Loving Rowan (3 page)

S
he was weird
.

I don’t mean in a horrifying, running-away-from-her kind of way, but she was even more introverted than I’d thought. She was beautiful, and funny when she showed that side of herself, but she could barely talk to me without blushing. She’d go from being serious and concentrating on the game at hand, to laughing and teasing me for not being as good as her.

By the time I left her place, I was harder than I had any right to be, more aroused than I had been in a long time.

I had hoped my apology gift might make it easier to ask her out. Instead, I realised that I’d have to take things very slowly. I didn’t know how much experience she had, but I doubted it was much. Not when accidentally brushing my hand against hers resulted in her pulling back, retracting like a snail into its shell. There was definitely some type of spark between us; I hoped she felt it too.

I didn’t know her well enough to ask her what this was all about, whether she was just naturally shy or if something had happened to make her this way, and yet, it made me feel fiercely protective of her, as if she brought out some alpha male side of me. I had an overwhelming urge to wrap her up in my arms and growl at anyone who went near her. It was crazy and irrational, and I loved the way I felt.

For whatever reason, the feelings that were growing for her just made me happy. I wanted more, but this was the opposite of the crazy I’d lived with before. My last relationship got too serious too fast, and although this wasn’t quite what I had thought would happen, I could live with taking things slow. At least for a while.

We could hang out together, get to know one another, and maybe Rowan would start to come out of that shell. I could coax her out, gaining her confidence, and we could find out together if we had a future.

I drove home thinking about her. It was probably some kind of miracle that stopped me from having an accident. That continued into the house where I rounded the corner turning into the living room and bumped into Dad. While I found a place to live, he was okay with me staying here. After my big trip I had to save money to get into a place, and I’d spent a chunk of it shopping for Rowan. I’d have to start again, but at least she was happy.

“Did you not see me?” He grinned at me.

“Sorry, Dad. Distracted.”

“What’s her name?” Shit. He knew me too well.

“It’s complicated.” I sat down on the couch, putting my feet on the coffee table. “What’s complicated about it? As long as it’s not like the last time, I’d be happy for you.”

I looked at my feet.

“Kyle? What is it?”

“I spent the evening with Rowan.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Rowan? Rowan from work, Rowan?”

“Well I don’t know too many girls called Rowan, Dad.”

He sighed, sitting next to me on the couch. “You know how I feel about personal relationships at work.”

“Yeah, but we’re just friends. At least for now.”

Now he smiled, leaning back. “She wants more, or you do?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I’ve only just met her, but she intrigues me. She’s not like anyone I’ve ever met before.”

“You’re right, there.” He nodded, patting me on the shoulder. “She appears to be doing a good job. I like her.”

“Does that mean you approve?”

“If you’re determined to be friends, I can live with that. Not so comfortable on the something more bit.”

I shrugged. “I don’t even know if she’s thinking that way. She’s different to anyone I have been with before, but at the same time, she’s just so normal. I can imagine just sitting together and enjoying each other’s company without all the drama.”

He smiled. “Your mother was like that. We could just sit together for hours and never say a word. Just being together was enough.” He stared into the distance, a faint smile curling his lips. “Kyle, I can warn you all you like and you don’t have to listen. Just be careful. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Want a coffee? I was just about to make one.”

“Sounds great.”

D
ad was grumbling
in the morning as he tried to turn his computer on. “Kyle, can you come and look at this. It’s not turning on and I need to get some work done.”

I walked into his study, and pressed the on button. Nothing happened. I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“You’re helpful.” He picked up the phone and dialled, sighing as he got no answer. “Damn it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Ross isn’t answering.”

I rolled my eyes. “He’s not your personal helpdesk.”

“He’s my IT Manager. He’ll be able to help me.”

“I could call Rowan.”

He looked at his phone. “I don’t know. Ross has helped me in the past. I don’t want to stand on his toes.”

“Well, he should answer his phone then. Do you want to do your work?”

We stood and looked at each other for a moment.

He nodded. “If she can help, that would be great.”

I fished my phone out of my pocket, and dialled the number I’d swiped from the HR records. Rowan’s sleepy voice came down the line.

“Hey sleepyhead,” I said brightly.

“Kyle?”

“I was wondering if you could help me. Dad, actually.”

“What’s up?” She yawned and I pictured her at home in whatever she wore to bed. Maybe she wore nothing.

I grinned. “His computer won’t start this morning and he can’t get hold of Ross. Can you take a look at it?”

“Umm sure. Want me to come over?”

“If you could. Tell us if the computer can be fixed, or if we need to replace it.”

I gave her the address before hanging up, nodding at Dad.

“Done. She’s on her way over.”

As soon as there was a knock on the door, I leapt up and ran, to Dad’s amusement. I put my finger over my lips and looked at him as I opened it.

She looked around nervously. “Hi.”

“Hey, come in.” I smiled at her as she walked past me and into the house.

Dad nodded. “Thanks, Rowan. Normally Ross helps me, but I can’t get hold of him.”

“Let’s see what’s going on.” She smiled,and I smirked behind her back. Buried in the things she enjoyed, she revelled in her knowledge.

She sat at Dad’s desk and he sat opposite, watching her intently. Pulling the computer up from the floor, she took off the side and grimaced as a cloud of dust was dislodged.

“Got a vacuum cleaner? This isn’t going to help.” She looked at him as if he were stupid and should have known this all along.

I watched as my father, usually the one in control, trudged off and fetched the vacuum. He looked as if he’d been slapped, and I laughed to myself as he came back and plugged it in without a word.

She cleaned it out, and within minutes came up with a verdict.

“It looks like the motherboard. Something’s gone boom in here. There’s a faint electrical smell; could be something that’s burned out.”

He stared at her as if she had said the most important words he would ever hear.

“So what do we do to fix it, Rowan?”

“I’ll pull this apart and we can see if we can find a replacement. Might be hard because it’s a little old, but there’s a few places I know we can try.”

He lit up, and I shook my head at their interaction. She was leading the way, and he was happy to follow whatever she said.

“That would be great,” he said, turning to look at me and smiling. “How much will it cost?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. If it were me, I’d probably just bite the bullet and replace the computer. Might be easier and cheaper than tracking down the parts, and as long as the hard drive is okay we can transfer the data. But, whatever you want, I’ll try my best.” There was that smile, the shy one that made me hot. She was steering my dad in the direction that she wanted him to go, but I doubted she was deliberately trying to manipulate him. I didn’t think she was that devious.

“Whatever you think. Just do what you need to do.”

“Give me your credit card, Dad. We’ll go and sort it.” I held my hand out and he fished it out of his wallet.

“Thanks, Rowan. I appreciate you giving up your free time for this.”

“It’s no problem.” She looked at me. “Shall we go?”

I’d go anywhere with you.

“Sure thing.”

W
e ended
up in the middle of Auckland city at a store I never knew existed, full of computer parts, and I had no idea what half of them were.

“This is our best bet. They have all kinds of random things,” she said as we walked in the doorway. I stood, looking around as she turned towards a shelf near us and examined what was there.

A salesman walked towards us, came past her and straight to me. “May I help you?”

“Uh, not me. Her.” I pointed at Rowan. He approached her.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?”

She came out with a whole stream of words that I did not understand in the slightest, and the salesman looked slightly uncomfortable as she spoke. I wondered if she knew more than he did. Whatever it all meant, he shook his head.

“Let’s just get him a new computer. We’ll be here all day at this rate.” I waved his credit card in the air. “Let’s go shopping.”

She laughed. “I’m trying to save him money.”

“He can afford it. If he wasn’t so tight he would have replaced it ages ago.”

“Fine.” She turned back to the salesman and told him what she was looking for in a new computer. I laughed as she asked him a million questions about the components. He looked harassed by the time we got to the counter and paid for it, and I was sure he was happy to see the back of us.

For her part, she looked triumphant. She’d managed to get a decent discount, and I teased her all the way home about how she needed to relax while spending someone else’s money.

She shrugged. “He’s my boss.”

“You don’t have to try so hard to impress him. He’s pretty blown away by you.”

I pulled into the driveway, and she looked at me with those big, soulful eyes. “Really?”

“He was running around after you in there. You did good, Rowan. Ross will be sorry he didn’t answer his phone.”

She looked at her feet. “Do you think he’ll be annoyed?”

“Whatever. It’s just sorting out Dad’s home computer.”

“Yeah, but he’s in charge of all of that stuff. Maybe I shouldn’t have trod on his toes.”

I put my hand over hers. “Don’t even worry about it. Dad will be really grateful for what you’ve done. I might even make you lunch, if you’re lucky.”

She nodded. “At least we got you out for some fresh air. Better than being stuck inside playing games,” I said.

Rowan rolled her eyes, and opened the door. She had the back of the car up and was carrying the computer inside before I could stop her.

Dad waited inside, wringing his hands as we came in the door.

“We bought you a new computer, Dad,” I said.

“Can we get everything off the other one?” he asked.

“I’ll go and work on that right now.” Rowan smiled.

A
djusting
to Kyle being around was easy. He was so sweet and kind, and made me laugh more than anyone else ever had. We were soon spending so much time together, we might as well have been roommates.

It was weird. My whole life there had been very few people I could really relax around, but Kyle was one of them. With no competition, I had him all to myself; there was no Charlie to share. Before long, I was in love with him.

Tormented by my feelings, I kept it to myself. I was too scared to tell him just in case he only wanted my friendship. The last thing I wanted was to lose another friend. I was all too painfully aware that I was back in the same sort of situation I’d started in.

He would fall asleep on the couch while watching movies after spending the evening playing games on the console. I’d sit and watch his chest rise and fall as he breathed—he was so beautiful—and I’d chew my bottom lip, just wanting to reach out and touch him.

The thick, dark, wavy hair and long eyelashes any girl would envy made my heart flutter. But I’d been here before, and it hurt. Still, Kyle was sincere, and the more time we spent together just being friends, the more I believed that maybe one day there might be something between us.

I’m not going to build my hopes up. Not again.

I’d cover him with a blanket, and leave him there, going to sleep in my cold bed and looking at the ceiling, feeling conflicted. Neither Kyle nor Andrew wanted anything more than my friendship. At least, that’s how it seemed. Kyle hadn’t made a move and I would have died before saying anything to him.

Helping his father out had helped us grow closer, but I couldn’t tell him what had been bugging me for weeks: my deteriorating relationship with Ross.

He was increasingly difficult to work with, and I wondered if he viewed me as a threat. I was sure my friendship with Kyle had made things worse, and helping his father with his computer? I think that was the kiss of death as far as he was concerned.

The first test for moving data was coming up. I’d put together the new system and it was humming along nicely. Now, it just needed the data converted to the right format and for it to be moved. That was nerve-racking. If I didn’t get this right first time, it would give Ross an opportunity to screw me over.

The thought of that made me feel sick and I went over the code I’d written for the data conversion a million times the night before we were due to process the first batch.

It was late when I went to sleep. The next day was do or die.

I
arrived
in my office nice and early, and went to sit at the computer. Something wasn’t right. My chair had been pulled out, and some of the papers were a bit messed up, like someone had been through them. Ignoring that nagging feeling, I sat down. Sometimes the cleaners moved things around, and while it drove me nuts, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I sighed, and flicked the screen on.

“Good morning, Rowan.” Ross came in and sat down opposite me. “So today’s the big day, huh?”

“Looks like it.”

“You nervous?” he asked, leaning on the desk on his elbows.

“A little, but the script has been setup and is ready to run. The first batch should be done by lunchtime.”

He nodded. “Well, off you go.”

I took a deep breath. The data had all been backed up, but to have to recover it would be admitting failure.

Smiling, I hit the keys that would start the process. I could monitor how far through it was, but the end result would have to wait for it to finish to make sure it had worked.

The morning crawled. Kyle stuck his head in my office to see if I wanted a coffee, but I was paranoid that if I took my eyes off the screen for one minute, something would go wrong.

“You’ll be fine. You spent long enough working on it,” he said.

“I know, but I need to be sure.”

I crossed my fingers as I watched the screen. The data was processing, and quite quickly. Soon enough my wait would be over.

Ross was back in my office when it finished, hanging around, looking over my shoulder, and it unnerved me.

I went to the new database and clicked import. The system said no with a resounding beep and an error message. The data was corrupt, useless. My entire morning waiting for this and it was completely screwed. I wanted to scream at the screen, but Ross’s presence stopped me from losing control. I would not do that in front of him.

“Oh. That’s no good,” he said, leaning over my shoulder.

“I don’t understand.”

“Clearly your coding had an error in it, Rowan. You’ll have to recover the backup and start again once you’ve found the problem.”

This was going to set me back some time. I’d have to recover the data and go through testing again to find the issues. “But it was working perfectly yesterday.” I looked at him to see his reaction, but he was blank. I didn’t understand it.

He patted me on the back. “You’ll get it right, I’m sure. I’ll leave you to it.”

I felt sick. As pleasant as he’d been, he still made my skin crawl when he was near me.

I went to retrieve the backup. The existing systems were ancient, still relying on tape backup, and the tape wasn’t where it was meant to be. My stomach sank as I turned the room upside down looking for it. It was nowhere to be found.

I went back to my office. It must be there. I’d worry about it after I worked out what was wrong with my script.

I saw it straight away. That rogue line of coding that wasn’t supposed to be there. Like everything else, I was particular about how I did things, and it stuck out like a sore thumb.

Miriam knocked on the door. “Rowan, Mr Warner wants to see you in his office.”

“Okay.”

“Just so you know, Ross is in his office, and neither of them look happy.”

I felt the colour drain from my face, my stomach churning as I struggled with my growing anger. While this had been a run-through with real data, there had been backup procedures in place; it had all been covered.

I stood, shaking as I took a deep breath before heading out the door. It was now or never. Only one person could have done this, and I could only guess that it was Ross’s reaction to my growing relationships with the Warners.

I passed Kyle’s office on the way, and saw him look up out of the corner of my eye. If I stopped, I’d start crying, and I wasn’t going to involve him.

Taking a deep breath, I knocked on Mr Warner’s door, and he called out to me to enter the room.

He pointed at a chair, giving me a small smile. “Please sit, Rowan.”

I sat and tried to meet his eyes, failing.

“I hear there’s been a failure of our first cutover this morning.”

Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Unfortunately things did not go to plan.”

“And the backup is missing.”

I looked up. How did he know that? Unless Ross had gone to look, too. The confirmation that he had framed me hit me like a hammer. I’d done all of the donkey work, and now he was going to swing in and look like the hero. His reputation beyond reproach, mine in tatters.

“Mr Warner …”

“Rowan, you know how highly I regard you and your work. This is very disappointing, to say the least.”

“But, I …”

Ross leaned over. “I can take over the project from here if need be. Give Rowan a break.”

I glared at him. “I’ve done all of the work. I just need to find the backup or work out how to fix the data.”

“Fixing the data isn’t likely. This is a real mess that you’ve got us into, Rowan. If I have to step in, then I will.”

Mr Warner sighed. “I’m sorry, Rowan. Ross is right. This was a big project for you to take on so early, and you’ve done so well so far. I think Ross needs to take over from here.”

“I’ll need the code you wrote for the conversion. I’ll find what’s wrong with it and fix it going forward.”

“You mean the extra bit you added to break my script?” I said the words before I thought about them.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Do you think I don’t recognise my own coding versus someone else’s, someone who has just slapped in some messy crap in the middle of it?”

When he glared at me, I smiled sweetly.

“Are you saying your coding was interfered with, Rowan?” asked Mr Warner.

“I went over it and over it last night to make sure it was clean for this morning. I didn’t think I had to check it again this morning, but afterwards I looked to see if I could find the problem. Someone had been in and changed it.”

“You’re paranoid,” Ross sneered.

Mr Warner closed his eyes and sighed again. He was torn; I could see that. He had no reason to disbelieve me, and no reason to disbelieve Ross. There wouldn’t be a way to prove anything; Ross would have seen to that.

“Okay, well, how about Ross takes over the conversion once we find this backup. I’m sorry, Rowan. I’d like to believe what you’re saying is true, because I don’t think you’d lie to me. But, I don’t think Ross would lie to me either, and I can’t risk the rest of this cutover.”

“So I have to hand over all the work I’ve done the last few months so Ross can finish the project?”

He nodded.

“Fine.” I crossed my arms defiantly, the sides of my head throbbing as my anxiety levels rose. I had no way out of this. Either I could get hysterical and get nowhere, or I could just go with it and hope he screwed up.

“Thanks. Get it all together and you can hand it over in the morning. Take another look for that backup before you go home. If we can’t find it, well, I don’t know what we’re going to do, but we have to try.”

I nodded, unable to say anything else. This was humiliating, and I wanted to run away and never come back. I thought when I came here that they wanted me, but Ross had only wanted me to do the hard yards. He wasn’t interested whether I reaped the rewards.

“You can go now, Rowan. Once the system is cut over, you’ll be working on the day to day maintenance of the system. Nothing is going to change with regards to that.” Mr Warner smiled a little and I nodded, standing and walking out without turning back. Closing the door behind me, I shut my eyes and took a deep breath.

“Rowan?” Kyle was sitting outside the office, concern written all over his face.

“I have to go back to my office.” I knew I was pale and I felt faint. The sooner I got to a chair, the better, and I needed private.

“Hey.” He tried to grab my arm, but I kept walking away. I couldn’t do this, not now. This wasn’t his problem; it was mine.