Bride by the Book (Crimson Romance) (18 page)

“You’re just excited.” He dipped the oars into the water and shot the little boat forward. “You’ll relax as soon as we find a quiet place.”

“Is this whole lake yours?” Angie clearly thought it incredible, perhaps on the order of owning an entire Pacific island. “The entire lake looks quiet to me.”

“This piece of land was the last thing left of my father’s estate by the time he died,” Garner said. “It belongs to Laura and me.”

The momentary silence was broken only by the sounds of birds, the scratching of the crickets in the bait bucket, and the chuckle of the water as Garner’s oars cut through it. Angie looked up. “Your father lost most of his holdings before he died?”

“What he didn’t lose through unwise investments went to pay his hospital bills when they discovered he had cancer. You can imagine how I felt when I found out most of the changes in the way he thought and acted were due to a series of ministrokes he’d had some time before the cancer was discovered.”

Angie stared out over the shining water. “Daddy had a medical checkup two weeks before I left. The doctor said he was in great shape for a fifty-year-old man.”

“Angie, you know as well as I do your father’s actions aren’t normal.” He guided the boat toward a tiny cove shaded by two tall, spreading pines. “From what I was able to piece together from the Internet, Vernon Brownwood has always been considered a quiet man who prefers his computer to human society.”

“Daddy’s always been eccentric. Once he actually hid under his desk with his keyboard so he could avoid meeting with government officials negotiating for the rights to use VP-Base.” She gave him a wry smile. “I had to meet with them.”

He guided the boat into the cove and tethered it to a low branch. Angie was starting to grasp what he wanted to tell her. Now he would let her think. “Want to learn how to bait a hook?”

“What’s wrong with plastic crickets?” She covered her face while Garner baited a hook with a live cricket and tossed it into the water.

“The fish are about as fooled as you would be by a plastic pizza.” He baited another hook and tossed it into the water, washed his hands in the lake, then settled down into the shell of the boat, using the seat cushion as a pillow. “Here’s where you learn the true art of fishing. Come on over and join me.”

Angie rose carefully and settled on the boat cushion beside him. He put an arm around her and encouraged her to rest her head on his shoulder.

“What was it like for you, attending college at the age of sixteen?” he asked, kissing her ear gently.

She tilted her head back. “What do you think it was like?”

“You tell me,” he invited, and kissed her neck.

He felt sure Angie had never told anyone about her childhood. She probably didn’t know it had been different.

“It was horrible,” she said at last. “My parents loved me dearly, so they gave me everything
they
would have enjoyed. Computers, books, trips to technological exhibits.” She swallowed. “I wanted the doll Great Aunt Loretha sent me, and a tree to climb and a grassy lawn to play on and some friends my own age.”

“You were a normal little girl forced to act out the role of a budding computer genius,” Garner said, understanding instantly.

She nodded and closed her eyes. “People expected me to be a genius because both my parents were so smart, but they didn’t know how hard I had to work. Then when I couldn’t do it anymore, they said I’d burned out.” She buried her face against his shoulder. “The truth was I was never that brilliant to begin with, not like my parents.” She paused then added, “My parents enhanced my intelligence with clever teaching and early childhood games that made me look like a child prodigy.”

Garner strained to hear the softly spoken confession. He felt sure she’d never told anyone this.

She looked at the branch over their heads. “The truth is I’ve been burned out from the day I turned twelve and realized life was going to be one long, hard study session, and that no knight in shining armor was likely to come along and rescue me.”

“In the end, you have to rescue yourself,” Garner said gently, turning her to face him.

Angie gazed at him as if surprised he wasn’t condemning her. “We both rescued ourselves,” she said. “Goodbye, Dallas and Palo Alto.”

They stared into each other’s eyes a moment. Only the lapping of the water and soughing of the branches in the breeze broke the heavy noon stillness.

Garner drew her deeper into his embrace. No woman had ever fit in his arms the way Angie did, and no other woman had ever touched all the tender places inside his heart. He wanted to cherish her, to protect her dreams, and to guard that endearing, childlike enthusiasm of hers until she was in her nineties and beyond.

She parted her lips willingly for his kiss, wrapping her arms around him. Her short, perfect nails scored his neck and forked through his hair, leaving his scalp tingling with sexy rivulets of feeling.

“One thing you do have in spades is tremendous learning potential,” he said. “In fact, I’d have to say you’re very close to the genius-level when it comes to kissing.”

Angie’s soft laughter brushed his neck. She found his ribs and tickled him. “Don’t you dare call me a genius.”

He reacted by laughing and holding her off. “You’d rather be called a dumb blond?”

Angie dug her fingers into his ribs. Her blond hair tumbled in a fluffy mass over her shoulders. “How about calling me a student of great potential?”

She touched his face with both hands as if learning the contours of his sun-warmed skin with her fingertips, feeling the texture of his jaw where his beard gave the skin a slight roughness.

“Does that make me a great teacher?” His voice was deep and slow, and his eyes half-closed with the pleasure of her touch.

“Obviously,” Angie said. “Look at the way I’m lying around on this lake kissing a good-looking man when I should be home studying grammar and filing.”

He slowly eased her to her side and rose above her, staring down into her face. “This lake and this day would be wasted without a man and a woman present to enjoy it. Kiss me again.”

Garner rowed toward the shore and leaped out, splashing through the shallow water to pull the small boat ashore. He turned and looked at Angie. With the afternoon sun reflecting off her pale hair, she looked like a happy angel.

“A few months back, when I realized Daddy was going to make it impossible for me to work in the software industry, I started looking around for a new career,” she said, “something that would utilize the skills I already had. The answer soon occurred to me—I could get a job like Fonda’s almost anywhere, and at the same time, I could get a life.”

“From what Van Holden said, you were essentially running BrownWare,” Garner said. “You could have gotten a similar job at another software company, probably one that pays a lot bigger salary than what you could earn as a secretary.” He stretched out his hand to help her ashore. “But I suppose I can see the attraction of doing something entirely different.”

“Money isn’t everything,” Angie agreed. “Besides, the Ra-thor and Lenora game is still bringing in lots of royalties.”

Garner laughed and lifted her to shore. “So you really don’t have to work. Tell me about Fonda.”

“Fonda is one of my dearest friends.” She walked beside him toward the cabin, gazing happily about as though the scenery still fascinated her. “She has dates and goes to parties all the time. She gets off every day at five and comes in every morning at exactly nine o’clock. No one dares interfere with her, including Daddy.”

He couldn’t resist a grin. “In other words, Fonda had a life and commanded respect, and you didn’t?”

“Got it in one,” Angie said. “Fonda’s my idol. She’s the only person at BrownWare Daddy fears. I decided my new goal in life was to strike that kind of fear into people’s hearts. I’m telling you, Garner, the truth is there’s only one real boss in a company, and that’s the secretary. She’s the only one who knows where anything is, where all the phone numbers are, where all the contracts are, why you want to talk to so-and-so instead of whomever you think you ought to call.” Angie laughed happily. “That just goes to show how much attention Peter paid to the business. I might have run the development lab, but Fonda actually ran the company.”

Garner chuckled and tucked her against him so that his stride matched hers. “So you decided to become a second Fonda. No wonder you had me so terrorized.”

She gave him a playful shove.

He ushered Angie inside and shut and locked the door. A boss planning an assignation with his secretary, he told himself, should always take steps against interruptions.

Angie noted his action and smiled innocently. “Is this where I get to sit on the boss’s lap and take dictation?”

“Only if I’m lucky.” Garner laughed and went toward her.

• • •

Angie thought she had never been so happy in her life. At last she had a life. Even Fonda, who had gone above and beyond the call of friendship in advising her on job hunting and duties, would be proud.

However, Fonda had also advised against dating her boss or any other superior in whatever company she landed in. In fact, Fonda thought a wise secretary would avoid dating anyone in the company she worked for. It would, she said, save the secretary a lot of unneeded misery.

But Fonda had always worked for companies, Angie reminded herself. She had never worked in a one-man office before. Angie fully intended to advise her friend of the benefits of a one-man office, especially if the man happened to be young and single.

She spent the entire weekend with Garner, fishing and rowing on his lake, lying beneath a tree on a blanket and watching the sky, walking down wooded trails, listening to birds and watching turtles sunning themselves on the banks of the lake. No one made any demands on her, and by Sunday afternoon, Angie actually felt a knot of tension deep inside her begin to loosen.

How odd, she thought, that she hadn’t even realized the tension was still there, even after several weeks away from BrownWare and all that it represented. It just went to show. Getting a life did a lot more for a woman than anyone, especially Angie, had ever dreamed.

She lay beside Garner Sunday night, tucked against him while he slept, and gazed happily around at what she could see of her surroundings in the friendly darkness. As a denizen of sterile apartments, she fully appreciated the country character of Garner’s spare décor, so different from Great Aunt Loretha’s old-fashioned little house, which she also loved.

Maybe she ought to look into home decoration. Now that she had a home of her own, she ought to give it her own touches. The only problem with doing that was the fact that she had no clue what a “touch” consisted of, and she’d hate to make mistakes on something so obviously important. She fell asleep listing the magazines and books she needed to collect that would create the equivalent of a home decorating course and dreamed of a flower-filled home shared with Garner Holt.

Garner’s cell phone awakened them both early on Monday morning. He stirred, mumbling something uncomplimentary about clients who called at the crack of dawn, and reached for the bedside table where he’d laid it.

His brother-in-law’s voice carried well to Angie’s ears. “Garner, for God’s sake, pick up the phone. There’s a weird guy outside your office, one of those long-haired dudes, and he looks like he’s literally camped out on your doorstep.”

Angie watched, interested, as Garner assimilated this and asked, “Did you ask him what he wants?”

“Are you kidding? Between us, he’s a weird one and I don’t need any trouble. I came down early to get a start on the quarterly reports, but when I spotted him I turned in at the diner. Thanks, Dolly. You’re a lifesaver.”

“It’s probably a druggie who needs his girlfriend sprung from the slammer,” Garner said, resigned. “Well, these days, a client is a client. We’ll join you at the diner shortly so we can get a look at him.”

“And eat a good breakfast,” Angie added, when Garner clicked off his phone. “You might need some fortification if this is the way the week is going to start off. Seriously, you have no idea who this client is?”

“No. No long-haired dudes in my case files just now.” Garner lay back down and looked at her with pleasure. “Of course it could turn out to be one of my childhood friends who went off and joined a rock band. Who knows?”

Angie smiled at him. “Look at it this way. It isn’t every lawyer who’s so much in demand, clients camp out on his doorstep.”

“He would pick this morning of all mornings.” Garner put out his hand to stroke her hair back from her face. “I had hoped for … a much slower start to the day.”

Angie found she was all for a slower start to the day, if it involved making love to Garner and sharing the shower with him afterward.

On the drive back to Smackover, Angie happily watched the passing trees and shrubbery while assessing the turn her new life had taken. Definitely, becoming a professional secretary was the best career change she could possibly have made.

“If you’ll drop me off at my place, I can get changed and meet you at the diner for breakfast,” she said, when they drove into the outskirts of town.

“And leave a potential client sitting on my front doorstep?” he asked, grinning. “We’d better go by the office first. I can at least let him inside while I run you home.”

But when they arrived at Garner’s office and turned into the drive, and the man on the front doorstep unfolded himself to his full height and stuck the tablet computer he had been working on into his waistband, Angie wondered if the sky had just fallen in on her wonderful new life.

“It’s Peter,” she announced in tragic tones. “I might have known.”

“Peter Van Holden? What do you think he wants?” Garner opened his door and stepped down. “Sit still, Angie. Let me talk to him first.”

Peter loped up, peering at Garner through rimless glasses that were meant to be used only when he sat at his computer terminal. “You’re the fellow Angie is working for? Good. Fantastic. Where’s Angie? We’ve got to get started right away.”

Garner indicated Angie, still seated in his Blazer. “What can I do for you, Mr. Van Holden? Are you wanting to sue BrownWare?”