North Dakota Weddings (14 page)

“You got me. I’m here all the time.”

Vance tipped the guy. “Keep up the good work, then.”

He chugged the sugary, caffeine-loaded drink, hoping to fire his neurons. The last thing he wanted was to go home empty-handed to Andi.

Home?
He blew out a breath. What was he thinking?

Elisa had talked about some guy from school that she liked, saying he was smart. Vance leaned his head against the seat and squeezed his eyes. What was his name again? Todd. Todd something. Had Andi called his house? He wasn’t sure she even knew about the boy. Elisa always clammed up about him when Andi walked through the room. The guy had a name similar to an actor’s. That’s all Vance could remember. Using his smartphone, he scanned the Internet for actors.

Tom Cruise!
That’s it. He dialed information and called all three Crews families, asking for Todd. Once he found the correct residence he asked for Elisa. She answered, cautious rebellion in her voice. Vance wanted to put her at ease—a big brother, on her side. On his way there he phoned Andi to let her know he’d found Elisa and that she’d been studying. He hoped it was enough to defuse the bomb.

When Vance pulled up to the curb next to the Crews home, Elisa, carrying a couple of textbooks, came out of the house but turned to speak to a boy in the doorway. Vance waited patiently, thinking about how vulnerable Andi was where her sister was concerned. What could he say to Elisa without causing more strain between the two?

Elisa finally opened the door to his car. Her smile, as she stepped in, was tight. “So, Andi sent
you
….” She looked out the passenger window. “Too busy to pick me up herself,” she mumbled.

Vance heard the hurt she carried. Never finding himself in this position before, he was surprised at how quickly a lecture formed in his mind.
Careful now
. He would try to handle this differently than Andi because lectures weren’t getting her anywhere with Elisa. He turned onto Main Street, heading back to Andi and Elisa’s home.

“Actually, your sister had no idea where you were.”

“Figures.”

Vance needed to find something else to talk about. He peered at the books on her lap. “Geometry and biology. Two of my favorites. You mentioned Todd made good grades. Is he tutoring you?”

Elisa relaxed. “Something like that. I want to do better. We only have a couple more weeks of summer school.”

Vance turned left onto Glenwood. “Good girl.”

“I have tests coming up. It’d be nice to surprise Andi with good grades for a change.”

After pulling into the driveway, Vance shifted into P
ARK
and with a wide grin tilted his head at Elisa. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

She smiled in return and pulled on the door handle. The door clicked but didn’t open.

“Wait.”

Elisa looked at him, curiosity in her expression.

“I need to prepare you. Andi had an accident today.”

Elisa’s eyes widened. “What? Is she all right?”

He hadn’t meant to word it that way, but her reaction told him she loved her sister.
Good
. “She’s fine. But she got stuck behind a wall. Nobody knew where she was.” For the first time since looking for Andi, Vance recalled the brothers’ comment about her searching for something, and Vance’s initial suspicion when he asked her why she’d climbed into the small space.

He scratched his chin. Something to consider, but later. Much later.

For a moment, Elisa’s eyes appeared to tear up. “Don’t tell me. She was trapped and that’s why she couldn’t pick me up.”

Nodding, Vance put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “That’s right, but it was your phone call that alerted me to a possible problem. We found her, thankfully. Then she came home and couldn’t find you.”

Vance was certain that’s why Andi’s nerves were on edge, contributing to her overreaction at not finding Elisa at home.

Elisa stared out the windshield, where drops of rain began to play on the glass. With a thick voice, she said, “I’m in trouble now.”

Vance almost chuckled. She would have been in trouble anyway, but knowing that her sister had been trapped had opened a part of Elisa’s heart to see.

“Look, I’m no psychoanalyst, but I’m thinking she’ll just be glad to see you.”

Hands on hips, Andi stood in the doorway, looking anything but patient as she watched them sit in the car. Vance and Elisa stepped from the car. Elisa hurried to Andi and hugged her.

Andi wrapped her arms around her sister in return, her gaze finding Vance’s, gratitude shining in her beautiful blue eyes.

She said, “Thank you,” without putting voice to the words.

His heart skipped a beat, Elisa’s words echoing in his mind.

“I’m in trouble now.”

R
eleasing her bear hug on Elisa, Andi waved to Vance, disappointed to see him go as he backed from the drive. He reminded her of a handsome prince who’d stepped from a fairy-tale book, though he couldn’t be real. Nor was she a beautiful princess.

But more than a prince, he seemed to be an answer to her prayers—prayers she had no faith to pray. Joy and happiness swirled inside, emotions she hadn’t felt in years. It was as if he’d uncovered a hidden treasure inside her she’d not known was there.

“Um, shouldn’t we have invited him in or something?” Elisa swiped her eyes.

Elisa crying? Andi had feared she’d fall into lecturing again, which would then digress into the usual argument. But with Elisa’s apparent change in attitude, how could she be angry?

“I suspect he’s giving us some time to ourselves.” She wished he’d stayed but wasn’t about to chase him down.

Elisa followed Andi into the house. “Vance told me what happened today.” Elisa hugged her again. “You need to be careful.”

Andi couldn’t believe what she was seeing and hearing. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”

The question elicited a laugh from Elisa. “Stop it. You know I love you. You’re my sister.” After setting her textbooks on the coffee table, Elisa meandered into the kitchen and lifted the lid on the saucepan, sniffing the Hamburger Helper Andi had thrown together earlier. “Glad I ate at Todd’s.”

Andi sighed. “I thought you’d run away.” There, she’d said it, the words laced with regret rather than fear and anger.

“What? Why would you think that?”

“Our argument. Don’t you remember the words you said to me?”

Elisa peered into the refrigerator, blowing a loose curl from her face. “I know what I said. I didn’t mean it.”

Andi pulled a box of French vanilla cake mix from the cabinet, intending to make Elisa’s favorite. “I’m sorry for everything that’s happened between us, and I want you to know that I’m going to try to do better. I hope you know that I love you.”

After pulling out a soda and popping the top, Elisa slurped from the opening. “I’m as much to blame as you. I know that now.”

Pouring the mix into the blender along with eggs, oil, and water, Andi focused on the task, afraid she’d say the wrong thing like she always did. Still, she couldn’t help herself. “Can I ask what’s changed?”

Elisa stiffened, knitting her brows. Thankfully though, she soon relaxed, the hint of a grin at the left corner of her mouth. “Todd.” Her eyes fairly shone when she said his name. “He’s changed things.”

Oh no. “Aha.” Boys would come and go, Andi knew from her own painful experience. This wasn’t good, but what could she say that wouldn’t further alienate Elisa?

“And Vance, too. He knows so much and he loves learning.”

Until that moment, Andi hadn’t realized how much Vance had influenced her sister. With cake batter blending in the mixer, Andi chewed her lip, wishing she’d had more of a hand in Elisa’s much-improved attitude.

“That’s where I was tonight, studying. Todd talked to me about my attitude.”

Andi cocked a brow, disbelieving. “How old is this guy?”

Elisa giggled. “He’s a senior, but I think you’d like him, sis. He…uh…invited me to church. Invited us.”

“He what?” Might Todd actually be a good thing for Elisa?

Andi poured the batter into a pan and stuck it into the oven. She and Elisa chatted for a while longer until she’d pulled the cake from the oven to cool. This had been a long and rough day. She’d spread strawberry icing over the cake in the morning. After Elisa headed to bed, Andi did the same, thankful the day had ended better than she thought.

As Andi readied for bed that night, brushing her hair from the tight ponytail she wore every day, she considered the changes in her life. When she’d had to quit school after their grandmother’s death to care for Elisa, Jorgen had ended their relationship. Mr. E had been the only person to help her out of the pit, and she’d been on a downward spiral ever since his death. Until Vance showed up. The younger version of the elder—wavy hair and glasses and a brain the size of the North Dakota Badlands—had set off warning sirens in her head.

Despite her best efforts to guard against his charms, he was making inroads into her heart. But was that intentional on his part, considering he would be leaving soon?

Elisa had not been immune to him either. Still, Andi was happy with the changes she’d seen in her sister, and if that were to Vance’s credit, she was all for it.

Andi had been fighting for so long to hang on to what little she had left, she was afraid to trust what appeared to be good things happening in her life.

A simple thing like trust—why was it so hard?

The lights automatically flipped on as soon as Vance walked through the blast door to the Ground Zero living room. He didn’t even remember the drive home, his mind on continuous replay of Andi’s face as she thanked him, her eyes glowing with gratitude. He was practically floating. Janice had never made him float.

The emotional high was lost as soon as he plopped on the sofa and looked at his laptop. The problem with ANND rushed toward him like a meteoric fireball. He pressed his head into the sofa back and groaned. Hadn’t he done enough for one day? Saving a damsel in distress, loading an interference program, and finding the whereabouts of a lost teenager? He couldn’t solve all the problems of the world in one day.

Exhausted, he went to bed, leaving the lights on. The only time he thought about buying night lights was when he wanted to sleep, never when he was in town.

The next morning he woke with a start, feeling as though someone had nudged him awake. He sat up on his elbows and squinted. No sounds of construction awaited him. What time was it anyway? He looked at the small clock next to the bed. Eight o’clock.

Great. He’d overslept. Still…this was supposed to be his vacation. He scratched his head. He wouldn’t hear Andi and crew because they were at the far end of the underground complex in a completely different capsule on the other side of the blast door.

Dread kept him in bed for fifteen more minutes. Did he really have to face this day? Or could he ignore the fact that he’d hacked into Peter’s parallel system and replaced the rogue program with another? He jerked upright. What if it was all on the up-and-up? Government-approved and contracted? Who was he to say it wasn’t? Did he have oatmeal for brains?

After a good night’s sleep he suddenly had a new perspective? Hadn’t he slept on it before making the decision?
God in heaven, help me
.

Growling his displeasure, Vance jumped from bed and sprinted into the living room in his sweats, eager to put a stop to his crazy and irrational nonsense about somehow being able to save his reputation, and save ANND from running the wrong program.

An e-mail from Peter awaited him.

Sweet streaming malware!
Had the guy discovered his intrusion already? The program he’d loaded shouldn’t have been caught yet—in only a matter of hours. Pulse raging in his ears, Vance opened the e-mail and read.

They’d hit a snag and needed his help. What snag? Everything was working perfectly when he’d left, though the fact that they were still in beta testing had disturbed him. In the e-mail, Peter suggested that there wasn’t any need for Vance to come all the way back from Cancun—he could make the fix remotely. The adrenaline rush subsided, relief washing it away, then…Vance saw Peter’s sign off.

Show your face here and you’re dead
.

Oh man
. What did that mean? Peter was kidding of course. Under normal circumstances. But this was anything but normal. Was there a hidden threat within the e-mail? What had he gotten himself into?

Peter had spent the better part of a year courting Bob Sitze, one of his government contacts, which made Vance more than a little nervous about calling Bob regarding his discovery. Considering most everyone at ANND resented Vance because Peter brought him on as his star programmer, Vance was hesitant to trust anyone else.

Oh man
. The situation was anything but stellar.
Just calm down
. Vance logged into the system and took a look at the data Peter called to his attention. Nothing to do with Vance’s hacking last night. But…

This just gets better every minute
.

Specific systems were off-line for security
purposes
. Peter should know Vance could only make a full diagnostic sweep with in-office-only access.