There are buckets and buckets of flowers. They’re so fragrant, and it’s a cacophony of color. Landon hands his sister a brightly colored bouquet. I can’t decide if their relationship is like an old married couple that constantly bickers or if they have that twin communication thing going on—even though they’re not actually twins.
Then Landon heads my way. “These are for you,” he says. “May they be the first of many.” He hands me a bouquet of pink cabbage roses with white bouvardia. “Thanks for putting up with my sister and me.”
“Oh my goodness. Thank you. You both are great.” I take a deep sniff. I’m convinced this is what heaven must smell like. “I love it.”
Landon steps away to pay for the flowers, and Claire stands by me. “My brother likes you. If you didn’t have Bob in your life, I’d be more concerned. Landon’s a great guy, but he had his heart broken when he was in college, and since then, he’s been on a tear with women. Each time I think, this is the one, I realize she’s only the one for right now.” She sighs. “One day.”
We’ve come to the end of the market.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” Claire tells us. “I’m off to get a mani-pedi and have my girl parts waxed.” She waves goodbye as we head over to Greg. “See you tonight.”
“Did she scare you off?” Landon asks.
“I think she confirmed the need for six months.”
Greg opens the door, and Landon and I climb into the back of the Suburban. Our little fingers are close as we settle into the seat. I reach out and put my finger on his, and it’s electric.
“We can do this.” My platitude could be about anything, but I know what his sister said earlier about his manwhore ways bothers him.
We don’t drive far before we arrive at a giant, warehouse-type building in an industrial area. A man comes walking out as we exit the car.
Landon shakes his hand and turns to me. “Tinsley, this is Jim Adelson.”
Jim is huge. He’s at least 6’4” and looks like he could bench press me without breaking a sweat. But his blue eyes are kind, and that lessens the threat of him breaking someone in half.
We follow him into a generic-looking reception area, and he leads us to an elevator.
“Have you been out to the Magnolia Homestead ranch in Montana yet?” Jim asks Landon.
He shakes his head. “Nope. Mia sent me the paperwork this week. I’ll probably get over there in a few.”
“It’s a beautiful place.” Jim turns to me. “Did he tell you about the poker tournament in Maui a few weeks ago?”
I nod. “He said he won the whole thing.”
“This guy ran the weekend. There was no stopping him, and in the end, he won a five-thousand-acre ranch in Montana just outside Yellowstone.”
My eyes widen. “I bet that’s impressive.”
“I was there last fall while Mia still owned it,” Jim says. “It’s beautiful.”
When we exit the elevator, I stop to look around. The reception area may be generic, but up here there are at least twenty people busy around high-end computers and an entire wall of large monitors. It’s as if I’m on the bridge of a futuristic spaceship.
Jim leads us to a conference room, and right behind him is another man equally as tall and muscular. With all these shoulders, I’m almost claustrophobic.
“Tinsley and Landon, this is Gage Easton. He’s our computer expert. Most of the team out there look to him when they run up against something tough.”
Gage takes a portable hard drive from under his arm and places it on the table. “Nice to meet you both.”
Jim motions to the chairs. “Please have a seat.”
“Tell me what’s going on,” Gage says to me.
“Can I start my computer?” I ask because if I have a virus, I could infect their network, and people don’t typically like it when you do that.
“Go right ahead.” Gage hands me a card. “This is the server and password we use. It’s a private network for just this kind of thing.”
While my computer goes through the startup sequence, I walk him through what’s going on.
He nods. “That must be frustrating, and it only happens on the network in your offices?”
“Yes,” Landon confirms. “We can see her on the network, but it’s like there’s a line of code that’s shutting her computer down.”
“I’ve gone through the code, but I don’t see it,” I say, trying not to sound defensive.
Gage nods as he studies the code. He types a few lines and sets the code, and the program takes them just fine. “Hmmm… The computer takes it fine here...” He studies the computer while it downloads my hard drive to his portable drive.
I nod.
“What does your IT guy say?” Gage asks.
“He doesn’t like me very much. But I think he believes I’m making it up.”
Landon crosses and uncrosses his legs. “I tried it on her computer, and it did the same to me on the office network.”
I watch Gage bring up my code on the portable drive. He looks through it carefully. It makes me nervous. Jim and Landon talk about Landon’s plans for the Magnolia Homestead ranch. I listen to their conversation while keeping an eagle eye on what Gage is doing.
He looks up, and the room stops and turns to him. “Landon, I want to load this on another computer and tunnel into your network. I want to see if it’s a glitch in her connection to the network or something else.”
“What else do you think it could be?” Jim asks.
“I’ve read about a failsafe some programs have put in if
