“After you.”
In the early morning hours they both lie awake in her bed with the lights switched to dim. They just finished another go-round and it was Amber who spoke first. “You are right. I need to start believing that I am not responsible for the death of my parents. It's too hard to think I'm not though. They wouldn't have been flying if it weren't for me.”
“Yes they would have. You were their daughter. They would have done anything for you. You didn't make them do anything. The choice was theirs and theirs alone.” Gage wasn't sure why it mattered to him that she saw his reasoning, but it did. He wanted her set free from these demons. Hypocritical he knew – after his ex-wife ditched him it wasn't like he had had any real relationship with a woman. Amber was as close to a relationship as he had gotten. And that was pretty sad, considering.
“I'm sorry. Not one to talk. I haven't had a real relationship in years. My ex did that to me.” Why did he feel the need to say that? Suddenly, their whole one night of fun was turning into more than that. “Actually, never mind. Forget I said anything.”
Amber turned to look him in the eye, “Forget? No! I want to hear what you have to say. But it's not like you’re the only person who has ever told me this about my parents. Why are you so afraid of commitment, Gage?”
“I don't know. My wife left me for reasons only known to her. So I don't want to saddle anyone with my inherent relationship problems.”
She wanted to tell him that she wanted him. She would accept him, faults and all. She wanted to tell him that she would be honored, head over heels, to have and keep him. That he was worthy of love – her love. She wanted to say that she would be there for him and make him happy in bed and out. But she sensed he was freaking out by the mere discussion of things so close to the heart, so she didn't respond. She just cuddled into his side and rested her head on his chest.
Early yesterday morning Gage had been thinking about their prior rendezvous and he couldn't resist asking her now, “Have you had a lot of men, since me?”
“What?”
“Just curious. How many times have you gone to the Silver Slippers Saloon?”
“Well, I have only gone there once where I met an amazing man who did wild and crazy things to my body. And as far as men go... yeah, I’ve had a few. Mostly all of them I used to satisfy a need. What about you? You just fuck’em and leave’em too?”
“Same thing. Except I wouldn't use the term fuck’em and leave’em. They knew the rules.”
“Just like me.”
“Just like you. But with you, I get the sense you don't follow the rules much,” he pushed a stray strand of hair from her eyes, “do you, Ms. Prescott?”
She smiled, “What has following the rules ever got you?”
Gage laughed, “Not much.”
She got up and turned the lights off, “You better get some sleep. You will be exhausted tomorrow.”
He nuzzled into her neck, “It will have been well worth it. Good night, one Amber Prescott.”
“Good night, one Gage Alexander, CEO.”
Gage lay there for just a second, “Hey Amber, you were right.”
Already dozing she mumbled, “About what?”
“My sign. I am a Taurus.” He took a deep breath, her smell of hyacinths penetrating his mind. He wasn't sure what changed his mind, but after their night together, the least he could do was tell her that. Maybe it had to do with his commitment issues. If he couldn't give her that, which he knew she wanted despite what she said, he could give her this.
“I knew you were. I could feel the answer deep in my soul. G’night.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Work was awful the next day. He was exhausted – as anticipated. He enjoyed being exhausted this way though. So he didn't complain about his lack of sleep. He had been irritable since Sara had questioned him about the accounting papers yesterday. The time he had spent with Amber he had done a good job of shutting down his brain but the entire evening it was like a storm waiting to explode. He had tried to put it on the back burner but that had been another thing, aside from Amber, that had plagued him throughout the night. Today, he intended to get to the bottom of it. At the very least, he was going to get some answers. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach and he was usually spot-on when it came to his instincts. Fraud. That is what Gage knew in his gut. Fraud or his chief financial officer was beyond incompetent. It all could be an honest accounting mistake, too. But either way, he was trying to keep calm because the truth was, until they pulled all of the invoices and did a complete inventory on all of those invoices – he hadn’t a clue what the fuck was going on.
After he had met with Sara, he had called the Chairman of his Supervisory Committee as well as the Chairman of his board. They would be here any minute to discuss what they were going to do to get to the bottom of the accounting problem.
Logan Reeves was a general practice attorney in Windsor who worked on a variety of legal issues for people. Hence, the general practice attorney. He served on the credit union’s supervisory committee as the chairman. It was a new position he had recently acquired and was still learning and reviewing many of the credit union’s policies and procedures. Gage spotted him striding purposefully down the hallway toward his office and went to intercept him.
“Logan, how are you doing?” Gage reached out to shake the man’s hand. Logan was younger than Gage by a few years but similar in physique. They shared the same build and same height, although Logan was leaner than Gage. And where Gage was dark-haired and dark-skinned, Logan was light-haired, light-skinned.
“Great man, good to see you. Although not under these circumstances,” he winced. “Is Jay here yet?”
“Nope, you are the first. Let’s go into one of the conference rooms, he should be here any minute.”
“Sounds good.”
The men waited inside the empty conference room that was blessedly free from auditors and waited only briefly before Jay arrived.
“Sorry I’m late. Time always seems to get away from me.” He put out his hand and greeted the other two men. Jay was tall and lanky. His dark hair had begun to turn up at the ends, hinting that he needed a haircut. Jay had been on the board for four years and had held various titles but now served as the chairman. He pulled out his seat and sat down, bending his long legs to accommodate himself between the chair and table.
“You’re fine. We just sat down. I will just get right to the point.” Gage proceeded to tell the men the entire story about Sara coming into his office with her findings. “She is currently pulling all of the invoices for these dates as we speak. Once we have that we can do an inventory – at this branch and the other ones.”
“Remind me how long Echo Day has worked for you, Gage?” Logan asked.
Gage blinked, “She has been my CFO for about four or five years.”
“And you haven’t had any massive accounting errors like this in the past?”
Gage could see that Logan was following his own mindset. It was probably unlikely that it was typical accounting errors because she had been there long enough to learn and understand how the procedures worked.
“No, we haven’t. But I’m still holding out hope that something has just gone haywire these past months. After we are finished here I will speak with Echo and figure out why items have been capitalized and expensed when they shouldn’t have been.”
“Logan, why don’t you and I go find Sara and see if we can get our hands on those invoices?” Jay suggested.
The men spoke briefly before departing their separate ways and Gage made his way to Echo’s office. The accounting department had three other employees aside from Echo and he said hello to them as he passed their offices. He came to Echo’s office and knocked. Her door was ajar and he saw her sitting at her desk hanging up the phone.
“Hi, Echo. Do you have a minute?”
“Of course. What do you need?”
“The auditors pulled some accounting records and you know h
ow they go over everything line by line? Well she noticed a few discrepancies where certain items should have been capitalized but were actually expensed.”
“Really?” she asked surprised, “I will have to run a report and take a look.”
“Could you do that right away, please? We need to figure out why there are mistakes. Sara has probably already got the invoices pulled from one of the girls,” he gestured out toward the hall.
“Yes, of course. I will get right on it.”
“Thanks. Let me know.”
Gage was getting annoyed. The workday was almost over and he still hadn’t gotten the reports from Echo. Just as he was making his way to her office for the second time that afternoon, he ran smack into Amber who was trying to come into his office.
“Whoa, what is it with you and never watching where you’re going?”
“I am watching! It’s you who is never paying attention. You are clearly on a mission, where you headed?” He was so sexy – even when he was irritable, which he was now. She could see it in eyes and the pulse pounding in his neck.
“Come in, have a seat,” he shut the door and turned. Amber fell into him, her arms closing around his neck and her lips capturing his own. His hands immediately went to her tiny waist and he kissed her back. His lips were soft and his mouth was warm as her tongue slid inside. Do this much longer and she would have to release the temptation she was feeling low in her tummy. She broke away, “you looked like you needed that.”
Gage laughed, “I did actually. I have auditors here and they found a bunch of shit that isn’t how we normally do things. So now we have to pull all of our accounting records and do an inventory on all of the invoices. It’s a pain.”
“Ah, well at least you’re smiling more these days. You didn’t smile much when I first started coming around.”
“You are right. That’s because I knew you would be a pain in the ass,” jokingly he added, “and I was right.”
“Please,” she rolled her eyes. “Before I forget, here are some documents for you guys for my closing. That is why I stopped by in the first place. Not to be a pain in the ass.”
“Thanks.”
With Amber gone, Gage tried to focus. What was it about her that had him wishing he were anywhere but here? Her scent continued to linger in his nostrils even though she was gone. He had to admit, once he let go of the fight to avoid her, he liked being around her. She was funny, light-hearted and an overwhelming bundle of energy. She brought sunshine to his often-gloomy days.
Sitting at his desk, he checked his email for the thirtieth time that day to see if Echo had gotten back to him. Finally! She had. He opened the email expecting to find some answers: You had someone in your office so I didn’t bother you. My daughter had to be picked up from school. Unavoidable - the flu! I can pull the information that you requested tomorrow when I get in. Sorry! See you tomorrow! ~Echo
Seriously? Ahh, this irritated him to no end. How come she didn’t do as he asked right before she left? How hard is it? Especially since she knew, she knew, that the auditors were here requesting information. He stood up. He began pacing back and forth, coming to a decision. Brian Kemp, his IT director, would most likely have a record of the invoices he gave to Echo to be turned in for payment. That would be one way he could see what had all been purchased at least. It would make him feel like he was getting something done. It wouldn’t explain why there were discrepancies with the items that were expensed and not capitalized. But it was worth a shot.
Brian’s door was closed. He knocked and opened it. Brian turned in his desk.
“Hey Gage, how are you today?”
“I’m okay. I’m a little irritated because I asked Echo to pull some information for me but her daughter had to be taken out of school because she is ill. Now, I’m here to see you. The auditors pointed out a lot of items you have ordered in the past year have been expensed when anything over twenty-five hundred should be capitalized. Can you give me a report of items you have purchased?
“I wish I could. I’m running a new program that interferes with the entire work system in here. So once the program is up and working, I should be able to go into my files and get what you need.”
Today was not Gage’s day. “How long will that be?”
Brian looked at his computer where a dialog box was up and running, the bar indicating the percentage it still needed to go through. “At a minimum, another two hours. But that’s just my guess. I will let you know once it gets closer.”
“There’s no other way to get it? What about your laptop?” he asked.
“Because it’s records of things I have purchased, I keep that on my computer, not my laptop.”
“Couldn’t you file share? Use an application that would allow you to have the documents on both devices, should the need arise?”
“I do. But these are different because Echo can access them as well. The way I have it set up is I can file share with someone within the credit union, but only from my PC inside the office. I’m a security freak, what can I say?”
“Okay. Let me know.”
Gage walked out of his office. He bumped into Lisa.
“Oh Gage, you will not believe what just happened!”
“Try me.”
“Suzanne just quit. Literally stood up from her desk, grabbed her few items and said she was finished. Who does that? We just hired her three weeks ago. I’m so pissed off. She couldn’t wait one week until the auditors left?”
Gage ran his hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. How could he have had such an amazing night last night and such a crappy day today? “Are you fucking serious? Why’d she quit?”
“She said she just found out she’s pregnant. But still, what I don’t get is, wouldn’t you want a job in that case?”
“You would like to think so. This day couldn’t get much worse, honestly. Thank God it’s almost over.”
When Gage got off work, he went to the gym. It wasn’t his normal routine, as he usually went in the morning. Today though, he needed to blow off some steam. His mind was reeling from work and all of the idiosyncrasies that happened today. All he wanted was a goddamn report, showing what was purchased, the cost and how the credit union had paid for it. Instead, he got a sick kid, a non-working computer and a quitter. What the fuck? He couldn’t even begin to count how many times he had either mouthed those words today or said them in his head but he knew it was a lot. Nothing made him feel less like a CEO of a company than not being able to have one single item he requested, done and in his hands.
Selfishly he hoped Echo’s daughter wasn’t sick again tomorrow. He needed those reports. If Echo didn’t come in, he could ask another accounting assistant. And what was the deal with Suzanne quitting? Didn’t pregnant women want a job so they could afford a child? He couldn’t pretend to understand that logic. Quite frankly, he had to put that out of his mind because there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about that. He didn’t understand and he never would. Move on.
How could this accounting situation have gotten so fucked up? What the hell had happened? Brian’s computer had better be in working order tomorrow or he was going to come unglued. Could he fire an IT director for updating a computer at a dire moment? No. But the thought made him feel better.
Taking a shower at the gym, he packed up his duffel bag and headed for home. Enjoying a Poudre Hops beer sounded like a damn good idea. He got into his Range Rover and headed out of the parking lot. His thoughts immediately went to Amber and the night they had shared. What he wouldn’t give for a nice cold beer and another night with her in his arms. Who was he kidding? He had been the one to stress the fact that they were only going to have a night together – that this thing between them could go no farther. Oh, and that he had nothing to offer her. Thanks to the ex. Was that really true though, he questioned himself as he drove down Main Street. He didn’t know and he damn well wasn’t going to figure that out, especially tonight. Gage was a block away fro
m his house when an inexplicable urge in him had him turning around and heading toward the opposite end of town.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Amber double-checked the chamber of her 9mm Sig Sauer, making sure it was empty before she loaded it into its carrying case. She flipped the switch on the target retrieval and took her paper down. Not bad for a girl with a purple handgun. She put her earmuffs and her protective eyewear in her bag and headed out.
“See ya later, Amber,” Bill told her as she walked through the store.
“Bye, Bill.”
Amber was surprised to see Gage Alexander, CEO’s Range Rover in her driveway as she turned onto her street. Her heart thumped in her chest with excitement. What did he want? Her? She couldn’t help the small smile that spread across her face at the thought. While she portrayed that she was completely okay with whatever type of relationship he wanted, the truth was she wanted more. So much more. She really, really liked him. It was too soon for anything more than like in her opinion. He was the one man in her life that had somehow been able to snag her into a relationship that was a non-relationship. Which was ironic since he was one of the few men who was steering far away from any relationship with her. He had made that perfectly clear. BUT, she couldn’t help the small amount of hope in her heart that he would change his mind.
She pulled her BMW around his vehicle and into her garage. She got out as he was making his way toward her. He wore another black shirt. This one was long-sleeved and fit around his torso in such a way that she could make out his muscles but it wasn’t Saran-wrapped either. He was wearing the same denim jeans that he wore in the park – she knew because of the almost tearing on his thigh. She couldn’t help her gaze as it traveled to his button fly. She swallowed. She felt her cheeks flush as her eyes met his. His mouth broke into a mischievous grin.
“Like what you see, Amber?” his voice was soft, hypnotic.
She didn’t answer, instead she remarked, “Fancy seeing you here. What’s up?”
As he stood in front of her, his large hands came to rest at her waist. He bent his head to her ear and whispered, “I thought about you today. Every time I thought of you, I imagined being inside of you and would get so worked up.”
Trigger Happy (Girls with Guns, #2) Page 12
