by Louise Clark
A few sustaining jolts of coffee cut through the fog. She opened her e-mail, downloaded a dozen messages and focused on the most important. The first one she opened was from Cody. “Call me when you get in,” it said.
A warmth spread through her as she read the words. She picked up the phone and dialed his number, but got his voicemail. Of course. What else was new? “Hi,” she said into the machine. “I’m in. Call me when you can.” She heard her voice as she spoke. It was low and husky, sounding sexy even to her ears. What was Cody going to think?
Hopefully, exactly what her voice was telling him.
As she hung up the phone she closed her eyes very briefly. Memories of Saturday night made her smile and sway a little in her chair as music blared in her brain. The music festival had been fun—and not just because Cody had sent her flying with his kisses. He was unexpected and spontaneous. Being with him made her feel—what?
Happy.
She shivered. She shouldn’t feel that way with Cody. She couldn’t. He was a computer scientist. He dealt in algorithms and binary codes. In Cody’s world everything was rational, reasonable and calculable.
Faith was a Beacon. In her world things happened through emotion, visualization and desire. Though there might be a scientific reason for her Beacon ability, it was buried pretty deep. What Faith did was magical, unexplainable even to her. How could the scientist in Cody Simpson cope with a talent like Faith’s? If he ever found out, he would run away so fast she wouldn’t have time to catch her breath.
She stared gloomily at the computer screen. Her life was a mess. She’d pretty much forced Uncle Andrew to abandon a friendship that spanned ten years and more. She was obsessing over a guy she expected to dump her if he ever got to know her well enough to build a relationship worth having and her sister was mad at her. She needed help. Big time.
“Hi there.”
Faith’s heart leapt and her spirits soared at the sound of his voice. It was as if a lamp had been turned on to light a dark afternoon. “Cody! I left you a message.”
“I know. I just picked it up.” He’d been leaning against the doorjamb. Now he entered her office. She stood up and discovered that he was very, very close.
She lifted her head. Her lips parted.
He smiled and his eyes narrowed. His head moved, bending closer. “I called you yesterday.”
“I wanted to see you,” she whispered. What she really meant was that she wanted to kiss him. Right now. Here in her office. Oh heavens!
“Come out with me tonight,” he said.
Her body throbbed. Yes! Yes! Yes! pounded through her veins. Go out with him tonight, retire to his apartment—not hers since there was always the possibility Andrew would show up once he got over his annoyance—and satisfy the need that was clawing at her. “Cody…”
His mouth hovered over hers. Dropped a light kiss. Retreated before she could demand more. “Please.”
She was trembling with pent up desire. “Cody, I want to, but…”
He kissed her again, another light fleeting caress that she tried to capture but couldn’t. “But what?”
She took a step back, physically and mentally. Yesterday she had sat in her kitchen and stared at the phone as it rang, not once, but twice and then a third time. Stared at it and knew that the person calling was Cody. She’d been afraid to answer, afraid of the choice she’d almost made. She’d thought about what Uncle Andrew had said, about Liz and her anger, and she’d asked herself if going to bed with Cody was the answer. If they made love she’d be giving herself to him. She’d be committing to him. Surely that kind of commitment needed something stronger than the hot flame of desire to sustain it.
She looked at Cody. He was watching her with that sexy half-smile on his mouth, a question in his eyes. She cursed herself for what she was about to say. “I want to get to know you better. There are things…we need discover about each other.”
He stared at her for what was probably only a few seconds. For Faith it was a lifetime. Her heart slammed against her ribs, racing with fear and hope until he smiled. “Fair enough. Have lunch with me today. And tomorrow and Wednesday and every other day you can.”
“Lunch,” she said. Her voice was little more than a whisper.
He smiled, caught her chin in his hand and stroked her skin. “Yeah, lunch. Nice and safe. No opportunity for us to let the physical overwhelm the intellectual. I can’t promise I’ll wait forever, but for now, I’m happy to explore the many different parts of Faith Hamilton.”
He understood. Between the lazy, sensual stroke of his thumb and the stimulating caress of concern, she felt as if she was melting. She wanted him to take that smiling mouth and place it where his thumb was, then work his way along her jaw to her lips. As he kissed her, she would lean her body close to his and rub against him until they were both hot with desire.
He drew his thumb across her lips, then turned away.
And froze.
“Hello, Ava,” he said. He positioned himself so that his body was in front of Faith, giving her the time to pull herself together.
“Cody!” Ava said. “I see you and Faith are talking. Did I just hear you say you would be having lunch together?”
Faith almost groaned. How long had Ava been standing in her doorway, listening to their conversation? Too long probably.
“Faith will be having lunch with me, yes. You’re welcome to join us.”
No! Faith shrieked in her mind. “Yes, Ava, do join us,” she said, coming out from behind Cody and smiling as if she wasn’t worried about a thing.
Ava waved her hand. “Thank you both, but I’ve got an appointment at one o’clock that I will need to prepare for. You enjoy yourselves.”
Cody smiled at her, a wolfish grin that was more dangerous than amused. “We will.”
Ava glanced at her watch. “Faith, would you drop into my office as soon as you have a moment? There’s no rush. I just came by to talk to you about Angela. I need your input on how she’s handling her new duties.”
“Sure, Ava.”
Cody said, “Why don’t I leave now?” He smiled at Faith. “Twelve okay?”
She nodded. There was a lump in her throat as she watched him go. Dressed in his usual body-hugging jeans and t-shirt he really was a pleasure to look at.
She came back to earth to find Ava watching her in a probing way that was very disconcerting. She raised her brows. “What’s up?”
Ava didn’t respond directly. She wandered over to Faith’s computer, viewed the screen for a minute, then turned back to her. “You know why Cody Simpson was hired, don’t you?”
Faith shrugged. “To create software for our new clients.”
“He was hired,” Ava said, her tone edgy, almost grim, “because he is brilliant. Management and our Board want to keep him within the company. They do not want to see him leave because of personal differences.”
Then why was Ava indulging in a power struggle with him? “Personal differences. You mean, like bad vibes between staff members?”
Ava nodded. “Or relationships gone wrong.”
The comment hit Faith like a shot to the solar plexus. Ava the tyrannosaur was on the hunt. “Are you talking about Cody and me?”
Ava considered her through narrowed eyes. “I recommended that you get to know Cody Simpson so the two of you could work together in a more productive way. I did not think that anything more would come of it.” She smiled briefly. “And I am sure nothing will. Just keep in mind that you and Cody are co-workers, that’s all, and everything will be fine.”
Chapter 15
She had lunch with Cody. That day and the next, and into the week after. They normally went to The Sandwich Hut and although they usually began sitting alone at a table, by the time their lunch break was over other NIT employees had joined them. Cody, previously elusive and seen only at official company events like the picnic, had the fascination of an eight-day wonder. Everyone seemed to value the opportunity to get to know him in
a non-corporate setting.
While Faith would rather have spent time alone with Cody, she had enough secrets to keep in her life. Sneaking around during office hours was more than she was prepared to handle, and would just confirm Ava Taylor’s suspicions. So she made the best of the time by making sure that everyone they dined with realized that Cody had his own job to do, as well as Sue Green’s. She also coaxed Cody into talking about his work, in layman’s terms. The result was that people came away with a much better appreciation of the pressures he was under and his position within the organization.
The lunches helped Faith understand Cody as well. Watching him flash that irresistible smile of his at June as if he had no idea of just how potent it was, or discuss programming with Angela—at her level, not his—showed Faith a side of him that she would have discovered eventually, though perhaps not so effectively, on her own. Cody, blissfully unaware that Ava saw his romantic relationship with Faith as a threat to the NIT organization, was perfectly happy to be seen lunching with Faith and seemed to enjoy their ‘dates’.
People began coming to Faith and thanking her for drawing Cody into the mainstream of company life. She accepted those compliments with a rueful smile, but when Ava showed up on the Wednesday afternoon of the second week, to congratulate her on doing what was best for her career and the corporate good, Faith had had enough. That night she packed a picnic lunch and when Cody picked her up the next day, a little late as usual, she told him they were driving to a park away from the office.
He shot her an amused look as she started the car. “Tired of sharing me with the rest of the world?”
She laughed as she steered the car out of the lot. “You could say that.” Then she sobered. “I’m getting to know you, Cody, but as a co-worker not—” Lover hovered on her lips. She wanted to say the word, but this wasn’t the right time. “Not anything else. And that’s what we are supposed to be doing when we meet at lunch. Finding out about Cody and Faith so that we don’t let our hormones get the better of our brains.”
“So that’s why we’re going to a park where we can hide behind a tree and neck where no one can see us?”
A rueful smile twitched Faith’s lips. “That’s why we’re going to an urban park where we can sit on a bench out in the open and eat the delicious lunch I’ve prepared. Then we’ll feed the birds while we talk about ourselves.” She added severely, “There’s no necking involved.”
“Too bad.”
She heard the laughter in his voice and sighed a little. “Yeah, I know. I kind of liked the necking behind the tree idea too.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw him flex his long legs. The jeans he habitually wore to work tightened around his thighs. She wondered if there were any parks in the area that boasted large trees—nix that—large, leafy, overgrown bushes they could hide under, behind, or in, and make that necking-behind-the-tree scenario come true. “Be strong,” she muttered to herself.
Cody laughed out loud and reached over to stroke a finger along the sensitive skin on her neck. It was a good thing they had reached their destination. Driving was definitely turning dangerous.
She parked on the street that bordered one side of the park. The park was handkerchief-size and painfully open. There was grass, a couple of benches and a fountain in the center. Brick buildings that housed shops and offices huddled against the sidewalks that edged the streets surrounding the tiny green space. Cody contemplated the location for a time, before he remarked, “The park by the office has three trees and bushes planted all over the place. It also has a flowerbed that’s already in bloom.”
“That’s true,” Faith opened her door. “It’s also crawling with NIT employees at this time of day.” As she slid out of the car she tossed over her shoulder, “Here we can be alone because no one from NIT ever comes here.”
She was already at the trunk when he emerged from the car. She kept him busy—and his hands to himself—by giving him the picnic basket to carry. They headed over to one of the benches placed along the edge of the open area. The sun was shining brightly, so they chose the bench that faced away from the light. As they settled, Faith had Cody place the basket between them.
“Is this for security?” he asked as Faith leaned back, stretching out her legs.
She shot him an innocent look. “We can both get at the food without unpacking it all. Makes it much simpler, don’t you think?”
“It is security,” he said gloomily, but there was a twinkle in his eyes. “I know an excuse when I hear one.”
Faith opened the lids on plastic containers. “There’s a green salad, potato salad, cold meat, some olives and pickles, and a half a loaf of crusty bread.” She handed him a plate. “Help yourself.”
For a while they were busy eating. Cody complimented her on her potato salad and on the dressing she’d made for the green salad. Faith thanked him and told him it was a family recipe. That started them talking about food, cooking, and eating out.
Faith took a bite out of the sandwich she’d made with the crusty bread and cold meat. “You know, you’ve talked about La Renaissance and creating a new database system for Mel, but you’ve never explained why you were between jobs.”
Cody put aside his now empty plate and stretched out his legs. He took a sip from a bottle of designer water, then eyed the label thoughtfully. “I told you that I dropped out of university for awhile after first year.”
He glanced over at Faith. She nodded and said, “Yeah. On Monday. You also told June and Greg Blalock from Sales.”
Cody took another swig and said, “I kept it simple because June and Greg were around. I don’t like people probing too deeply into my personal life.”
“I can understand that,” Faith said. There was more meaning in that comment than Cody could possibly know.
He examined the label on the bottled water with considerable intensity. “I quit because I failed most of my first year courses.”
Faith stared at him. “You, Cody? Everyone says you’re brilliant. And I happen to know that you have a Ph.D. You don’t get one of those for failing.”
Briefly a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “Everyone said I was brilliant in high school too. They had great plans for me. I was good at problem solving, so they figured I ought to be a doctor. I could diagnose patients and save humanity.”
The rueful amusement in his voice touched Faith’s heart. Beneath it she heard the confusion felt by the boy for whom learning had always come easy. “Who were ‘they’?”
“The school counselors, the university pre-med faculty. My parents were swept along by the prestige of having a doctor in the family. Heck, I got swept up in it too.” He straightened and looked over at her, then smiled. “I flunked out because I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t like biology or chemistry, though I could do them. Halfway through the second semester I just stopped making an effort. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I had skipped grades in school and graduated when I was fifteen, so I was the youngest kid in all my classes. I didn’t like what I was doing and everyone I knew was hitting the books, struggling to get through. I allowed myself to fail. It was the best thing I could have done.”
“I’ll bet your parents didn’t see it that way.”
He laughed. “They were pretty good about it. They were upset, but they believed in me. I got a job in a start-up tech company, working in their computer department. I loved it, even though I was given all the most basic jobs to do. I worked there for two years and by the end of that time I reported to a manager, but I had done every job in the department and could have run the division better than the guy with the official title. Hell, half the time the guy came to me for answers, though he never credited me for my input. At that point I realized that while I might have the knowledge and ability, the guys with the string of degrees after their names would always be the ones telling me what to do.”
“So you decided to go back to university.”
“Yeah. When I was eighteen I reapplied and managed to t
alk my way into a computer science program on a part-time basis. I really got into it. I had my undergrad in four years, my masters in two and the Ph.D in three.”
“You must have spent a lot of time cracking the books. I guess you didn’t have much of a social life.”
There was a charged silence. Faith searched her memory for the reason, but couldn’t come up with anything that would cause Cody to stare with such fierce intensity at a woman walking a dog along the sidewalk opposite the park. She took a small bite of her sandwich and waited.
Finally he said, “In a way I had too much social life.”
“O…kay.” She spaced the word into two separate syllables so that it was almost a question. Something had gone wrong in Cody’s life, something that had left scars, but all she could come up with was that he’d been part of the drug scene. That didn’t exactly fit with the kind of accomplishments he’d made, so it must be something else, but what? Faith took another bite of her sandwich and waited. His silence was killing her, but she forced herself to be still and to let him pick his time.
He put the bottle to his mouth and took a swig of water. After a moment he shifted so that he was facing her. “I got married between my third and fourth years, Faith.” He paused for a heartbeat, and another. “I celebrated my graduation by getting divorced.” He hurried on before she could speak. “I was twenty when we got married and she was twenty-one. She was beautiful and sexy and she wanted to be with me. She particularly liked going to parties organized by my co-workers. She fit in well and everyone thought she was great. I was flattered.”
Faith finished her sandwich and swallowed. “No offence, Cody, but she sounds like a trophy wife.”
His mouth quirked up to one side in a smile heavily laced with self-contempt, then he laughed humorlessly. “You’ve got it backwards. I was the trophy husband. She had great plans for me once I’d graduated. She had visions of me moving on to a big multinational and becoming a vice president so she could be an executive’s wife. She was furious when I told her I was taking my masters degree and staying right where I was.”
