Fighting Fate

by Louise Clark

  “Okay. What’s up?”

  “It’s Angela. She’s not doing anything!” The words burst out with all the force of pent up frustration.

  Faith blinked. June was about the most easy-going person she knew. June enjoyed people. She was more likely to laugh about someone’s foibles than be annoyed by them.

  June left the door and began to pace. “Her computer went down this morning just after we got in…”

  Faith nodded. “I called Cody Simpson to ask him to check it out.”

  “I know. The thing is, he hasn’t come yet and Angela has filed her nails, gone on a long, long coffee break, called her mother, and her boyfriend, and her best friend, and who knows who else, and now she’s playing computer chess on her cell phone.” June’s hands clenched into fists that she punched, one against the other. “So far she’s had four opponents and she’s beaten each of them. It’s bad enough that she’s playing games during office hours, but she’s also wasting our time bragging about how quickly she won the games. Now she’s even got a couple of the girls watching over her shoulder.”

  “Wow,” Faith said. “It’s only eleven o’clock. Angela sure gets a lot done when she’s not working.”

  June stopped her pacing. She stared at Faith for a moment, then uttered a choked bark of laughter. Faith grinned at her. The tension that had been so very obvious eased. June sank down into the chair and laughed again, more normally this time.

  “That’s better. Okay, June, let’s figure out what to do about computer issues. After I called Cody this morning, I assumed he’d show up and fix the problem. Clearly, he didn’t.”

  “I called him three times,” June said. “His voicemail was on.”

  “Ava doesn’t want us doing anything to fix the computers,” Faith said, tapping her desk with a pen. “She says it’s Cody’s job and it’s not efficient for us to do it ourselves.”

  June snorted. “How efficient is it for Angela to be filing her nails?”

  Faith dropped the pen as she threw up her hands. “Not efficient at all. But I suspect there’s more to this than fixing computers. I think Ava’s making a point, establishing her authority, all that kind of stuff. So we’re stuck with this regulation. Sue will be gone for six weeks. We can cope for that long. Let’s figure out a strategy to make this work.”

  June thought about it. “My frustration is the result of watching Angela goof off when there’s a lot of other stuff she could be doing.”

  “Right,” Faith said. “And if you’re annoyed about it, so are other people. What we need to do then, is to find things for her to do. Have her file for you, or input data on another terminal.”

  “I’ll organize that,” June said, looking brighter.

  “Good. The second thing we need to do is to keep on top of the repair issue. Whenever Angela’s machine goes down I want updates on the status.” June nodded. Faith hesitated a moment, then plowed on, “I can’t expect Angela—or anyone else—to spend half their day unable to do their job. Once the repair call is made I’ll give Cody a couple of hours. If he doesn’t respond by then I’ll fix it myself.”

  “What about Ava’s ultimatum?”

  Faith raised her eyebrows. “What about it?”

  Chapter 5

  By lunchtime Angela had filed the stack of contracts and contract correspondence June had given her. As the pile diminished she grumbled about not having her computer up, filing not being part of her job description, and how hungry she was. When she went off to lunch, June and Faith huddled to devise a strategy to deal with the crisis.

  “What do I do when she gets back?” June asked, looking hopefully at Faith.

  “Short-term or long-term?” Faith asked.

  June shrugged. “Short-term, I guess. Just until her computer is up and running again.”

  Faith made a face. “The speed at which Cody Simpson responds, it will probably be a lifetime problem.”

  June nodded glumly.

  Faith had a sudden visual of staff morale going down the tubes. She said in an encouraging way, “I’ll phone Cody now. If he doesn’t respond within the next half hour, I’ll take a look at Angela’s computer myself.”

  June brightened, but she looked uneasily at Faith’s door. “What about Ava?”

  Faith wanted to say, “Stuff, Ava,” but that would be breaking ranks. She figured she’d already gone rather too far down the insubordination path with her comment about Ava’s ultimatum. So she smiled reassuringly at June. “If Ava sees me at Angela’s computer I’ll explain what I’m doing and why.”

  The look June shot her spoke volumes and didn’t indicate a lot of respect for Ava. She nodded briskly as she stood up. “If it comes to that, I’ll keep a look out for you. No need for anyone to get into trouble.”

  “No one will get into trouble,” Faith said in what she hoped was a reassuring way.

  As June headed out of her office, she nodded and smiled. Clearly she wasn’t convinced. Faith turned back to her desk and dialed Cody Simpson’s extension.

  And got his voicemail. Frustrated, she left a message, then stewed for the next half-hour, hoping that he would show up and so relieve her of the need to take action.

  He didn’t. When the clock crawled past the half-hour, Faith sighed with resignation and stood up.

  June poked her head in the doorway. “All clear. Ava went out about ten minutes ago. She was with Ralph, so she’ll be gone for the next hour at least.”

  Ralph liked to do strategy sessions over lunch. June was right, they had an hour or more before Ava returned to the office. Faith didn’t bother with a protest that all would be okay, even if Ava did see her. She simply nodded acknowledgement and headed out to the bullpen.

  Then spent the next hour fiddling, backtracking, cursing and generally wondering how Sue Green could stand doing this boring, repetitious work.

  Angela came back from lunch and, wide-eyed, asked what Faith was doing. Faith ignored the question, instead demanding details on what Angela had been doing when the problem initially occurred. Angela told her, then parked herself on the edge of her desk and chattily told Faith what else she’d done to try and fix the computer before and after she’d called Cody Simpson.

  “Hour’s up,” June said, with a wary nod at the office entryway.

  Angela cocked her head in an interested way. “What hour?”

  “I gave myself an hour to get this done,” Faith said. She had a sense of falling into a hole, then dug in a little deeper. “I asked June to let me know when my time was up.”

  Angela hiked herself further up on the desk, then crossed one leg over the other. Swinging her ankle back and forth, she said, “So it’s a time management thing?”

  “You could say that.” Faith glanced at the doorway. She could feel sweat beading on her forehead. “Okay. I think I’ve got it. I’m going to switch off your computer. Restart it, Angela, and let me know if everything is okay. If it’s not I’ll have to update Cody Simpson and see if he can suggest any other options.”

  Angela hopped off the desk. “Okay.”

  Faith stood up and eased away, wanting to run, determined not to.

  She’d made it back to her office when June entered. “Angela’s terminal is working fine. Ava came in just after she got it up and running again, so Angela looked busy and efficient.” She grinned and gave Faith a thumbs-up sign. “Good work, boss.”

  After she’d disappeared from the doorway, Faith closed her eyes and resisted the urge to curse Cody Simpson to an eternity in a blast furnace.

  “Angela, this is your third problem this week.”

  Angela lowered her eyes as she bowed her head to look at the hands she had clasped in her lap. She was sitting in Faith’s visitor’s chair. The teal blue skirt she wore rode high on long, slender legs, her best feature. “I’m sorry, Faith. I don’t do it on purpose.”

  Faith sighed. “No, I know you don’t.” Though, as she said the words, she did wonder if Angela could possibly be deliberately manipulatin
g her software programs so that the operating system froze in protest.

  She looked at Angela’s pale, undistinguished face and her unassuming manner. No, not possible. To deliberately mess with a computer was a hacker’s trick and hackers were geeky boys just out of elementary school with too many brains and not enough to do. Angela didn’t fit the profile.

  “Okay. I’ll call Cody Simpson—again—and ask him to come down.”

  Angela looked up. Her dark eyes were bright with relief and something else. Could it be amusement? “Thanks, Faith. What do I do in the meantime?”

  Faith shoved away the uneasy feeling that there was more to Angela than she assumed. “I’ve got some spread sheets I’d like you to look at. I want the receipts checked against the amounts that were inputted.”

  “Okay.” Angela smiled widely. “I haven’t done that before. Sounds interesting.”

  “Good.” She made arrangements with June to work with Angela, then called Cody Simpson.

  Voicemail.

  A pattern had developed since Cody had been given responsibility for Sue Green’s job. Faith called him, got his voicemail, left a message, called again, left a message. The pattern was repeated until Faith’s frustration level crested and she fixed the problem herself.

  As she hung up the phone that knowing look in Angela’s eyes nagged at her. Each time she fixed the computer herself, countering Ava’s express order, she was risking her position. She knew she couldn’t continue on in this way. If Cody Simpson didn’t respond to her request, it was time to take a stand.

  Today.

  Faith rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers. I have to be strong, she thought. I have to make this man do what I want him to. I can do this. She stood at the bottom of the square, modern staircase looking up. She could do this. She would do this.

  She started up the stairs. Got to the landing where the staircase broke to change direction. And stopped.

  It would really be much easier to fix the problem herself. It would only take an hour or so. Maybe. She turned around, heading back down the steps she’d mounted.

  “Looking for me?”

  There was amusement in his voice, curse him. Cody Simpson knew he was running her ragged over this computer stuff, but he didn’t care. Oh no, he thought it a great joke. She had undermined her position with her staff, watched productivity fall, worked late to make up time, all because Cody Simpson refused to fulfill his responsibilities. Worse, he’d put her in the position of skulking around to avoid Ava as she defied the COO’s edict that Cody was to fix all the computer problems that came up. And now she was here, on the stairs, in the embarrassing position of being caught obviously chickening out on her decision to climb up to his lair to confront him.

  Slowly she turned. He was standing on the landing, effectively towering over her. To look him in the eye she had to tilt her head back to the point where she figured she’d fall over if she leaned back any further.

  It was tough to exchange loaded comments with a man who was not only taller than you, but was way taller. In fact, it was hard to talk at all with her neck bent back so far. She straightened up, squared her shoulders and said, “When you come down a step and stop standing over me like some avenging male deity, I’ll answer that.” Heavens, she sounded bitchy.

  Cody raised his brows, but he came down to the step she was on. “Is this all right, or would you prefer I go down another couple?”

  Now that sounded like a good idea. Much as she wanted to stay grumpy, Faith couldn’t. The thought of Cody’s dark head coming up to her chin tickled her sense of humor and she laughed. “I certainly would prefer it, but I doubt you’d be quite that accommodating.”

  He leaned against the builders’ white wall, his broad shoulders emphasized by a t-shirt on which ‘Red Socks Rule!’ was written in bright red letters, while his dark hair and blue eyes were vivid above the navy color of the shirt. He shoved his hands into the pockets of worn, rumpled jeans. “An interesting reading of my character.”

  “You’re not exactly my favorite person right now.”

  He frowned. “Why? I haven’t talked to you all week.”

  “Exactly. I’ve been covering for you, Simpson. Fixing all the spreadsheet, word processing and database problems you won’t!”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is that it? Thanks?”

  He shrugged. “Should there be more?”

  From the way his brows rose and his eyes frosted to an icy blue, he’d just uttered a challenge he didn’t intend to back down from. Briefly Faith wondered if she was ready to meet him word for word, then she consoled herself that doing battle was not her style. Though Cody Simpson brought out confrontational elements in her personality she didn’t know existed, she refused to sink to his argumentative level.

  “There should be,” she said coolly, “but I don’t bother with expectations that can’t be met.”

  For a moment the ice in his eyes frosted further, then amusement warmed and darkened the blue. “Well,” he said, “that certainly puts me in my place.”

  Faith almost gasped. Almost. She was very proud that she managed to stifle the sound before it popped out. Cody Simpson was absolutely the most annoying man she had ever had to deal with, and that included that eighteenth century chauvinist, Uncle Andrew, and her constantly disapproving father. “I am tired of working late,” she said. What she really meant was I’m tired of looking over my shoulder. That was an admission of failure she wasn’t prepared to make, though.

  “It does get to you after a while, doesn’t it,” Cody said in a way that suggested he felt a certain kinship with her statement. “Come in late the next morning if you can. It makes it easier to handle.”

  As if she had that luxury! Her job description said she had to be in the office by eight-thirty and stay until four-thirty. As the supervisor of a dozen support staff she had to lead by example. How could she expect her staff to arrive on time if she waltzed in halfway through the day? “Fascinating advice. My point was that I do not intend to continue covering for you, Mr. Simpson —”

  “Doctor.”

  His gently spoken interruption stopped her mid-tirade. “Excuse me?”

  “If you want to be formal I’m Doctor Simpson. I have a PhD in computer science.”

  Of course he did. That was probably in his job description. This discussion was going from bad to dreadful. She glanced at her watch. “Point taken, Doctor Simpson. It’s been nice talking to you, but I have to run.” She trotted down the stairs, well aware that he was following behind her at a more reasonable pace. Good manners and corporate policy said she ought to slow down and walk with him making pleasant small talk, but she just couldn’t handle it. Not today, not with Cody Simpson.

  It wasn’t until she’d reached the security of her office, that she finally felt able to breathe a sigh of relief. When would she learn to listen to her instincts? The next computer that broke down, she’d fix. And the next, and the next after that. Ava Taylor could drop loaded hints about protocol and productivity into infinity if she wanted. Faith would handle her. She could not handle Cody Simpson. The less she had to do with that gorgeous, annoying—frustrating—male, the better.

  He couldn’t concentrate. He was meeting with Ralph Warren about the status of the network redesign and the new piece of software he was developing and he couldn’t concentrate. Well, maybe that was because Ralph was cheerfully describing every stroke of his most recent golf game. Cody had never had much interest in golf, although he supposed a certain amount of mathematical precision would be needed to ensure the ball got to the pin. As well, it was a solitary sport, something that appealed to him, but it was usually played in groups, something that did not. Cody got his exercise jogging, swimming, and skiing and he lifted weights to keep up his muscle strength. All were activities that he could do at his own pace, in his own time, and on his own. He didn’t like the boundaries and ties that groups put on individual choices.

  Ralph had whacked his way
through the first nine holes and he was deep into his story. As he talked he occasionally patted the top of his nearly bald head. Once upon a time, at the beginning of the computer revolution, Ralph Warren had been a high tech guru. Part hippy, part geek, he’d sported long hair and brightly flowered shirts. He’d worked at a think tank that paid him lots of money but didn’t treat his ideas with the passion he expected. When the opportunity came, he’d slipped the traces of academia for the pure joy of creation and moved into the practical world where his ideas would have more immediate applications. The flowered shirts and long hair disappeared as he navigated the corporate world and by the time he started his own company he’d been all but bald and wore a suit and tie to work.

  Ralph Warren rarely did any research now, but that didn’t stop him from appreciating the kind of work Cody did. His scientific background combined with his corporate viewpoint also made him well aware of the benefits scientific breakthroughs could bring to his company. That was why he had hired Cody, provided him with a nice title, a big salary and no responsibilities other than doing what he did best—research and development.

  When the golf game was over, he and Ralph would spend the next two hours talking in the mathematical language both of them loved. In the meantime, Ralph’s eyes gleamed as he described his weekend foursome. Clearly he had transferred the intensity he brought to his company onto his golf game. Cody figured he should be listening attentively, but he couldn’t. There just wasn’t enough interesting material to keep his mind from wandering. Ralph was a decent guy, though, so he made the appropriate noises to indicate interest as he let his thoughts drift to more interesting places.

  Or more interesting people. Like Faith Hamilton. An image of her on the stairs, her head tilted up, her deep-set gray-green eyes blazing, made him grin—almost. It wasn’t the right place to laugh in Ralph’s ever-lengthening story.

  Faith Hamilton was a gorgeous woman. She was tall, a few inches shorter than his six-two, and curved in all the right places. Her slacks had hugged her nicely rounded hips, while the knit top showed off her breasts and emphasized her narrow waist. He’d wanted to reach out, catch her around the waist and pull her close, then tilt up her heart-shaped face with its sexy, determined chin and kiss that wide, generous mouth until her full lips relaxed and responded under his.