Trouble in Sudden Falls: A Sudden Falls Romance (8 page)

“How familiar are you with Linux?” Eli asked out of the blue.

Rogan knew he perked up like Fluffy’s ears when a treat was on the line, but he couldn’t help himself. “I do all right,” he responded as casually as he possibly could.

“Good. I recently did an upgrade to the network here at the house. I thought you might have some use for my leftover equipment.”

If anyone were to take his pulse, respiration and blood pressure right now, Rogan’s bad-ass rep would go up in smoke. He hated to admit it, but he was a computer geek at heart. While mad computer skillz were nothing to be ashamed of, he was pretty sure he took it a step or two past cool. “Oh?” he asked, tamping down his outward excitement.

Eli stepped back toward the door and pulled in a rolling cart from the hallway.

“Dude. That’s top of the line equipment.” He fell instantly in lust with the server, workstation, flat panel monitor and more peripheral toys than he could shake a stick at.

“Well, it was about a year or two ago,” Eli agreed.

“So what’s wrong with it?” Rogan asked, knowing there had to be a catch.

“I replaced it with newer technology.”

“Why do you need such primo kit?” Rogan asked. “What do you do for a living?”

“Information security. My company helps other companies with computer encryption, security practices, and tests security of systems set up by other companies.”

“So basically, you’re a hacker?” Rogan asked, doing his damnedest not to be impressed and failing miserably.

Eli shrugged. “White hat, only. We don’t hack systems who haven’t hired us to do so.”

“That’s cool.” Rogan tried to sound casual and not drool on the server in front of him. “So why did you ask about Linux?”

Eli picked up a pack containing CDs in paper sleeves on the cart in front of him and whipped it to Rogan Frisbee-style. Rogan caught the bundle without difficulty. “Everything you need to set up your own Linux network.”

“Cool.” Rogan picked through the CDs for a moment.

“You want this stuff anywhere in particular?” Eli reached for a flat screen monitor.

Rogan hopped to his feet and Fluffy uncurled herself from where she’d been dozing under the desk. She gave Eli a fierce look as Rogan helped unload the cart. “Umm… Thanks,” Rogan said as Eli wheeled the cart back toward the hallway.

“No problem. Yell if you need help.” He hesitated as if he wanted to say something else.

Rogan didn’t answer as Eli stepped out the door, unsure of what else there was to say. Fluffy settled herself on the bed and watched him work.

The day was finally looking up. His first class of the morning had been awful and everything had gone downhill from there. The English Lit teacher, Mrs. Cannifarm, took one look at him and instantly had it in for him. She was probably somewhere in her mid-forties, with shoulder-length white-blonde hair that didn’t move no matter how much she did, a snooty expression and an even snootier tone. He’d covered the same Robert Burns poem at his last school, and when he raised his hand to answer her questions, she refused to call on him. After about three attempts, he gave up, slouched down in his chair and perused a copy of the selected works of Shakespeare which they were going to start covering the next week. Mrs. Cannifarm gave him a cautious eye, as if he might suddenly pull a gun and begin firing on her. He’d never been so glad to head to an American History class.

He’d been completely dissed at lunch—no surprises there. Rogan was aware his “look” didn’t invite strangers to come up and introduce themselves, but he decided the black eyeliner might have been a bit over the top for Sudden Falls High. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to back off a bit tomorrow. And maybe rinse the blue streaks out of his hair.

Fortunately, Mrs. Scarpa had put him directly into the Calculus class, where he should have been at the beginning of this year. He’d need to scramble to catch up, but he thought he could handle it. For once, he might actually get some sort of challenge. The Calc Teacher, Miss Katzenburg, had a good sense of humor and hadn’t seemed to judge him upon entry to her classroom.

Rogan finished setting up the computers on top of the dresser to the right of his desk. There was barely enough room to put the monitor and keyboard down on the desk if he shut his laptop and moved it out of the way.

Eli stopped in to check on him when he was halfway through loading the server. “How’s it going?”

“So far so good.”

“Need help?”

“Nope.” He almost asked Eli to sit down and hang before he caught himself. No point in getting chummy. Once Eli had felt he’d done his duty, Rogan would get sent on to the next set of forgotten relatives. A computer network, while nice, wasn’t enough to make up for seventeen years of absentee non-parenting.

“I’ll be in the den if you need anything.”

Rogan nodded, but didn’t say anything else. What else was there to say?

“Dammit, that dog is trying to kill me!”

Maddie peered around the corner as Fluffy tore by. The dog pulled a toenail clicking u-turn in the middle of the hallway and returned a moment later, her tail-stub waggling as fast as it could go. She plopped down in front of Maddie and waited for a scratch. Maddie complied then slowly stepped around to the stairs to pinpoint the source of masculine grumbling.

It was the first time she’d seen Eli since their obnoxious little “bet”. She’d—not so subtly—avoided him that morning. She wouldn’t be here now except that the mailman had dropped some of Eli’s mail in her box. She’d thought about leaving it in his mailbox, but it seemed cowardly and it looked like it might be a business check and that shouldn’t sit out there overnight.

Of course, this was Sudden Falls and the chances of anyone stealing something out of the mailbox were less than nil. She was making excuses… both for and against completely ignoring him.

Eli sneezed as she found him sitting on the steps, rubbing his knee with one hand and his watering eyes with the other. “Problems?” she asked.

“
Fluffy
has been plotting my demise since she and Rogan got here.”

Maddie lifted a brow. “I highly doubt that.”

“That’s the third time she’s tried to trip me down the stairs. Anytime Rogan’s in the room, she stands between me and him and growls and I found a
present
in my office when I went up to work earlier today.”

Maddie wrinkled her nose. “Well, there may be some evidence to support your theory,” she said as he sneezed again. She dug a crumpled—but clean—tissue out of her front jeans pocket and handed it to him.

He took it with a grateful look, dabbed at his eyes then blew his nose.

“Have you taken any allergy medication?”

He nodded. “Yeah. But it takes some time before it’ll build up in my system. I should be better by next week.”

“This got left in my mailbox.” She handed him the envelope.

He took it. “Thanks.”

“So where is Rogan? How was his first day of school?”

“I gather it landed on his enjoyment scale somewhere between having bamboo shoots rammed under his fingernails and getting poked in the eyes with a hot stick.”

“That good?”

Getting to his feet, he murmured an affirmative response. “As to your first question, he’s hiding up in his room putting together his own network.”

She raised an eyebrow with a grin. “And where did he get the equipment to do such a thing?”

Eli made it to the ground floor and headed for the kitchen, keeping as much distance as possible between himself and the dog. “I gave him some leftover kit.” He shook his head and his voice rang with pride as he continued. “That kid is installing Linux from the
command line
.”

Maddie shook her head and tried to make sense of what he said. “Which means…what?” She pointed at herself. “Microsoft girl. Me no like-y Unix.”

He grinned. “You no learn-y Unix. You’d like it if you got to know it.”

“I’m outta the computer biz, remember? So what does that mean?”

“Many describe installing Apache from source rather than pre-built binaries as similar to pounding two-inch-thick wooden spikes through your forehead with a halibut.”

A giggle escaped her and she almost relaxed.

At least until she thought of their “bet”.

She shook her head. She wasn’t going to think about that. “Ahh. So he takes after his father, then.” She tried not to be impressed by Eli’s growing relationship with his son, but it was a losing battle. While the guys weren’t sharing deep dark secrets or even the occasional man-hug, they had evidently found a common ground in computers, which was a giant first step. She absolutely could not let herself fall under his spell.

“How goes the house cleaning?” he asked.

He wasn’t even going to mention their conversation the night before? Explain why he made that ridiculous bet? Could he have already forgotten?

There was a look in his eyes that she hadn’t noticed before last night. A
predatory
look.

Oh, he definitely hadn’t forgotten.

“It’s going,” she said. The suspense was killing her. While she was normally a big fan of avoidance—at least where Eli was concerned—she couldn’t take it today. “So, that bet last night… you weren’t serious, were you?”

Eli winked at her, the predatory look turning downright rapacious. “Sure was. I’ve wanted to get my hands on that car for years.”

The
car
? He’d bet her that she’d have sex with him for crying out loud. She
thought
he must be kidding, but with Eli, it was hard to tell. What if he took it seriously enough to pursue her? While she pondered that terrifying thought, Rogan sauntered down the steps.

“Can I borrow the skateboard that’s hanging in the garage?”

She could tell Eli wanted to say no. “How’s the install going?”

“Fine. Need to get away from it for a bit. Do you mind if I use the skateboard or not?”

She watched Eli take a deliberate, calming breath. “Go ahead. There’s a park about four blocks from here. Hang a right out of the driveway. Go down two blocks, turn right and two more blocks on the left. Don’t skate on the sidewalks if anyone’s walking on them.”

Rogan tensed as Eli cautioned him. He left without saying anything else.

“What did I do now?” Eli asked as if they hadn’t been in the middle of a conversation of nearly life-or-death importance.

Maddie shrugged, too bewildered to do anything else. “Aren’t you worried he’ll get into trouble?”

“Every moment. But I can hardly keep him under lock and key.”

He came closer, making Maddie feel small and perhaps even a bit vulnerable. She squared her shoulders and prepared for retreat. Getting into a discussion about her car and his ridiculous bet would end in heartache—or at least humiliation.

“Not so fast,”. He caught her by the upper arm.

She looked at him, unable to understand what his intentions were. He’d made it absolutely clear he didn’t want to sleep with her three years ago, and while there was sometimes—like now, for instance—a particular glint in his eyes, she suspected it was habit on his part.

“What?”

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where I live.”

Eli rolled his eyes at her. “I mean why now?” His thumb was to the inside of her arm, and he stroked it back and forth absently. Was he completely unaware of the effect he had on her?

“I-I stopped by to drop off your mail.”

“You don’t have to leave.”

But she wanted to. She was in
waaaaaaaaaayyy
over her head at this point. “I’ve got some stuff to finish up.”

Eli leaned in closer, the full impact of his smile and eyes not lost on her. Maddie paused for a moment, letting her eyes lock onto Eli’s. Almost as if they were playing a game of chicken. She refused to flinch. How far would he take this?

He moved yet another inch closer, and Maddie lost her breath, yet she held steady. This time, he had to make the first move. She would not let herself be humiliated like last time.

Finally, when he was a hair’s breadth away, he stopped. “Well, have a nice evening, then.” He straightened and stepped away.

Relief warred with disappointment. Thank God, she hadn’t given in to the temptation to meet him halfway!

Chapter Five

“This town council meeting is now called to order.”

The Honorable M. Robert Watson, Mayor of Sudden Falls, shuffled through the itinerary in front of him and tried to emotionally prepare himself for yet another town council meeting. He’d come to dread the second and fourth Thursdays of the month. Most of his duties as mayor were welcome, but the public meetings seemed to bring out the worst in his entire town.

And tonight looked to be no different.

He shifted in his seat as his eyes picked out the third name down on the itinerary. “Madeline O’Callaghan.” The niece of the late Millie Wilson. Everyone in town had known Millie, of course. In a town the size of Sudden Falls, everyone knew
everyone
, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. But Rob had known her better than most—or at least knew more of her secrets than most. They’d both belonged to the same…
organization
, for lack of a better term. An organization whose activities would soon be known if he couldn’t keep Maddie O’Callaghan out of her aunt’s store until he could erase the evidence.