"Never."
"Hazel even made little Halloween marshmallows," Penny added.
She took a bite of a donut Danish. There was that moan again. I gritted my teeth.
"I love pumpkin everything!" Penny exclaimed.
Hazel put my cup of iced coffee on the counter. Then I heard aclang, and there was a metal straw. Penny choke-laughed on her donut.
"I know you don't like the paper, so I found a metal straw!" Hazel said brightly.
The only reason I didn't completely lose it was that she was Archer's girlfriend. "Thank you," I forced out, taking the straw. I had no intention of using it.
Penny took big gulps of her coffee as we walked out of the café. I opened the door for her since her arms were full of pumpkin goods. My whole car smelled like pumpkin-spice latte. I couldn't even roll down the window because it was broken.
"Do you want some hummus?" Penny asked me, opening the container when we were back in my office.
"I thought you were saving it for lunch."
"I've had a rough day," she said. "And it looks like you did, too, what with the metal straw."
"It's disgusting."
"Maybe it could just be your personal straw. You know, then it would only be your germs in it," she said, sitting on the edge of my desk. She was wearing a wool sweater tucked into a red plaid skirt. She leaned over to rummage in the paper sack for the bread.
I saw a slight stripe of creamy-white skin before she tucked her sweater back into her skirt. I shook my head. I did not want to be my father, infatuated with every woman who walked past me. If for some godforsaken reason I ever settled down, as they said, it would be with one woman for life.
"You're hangry," Penny said, holding out a wedge of pita with pumpkin hummus on it. "You need protein in the morning."
"I already had Bulletproof coffee."
"Then why do you need more iced coffee?"
"It's part of my routine."
"Maybe you should mix it up a little," she coaxed, holding out the slice of pita.
I took it from her hand. I was not letting her feed me.
"It is tasty," I said grudgingly. "Though Hazel is an excellent cook, so it's not surprising that whatever she made would taste good."
"You need a mini fridge and a microwave in here," Penny said, settling down on the couch. I needed to find her a desk, if only because watching her lounge on the couch was starting to be a bit much. It was almost intimate the way she put her stocking-clad foot on the edge of the sofa. Her legs in the black ribbed tights swung back and forth, almost giving me a view under her skirt. Did she know? Was she doing this on purpose?
Focus.I forced myself to look back at my screen.
While Penny sat on the couch and typed on the laptop, I went through my most complex and most important plan.
My father was a scourge on the earth. He'd fathered more than a hundred children with nine wives. I had almost rescued all of my brothers out of the cult. The older ones were scattered around. The youngest ones were all in Harrogate. There were two more baby boys in the compound. They would be easy enough to grab. My father willingly took bribes from me for the boys. But there was still the matter of the Svensson sisters.
In a polygamist cult, for obvious reasons, girls were in high demand. This was a delicate situation. It required a scalpel, not a machine gun. If he thought I was trying to rescue my sisters, my father would have them all dispersed to the ends of the earth. It would take years to track them all down.
"I found it!" Penny yelled triumphantly.
I growled low in my throat. I had almost forgotten she was in my office. "What?"
"Plastic straws. I ordered them, had them sent to South Carolina, and I have a guy who's going to drive them up here in a week." She pumped her fist. "I am on a roll. What else do you need me to do?"
I looked at my to-do list. "Win the biotech company."
