Drawing Hearts. J.M. Jeffries
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on the other, all opening to a balcony and a view of the mountains beyond. “I’m pleased to meet you, as well.”
“You’ve been so elusive I thought you were an urban legend.” She led him toward the dining table with paper scattered across the surface and her open laptop.
“My father has been ill and I needed to be with him.” Chemotherapy did that to a person, but the last test results had shown the cancer in remission and Reed was finally able to get to Reno.
“Miss E. said you had family issues. I’m glad you’re here now—I need your expertise.” She gestured at her laptop. “It just stopped working.”
He sat down at the table and tried to concentrate on the laptop with its blank screen. Anything to distract himself from her. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s broken.”
“Broken in what way?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re the expert.”
Okay, he thought. She was not a computer person. He glanced around and saw the disconnected power cord. He plugged it back into the computer, waited a few seconds and pressed the power button, and the laptop sprang back to life. It had just run out of battery power.
“How did you do that?” She stared at the flickering screen, one hand on her hip, the other pointing at the laptop.
“I have techno mojo.” Most computer problems were simple. “It helps to have the power supply hooked up. Your battery ran out of power.”
“That’s all,” she said.
He grinned. “That’s all.”
“So, you’re a computer wizard.” She leaned over his shoulder and slid her slender fingers over the mouse pad.
“I’m a god chained to Earth,” he ended with a chuckle. He pushed the power cord tightly into the laptop.
She laughed. “Well, then, can you use your godlike qualities to make my software work?”
He liked that she liked his humor. “You’re not a technophobe, are you?” he asked.
She frowned at him. “I know how to use my phone. I do everything on my phone.” She held up the newest, top-of-the line iPhone.
“Explain the problem.”
Leaning over his shoulder, she took the mouse and clicked on an icon. “I commissioned this program that will allow our boutique customers to try on clothes in a virtual environment, but the clothes won’t adjust to figures properly and my computer freezes every time I try to drag something over.”
For a moment he couldn’t force his thoughts away from the way her soft skin brushed against his hand. He gulped. No one had told him how beautiful and sexy Kenzie Russell was. The throaty quality of her voice started his heart hammering away. He fought to breathe. Never in his whole adult life had he reacted to a woman like this.
Beautiful women had been throwing themselves at him since he’d made his first ten million. They’d been more attracted to his money than they were to him. At first, he’d been flattered, but later he’d grown jaded. Kenzie didn’t seem to be looking at him in quite the same way. In fact, at the moment she wasn’t looking at him at all as she frowned at her laptop.
“What do you want your software to do?” he asked when he found his voice again.
“I wanted the software to take a photo of the customer. A salesperson would input measurements and search for appropriate styles depending on what the customer wants.” She waved a hand at the screen. “It seems so simple. Why can’t it be simple?” She frowned at the laptop again.
If software was simple, he might be living in his dad’s basement playing video games. “Who developed the software?”
“A friend of mine knew someone.” She pulled a chair over and sat down next to him.
“The concept sounds interesting.” He studied the laptop screen as she slid her fingers over the mouse pad and tried to show him. The laptop froze and she slapped her hand on the counter. He gently pushed her hand away and unfroze the screen.
“I know,” she said eagerly. “Can you make it work? Miss E. says you can write software in your sleep. She says you can do anything.”
“I don’t know about ‘anything.’” He laughed. “I like to work in my pajamas.”
“You do?” She cast a sidelong glance at him. “I like a man who can joke about wearing his pj’s to work. For me, half the fun of going to work is dressing up.”
“I know you’re all about fashion.” He opened the program again and began clicking through, trying to get a feel for it. From the way the program sputtered and lagged, he knew the code hadn’t been very well written.
“How did you get into computers?” she asked, her dark brown eyes studying him.
“My father took me to a computer show in LA when I was around ten and bought all the components he’d need to build his own, because he figured it would be easy. Except it wasn’t. After a couple hours of grunting and cursing, he started making dinner, and I put the computer together.” Everything had fit exactly the way Reed had envisioned it. His father had been fascinated by Reed’s intuitive understanding of the process.
“Pretty remarkable.”
“Thank you.” She sounded impressed. He liked that. Once he had that computer operating, he discovered what it could do and he’d decided to write his own game, which he’d distributed to his friends. And from there, he’d started his own company. In the years since, he’d worked in gaming, then moved to apps for smartphones, then into computer security, and his latest endeavor had been using computers to design prosthetic limbs. He’d immersed himself in his business until his father became ill. That was when he realized he was missing out on life.
“Have you fixed it yet?” Kenzie asked.
He chuckled. “This is going to take more than a few minutes.”
“How much time?” She glanced at her watch. “I’m meeting my niece, she’s teaching me to barrel-race.”
He sat back in surprise, looking her up and down at her very fashionable dress, stiletto shoes and chunky necklace. He was having a hard time seeing her on a horse, wearing jeans, plaid shirt and cowboy boots.
“I know.” She patted him on the hand.
“What do you mean?” he asked, confused.
“I can tell from the look on your face you are trying to picture me on a horse wearing boots and a Stetson.”
“No...no... I wasn’t thinking that exactly.”
She laughed. “Sure you were. Just remember, I’m the girl with three older brothers. I may look like I stepped out of the pages of Vogue magazine every day, but at heart I’m pretty much a tomboy. Though I’m a tomboy with style.” She posed, one hand on her hip and a flirty look on her face.
He tried to imagine her on a horse, but the image failed to materialize.
She held up a hand. “Wait a moment. I’ll show you.” She walked to one of the bedrooms.
Lost in a cloud, unable to take his eyes away from her, he watched her body sway back and forth gracefully. The door closed with a click and he turned back to the laptop. If he was going to solve her problems, he was going to need his computer with him and her distracting beauty gone. The challenge excited him. He hadn’t felt excited in a while.
The bedroom door opened and Kenzie reappeared wearing jeans, a white shirt, red leather cowboy boots and a matching red hat. She posed for him like a runway model. For a moment he thought his heart would stutter to a stop. She walked back and forth, her hips swaying and he couldn’t catch his breath. She looked adorable, delectable and so sexy he wanted to kiss her.
“You