by Carla Fredd
Wanda lifted her eyebrows. "Tell me you're not a little excited about seeing him."
"He's a customer— that's all."
Wanda shook her head and turned on the blinker. Holly looked out the window. After leaving the guard station, they drove past mile after mile of wrought-iron fences. The Atlanta Club wasn't like any other subdivision in Atlanta. It had been developed with the rich in mind. The smallest home sat on ten acres of fenced-in land. Houses were hidden from the street by perfectly manicured trees and shrubs. No expense had been spared in developing this community. It was home to many of the city's elite, high-visibility families.
The lifestyle was one that Holly now avoided. During her involvement with Trey, she'd attended dozens of parties, dinners, and coming-out balls. What she'd witnessed at those events, the back-stabbing and the constant drive for success, had made her want to stay away.
Security Force was one of only five companies asked to submit a bid to install security systems in the area. Holly smiled as she remembered the celebration she and Pam had had when they'd won. That win had led to a steady stream of work for their company ... and work meant money. Money was exactly what she needed to open another branch of Security Force in Seattle. Winning the Milton bid would bring in enough money to do that. But first, they had to take care of Michael Williams.
The van came to a stop at his gate. Wanda rolled down the window and pressed the button on the call box. Holly watched in satisfaction as the lens of the surveillance camera moved back and forth. Three cameras in three different locations were focused on the gate entrance. At least the cameras work, she thought, as she listened to Wanda give the company name and hold out her identification so the camera could capture it on video.
A few seconds later, the gates opened and they drove through. Any other time, Holly would have been impressed by the professional landscaping and the feeling of isolation created by the abundance of dogwoods and magnolias. Today, she looked for surveillance cameras, motion detectors, and lights. Everything seems to be okay, she thought, as they rounded another curve of the driveway.
"Uh-oh," Wanda gasped.
Holly turned her attention away from the passenger window when she heard Wanda. "Lie to me and tell me that's not a police car." Holly closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headrest of the minivan. The stress-induced pain across the bridge of her nose that she felt earlier had become a full-blown headache spreading throbbing pain from her temples to the back of her head. She took slow, deep breaths to try and relax before the pain became worse. Wanda slowed the van to a crawl. The police car looked out of place parked in front of the two-story stucco house.
"Who cares about the police car?" Wanda said, as she brought the van closer to the house. "Look who just walked out the door."
Holly opened her eyes and watched as a Fulton County policeman and her client, Michael Williams, left the house. From the way Michael was clutching the piece of paper in his hand, he might be a former client. He got another fine, she thought, as the van came to a halt.
"He doesn't look happy to see us," said Wanda.
Holly grabbed the handle of the door and stepped out of the van. "It's my job to make him happy." She opened the door as the policeman drove away.
She'd met many handsome men while her father had campaigned for office. Some were handsome in a scholarly way, some were even downright pretty, but Michael Williams was handsome in a blatantly masculine way. The photographs didn't convey the full extent of his appeal. Sensuality surrounded him like the haze on a hot summer morning. A plain white cotton T-shirt stretched over his wide, muscular shoulders. Old, faded blue jeans molded to his lean hips. He stood with his legs apart and his thumbs thrust through the empty belt loops of his jeans. Tall, dark, and dangerous— the phrase fit him.
His thick black hair was cut short, in an almost military style. His face was a study in contrasts. His brown cheeks were high and angular, his chin strong and square. Thick straight brows were perfectly formed over his dark brown-black eyes. As she walked toward him, she felt like a lamb entering the territory of an indulgent predator, never quite knowing when the predator would strike.
"Mr. Williams?" Holly held out her hand. "I'm Holly Aimes with Security Force." Good grief, he's tall, she thought, as she stood in front of him. At five-ten, she rarely had to look up to a man but she had to look up at him.
He slowly reached out and took her outstretched hand. As his rough, calloused fingers touched hers, an unwelcome ripple of desire spread through her body like a pebble dropped into a calm pond. What's wrong with you, Holly? This man is a customer. Now isn't the time to let emotions override common sense! Holly straightened her shoulders in an attempt to dismiss the renegade emotion that had caught her totally off guard. She met his gaze. For a brief moment, she saw a flicker of indefinable emotion in his eyes; then it was gone. Abruptly, she released his hand.
"Miss Aimes, do you know why the police were here?" His voice was low and deep, with just a hint of a West Coast accent. "Let me tell you why. You see this?" He held out the paper. "This is a fine, and I've got another one that looks exactly like it. Would you like to guess why I have them?"
"Mr. . . ." she began, her voice husky. She cleared her throat and fought to keep any hint of her wayward emotion from showing. "Mr. Williams, Security Force will pay the fines. If you give me the tickets, I'll have a check made out for them tomorrow." She hoped he didn't notice the slight trembling of her hand when he gave her the ticket.
"I'm glad your company's doing that ..."
Holly breathed a sigh of relief when Wanda approached them carrying a large tool kit. The sexual pull between them was like nothing she'd felt before— with a client, or with anyone else. She needed to get things back on a business level. "This is our technician, Wanda Johnson."
Wanda placed the tool kit on the ground and held out her hand. "Hello, Mr. Williams."
"Hello." He shook her hand and turned back to Holly. "Like I said . . . paying the fine is all well and good, but that's not going to stop my alarm from going off every night."
"Why don't you show us what you were doing when it went off?"
Holly followed Wanda and Michael through the open door. The house wasn't what she'd expected. Although she'd been in several houses in this community, the others had had a professional designer's stamp on them. This one didn't. The overstuffed beige sofa looked as if it had been chosen for comfort rather than style. The living room was inviting and had a relaxed air that invited the visitor to make himself at home. Michael led them up a winding oak staircase to the second floor. Holly's gaze slid to the well-worn denim that covered his hips. She had to force herself to look at the back of his head as she climbed the stairs behind him. What's wrong with you, Holly Aimes? Get your mind back on business.
"This is where I was when the alarm went off last night." He opened the oak double doors and motioned for them to go inside.
My living room and dining room would fit in the sitting area of his bedroom. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the walls. The last remaining sunlight filtered through the large picture windows, spreading a golden glow across the room.
Michael walked to the alarm panel on the wall. "I set the alarm here and walked across the hall to my office, and as soon as I set foot into the room, the alarm went off." The right side of his mouth lifted in a gesture of disgust. "I specifically asked that my office be accessible during the night. I know I had my business manager add it to your contract."
"Mr. Williams, you're right. Accessibility to your office was written in your contract. If you'll let us look at your system, I'm sure we'll find out what's activating the alarm and fix the problem."
"You've got this one last time, Ms. Aimes." He looked directly into her eyes and held her gaze for a long, tense moment, then walked out of his bedroom and down the stairs. Holly relaxed her tense shoulders. Why did she feel as if she had just walked safely out of the den of an angry lion?
Chapter 2
Michael drank the last of his soft drink and tossed the can toward the recycle bin across the room. He missed. Michael picked up the can and placed it in the container.
He surveyed his favorite room in the house, the kitchen, and he smiled in satisfaction. The room was exactly like he wanted it. Bright, shiny appliances of all kinds lined the ample counter space, and copper-bottomed pots and pans hung from the ceiling over the island. Windows surrounded the room. He had all the space he needed when he wanted to cook.
Never mind that he ruined everything he tried to cook; it was the process that counted. Besides, he needed to learn how to cook. He had a feeling that his chef, Amy Tanner, wasn't going to last. For lunch, she had served tofu spread and wheat germ bread when he'd asked for a ham sandwich.
Amy was the third chef he'd had since moving to Atlanta four months before. The first had taken pictures of the interior of his house and sold them to a tabloid, the second had thought she should do her cooking in his bedroom as well as the kitchen, and Amy . . . well, she was fine when she started to work for him. She submitted menus for his approval one week in advance and the food was excellent. For dinner, she'd prepare a seven-course meal or sloppy joes if he asked her. She was a great chef until she'd joined some new-age organization. Now, he had to guess the ingredients of his meals. He didn't want to even think about what she'd prepared for dinner tonight. Whatever it was, it was green and he didn't recognize it.
With a sigh, he walked back to the dinette table and sat down. He knew he should be working, but he kept thinking of Holly Aimes. Striking: that was the word that came to mind. She wasn't beautiful in the classic sense of the word. He was accustomed to having beautiful women around him. In Los Angeles, anyone could become beautiful for the right price and with a good plastic surgeon.
Her features were too exotic, too mysterious to be considered pretty. Pretty was too tame. She had rich, warm brown skin that looked smooth and soft, and a mouth that was a little too wide for her face. High, delicate cheeks and chin accented her oval face, but it was her dark brown eyes that made him want to discover what lay behind the ice maiden facade. He had been a talk-show host long enough to recognize when someone was hiding something. The cool mask she presented to the world contradicted the brief shimmer of heat in her eyes. Something had happened to this woman that made her want to hide, and that mystery made him take notice.
Her engagement to Trey Christian had made her name and face familiar to him and to everyone else in the entertainment field. The fact that her father was a senator of Georgia didn't hurt, either. She was exactly the type of person he liked to have as a guest on his show. Since she hadn't given any interviews, it would be an exclusive, a coup. There was more to Holly Aimes than the cold facade she presented to the world. It would be interesting to discover the real Holly.
Michael rubbed his eyes and leaned back in the dinette chair. She really wasn't his type. He liked women with more meat on their bones. She was slim to the point of skinny, and he liked full, lush women. He looked at his watch to interrupt the lustful thoughts running through his head. Well, Ms. Aimes had better hurry and find the problem. He had other things to do besides wait around for them to finish. Maybe he would try his hand at grilling fish. How hard could that be?
An hour and forty-five minutes later, Holly and Wanda still didn't know why the system wasn't working properly. "What are we overlooking?" Holly asked in frustration. She had been sitting in Michael's office, working on her laptop computer, for the last thirty minutes. She rubbed her eyes, which were tired from staring at the computer drawing of Michael's house. She had checked and rechecked her information and still couldn't find the problem.
"I don't know, Holly." Wanda rolled out a stack of blue papers onto the solid teakwood desk. They were the final blueprints. She flipped the pages until she came to the second-story floor plan. "We've checked every piece of equipment in the house and everything works like it's supposed to." Wanda pointed to the page. "There's no reason for the thing not to work."
Holly rose out of the soft leather executive chair and stood beside Wanda. Time was running out. Michael had stayed out of their way while they'd worked, but Holly knew with each passing minute, their chances of finding the problem grew slimmer.
"Wait a minute," Holly said. She looked from her computer to the blueprints. "They aren't the same."
"What?" Wanda leaned over to look at the two drawings. "Of course, they're the same."
"No. Look at the dimensions."
Wanda glanced from one drawing to another. "You're right. They aren't the same. I wonder which one is correct?"
"There's only one way to find out. Where's the tape measure?"
Minutes later, Holly made revisions on her computer. "I can't believe that he made changes and didn't let us know. The idiot!"
"The customer, Holly, the customer."
"The customer is an idiot."
Wanda laughed. "We're going to have to tell him that we can't fix his system tonight."
"Yeah. That'll be a thrill." Holly typed the last of the commands and turned off her laptop. "Let's pack up everything before I go downstairs and talk to the idi . . . I mean, customer."
Michael looked at the smoky black mass that had once been a filet of fish. The cookbook sitting to the right of his indoor grill made grilling sound so easy. He had followed the directions, well, most of the directions, to the letter. Instead of grilled trout, he had blackened matter. The hum of the overhead exhaust fan drowned out the sizzle of the hot fish. With stainless steel tongs, he removed the trout from the grill and placed it on the plate along with three other blackened masses. He stared at the plate in disgust and threw the tongs down beside it.
Cooking wasn't hard. He'd heard that from his parents, his two brothers, and various girlfriends when they'd tried to show him how to cook. If cooking was so easy, why couldn't he do it?
He went to the refrigerator door, where a list of restaurants that delivered was held up by a sandwich-shaped magnet, and snatched the phone off the hook. He had just dialed the number to a Chinese restaurant when Holly and Wanda entered.
Holly gave him a brief smile before she spotted the plate full of burnt fish. He could tell by the puzzled expression on her face and the crinkling of her nose that the exhaust fan hadn't totally cleared the charred smell from the kitchen. I should have hidden the plate in the refrigerator, he thought.
He motioned for them to have a seat at the dinette table, placed his order for Chinese food, and joined them.
"Mr. Williams," Holly said. "There seems to be a problem. The floor plan that we have and the actual layout of the house don't match." She placed a sheet of blue paper in front of him and pointed to an area on the second floor. "The size of your office and the hallway leading to the bedroom don't match the plans that we have."
Michael could smell the light, floral scent of her perfume along with the faint smell of burnt fish as he looked at the blueprint. For a few seconds, he savored Holly's sweet smell. It sent sharp yearnings to his belly. It had been a long time since he'd been this deeply attracted to a woman. Get with the program, Williams, he thought, irritated with himself. He concentrated on the floor plan in front of him.
"You're right," he said. "This isn't the same. I had the architect change the plan to get more office space."
"Mr. Williams, did you or the a
rchitect contact Security Force when you decided to change the floor plan?"
"No." Michael watched as Wanda and Holly exchanged looks.
Wanda looked down at her folded hands and Holly picked up the paper and rolled it into a tube. He thought for a moment that she was going to hit him with it.
"Your alarm system doesn't work because you changed the floor plans." Holly began tapping the paper against the table. "When we put together your system, we designed it using the lengths and dimensions you provided. We assumed that the information was correct."
"I didn't think that lengthening a wall would affect the alarm system." Michael laughed mockingly. "I didn't really think about the alarm system at all." He paused and said, "Your people were over here before. Why didn't they find the problem then?"
"Unless my employees measured the wall, they wouldn't know that you changed the length," she said sharply. "It was in our contract that if you made any changes in the design of your house, you would notify us. We can't guarantee that the system will work without your cooperation."
"Miss Aimes, the wall was only moved a foot." He shrugged his shoulders. "What difference does it make?"
"It's obviously the difference between your alarm working and not working." She placed the blueprint on the table. "Did you make any other changes?"
"No."
"We'll have to replace some equipment in the hall and in your office."
Michael looked at his watch. "How long will it take?"
"An hour, hour and a half." Holly looked at Wanda for confirmation and Wanda nodded. "The only problem is we don't have the equipment on our truck. We'll have to return later to complete the job."
"Great. That's just great." He leaned back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest. His annoyance was evident in his tone.
Holly interrupted, "What time should we arrive tomorrow?"