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 she thought there was no hope where J.C. was concerned. It must have hurt, even though he’d told her they had no future and he wasn’t starting anything he couldn’t finish. The blonde woman was truly ravishing, and that would have gotten around, too. Colie, with her low self-esteem, would think J.C. had dropped her because she wasn’t pretty enough for him.
He hesitated when he was inside his SUV, watching snow pile up on the windshield before he cranked the engine and turned on the windshield wipers. It was a chance to draw back, to let her think he didn’t care. It was an opportunity that might not come again. He could ignore her. He could let her believe he was seeing other women.
But it was a lie. There was only Colie in his life. There had never been a woman he could talk to, pour his heart out to. Not before Colie came along. Brief liaisons didn’t encourage closeness. He took what was offered and moved on to the next woman. But Colie wouldn’t be as disposable as the women who came and went in his life. She’d want commitment. He wasn’t sure he could give her that, even briefly.
