Chapter Fifteen

Faith saw Jandy’s response and laughed.

OMG DEETS!!!, it said.

She texted back call you later, hit send, then dropped her phone into her purse and turned her attention back to the extremely attractive man in front of her.

“What can I help with?” she asked.

“I’ve got it under control,” he responded, moving bacon around the pan.

“But the scenery in here just improved exponentially,” he noted as he leaned over to kiss her.

“You know,” she reminded him, “we are supposed to have dinner tonight at my place.”

“I haven’t forgotten. And I know what a big step that was for you to take.”

“Kind of pales in comparison to last night, I’d say.”

He pondered that a moment as he pulled crispy bacon out of the pan, setting it down on paper towels to drain a bit.

“You know what? I don’t agree. Here’s why.”

He paused as he made sure the waffle maker was heated up and ready to go.

“I think that a lot of times, physical intimacy is easier than emotional intimacy. It’s harder to trust than it is to roll around naked with someone new, since just rolling around usually can’t cause as much hurt as trusting can.”

He looked intently at her for a moment.

“So, I still think you offering to let me see where you live was a pretty big deal all its own.”

The look on her face made his eyebrow go up.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said honestly. “Just trying to wrap my head around the fact that you’re in my life. I wasn’t expecting you. I wasn’t even looking. But here you are. You’re gorgeous, built, smart, funny, passionate. And for some unknown reason, you want me. Pretty much everything I had hoped to find but had given up on.”

“Oh, honey,” he said, and kissed her gently as he handed her a plate of food.

“Seriously,” she said. “And I cannot get my head around it. It doesn’t feel real. I keep expecting a camera crew to peek out from somewhere and yell “PSYCH!” or something.”

She grabbed the syrup, poured some on her waffle.

“Like this is all someone’s idea of a really elaborate and horrible joke.”

He stopped what he was doing, came to her, cupped her face in his hands and rested his forehead on hers.

“No joke, baby. Not even close to one. You are where I am meant to be. I feel it down to my core. I know how badly you’ve been hurt, so you need to ease into this. I totally get that. It’s okay. Just know, I am all in, and I am not going anywhere.”

He kissed her, then released her to attend to the waffle that was beginning to smell close to overdone.

And to lighten the mood a bit, he teasingly added, “And don’t think I didn’t notice that ‘gorgeous’ and ‘built’ came before ‘smart’ on your list.”

She grinned.

“I wanted to see if you were listening.”

***

After breakfast, they headed downstairs together.

“I am going to run home for a while. I want to check in with my boss, see the status of things with that damn virus,” she told him.

And she winked at him, then kissed him before heading home.

Back at her townhouse, Faith changed clothes, and called her boss. And the news wasn’t good. Zero forward progress made. As more time passed it would become more and more difficult to undo the damage. Evidently, the virus wasn’t just a ransomware, it also replicated through its host environment; the damage was multiplying exponentially.

The IT group had also discovered that it had embedded itself in the company’s website. This meant that anyone even navigating to their site could have the virus transmitted to their systems as well, even if nothing on the page was clicked at all.

Faith put her head in her left hand as she held her phone in her right, listening to her boss tell her all the bad news.

Then he said the thing she’d most dreaded hearing.

“Faith, we may not come back from this. The IT group is overwhelmed, they’ve never seen anything like it before. They’re recommending we call in the FBI.”

“Sir,” she offered, “my brother happens to be an FBI agent up in Virginia. If you like, I can call him and get his advice on what to do next.”

“Please do, and keep me posted,” her boss replied despondently. “Forty years in business, Faith. I built this thing from the ground up. Now I think it may be gone. I hope I’m not right, but it doesn’t look good.”

“Let me make some calls, and I will call you back,” she said firmly, trying to be reassuring. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

She hung up, took a deep breath, and called her baby brother.

***

“Hey, Faith! What’s up?”

“Nathan, I need some advice.”

She quickly walked him through what had happened at her company.

“I’m on it,” he responded immediately. “Call you back in just a few.”

Having gotten his IT man’s take on it, Nathan rang Faith back ten minutes later and passed on Mitch’s direct number.

“Call him right now, Faith. Mitch thinks he can still fix the damage, but he’d have to move quickly.”

“Nathan, I owe you huge for this! Love you. Gotta go.”

***

Faith called her boss back and passed on the data. She could hear the renewed hope in his voice.

“Keep me posted, sir,” she said. “You’re welcome, sir. Bye.”

And felt renewed hope herself.

I was always fearful of my baby brother being a lawman, she mused. But man am I glad he followed that path.

Now, she could concentrate on the main reason she’d come back to her house, which was to get the meal for tonight started. Good old comfort food. Roast with carrots and potatoes.

She figured Rick hadn’t had that in a while – roasts always seemed way too big to bother with cooking for just one person – and it was one of her favorite meals to prepare.

She rubbed some seasoned salt and black pepper onto the meat, then browned it on all sides in her cast iron skillet before placing it gently into the crock pot.

Her next step was to place wedges of onion around and on top of the roast.

Finally, her secret weapons – cream of mushroom soup, and brown gravy mix. These she whisked together with water and poured over the meat.

She checked her watch.

Ten-thirty a.m.

Rick wouldn’t have the shop closed until eight p.m. She put the lid on and set her crock pot for low power for nine hours. The roast would be done to a perfect fork-tender in about seven hours, with two left over to add in the carrots and potatoes so that they wouldn’t overcook. It was a rhythm she’d perfected over time through trial and error.

Satisfied that dinner was handled, she glanced around her house. Everything was tidy already; it just needed a couple of minor housekeeping items done.

So, she dusted, and she swept, and she made sure the bathroom was clean and presentable, with fresh towels.

She changed the sheets on her bed, putting on the satin set - look at you, putting on the sexy set, her inner voice teased and made her blush – and took the ones she’d stripped off to the washing machine.

Her phone rang as she was starting the washer.