Page 3 of The Hacker
Leland
P.S. Perhaps we could dispense with our surnames? They seem somewhat unwieldy since we’ve met before.
She bit out a laugh, then wondered if he was making fun of her. No,teasingher. That was a better interpretation. She could give it right back to him.
Hey, Leland! You’re right.
Dawn
It took mere seconds before his response pinged in.
Dawn, I’m always right.
That made her laugh again before she stuck her phone in her sweatshirt pocket and finished her yogurt.
Leland was disappointed when Dawn didn’t rise to the bait of his provocative remark about being right. He leaned back in his chair in the room his partners had dubbed Mission Control due to its array of computer screens. This was where he spent most of his work time, rolling his chair among various stations as he juggled multiple projects. Hell, it was where he spent most of his time, period.
When Derek had called to say that his fiancée’s friend needed help through their Small Business Initiative, Leland had felt an odd rush of interest. Dawn was Alice’s personal trainer. Her self-defense instruction had played a significant part in saving Derek’s and Alice’s lives when a psychopathic hacker had held them at gunpoint six months ago. That meant Leland was grateful to her.
He’d met her a few times at the social events surrounding his partner’s engagement, the only parties he felt obligated to attend. He admired her straight, dark hair, body honed as taut as a bowstring, and lips like tempting pillows. The contrast between soft lips and hard muscles had stirred something low in his belly.
However, she tended to say three words to him and then move along. He’d laid on the full southern gentleman treatment, his Georgia drawl as thick as honey. She would give him a long look from those huge, dark eyes of hers and make an excuse to leave. He couldn’t figure out what he’d done to offend her.
Tonight, he’d decided that charm might be the wrong approach. She was a warrior in teaching women self-defense, so maybe she would like a fight. Or at least some mild provocation.
Too bad she hadn’t taken up the challenge. He expected that straightening out the Wi-Fi problem would require about sixty seconds of his time, so the project wouldn’t offer any further contact with her.
Just as well. He had a dozen other jobs to do that contributed to the firm’s bottom line, unlike Derek’s pet pro bono project. He knew in his gut that he was overloading himself because he didn’t want to face the sudden profound absence in his life. But that was what work was for.
Chapter 2
Dawn stuck her head in the door of the office that Ramón shared with his wife, Vicky. “Got a minute?” she asked, relieved that only her boss was occupying the room. She wasn’t sure how Vicky would react to Dawn trespassing on her computer territory.
“For you? Always!” Ramón’s smile transformed his rough boxer’s face into a benign uncle’s. He waved to a turquoise chair in front of the blond-wood desk his massive body dwarfed. Vicky had done the decorating. “Everything okay?”
“Better than okay.” Dawn dropped into the chair. “I’ve got some expert help for the Wi-Fi problem and it’s free.”
“There’s no such thing as free in this world. But no one’s mentioned a Wi-Fi problem to me.”
“Because you’re big and scary.” Dawn grinned.
In fact, her boss was beloved in the gym, where everyone considered him a gentle giant. The wannabe boxers had long ago given up challenging him to a bout in the ring. He adamantly refused, claiming he didn’t want to be thrown in jail for manslaughter. Even more, he’d sworn off violence of any kind once he’d ended his boxing career, saying he’d seen enough hurt to last the rest of his life. She admired him for that.
But she owed him even more. He was the one who had encouraged her to become certified as a personal trainer. She’d been teaching her self-defense classes at the gym—the only bright spot in her life at the time—when he’d told her she’d make a great trainer and offered to pay for the courses she needed. She sometimes felt as though he had saved her life—or, at the very least, her sanity.
Dawn raised her eyebrows as he continued to look at her in bafflement. “Seriously? Vicky didn’t say anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Although I remember some guys messing around with the computers a couple of times last week. I don’t pay much attention to the tech stuff.”
“Well, for the last ten days, the customers have been giving all of us trainers an earful about how they can’t stream TV or movies on the treadmills and ellipticals. It seems no one can break a sweat without entertainment anymore.”
“I wondered why it was so quiet in the equipment room recently, but I didn’t pinpoint the reason.” Her boss tugged at his short ponytail, which meant he was worried. “So people are really annoyed?”
“Yeah. I even switch off the Wi-Fi on my phone when I’m at the gym because it’s so incredibly slow. I thought you knew about the issue.”
“Vick usually takes care of stuff like that.”
“From what I can tell, she’s tried, but I guess the people she’s brought in couldn’t fix it.” Dawn sat back in her chair. “Luckily, I have a solution.”
