Bride by the Book (Crimson Romance) (17 page)

“That must have been the day you realized there was a better life somewhere out there,” Angie said. “I know the feeling.”

“You’re one of the very few who really does.” Garner’s silver gaze rested on her face as if he found pleasure in just looking at her. “Rather than simply bow out and leave the way you did, I decided to make a stand and point out the error of the company’s ways in terms of actions that affected the environment and federal law. The company retaliated by firing me and trying to have me disbarred. It took everything I’d saved to fight the charges and keep my credentials as a lawyer.”

Angie gulped. Garner’s story did resemble her own in certain respects, although Vernon Brownwood’s attempts to blacklist her in the software industry hardly ranked with disbarment.

“The day I got the papers from the State Bar, it occurred to me to wonder how I’d come to that point,” Garner said, watching her. “And the answer was simple—I’d been trying to live up to the image I thought my father demanded.”

Angie clasped her hands in her lap and stared at the tabletop. She didn’t know what to say. Hadn’t she done the same thing for way too many years?

Garner rubbed his forehead. “The change in Dad had been so gradual, it never occurred to me the things he wanted me to do weren’t the fair-dealing actions he’d taught me as a boy. When I graduated from law school he said he wanted me at the top of the ladder no matter what I had to do along the way.”

“Even illegal things?” she asked.

Angie watched the play of emotion across his face. It was incredible. She’d thought Garner cynical and reserved, but he wasn’t. He’d been wearing a veneer to cover enormous hurt and disillusionment. She longed to hold him and comfort away his hurt, but he wasn’t looking for comfort. He was trying to tell her something—something Angie feared she didn’t want to hear after all the trouble she’d gone through to get away from Palo Alto.

“That job represents the worst three years of my life,” Garner said. “I worked from sunup until sundown, gulping coffee and trying to figure out how to stab someone in the back, whether it was the community or another lawyer.”

“Did you try to quit?” She thought of all the times she’d tried to quit, even going so far as to interview with a couple of other companies, neither of which would touch her, thanks to Vernon Brownwood.

“Every time I mentioned quitting, Glenda pitched a fit,” Garner said. “The day she dragged Dad into our arguments, I finally woke up to what had happened to me and to my old man.”

“But you got away, didn’t you?” Angie pointed out. “And you’ve made a success of your solo practice.”

“All’s well that ends well?” Garner gave her an understanding half-smile. “Angie, don’t you see? Your little career and lifestyle change aren’t going to be any easier than mine, although I have to admit you’ve done a far better job than I did.” He reached for her hand. “What you don’t seem to realize is that you’ve left a lot of loose ends behind. I don’t want you to have the kind of regrets I’ve had.”

Angie couldn’t imagine having any regrets at all, but she forbore saying so. “Maybe you didn’t move far enough away,” she suggested. “Unless Daddy comes all the way here, he can’t bother me anymore.”

“That’s what you think,” Garner said gently.

“I can always hang up on him when he calls.” Angie smiled at him. “If necessary, I can sic my lawyer on him.”

• • •

Garner smiled back and marveled at how easy it had been to tell Angie the things he’d never told anyone else, not even his sister Laura. Maybe it was because he knew Angie had been through much of the same thing. Or maybe it was because Angie accepted what he told her without judging his actions or telling him what he should have done.

But he could also see that getting her to understand what he was really trying to tell her would not be nearly so easy.

“Angie, the things I heard your father saying earlier weren’t … ” he hesitated, “quite sane.”

She regarded him curiously. Garner bit his lip, wondering how to say the rest. In the end, he remembered she’d had a lot of scientific training. He decided to give her the straight truth as he saw it.

“Your father’s reaction isn’t normal,” he said. “I think there’s something radically wrong with him.”

“With Daddy?” Angie looked puzzled. “I can’t imagine what it could be.”

“Think, Angie.” Garner realized she was so used to Vernon’s behavior, she saw nothing unusual about it. “What was he like when you first went to work at BrownWare?”

“He was exactly the same,” Angie said, with emphasis. She thought a moment. “Well, maybe he wasn’t quite as rabid, but this is an unusual situation. He and Peter grew up together, went to school together, opened BrownWare together, and developed VP-Base together. It’s even named after them. But I don’t have the faintest idea where he got the idea that Peter and I were conspiring against him. After all, it isn’t as if either one of us is interested in taking Daddy’s place at BrownWare.”

“And now, your dad and Peter are no longer partners,” Garner said, recalling some of the things Peter Van Holden had said.

“They were fighting over an update for VP-Base before all this happened.” Angie shrugged. “Daddy wanted to use the same algorithm—the one that was his idea ten years ago—and do a minor update of some of the features. Peter wanted to do a major revision of the way the program works.” She heaved a deep, weary sigh. “The problem then was that every time we talked about it, Daddy would swear we were conspiring to ease him out of the company because we wanted to scrap his algorithm. Once he discovered that Peter and I had had co-written the Ra-thor and Lenora game, he really hit the ceiling. He thought it was some sort of mutual declaration on our part as to our intent.”

“Is Peter still a partner?”

Angie rubbed her eyes. “I think so. They’ve filed so many ridiculous lawsuits against each other these past few months, they may be fighting over the company’s assets for the next fifty years. Peter says he doesn’t care because he’s discovered a new way to make a living, but he’s still not letting Daddy get away with anything on principle.”

Garner smiled at that, although he didn’t like the tired, defeated look Angie had suddenly developed. It told him more clearly than anything she could have said what her life had been like at BrownWare.

“BrownWare sounds like a lawyer’s paradise right now,” he said. “One of these days, when you’re able to look back on it and laugh, you can tell me all about it. In the meantime—”

The telephone rang. Garner couldn’t blame Angie for letting it ring, but he also thought she needed to take some sort of action in regard to her father. He rose, lifted the receiver and handed it to her in spite of her pained wince.

“Hello, Daddy,” she said, with a complete lack of her usual enthusiasm.

She immediately moved the phone several inches from her ear. Garner could hear every word of the ensuing tirade.

“You’ve betrayed me!” Vernon yelled. “How dare you tell that fly-by-night computer chip company you’re working for that BrownWare is going belly-up?”

Angie had evidently grown so accustomed to Vernon’s accusations, it took her a moment to realize this was an example of what Garner meant when he said Vernon’s speech was not quite sane.

Garner took the phone from Angie’s limp hand once he decided she wasn’t going to reply. “Hello, Mr. Brownwood. Angie isn’t working for a computer chip company. She’s working for me. May I speak to your wife?”

“You can’t fool me,” Vernon shouted. “You’re the lawyer for Verilynn Chip Makers. You’re using my daughter’s reputation to build your penny-ante business.”

“Actually, I’m your daughter’s lawyer. Let me speak to your wife, please.”

Vernon slammed down the phone.

Garner looked at Angie. She stared at the phone with a stunned look in her blue eyes that told him his words had hit home.

Now was not the time to say anything more about Vernon’s behavior. Angie would have to decide on her own what to do. Garner stood and walked around the table to lift her to her feet.

“Where is your mother?” he asked, holding her. “Maybe you could let her know you’re concerned.”

Angie snuggled against him, comforted by his presence. “At this hour on a Saturday, she’s usually supervising some of her graduate students at Stanford, but she’s the one who called just now.”

“What do you say we vacate the premises a while?” he asked, smiling tenderly at her.

Enthusiasm lightened her expression. “I’d love to. Let’s go have a pizza someplace.”

“Now, Angie, you’ve probably eaten way too many pizzas in your life.” He laughed. “I know a place that does tacos with baked shells and a really good cheese filling. Let’s grab a couple of those and go fishing. Have you ever been fishing? I didn’t think so. It’s the best thing in the world for stress relief.”

Moments later, Angie rode beside him in his beat-up, green Blazer, munching a reasonably healthy taco and gazing happily out the window. Smackover had once been an oil boom-town. The stilled rocking-horse remains of old oil wells dotted the landscape, cropping up in the middle of trees and fields. Every here and there among the rolling tree-covered hills, a well arm still pumped busily, working to extract any oil remaining in the limestone reservoir below.

Angie gazed around happily. “I love this scenery. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve spent my entire life in computer labs and offices.” She thought for a moment and added, “I suppose I have.”

The highway was closely lined with trees, and when they turned off the highway onto a gravel road, the trees moved closer. Leafy branches brushed the Blazer. Garner watched Angie’s fascinated face from the corner of his vision.

He wondered what she’d say when she saw his cabin, and what she’d think when she discovered she was the first woman he’d ever brought to it.

They burst out of the trees and into a clearing that fronted a small, tree-lined lake, although it might be better considered a large pond.

“Oh,” Angie breathed, clearly enchanted. “Did you know this was here?”

“Now, Angie, do I look like the sort of man who’d drag you out into the wilderness without knowing where we were going?”

Angie sat forward eagerly. “There’s a rowboat. Do you think they’ll let us rent it?”

“Are you saying you want to row out on the lake?”

“Can we? I’ve never been on a lake in a boat before.”

“Then we’ll do it.” Privately, he marveled. What kind of life had Angie led, that she could be so fascinated by a tiny lake most fishermen would have considered beneath them? “What do you think of the cabin?”

He wasn’t even aware that he was holding his breath until she focused on the cabin.

“It’s the most beautiful cabin I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said, with sincerity. “It’s perfect.”

“I’m glad you think so, because the lake and the cabin are ours for the day.” He swung his Blazer beneath a shed at the side of the cabin.

Angie hardly waited for Garner to come around and release her. She sprang out the moment he opened the door and breathed the fresh woods air deeply. She never took her eyes off the lake in spite of the noon sun that reflected off it in blinding sheets of white light.

Garner watched her, as captivated by her as she was by the lake. The sun turned her blond hair into a golden-white blaze of light. Her translucent skin, still with the telltale dark circles beneath her eyes, looked like fine porcelain.

She looked eagerly around in all directions, enchanted even by his old beagle, Dixie. “What a beautiful dog.”

Dixie roused herself from her sunny slumber on the front porch of the cabin and uttered a bay or two typical of her breed. Then she lost interest and lay back down, tail thumping rhythmically.

“Some watch dog.” Garner’s tone unintentionally roughened to cover his emotion. “You could steal every silver spoon in the place and she’d wish you God-speed.”

He had a tough time coaxing Angie inside the cabin to help him put together a picnic lunch. She behaved like a little girl, running to admire a passing butterfly or a big, colorful grasshopper. He hoped she never lost that ability to find everything around her interesting—especially now that she’d given that same ability back to him.

Inside the cabin, she called his interior decorating a triumph of naturalism. As Garner had made no effort to decorate at all, other than to hang white curtains over the windows, he declared her a person of rare good taste as well as beauty. After all, what did a man need to be comfortable, other than a good television set and a comfortable sofa and some stuffed chairs?

“So this is your place in the woods,” Angie said, when he guided her back outside. “Mindy said you had one, but no one knew where it was, including Laura and Cliff. She said you were a real hermit.”

Garner urged her toward the rowboat, grinning. “Cliff hates to hurt anyone’s feelings. Rather than refuse to tell Mindy how to get here, he opted to say he didn’t know where it was. He and Laura spend many a weekend fishing here.”

They carried fishing rods, a bait bucket full of crickets, and a basket packed with the sandwiches Garner made with Angie’s haphazard assistance. Angie peered into the bait bucket, almost beside herself with excitement.

“I suppose he’s right,” she said. “Mindy’s cowgirl look wouldn’t fit in here.” She clutched his hand and climbed into the rocking boat. It was a plain aluminum dinghy with no motor and few amenities other than thick cushions on the seats. “A country-girl look might be a lot better. I’ll have to ask Mindy how one achieves that.”

“Angie,” Garner said gently. “Don’t. You look perfect. A little pale, perhaps, but a few days of fishing ought to remedy that.”

She chuckled appreciatively and collapsed on the forward seat. “You’d better not let me get too much sun or you’ll be doctoring me for heat stroke.”

“I know.” Garner flashed a swift smile at her. “Don’t worry. I’ll time your exposure.”

He shoved off from the bank expertly and settled on the rear seat with one oar. “Sit still and let me do the work. If you aren’t careful, you’ll tip us over.”

Angie obligingly sat still. “This is supposed to be relaxing?” She dipped her hand into the sun-heated water.