you up online, I’d have eventually called Van Holden. It was easy enough to see you weren’t an ordinary secretary.”

This was it, Angie thought. He was about to fire her for conduct unbecoming a professional secretary. Or was it because she had never attended a single day at a real secretarial school?

Maybe he had scruples about sleeping with his secretary, and the only way he could continue to do so was fire her.

On that thought she pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down, folding her arms across her chest. “Go ahead. I may as well be sitting when you fire me.”

“Fire you? You’ve got to be kidding. You’re the best secretary I’ve ever had.”

Angie watched him suspiciously. He looked nothing like the man she remembered from barely two weeks ago—the one who looked as though he’d eaten something that disagreed with him. It was amazing how a mere change in expression could change every line in his face. The man pulling out a chair across the table from her looked happy to be alive.

Garner’s face grew serious. He studied the ceramic hen and rooster salt and pepper shakers in the center of the table before he spoke.

“Since I found out the truth about you, it’s only fair that I should tell you the truth about myself,” he said at last.

Angie’s eyes widened. “You’re not really a lawyer?”

He laughed. “Now that you mention it, I’ll bet you could hang out a shingle as a lawyer. A lot of the legal work out there consists of forms someone like you can find on the internet with the greatest of ease.”

“Provided I could also find out what to do with them.” Angie stilled suddenly and shot a horrified glance at him. “You’re not about to tell me you’re married, are you?”

“No way.” He smiled somewhat grimly. “I’m about to tell you what everyone in Smackover would like to know.” He looked up and met her gaze. “Two years ago, I came back home after spending several years as a corporate attorney in Dallas. I was in pretty bad shape, both mentally and physically.”

“What was wrong with you?” Angie admired his tanned face and broad, athletic shoulders. Mindy had said Garner’s immediate past was mysterious, but Angie had written off the comment. After all, from everything she had pieced together, Garner had grown up in Smackover. Everybody in town knew him.

“I worked as one of several corporate attorneys for a big chemical company in Dallas. It’s a kind of life you’re probably very familiar with.”

Angie gazed at him uncertainly. She had no idea how to compare her life to anyone else’s except the other programmers in the software development lab at BrownWare—and Fonda Clancy’s.

Garner smiled at her with understanding. “You get up early every morning and arrive at the office before anyone else. You’re still there long after everyone else has gone home. By the time you do get home, you’re so jittery you can’t sleep and can hardly eat. You get up the next morning and drink an entire pot of coffee so you can make it to the office and start all over again.”

Angie nodded slowly. That did sound like a version of the life she’d been leading.

“After a couple of years of that, I had advanced enough in the company to consider myself a huge success. So I married the first woman who came on to me, chiefly because her opinion of me seemed to equal my own. Glenda was one of the leading saleswomen for Coralon Cosmetics and just about the most beautiful woman this small-town boy had ever seen,” Garner went on. “Barely three weeks after the wedding, we had a huge fight about why I couldn’t come home early one night and attend a business party with her.

“That was when I first realized she had married me because she thought I would be a big boon to her business where everything was built on image. Needless to say, my image of myself did a big crash-and-burn, because I also discovered that I didn’t like the woman behind her image, or the man behind mine.”

She regarded him with sympathy.

Garner leaned forward earnestly. “One day soon afterward I woke up and realized I was destroying myself, body and soul, by trying to lead a life I hated in order to live up to a mistaken idea I had of how life ought to be. But the worst was defending actions I was totally opposed to for the sake of keeping my job.”