by Louise Clark
“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 that 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 14
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 want to get to know him and appreciated the opportunity to talk to 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 centre. 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 bri
lliant. 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 talk 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.”
“Did she divorce you?”
“Yup. It was a big blow to my ego at the time, but I later decided it was one of those things that was for the best.”
Faith understood Cody well enough by now to know that title and position weren’t important to him. “Your ex must have been pretty self-centered to have believed you would change your style because she thought it would be a good idea.”
He laughed, again without a lot of humor. “She was one of those people who liked to organize everything and everyone. She’d plan out my day and arrange my schedule. At first I thought it was amazingly generous of her, because she had a full load of courses and as much to do as I did. Later I came to realize she was controlling me. That’s when I started questioning everything she did. By then it was too late, though. We were already married.”
Faith sighed, having some understanding of what he was going through. “I’ve never had a serious relationship that ended in a painful breakup, but my parents’ divorce was pretty bitter.” She reached across the picnic basket, placing her hand over the back of his. “If it means anything, I think she was a big dummy for trying to change who you are.”
He turned his hand so he could clasp hers. “You mean you don’t care that it takes me hours to get down to fix your computer problems?”
She laughed. “Yes, I care! That’s work, Cody. I have to be organized in my job and I expect the people I work with to be equally efficient. At home, though. At home is different. People are what they are and they deserve the freedom of living their lives the way they want to. And that includes career and lifestyle choices.”
He stared down at their entwined fingers, then looked up and flashed her that wicked, heart-breaking smile of his. “I wish you’d been around when I was an undergrad. You’d have saved me from making a big mistake.”
“I’m here now,” she said softly.
He leaned toward her, his gaze intent. Faith guessed that he wanted to kiss her, but the picnic basket was between them and there were people wandering across the park, along the sidewalks. He cleared his throat and instead lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.
The caress burned through Faith, igniting a firestorm of feeling. No matter how open the park, how public every action was, it would be easy to forget everything and let the moment get out of hand. She had to do something to get them both talking again, now, before her body took over from her brain.
Desperately she went back to where the conversation had been before they’d detoured onto the rough road of broken relationships. “So did you meet Mel when you were at university?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead he turned her hand and took his time kissing the throbbing vein on the underside of her wrist. Faith almost groaned.
Finally he carefully put her hand on her lap and said, “I was working on my Ph.D. The high tech company where I was employed had grown, but there wasn’t a whole lot of cash. Salaries were low and they paid out bonuses in the form of equity. The company was bought out by a heavy-weight player in the industry, so my shares were suddenly worth a whole bunch of money. After the buyout I had to sign a non-competition clause that said I wouldn’t work for another company in the same industry again for three years. That was fine with me. I had enough money to live well and still focus on completing the degree. I’m not much of a cook and I liked Mel’s food, so I spent a lot of time at La Renaissance.” He smiled. “You know the rest.”
“I don’t really. I know you did the project for Mel and that you’ve been employed by NIT for the past six months. But I don’t understand why you’re working for us, if you have enough money to live independently and do projects like the one you did for Mel.”
He spread his hands out, palms upward. “Faith, I don’t know if you’ll understand, but…NIT offered me creative freedom, as well as a financial package that I couldn’t turn down.”
She co
nsidered that, watching him. “I’d heard the money part. I didn’t know creative freedom was so important.”
He laughed. “It’s my key. The multinational asked me to stay on after the takeover. I did for a while, but they expected me to wear a suit and keep regular hours even if I’d worked for forty-eight straight on the weekend. It was as if I was punching a clock.” He paused. “I felt the same way I did that first year in university pre-med. I hated it. So I quit, even though I didn’t know where I’d work again. I had the non-compete clause, so I couldn’t go into the same field. The work I did for Mel showed me there were other uses for my skills, but I still didn’t know how to market them. Or even if anyone other than a small operation like Mel’s would be interested in a…freak…like me. When my Ph.D supervisor suggested NIT contact me, it was a validation of everything I’d done with my life. ”
Faith stared at him in disbelief. “You see yourself as a freak?”
He smiled ruefully and shrugged. “As different anyway. I don’t fit into neat categories, Faith. I work without stopping when the urge is upon me, I’m a clock watcher’s nightmare and I like to follow my own path.” He reached out, stroked her cheek. “Do you think you can tolerate that about me?”
His words echoed in her heart. He would understand, she thought joyfully. He wouldn’t condemn her for being a Beacon. She was certain of it. Elizabeth was right. She needed to tell him. “Cody, do you think you’d like to come over and meet my family on Saturday night?”
Chapter 15
“Dad’s in town.”
“What?” Faith blinked at Elizabeth who was standing framed in the front doorway. She opened the door wider. “No, he’s not. He’s working on that mega-project in China.”
Elizabeth flew into the house, urgency in her expression and movement. The fabric of her flowing skirt swirled about her ankles, like the froth of an incoming wave. “Wrong! Dad’s here! He called me yesterday as soon as his plane got in.” She shoved a bowl filled with salad greens at Faith. “He wanted to have dinner with me tonight.”
