by Lea Hart
“I was; it just didn’t seem like it.”
“Pff,” Ivy said and twirled out of his grasp. “I’m going to walk through the house before we leave.”
Ryan handed the trash bag to Colin and then followed Ivy down the hall. “I’ll come with you.”
***
Colin looked down at Phoebe and wondered if he a chance of any kind. She had barely looked at him since they arrived, and he wondered if she had a boyfriend. It might be good to find that out before he made a play. “Phoebe, do you like to dance?”
Her sapphire eyes flashed up at him, and he noticed a small smile start to fall across her lips. “I haven’t had much of a chance to go.”
“Doesn’t your boyfriend like to take you?” Okay, points could be deducted for the obvious volley. He didn’t care. It was the fastest way to find out if he stood a chance.
Her hands coiled together and she twisted them. “Oh, I don’t have a boyfriend.”
His heart kicked against his chest, and he wanted to punch his fist in the air. Instead, he leaned back and tried to appear nonplussed. “Let me take you dancing tonight at Mercer Hall. They always have a great band, and I can teach you how to two-step. Can’t come to Texas and not dance.”
Her hand moved to a strand of hair, and she twirled it around. “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I should probably work tonight. There’s lots of information to uncover.”
“Sorry, can’t take no for an answer. As co-owner of Bellows Energy, I insist that you come out and have some fun. Can’t work around the clock.”
“Well, all right. But I have to warn you that I’m not very coordinated and I might step on your toes…a lot.”
He stuck his foot out and showed off his boots. “Doesn’t matter. That’s what boots are for. If things get dicey, I can just pick you up and swing you around the dance floor.”
Leaning in, she looked up at him with a worried look. “I don’t have anything to wear to a dance hall.”
Her scent surrounded him, and he swore that whatever flowery shampoo she used was meant to drive him crazy. “You’re about the same size as Ivy, so I’m sure she can set you up. She has enough clothes for five people, so you’ll have a lot of choices.”
“Thank you, Colin. I think it will be fun.”
He lifted her hand and held it. “I promise to make sure you have as much fun as you can stand while you’re here. After all, Texas has a lot to offer.” When her pink tongue slipped out and she licked her lips, he felt an instant reaction. Shiiit. Pull it together, man. His friends had always commented on how cool he was and how he never got flustered. Well, he just found someone who flustered the shit out of him. “If you’re ready to go, let’s get on the road back to Dripping Springs.”
“Should we wait for Ivy and Ryan?”
Waving his hand in dismissal, he snorted. “No. Those two are probably kissing somewhere, and from what I’ve seen over the last couple of days, they’re not stopping anytime soon.”
“Let me just pack up my computer and I’ll be ready.”
“Great. I should stop by my condo and pick up some more clothes. It’s not far from here, so it shouldn’t take long.”
“Did you get a job after graduation, or are you going back for graduate school?”
Colin cleared his throat. This could be the moment of reckoning; she might not want to have anything to do with a professional athlete. “I got drafted by the Rangers, and I’m playing with the Round Rock Express my rookie year.”
Her hand flew to her heart and she smiled. “Congratulations, Colin. That’s a major accomplishment. Did you know that only ten percent of college players are ever invited into the draft?”
“So, you like baseball?” he asked with more hope than he thought possible.
“I love baseball. My dad is a huge fan, and it was a way for us to connect and hang out. The game has a lot of math, so it was easy for me to get interested. What round where you drafted in?”
“Uh…the first round. I was the third pick this year.”
“Holy smokes, Colin. You have a sixty-six percent chance of making it to The Show.”
“I’ll invite you to the first game next year. I don’t officially start until next spring.”
“Are you working out with the team now?” she asked excitedly.
“I’m supposed to go in a couple of weeks.”
“Well, if I’m still here, then I would love to see you play.”
“There’s a lot to do for the company, so I imagine you’ll be here for a while.” He would make damn sure of that. Ivy said she wanted to help, so the first thing she could do was make sure that Phoebe had work to do that would keep her in Texas for a good long while. It wasn’t a proud moment, but he didn’t care. He’d do just about anything to keep this smart, beautiful woman who loved baseball close at hand. “Let’s go, and maybe we can have a swim before we go out dancing.”
“That sounds great,” Phoebe responded.
Yes, it does, Colin thought as he led her out of the house. He and Phoebe in the pool together sounded about perfect.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Friday
Ryan entered the bright kitchen and saw Colin sitting at the island with a cup of coffee in his hand. “Mornin’,” he said as he made his way over to the coffeepot. “You kept Phoebe out on the dance floor most of the night.”
“Had to. Did you see that pack of wild dogs sitting at the bar? If I had let her go for a second, they would’ve been on her like a piece of fresh meat.”
“I thought that pack of wolves were your friends,” Ryan said, as he leaned against the counter.
“Former friends,” Colin grumbled. “I blame my sister. She should’ve given her something more appropriate to wear. I knew the minute we walked into Mercer that we were in trouble. Every man there had his eyes glued to her, and she had no clue.”
Clearing his throat, Ryan waited for Colin to amend his statement. “I don’t know if every man’s eyes were on her.”
“Might be a slight exaggeration,” Colin said before draining his cup. “It felt like it, though. I kept her wrapped up in my arms as a way to protect her virtue.”
Ryan looked over the top of his cup and studied Colin. The poor bastard was hit, and he hadn’t figured it out yet. It was going to be interesting to see how Phoebe felt about it. “Let’s go take a run before the girls are up. If we’re lucky, Ivy will make us breakfast.”
“That’s pretty much guaranteed. My sister likes to feed people. She figures it motivates them to listen to all of her advice. Which she has a lot of, on almost any subject.”
Ryan rubbed the back of his head and grinned. “She hasn’t offered me any.”
“That’s because she’s waiting until you’re legally bound and can’t get away from her. She may appear to be sweet and kind, but underneath all of that is a will of steel. A will she likes to impose on the people she loves. Her mama does it, and so does Grams. It’s like a genetic chip that can’t be turned off.”
Ryan played the phrase over in his mind: until you’re legally bound. Shit. What a great idea. While the notion of them together forever had been floating around, it had never coalesced into the concept of marriage. It was fucking brilliant. Just the thought of it spread calm through his body. Why he’d been blind to it, he couldn’t say.
Ivy bound to him permanently. The picture of them together forty years from now made his heart turn over. It felt soft and full…Was this love? He’d never experienced anything remotely like it, so he couldn’t be sure.
“You okay, man?” Colin asked loudly.
He looked up and grinned. “Yeah. I’ll grab my shoes and be ready in five. Meet you out front.”
Could he be in love with Ivy? Walking into their room, he looked at the bed and saw her dead asleep. Her face was pushed into a pillow, and she was snoring lightly while her hair lay in a tangle of knots. Married to this woman…forever. Definitely something he could do. He grabbed his shoes and leaned over and kissed her c
heek before he walked out. He looked over his shoulder and everything snapped into place. It was the same feeling he had when he looked through the scope of his rifle and the target came into perfect focus. Ivy Bellows was his target. Now all he had to do was make sure she was safe and then convince her he was the one for her. Closing the door quietly, he walked down the hall and started formulating a plan.
***
Ryan walked back into the house with a towel wrapped around his waist. He’d jumped into the pool in his running shorts after his run and was starving. Ivy sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee at her elbow and her eyes glued to her computer. The expression she wore reminded him of the moment when he’d first seen her. About eighty percent of the assumptions he’d made that day were incorrect. The things he’d thought would make him nuts were the things that he ended up liking most. “Hey, honey.”
Her hand went up in a wait signal, and he decided to grab a bottle of water while she finished. After he emptied it, he sat down beside her and kissed her shoulder. “What are you working on?”
She turned her head and kissed him in greeting. “I just confirmed a purchase of a new Bell helicopter for the San Francisco office. The broker met my terms, and SAI now has a helo available in every office. I need to let Ryder know. He’s been chomping at the bit.”
“Congratulations. Not a bad way to start your day.” Her small hand slipped inside his, and he thought their clasped hands were the very definition of man and woman. His big, scarred hand encased her small one in protection. Strength and delicacy. Every thought in his head was circling back to the idea that had gotten planted earlier by Colin. Legally bound.
“After my shower, I’ll make us some breakfast. It’s my turn to take care of you.” That was it. Think about something else. If he wasn’t careful, he would blurt out his idea and she would refuse. “French toast.”
“Okay. That sounds perfect. I have a couple of hours of work to get done before we meet with Stuart this afternoon. Phoebe is putting together information on him, and she said she should have something by lunchtime.”
“Did you tell me we were meeting with him?”
“I thought I did.” Shrugging, she returned her eyes back to the computer. “Maybe I didn’t since you stripped me naked within seconds of coming home yesterday afternoon. I hardly had a chance to catch my breath before you had me on my back.”
Lifting her chin, he smiled. “I waited until we were safely in the bedroom and the door was locked. I also distinctly remember you riding me hard and chanting my name like it was a prayer. More than once.”
“If you play your cards right, I may be willing to do it again.”
He moved his hand to the back of her head, cupped it and brought their mouths together. When he felt satisfied that he’d branded himself on her, he released her lips. “I’ll make sure I do everything I can to ensure it happens again and…again.” Her breath hitched, and he rested her head against his. “I’m going to get cleaned up.” Reluctantly he stepped away and walked back to their bedroom. Drop the mic. The show was over and Ivy Bellows officially owned his fucking heart. The grin that was plastered across his face was probably permanent. How much of a problem that was going to be would take a long time to determine.
***
Ivy, Ryan, and Colin sat silently and waited for Phoebe to begin. They all watched her click the keys on her computer with flashing hands and waited patiently. That’s what one did in the presence of a master. Waited.
Finally, the clicking ceased and she pushed her hair off her neck. “Sorry about that. I wanted to double check some information that came in.”
Ivy leaned forward, and Colin and Ryan followed. “Well?” Ivy said breathlessly. “Who is it?”
“There are two answers to that question. It always takes more than one person to get away with something like this.”
“I feel like I’m in a crime show,” Ivy said. “It’s so exciting. Nothing like this ever happens to me. Unless you count the time that I was involved with the small explosion at the Donut Hole senior year.” Shrugging, she smiled at the group. “Nothing was proven and all charges were dropped.”
Phoebe patted her hand. “Don’t let me forget to give you a quick lesson in print elimination.”
Ryan cleared his throat and gave the women a disapproving look. “If you two are done planning your next crime, maybe we can get back to the crisis at hand.”
Ivy mouthed “party pooper” and pointed over her head at Ryan. “Go ahead, Phoebe.”
Phoebe gave Ryan a smile and continued. “The first issue I’ll address is the salami slicing that was done with the oil productions numbers, which netted someone a five-million-dollar payday. The second issue is the sabotage of the wells, which I believe was done to camouflage the manipulation of numbers. I believe the mastermind of the crime had someone in accounting working for him and someone at the wells. It was a matter of covering up the actual versus the reported. Reported production numbers had to match reported revenue. The sabotage covered up the discrepancy.”
“This was a well-thought-out scheme,” Ivy said as she twirled her hair up.
“It’s like one of those Chinese puzzles. Once you unravel one knot, another one appears. It seemed simple at first. But as with most things, it’s never the first answer,” Phoebe said, as she clicked her computer. “Let’s start with the embezzlement. The person who is physically responsible for adjusting the production numbers at Bellows Energy is one William Underfall. He’s a low-level accountant and the one responsible for logging in the information from the pumps. At first I thought it was a case of simple greed. You know, a way for the guy who gets no respect to stick it to the company that’s using him.”
Ivy cleared her throat. “Does Bellows Energy treat its employees that way?”
Phoebe met Ivy’s gaze head-on. “I haven’t had a chance to run all of the salaries against the national average, so I can’t answer that. I will say there is a wide range in any given department. Why, I couldn’t tell you.”
Ivy looked at her brother. “Daddy always did favor certain people for reasons that made sense only to him.”
“William the low-level accountant can’t be the mastermind…right?” Ryan asked.
“Of course not. People like him rarely are. They just end up as pawns in a much bigger game. I checked all of his electronic communication and social media activity, and I believe his road to larceny was inspired by a dancer at Wally’s, a strip club on the north side of the city. According to his Visa bill, he frequents the place several times a week.”
“Maybe that’s where Daddy met Ms. Sherry Lane.” Ivy snorted.
“No. Sherry Lane worked at an upscale gentleman’s club in Austin called Julie’s. It has several five-star Yelp ratings and lots of positive comments all across the net. It’s a private high-end club that caters to the wants and desires of rich men.”
Ivy shuddered and rubbed her hands along her arms. “I don’t need to hear more.”
Ryan put his arm around Ivy and kissed her head. “So, who did William have the hots for at the club?”
“Petals Hashwell was the object of William’s affection. And, yes, that’s her real name.” Rolling her shoulders, she smiled at the group. “Petals seemed to return some of William’s interest, because she posted pictures of them together on her Facebook page. That tells me that they had something going on outside the normal customer-dancer relationship.”
“So, William wanted to have a little extra cash to keep his girl Petals interested?” Colin asked.
“The mastermind of the embezzlement appears to be the company COO, Davis Vello. I tracked communications between him and William on two burner phones that Davis purchased over a year ago. Why he used a company card is beyond me. But there you go.”
“The name sounds familiar. I think he and Daddy have been friends for a long time. Why would he want to rip him off?” Ivy asked.
“Davis has a new girlfriend who likes the finer things in
life. Her Instagram posts attest to that fact clearly.” Looking at the group, she grimaced. “He also has an ex-wife and children he pays support for. I imagine it was difficult for old Davis to keep everyone happy, so he decided to help himself to a bonus. Recently he made deposits into an offshore account in the sum of four and a half million. I’m guessing that William has the other half mil stuffed under his bed,” Phoebe responded. “I haven’t traced it yet, but I will. Maybe he’s got it in bearer bonds and plans to skip the country and take his girl away.”
“We’ve got a greedy COO ripping off the company in cahoots with a low-level accountant,” Ryan stated simply.
“Seems so,” Phoebe said. “Not very exciting when you reduce it down to the bare facts. It wouldn’t even make the evening news, it’s so common. I haven’t determined who at the wells was responsible for the sabotage, but I will. Unfortunately, Bellows Energy contracts out for their security personnel at the well sites. I’ve got a program running to pick up the patterns, but it will take time.”
“Have you stopped them from continuing their extracurricular activities?” Ivy asked.
“I have. I ghosted both of their computers, so what they think is happening and what is actually happening are two different things. I also relieved Mr. Vello of his stash in the Bahamas and returned it to the company. I’ve frozen access to all funds in the company for the time being. You and Colin have to sign off on everything from here on out.”
Ivy stood, went around the table, and gave Phoebe a hug. “I think as the new copresidents of Bellows Energy, we should give you a bonus based on your amazing work.” She glanced over at Colin and saw his total and complete admiration for Phoebe. It was a look that she wanted to keep seeing on her brother’s face.
“Just doing my job,” Phoebe said quietly. “It was embarrassingly easy to figure out. That is, once I started looking at the patterns individually. That’s the key. Gather as much information as you can and let it tell you what you need to know. Whenever you go in with assumptions, it screws things up.”