Judith McWilliams - The Matchmaking Machine

“Hell, Richard, in this mood, I’m not sure I do know you.”

Richard grinned. “I’m doing some undercover work. The report from the treasurer’s office is in the study, second door on the right.” He gestured toward the room Maggie had entered. “Make a copy of it and send it by courier to Baxter at the San Francisco office. Don’t fax anything,” Richard said.

“Will do. Oh, and Wilton called. He said he’d located a man named Zylinski in Washington, D.C., who’s a wizard at tracing embezzled funds through computers. I have a call in to him. I hope to hear from him tonight, or tomorrow morning, at the latest.”

“Promise him anything, but get him here immediately to trace the movement of the money Moore embezzled. Wright’s widow might have been willing to eat the losses to avoid sending her son-in-law to jail, but I want to know if Moore had any accomplices that are still with the company. Two million dollars in just three years is a hell of a lot of money for one person to lose playing poker even if he is a compulsive gambler.”

Daniel shook his head. “It’s a damn shame. Moore was one helluva salesman. He practically revitalized that company single-handedly after Wright had his first heart attack.”

“Yeah, and then he bled it dry. I still think Mrs. Wright was wrong. Son-in-law or not, she should have pressed charges against Moore.”

Daniel looked into Richard’s hard gray eyes and shivered. He sure wouldn’t want to cross Richard. He was not a forgiving man.

“Lock the door behind you and let me know as soon as you hear from the computer expert,” Richard said.

“Will do.” Daniel hurried down the hallway to the study while Richard went back into the kitchen. A sound from behind the closed laundry-room doors told him where Maggie was.

“I got rid of him,” Richard addressed the doors. “It’s safe to come out.”

Maggie opened the door and emerged, giving him a repressive look. “I wasn’t hiding,” she lied. “I was changing my clothes. Here’s your shirt, and thank you.”

She watched regretfully as he slipped into it and his magnificent, hairy chest disappeared from view.

“You can express your thanks by helping me connect the faucet back up again.”

“If you’ll remember correctly, that’s how I got wet in the first place,” she pointed out as she followed him back to the bathroom. Somehow, she seemed unable to resist the temptation of being around him. Maybe her makeover had changed more than just her outward appearance, she considered. Maybe wearing an up-to-the-minute hairstyle and sexy clothes had changed her outlook. Maybe dressing sexy made a woman more likely to act sexy. Kind of a variation on form following function? It was an unsettling thought.

“That was an accident,” Richard said.

“I still got wet.”

“It won’t happen again. All I need you to do is hold the faucet in place while I attach it.”

She looked at him wryly.

“I’ll buy you dinner if you help me,” he coaxed when she didn’t respond.

Maggie felt anticipation surge through her at the thought of going out to dinner with Richard, of spending the evening with him. And afterward, they could go back to her place and…Her mouth began to water as images of exactly what she would like to do with him flashed through her mind.

No, she hastily clamped down on her imagination. She didn’t know him well enough to invite him back to her apartment. He might look respectable, but looks could be deceptive. Look at her. New looks aside, she was as clueless about men as it was possible to be and still lay claim to femininity. But there was no reason to stay clueless. Not with Richard around…

The thought of Worthington and her plans for him briefly crossed her mind. Going out with Richard wouldn’t jeopardize those plans, she assured herself. Richard was a plumber who happened to be doing some work in Worthington’s apartment. It was highly unlikely that the two of them would even meet, let alone exchange confidences about the women they’d dated. Besides, going out with Richard would give her a chance to practice feeling comfortable around a man. She stole a quick glance at him and a shiver of awareness slithered down her spine. Somehow, comfortable and Richard were not mutually compatible concepts.

“It’s a deal,” she accepted, hoping the eagerness she felt wasn’t apparent in her voice. “I’ll help you plumb and then we can have dinner.” Never mind the work back at the office she was completely blowing off. Another reaction that wasn’t like her.

It didn’t take long to hook up the faucet, and Maggie stepped back with a pleased smile on her face when water gushed out with no sign of leakage. “I can see where you’d like plumbing. When you’re finished, you see positive results.”

“Most jobs are like that.”

“Not always,” she said ruefully. “I like my job, but sometimes I can work for days chasing a bug and still have nothing to show for it.”

“What exactly do you do?” Richard asked, curious as to what her role was in the company.

“Mostly, I liaison with customers, helping them figure out what they want and what kind of program can best help them do it. Sam Moore, our ex-president, used to say he sold the idea and it was up to me to translate it into something practical.”

Richard felt a slight chill at the warmth in her voice as she mentioned Moore. Just how friendly was she with Moore? Obviously friendly enough to resent his no longer being there. But had she been friendly enough to know what he’d been up to? The thought jarred, and he shoved it to the back of his mind because there was no way he could answer it now. He’d have a better picture of what the situation was after the computer-fraud expert had done his work. Until then, he’d assume Maggie was exactly what she seemed to be: a gorgeous, sexy woman who found him interesting.

“And do you make it practical?” he asked.

“About ninety-nine percent of the time. I find programming fascinating, but then I’m a bit of a computer fanatic.” Maggie kept her answer brief for fear of boring him. As more than one of her girlfriends had told her, not everyone was as interested in computer applications as she was.

“What time do you want to eat?” she asked.

Richard checked the gold watch on his wrist and Maggie frowned slightly as she noticed it. It was an odd watch for a plumber to have. She would have expected him to own something in stainless steel with lots of gadgets. Instead, he was wearing a thin dress watch that didn’t appear to do anything other than tell time.

“Seven?” he suggested. “How about if I get a couple of tickets to a Broadway show for after dinner?”

“No.” Maggie hastily refused his offer. She wanted to spend the evening talking and getting to know him and she could hardly do that if they were at a performance. It would be better to keep the first date unstructured so that she could cut it short if the pressure got to be too much for her.

“You don’t like live theater?” he asked curiously.

“Yes, but it’s been a long week and I’m tired,” she improvised. “I’d probably fall asleep in a darkened theater.”

“Okay, I’ll pick you up at seven. What’s your address?”

“How about if I meet you in front of the restaurant?” Maggie remembered her earlier reservations about giving out her home address to a stranger. Even a fascinating stranger.

“Do you have a favorite?”

“There’s a good restaurant over by the Museum of Natural History that serves an excellent blackberry salmon,” Maggie said.

“What’s the name of the place?”

Maggie searched her memory and came up blank. “I can’t remember. How about if I meet you in front of the museum. The entrance that faces the park?”