“You’re right. I couldn’t agree more,” she told Cassie, referring to Bean’s sexiness.
“Agree about what, Annabelle?”
Cassie and Annabelle turned to face the archway that led to a short hall beyond. A tall, well-built man dressed in a white button-down shirt and khaki slacks stood in the hallway, a pile of folders in his hands, a folded laptop tucked beneath one arm, and a red pen stuck behind his left ear. He had shoulder-length, wavy brown hair and wore wire-rimmed glasses. The eyes behind those glasses were a vivid light green that lent his face an almost supernatural appeal. They were the kind of intelligent, beautiful, powerful eyes that melted women’s hearts in libraries across the globe.
Max Anderson held a PhD in Image Analysis, Graphics and Visualization. But, much to many school girls’ grand disappointment, instead of taking a job as a professor at a university and setting out on a tenure track, he’d gone the route of entrepreneurship. As a result, he was making twice the money. But he was also working more than twice as hard. He had such an intense need to prove that he could do better in the field than in academia, that he never refused a job. And all of that extra work – work he couldn’t really handle – ended up in Annabelle’s lap.
She was the best graphic designer around. It was just a fact. She had the eye for minute detail that the best plastic surgeons wished they had, and the compulsive need for perfection that their patients wished they had.
“Nothing, Max. How is Sam?”
“He’s hanging in there,” Max answered, his voice softening a touch.
Sam was Max’s dog. He was fifteen years old and not doing so hot. The truth was, he was dying and it was breaking Max’s heart. Every day, her boss looked a bit more tired. And every day, Annabelle wondered if that was going to be the day that Max’s son called to give him the bad news.
As bad as it was for Max, who had adopted him from the shelter when he was a puppy, it was far worse for Max’s son, Dylan. The boy had been two when they’d gone to the pound together and Dylan had actually picked Sam out. They’d grown up together.
When he was eleven, Dylan’s mother was murdered in a gas station parking lot. The act was investigated, but eventually labeled an armed robbery and Teresa’s file was closed.
Suffice it to say, his mother’s death wreaked havoc on Dylan’s life. If his bond with his dog wasn’t tight before, it was then. They became inseparable.
Annabelle knew, through stories Max had shared with her, that during the first few months after his mother’s murder, Dylan had been allowed to take Sam to school with him. He was non-communicative and barely eating but anytime anyone tried to take Sam from his side, he became enraged.
In the six years since Teresa’s murder, Dylan had come a long way. He was lucky to have a father who more than stepped up to the plate, assumed duties and responsibilities of both parents, and helped his son through some incredibly difficult years.
As a result, and despite his mother’s death, Dylan was on the Dean’s list at his high school and was determined to land a scholarship that would allow him to attend the same Ivy League University that his mother attended in her youth.
Annabelle had a good relationship with Dylan. She figured she was one of the lucky few in the world who did. There was something about the kid’s personality that clicked with her own and when they were around each other, they naturally fell into an easy, comfortable companionship. He possessed one of the most imaginative minds she’d ever come across and her own love of fantasy and science fiction complimented that internal creativity. He loved to write. She’d read a few of his stories and had very little doubt that with just a little bit of direction from some of the creative writing professors at the University, his talents would make him a star in the literary world.
Max cleared his throat and straightened. “How is your car? Jack said it died on its way out of the parking lot. You were lucky he just happened to be there.”
Annabelle didn’t fail to notice the extremely slight note of jealousy in Max’s tone. No one else may have noticed such a thing, but Annabelle was, after all, a detail person. And she was good enough at reading people to know good and well what Max’s feelings were toward her. Matters in Annabelle’s life were complicated, indeed.
“To be honest, it’s presently out of commission. Jack let me borrow his bike. I hope it doesn’t rain today,” she added wistfully, more to deflect any derogatory comments that mention of the bike might have brought on than anything else. Max wasn’t overly fond of the idea of Annabelle on what he termed a “powerful and heavy machine” that was, as far as he was concerned, “too much bike” for her. She could see where he was coming from. A lot of novice bikers went out and bought motorcycles that were too heavy for them and then quickly laid them down, bringing a bad rap to a lot of shorter, lighter bikers across the nation. However, she wasn’t one of those novice riders. She’d taken the safety course long ago and a refresher course just recently. She had a lot of miles under her belt, and she’d figured out long ago that it wasn’t your weight or strength, but your technique and skill that actually counted. But arguing the point with Max was moot. It wasn’t logic dictating his opinion. It was fear. He’d lost too much in life already. He wasn’t ready to lose another friend. Or, employee, for that matter.
To her relief and, admittedly, concern, Max didn’t say anything at all. Instead, he simply nodded and his face took on a clouded expression. His green eyes virtually shuttered themselves against her as he took a slow, deep breath and then straightened, turning his attention to the folders in his hands.
“I know you’ve got a full load already, but we got a great offer late last night from Dobson. The firm is adding two new attorneys and changing their name. They decided to go ahead and change their entire site while they were at it, since it was rather outdated. They’re paying us well, so there’s a bonus in it if you can get it done by next Friday.” He moved forward and handed her a file folder. She took it without saying anything, knowing he wasn’t done yet.
“Great work on the Fresh Foods file. They really loved the logo. They’re wondering, though, whether you could change the color of the background to green. They feel it would better represent their ‘theme’.”
“No problem, but I’ll have to switch out a few things to make sure everything is contrasting properly after the change. Any particular shade of green they have in mind?”
“Nope,” Max smiled. “Just pick a ‘freshy’ one.” He handed her another folder and then turned his attention to the last one in his hands.
“Mackenzie is a whole different story.”
“Let me guess. They didn’t like it.”
“They like it enough, but they’ve added another three pages of required data, more than thirty new links and two rather complex inter-active charts.” Max shook his head, squinting his gorgeous eyes as if he suddenly felt pain behind them. “They want it by Thursday.”
Annabelle bit the inside of her cheek and slowly drew in a breath through her nose. She was a graphic designer, not a web page designer, but The Mackenzie Corporation had pretty much managed to turn her into one over the last four months. The CIO was impossible to deal with, demanding and fickle, and both Max and Annabelle had quickly come to regret Max’s decision to contract with them. So, with this new information, Annabelle’s initial instinct was to hastily retort, “There’s no way it’s going to happen.” But she could see the tension in Max’s expression and his posture was rigid with it. So, instead, she said, “Can we get an extension?”
“I’ve tried. They scheduled a staff meeting for Friday morning and the new material is its focus.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Anna. We’re stuck in this contract with them. Either we finish it and see it all the way through, or we get nothing. And you’ve already done so much.”