His Executive Sweetheart. Christine Rimmer

legs were all tangled up in the pedals. She grunted and struggled and tried to get free. But it wasn’t working and she was getting more and more frustrated. She was on the verge of forgetting all about her eight-year-old dignity, just about to start bawling like a baby in sheer misery.

      But then a pair of dusty boots appeared on the street about three feet from where she lay in a clumsy tangle. She looked up two long, strong legs encased in faded jeans, past a black T-shirt, into the face of the oldest of those bad Bravo boys, Aaron.

      He knelt at her side. “Hey. You okay?”

      She didn’t know what to say to him. She pressed her lips together and glared to show him that she wasn’t scared of him and she wasn’t going to cry.

      He said, “Here. I’ll help you.” He gently took her beneath the arms and slid her out from under the bike. She was on her feet before she had time to shout at him to let go of her.

      He stood her up and then he knelt again, just long enough to right the bike. “There you go.”

      Her tongue felt like a slab of wood in her mouth. She knew if she tried to answer, some strange, ugly sound would be all that came out. She managed a nod.

      He frowned at her. “You sure you’re all right?”

      She nodded again.

      “Maybe you should get a smaller bike….”

      The cursor on her computer screen blinked at her. Celia ordered her mind back to the present and read the rest of Jane’s note. Key where it always is. Jane.

      She typed, Can’t wait. See you. And sent it off.

      Then she shut down the computer and went to bed. She didn’t sleep all that well. She kept obsessing over what Aaron might say when she told him she had to be at the airport at four.

      He did depend on her. He could be angry that she was leaving for two days on such short notice. He often needed her on the weekends.

      Well, if he said he needed her, she’d just have to cancel, she’d have to call Jane and—

      Celia sat up in bed. “Oh, what is the matter with me?”

      She flopped back down.

      Of course, she wouldn’t cancel. She’d promised her dear friend she’d be there, and she would not break her word.

      And what right did Aaron have to be angry? She’d worked weekend after weekend and never complained.

      She was going. And that was it. No matter what Aaron said.

       Chapter Two

       A s it turned out, she needn’t have stayed awake stewing all night.

      Aaron was staring at his computer screen when she mentioned her plans. “Hmm,” he said. “You’ll be here until four?”

      “Well, I’d have to leave by three or so.”

      “Three…” He frowned at the screen, punched a few keys, then added, “No problem. God knows you deserve a little time to yourself. Your parents all right?”

      “I’m not going to visit them. They don’t live there anymore. None of my family lives there anymore. Remember I told you my folks moved to Phoenix last year?”

      “Yeah, that’s right. You did.” He typed in a few more commands. She knew that he hadn’t really heard her. The next time she went home, he’d be telling her to enjoy her visit with her parents.

      “I’ll be staying with my friend, Jane Elliott,” she volunteered brightly—as if he really cared or needed to know.

      “Jane. The mayor’s daughter, right?”

      The Elliotts were the closest thing New Venice had to an aristocracy. Jane’s father was a judge, like his father before him.

      “No,” Celia said. “It’s Jane’s uncle, J. T., who’s the mayor.”

      A half smile lifted one side of that wonderful, sculpted mouth of his—though he never took his eyes off his computer screen. “J. T. Elliott. Her uncle. Got it.”

      J. T. Elliott had once been the county sheriff. If Celia remembered right, he’d locked Aaron up in his jail more than once in the distant past. Or if not Aaron, then surely his baby brother, Cade, who was the wildest of the three bad Bravo boys.

      “So it’s all right, then, if I go?”

      “Of course. Have a good time.”

      Somehow, it felt worse that he didn’t seem to care she was leaving than if he’d been a jerk and demanded she cancel her plans and remain at his beck and call the whole weekend through.

      Celia told herself to snap out of it. She was getting what she’d asked for and she would take it and be happy about it.

      She worked until two-thirty and she was on that plane, flying to Reno, by a little after five that evening.

      It was the second bottle of Chianti that did it. Celia probably could have kept her mouth shut if they’d stuck with just one.

      But it was such a perfect evening. The three of them—friends since the first day of kindergarten, bosom buddies all through high school—together again, like in the old days.

      Jane had cooked. Italian. Something with angel-hair pasta and lots of garlic and sun-dried tomatoes. After the meal, the three of them kicked off their shoes and gathered around the big fireplace in the front parlor. Jane had the stereo on low, set to Random, playing a mix of everything from Tony Bennett to Natalie Imbruglia.

      Jillian raised her glass. “Triple Threat.” That was the three of them, the Triple Threat. Though, of course, they really hadn’t been much of a threat to anyone.

      They were three nice girls from a small town, girls who studied hard in school and got good grades and didn’t get breasts as early as they would have liked—well, not Celia and Jillian, anyway. At the age of twelve, Jane had suddenly sprouted a pair of breasts that instantly became the envy of even the most popular girls at Mark Twain Middle School, eighth-graders included.

      They were all well behaved. Yep. Jane and Jillian and Celia were good girls to the core, their transgressions so minor they generally went unremarked. They only dreamed of rebellions—at least until their senior year, when Jane ran off to Reno and married Rusty Jenkins.

      That had been a real mess, Jane’s marriage to Rusty. He was trouble, capital T, that Rusty. He’d ended up getting himself killed three years later. Jane had scrupulously avoided all forms of rebellion ever since.

      Jillian had tried marriage, too, when she was twenty-two. Her husband had a problem with monogamy—a problem he never bothered to reveal before the wedding. But it turned out that Benny Simmerson found being faithful way too limiting. That marriage had lasted a little over a year.

      “Triple Threat,” echoed Jane. Celia said it, too. The three of them clinked glasses and drank.

      Jillian grabbed a sapphire-blue chenille pillow from the end of the couch, propped it against the front of an easy chair and used it for a backrest. “So, how’s construction going next door?”

      About six months ago, Cade Bravo had bought the house next to Jane’s. Since then, he’d been remodeling it.

      Jane sipped more wine. “Who knows? He’ll probably never move in.”

      “Why do you say that?” prodded Jillian. “What? He’s never there?”

      “He’s there. Now and then. You can see he’s got the new roof on and the exterior painted. And I do hear hammering inside every once in a while. I’d say construction is moving along.”

      “The question,” said Jillian, “is why? Why buy a house here? I heard he’s got a huge place in Vegas. And one in Tahoe, too, right? What’s New Venice got to offer that he can’t