Thermal Dynamics (Nerds of Paradise Book 5)

by Merry Farmer

  “Now before we move on to the first dance, the foxtrot,” Howie continued his booming announcement. “Let’s introduce the judges for our competition.”

  The audience applauded. Sandy’s heart beat a mile a minute as she glanced around the room. She’d barely had time to get her bearings as all the couples were announced. The room was packed. Bleachers had been set up around the perimeter of the competition oval so that everyone could get a good view of the dances. Howie was at one end of the oval, but it took her a second to spot the judges’ stand along one side.

  “That’s Louise Meyers on the far right,” Howie introduced the judges. “Next to her is our own Patty Pettigrew. In the middle we have Brian Dawson, PSF’s very own operations director. Next to him is Tricia Todd from the Haskell Chamber of Commerce. And at the other end, our final judge—now where is he?”

  Sandy craned her neck to see if she could figure out who should be sitting in the final seat at the end of the row.

  “Ah, here he comes,” Howie went on as Sandy spotted Guy and Abigail edging their way through the crowd. “Our final judge, folks, Guy Sedgewick from the Double S Ranch.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” Jogi said exactly what Sandy was thinking. Guy was the final judge. The man who had made the bet with them was one of the people who would determine the outcome of the competition. They’d been had.

  “He is not going to get away with this,” Sandy growled as Howie gave instructions for the couples to take their positions throughout the dance floor. “There is no way he is going to get away with tricking us like this.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” Jogi asked as he led her to the far end of the oval and took her into his arms.

  Sandy sent one final glare Guy’s way, then turned to face Jogi with resolute determination. “We’re going to show him the best damn foxtrot he’s ever seen.”

  Chapter Ten

  They made it through. Jogi couldn’t help but feel as though it was by the skin of their teeth, but as long as they survived to dance another day, he could handle it. And if he were honest with himself, a little part of him was glad to have that much more time with Sandy.

  Okay, a large part of him was thrilled that they would spend more time in each other’s arms. Even if it was only dancing. The mood had shifted between them from the moment they’d accepted Guy’s bet. Correct that, from the moment they’d seen Guy was one of the judges. He’d tricked them…which landed Jogi and Sandy squarely on the same team.

  But that didn’t mean that everything was hunky-dory in Jogi’s world now.

  “What’s got you looking like the cat sat on your keyboard?” Dennis asked as Jogi slumped his way into the propulsion team’s area.

  Jogi gave Dennis a low humph and shook his head as he moved to Angelica’s computer to fix the problem she was having with the computation software.

  “Don’t pester him.” Angelica made a face at Dennis—yet another thing that reminded Jogi other people had relationships that were fun and playful, not disaster areas—as she got up to let Jogi do his work.

  “Oh, pestering each other is what we do,” Laura told her, standing so that she could see over the bank of computers in the center of the long workspace to grin at Jogi. “Nice dancing Friday night,” she went on. “You and Sandy looked great out there.”

  “Thanks,” Jogi mumbled, using the problem with Angelica’s computer as an excuse to frown.

  “Those costumes were amazing,” Angelica said, her dark eyes shining. “It almost makes me wish I’d signed up to participate.”

  “Hey, you’re not exactly single,” Dennis teased her.

  Angelica shrugged, her smile coy. “Not at the moment.”

  Jogi did his best to tune out the flirting. He shouldn’t have had his coffee extra strong that morning. That acid combined with the syrupy sweetness of Dennis and Angelica gnawed at his gut like a blowtorch. He threw his concentration into untangling the knot of computer code that was gumming up the works for Angelica instead. Unfortunately, her problem was simple to solve.

  Also unfortunately, Laura was still standing, studying him over the tops of the computers. “Okay, explain to me why you’re so grumpy after winning a competition,” she said, although by the look in her eyes, she might as well have asked why he was grumpy when he and Sandy were dancing together every night.

  He wasn’t the sort who liked to discuss his business, but if it would get Laura to drop her needling….

  “One of my photographs was stolen,” he said, pretending he still had more to do to solve Angelica’s computer problems so that he didn’t have to look Laura in the eye.

  “Someone stole a photo?” Laura’s eager expression dropped to confusion—which was a step in the right direction as far as Jogi was concerned. “Did you have a break in?”

  “No, online.” Jogi looked fully up at her. “I had a few things hosted on a gallery site, but some author came along and used one of the photos without permission and without paying for it.”

  “Jonathan mentioned something about that,” Will said from farther down the workstation. He didn’t look up from his computer. In fact, Jogi would have sworn he hadn’t been paying attention. But Will rarely looked like he was paying attention, and always was. Which didn’t make Jogi feel any easier when he launched right into, “You should hire Sandy to go after that guy.”

  “Yeah, you should.” Laura picked up the torch instantly, her face brightening. “She’s the perfect person to take care of stuff like that for you.”

  Jogi leaned back in Angelica’s chair and rubbed his stomach in an effort to calm the burn. “I’m not sure I need legal counsel for this,” he lied.

  “Has the author person stopped using your photo?” Dennis asked.

  “No,” Jogi admitted. It was probably a terrible idea to add more details, but he said, “He’s using it as a background on his website too.”

  “That’s definitely wrong.” Laura crossed her arms and stared at Jogi with a frown. “You need a lawyer.”

  “I sent the guy an email asking him to stop using my stuff,” Jogi said with a sigh.

  “And?” Angelica asked.

  Jogi winced. “And I haven’t heard anything from him yet.”

  “When did you send the email?” Dennis asked.

  “Saturday.”

  Dennis shrugged. “It’s only Monday. Maybe he hasn’t gotten it yet.”

  “Or maybe he has and he’s ignoring you,” Laura said, as persistent as ever. “You need to get Sandy involved.”

  “I’ll give him a few more days.” Jogi pushed himself back from the desk and stood, wondering how fast he could leave without being rude.

  “Yeah, and if he doesn’t take the image down,” Angelica said, “you need to talk to Sandy. I’ve only met her once or twice since moving up here, but I’ve heard her mentioned several times as being the best lawyer in town.”

  “She’s one of the only lawyers in town,” Will added, still not looking up at the rest of them. “Haskell’s not that big.”

  “Either way—” Angelica went on, making a teasing face at Will.

  “I saw that,” Will said.

  “—you need to make sure you’re looking out for your best interests,” Angelica finished.

  Jogi rubbed the back of his neck. That sounded an awful lot like the things Sandy had said that drove him crazy months ago. It was painful for him to admit that she might have had a point. Funny how she hadn’t pursued the whole thing when he’d told her about it on Friday night. He was certain she’d grab on like a dog with a bone and not let him hear the end of it until he was beaten into submission. But she’d held back.

  A faint smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it if Laura hadn’t noticed and narrowed her eyes.

  “Okay, what was that?” she asked.

  “What was what?” Jogi played dumb.

  Laura shook her head, waving her arms like she was wiping the slate clean. “Enough of t
his. Go to Sandy. Get her to go after this guy who stole your photo. And then marry her and have lots of beautiful brown babies.”

  Dennis snorted. Angelica laughed. Will shook his head. Jogi was glad that the rest of their team was off somewhere having a meeting, and that his humiliation was kept to a bare minimum.

  “I’m not going to marry Sandy,” he said.

  “Why not?” Laura went on before he could say more. “You two are so, so perfect for each other. Everyone can see it. We’ve all been waiting for the two of you to get together since the orienteering event.”

  “No.” Jogi sighed and glanced toward the door, dying to leave.

  “Even Sandy told me she has a crush on you.”

  Jogi whipped to face Laura. “She did?” He instantly regretted reacting at all. “When?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

  “A while ago,” Laura answered.

  That explained it. He shifted his weight, blowing out a breath through his nose and rubbing his beard. Anything he said could land him in hot water, but he needed to put a stop to Laura’s speculation before anyone else jumped on the bandwagon. At least only a few people were there, though whatever he said would probably be front-page news by the end of the day.

  “Okay, look.” He made the decision and ran with it. “Sandy and I did date, for a couple weeks right after the orienteering event.”

  The reaction was exactly what he’d thought it would be, and what he’d dreaded. Angelica’s brow went up. Dennis blinked. Will glanced up from his computer and stared at Jogi. Laura’s jaw dropped.

  “What? You guys are already dating and you didn’t tell us?” Laura gaped.

  Jogi shook his head. “We dated for three weeks, then we broke up.”

  “What?” Laura yelped. “No.”

  “Yes.” Jogi sighed.

  “But…what happened?”

  Jogi had the feeling Laura was more invested in the possibility of a relationship between him and Sandy than even he was. Few things in his life had ever been that awkward.

  “Things didn’t work out,” he said, keeping it as simple as possible. “We have different goals, different ways of approaching life.”

  Will hummed as if he understood and focused on his computer once more. There was a reason Jogi liked him.

  “That was it?” Angelica asked. Her expression was far less intense than Laura’s, which made sense since she hadn’t known Haskell and its dramas as long.

  “That’s it.” Jogi nodded.

  Laura frowned. “How come no one knew the two of you were dating?”

  Against his better judgement, Jogi blurted, “And that’s the other reason we broke up.” He was done with the conversation, done with talking about Sandy and thinking about Sandy, and done with other people having an opinion about his personal life. He started for the hallway that led out of the area.

  “But why would Sandy want to keep you guys a secret?” Laura kept at it, even though Jogi was leaving. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Jogi turned, taking a few backwards steps as he said, “You’d have to ask her.” He made one final, defeated gesture, then walked on, shaking his head.

  None of that had gone in a good direction. Talking about things never solved anything. He still had the problem of the plagiarist on his hands, the next night of the dance competition was only a few days away, Sandy’s problems with the bank still loomed in his mind—although why they should was a mystery to him—and now enough of their friends knew enough about the mess that had happened between him and Sandy that the whole thing would be blown out of proportion and end up the stuff of gossip by the end of the day.

  Sandy was going to kill him. Without a doubt. As he drifted through the rest of the day, his mind never quite focusing on anything, that was the one thing he was certain of. The second word got back to her that he’d blabbed their business, she’d put an end to everything—their tenuous alliance, the dance competition, and any hope they had for a civil future. Unless he got to her before the rumors did.

  Which was how he found himself knocking on her apartment door half an hour before the night’s dance lesson was scheduled to begin.

  Sandy opened the door with a puzzled look that quickly popped into bright-eyed surprise. Jogi’s heart skipped a beat. A faint smile touched her lips, and warmth spilled through him. He wanted to step through the doorway, take her into his arms, and kiss her with all the passion he’d kept locked up since they’d split.

  “Jogi.” She said his name, blinked a few times, and the wall was back between them. Jogi’s heart crumbled. “What are you doing here? Class isn’t until seven.”

  What if he apologized for everything? What if he just laid his heart out and gave things another try. She hadn’t pushed him about the plagiarist. Maybe that meant she was as capable as the next person of learning from her mistakes and making a change.

  He blinked, and the crazy swell of emotion ebbed before it made him do something stupid.

  “I wanted to get over here as quickly as I could to tell you something before you heard it from anyone else,” he blurted. The sudden worry that Laura had texted Sandy during the day made him question the sanity of his whole gesture.

  Sandy’s brow creased. “Okay.” She took a step back, gesturing for him to enter her apartment.

  As soon as Jogi stepped through the doorway, the familiar comfort of Sandy’s world enveloped him. He breathed in the scent of her perfume mingled with the slightest hint of lemons from the kitchen. The neutral beiges and blues that she’d decorated with set him at ease. She even had music playing faintly, old time jazz.

  But as soon as he turned to face her for his confession, the questioning lines of her face reminded him of how boxed in she’d made him feel, how overrun. And oddly enough, that was just the push he needed to say what he’d come to say.

  “People were talking at work today, and in the course of conversation, it came up that we’d dated and then broke up.” He spit the whole thing out, then braced himself.

  Sandy tensed, crossing her arms. Her jaw went tight and her eyes widened enough to hint at her instant reaction. “You told people we dated?”

  “Yes.”

  He waited. Her mouth tightened and twitched several times, as if the words she wanted to say, wanted to shout, were trapped behind her teeth. He held his breath, ready to defend himself.

  At last, after what felt like an eternity, she hissed out a long breath and shook her head. “I can’t believe you would tell everybody something like that without consulting me first.”

  It wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting. It wasn’t a great reaction, but the defenses he’d thrown up didn’t seem quite right.

  “They asked me why we never told anyone we were dating in the first place.” He crossed his arms just as she let hers drop open. “I was wondering the same thing.”

  Sandy bit her lip and glanced to the side. “I wasn’t ready.”

  Jogi shifted his weight to his other leg. “Not ready to tell our friends that we were together?”

  “Dating is a really personal thing,” she said, her vulnerability melting into something harsher. “If I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready.”

  “Kind of like I wasn’t ready to submit my photograph to a competition?” He hated the fact that he sounded so petty, but dammit, he was as entitled to his insecurities as she was to hers.

  Sandy seemed to know it. She lowered her head just enough to leave his heart twisting in his chest. It wasn’t what he wanted. Just because he’d been hurt didn’t mean he wanted to hurt her in return.

  “Okay.” He uncrossed his arms and took a half step to the side, almost like he was trying to leave the pain out of the picture. “Obviously neither of us has any clue how to handle relationships.”

  Sandy’s brow inched up a tad, and she watched him with a veiled look. He would have loved to have known what emotion she was feeling, but they had more urgent things to worry about.

  “Regardless,” he went on, “we
have a dance competition to win.”

  “We do,” she agreed in a soft voice.

  “It doesn’t matter whether we get along or not. We have to work together. We have to be better than good. Your bank is at stake, and so is my chance at a gallery show.”

  She blinked, the muscles of her face tensing for a second before her expression evened out to businesslike determination. “Why do you care about my family’s bank?”

  “Because it means a lot to you,” he said. “Just because we can’t get it together doesn’t mean I don’t care about the things that mean a lot to you.”

  Her expression flinched again, and this time she glanced off to the side for a long, long pause. The tension drained from her face, replaced by something Jogi could only describe as regret for a moment. Then she drew in a deep breath and faced him, pulling herself into determination.

  “We are going to win this competition,” she said. “We’re going to do everything we can to be the best dancers this town has ever seen.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. Her burst of unwavering enthusiasm was exactly what he needed to see in that moment. “Good.” He nodded. “So how are we going to do that?”

  She rested one hand on her hip as her eyes lost focus. This time it wasn’t tension, frustration, or disappointment that surrounded her, it was cleverness and calculation. Jogi’s pulse sped up. That was the Sandy he’d fallen in love with so fast and so hard.

  He pushed that thought aside as she turned back to him and said, “We need to do a Dirty Dancing on this one.”

  Jogi blinked. “A what?”

  “Have you seen the movie?”

  Jogi shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “We need to do like they did.”

  “And?”

  “And get the hell out of here for a day.”

  A grin pulled at his lips before he could stop himself. “What, like go find a lake somewhere and practice lifts in the freezing-cold water?”