* * *
AT THAT VERY MOMENT, Colie was accepting a date with a visiting accountant who’d come to audit the books at the savings and loan company down the street from the law office where she worked.
His name was Ted Johnson, and he was from New Jersey. He was a pleasant man, just a few years older than Colie, and he’d been around the world. They met at the local hamburger place and struck up a conversation after he’d mistakenly been given part of her order. They laughed about it, sat down together and found a lot in common.
“I don’t know the area very well,” Ted told her, “but they say there’s a fairly good theater here. Want to take in a movie with me? I’m only here for a couple of days, so I won’t be proposing marriage tonight or anything,” he joked. “Besides that, I’m doing my best to coax a woman at my office to go out with me. So this would be just friends.”
“I have my own coaxing challenge, with a man who doesn’t want to be domesticated.” She sighed.
“Life is hard,” he said. He grinned. “So we take in a movie and drown our sorrows in sodas and popcorn.”
“Suits me!”
* * *
IT WAS A fun date. No pressure, no physical attraction, just two people having a good time together. When they got back home, Ted went inside with her and challenged her father to a game of chess, having seen the chessboard on the side table.
Her father was delighted to see Colie out with an acceptable, conventional man. Who knew where it might lead, he thought privately.
Ted trounced him. It only took a smattering of moves to checkmate the reverend.
“Sorry about that,” Ted chuckled. “But I was chess champion of my fraternity in college. Probably should have mentioned that earlier,” he added with a grin.
“Probably should have, young man,” Reverend Thompson agreed with a smile. “You’re very good. I enjoyed the challenge.”
“If I’m ever back this way, I’ll give you a rematch. I really enjoyed it, Colie,” he added as he started for the door. “If I wasn’t committed, I’d come back and go the whole deal—roses and chocolates and serenading.”
“Thanks for the thought,” she said, laughing.
He shrugged. “I’m disgustingly conventional.”
“Convention is what keeps the world turning,” Colie’s father said quietly. “Fads and fancies don’t last.”
“True words. Well, see you!”
“See you.” Colie shut the door and turned back to her father, who looked disappointed.
“He’s got a girlfriend?” he asked her.
She nodded. “He’s hoping she’ll notice him. He’s a very nice man.”
“Yes, he is.” He sighed. “Well, I should get back to work on my sermon.”
“I’ll clean up the kitchen and go to bed, I think,” she said. “We’re going to have a busy day tomorrow at work. Clients out the front door.”
“Good for business,” he remarked.
“Yes, very good,” she agreed with a smile. “If they’re busy, I have job security.”
He smiled and went back to his study.
* * *
J.C. SLID HIS bag into his cabin and went up to the main house to tell Ren about the convention.
Merrie, Ren’s wife, was carrying their son around in her arms, crooning to him. She grinned as J.C. walked in.
“Delsey and I made a pound cake. There’s coffee, too, if you want some. I have to go sing Toby to sleep.”
“He’s grown, just since I’ve been away,” J.C. remarked with a quiet smile.
“In no time, he’ll be learning to drive and wrecking my car.” Ren chuckled as he joined them. He kissed his son on the forehead and brushed his mouth over his wife’s cheek.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “I won’t be long.”
Ren settled down at the kitchen table with J.C. Outside, snow was coming down in buckets.
“I’ve got the nighthawks working overtime with this weather,” Ren remarked. “We’re having to truck feed out to the northern pastures.”
“No news there.”
“What did you find that you liked at the gadget show?”
J.C. pulled out some brochures and went over them with his boss.
“I like this new facial recognition software,” J.C. told him, indicating the statistics provided on the brochure. “If ours had been a little more sophisticated, we might have been saved a lot of trouble when that assassin was after Merrie,” he added, alluding to a time when Merrie and her sister had been the targets of a determined contract killer, revenge for a life their criminal father had taken before his death.
“It would have helped. But he disabled some of our communications, as well,” Ren remarked.
“I’ve put in redundant systems since then,” the younger man replied. “It won’t happen again.”
Ren nodded. His black eyes narrowed. “What’s the cost?”
J.C. told him. “It’s expensive, but it can be updated and the vendor guarantees it for ten years.”
“Cost-effective,” Ren agreed. “Okay. Order it.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
“Anything else look good?”
“Lots of stuff, but mostly robotics. I’m not a fan,” he added quietly. “My phone is my best gadget, and I don’t want to replace it.”
“I like mine, too.” Ren stared at his security chief. “What’s this we hear about you and some blonde woman over in Denver?” he asked. “We thought you were going around with Colie.”
J.C.’s eyes widened. “A blonde...? Oh!” He laughed. “I was talking to Phillip Hunter’s wife. He’s head of security for the Ritter Oil Corporation in Houston. She’s a knockout. She has a master’s degree in geology. It’s an interest of mine.”
“I see.”
“Damn,” J.C. muttered. “If the gossip got to you, it probably got to Colie, too,” he added quietly.
“I wouldn’t know about that.” Ren sipped coffee. “But she’s dating an accountant from New Jersey.”
The cup jumped in J.C.’s hand and spilled coffee. He mopped it up with a gruff apology. Clumsiness in that steady hand was a dead giveaway.
Ren, amused, averted his eyes. Apparently J.C. was surprised that his girl would go out with someone else. “I guess she heard about the blonde, then,” Ren said drily.
J.C. finished his coffee. “I’d better get to work.”
“Willis has something he wants to talk to you about,” Ren added. “He thinks we need some security cameras at the line cabins. We had a break-in while you were gone. Willis thinks it was just a trapper who got caught out in the storm. Nothing stolen, that we could tell. But there are televisions in those cabins.”
“I’ll check it out,” J.C. said.
He was preoccupied as he went out the front door. Colie, dating another man. Did she think he wasn’t serious about her, when she heard about the blonde? Because he knew Colie was crazy about him. She wouldn’t have gone out with another man unless