Caged(145)

"All right, all right, all right! Just stop talking at once, both of you," Presley pleaded.

"Pres, since I'll have you switch and try to access everything on my computer, I need to know that you're thinking clearly. I don't need you randomly clicking shit in a panic."

A puff of air exploded in the phone. "I am calm."

"Good. You're at my computer now?"

"Yeah. What's your main password?" Presley asked.

"OU812."

"Seriously? That is a killer password. And now you'll have to change it. Sorry. Okay, I'm on. What next?"

Molly walked her through three possible solutions and none worked. So she'd have to resort to telling them her secret. "Put me on speaker."

"Done."

"Hey, Mol. Sorry to pull you away," Amery said.

"No worries. This party sucks ass. Anyway, see the mirrored tile icon on the screen? Click on it. Same password."

"What is this?"

"A backup program in case the cloud doesn't work. Wednesday night before I left I backed up yours and Amery's hard drives and everything on the cloud to a different cloud. So you should be able to access it."

The keyboard clicked. Then Presley said, "Motherfucking hell yeah. It's all there. Every bit of it."

"Molly, you are a genius, and I have no idea what I would do without you," Amery said. "Seriously. You cannot ever leave."

Molly laughed, but it felt damn good to be needed as an integral part of Hardwick Designs. "I'm not a genius; I'm just doing my job." Which meant she never wanted to be accused of not doing her job, so in her paranoia, she had set up a third backup program-not that she'd admit that unless she absolutely had to.

Amery declared, "I'm giving you a raise. We'll talk as soon as you get back."

Holy crap. She hadn't seen that one coming. "Okay." 

"You saved our bacon by going whole hog with a secondary backup," Presley said.

Both Molly and Amery groaned at Presley's pun.

"How are things going with Deacon's family?" Amery asked.

"They're a bunch of rich assholes, for the most part. We're at a country club right now, and I want to stab myself in the eye with the tiny olive fork so I have an excuse to leave."

"Try to remember you're in love with him, not his family."

"So noted, boss."

Guilt prodded her. If Amery had forgone a trip with Ronin to catch up on work, then Molly should be in Denver working alongside her, not stuck in Texas, where she seemed to be of little value to anyone.

She needed to talk to Deacon right away.





CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE



THE morning had started out with a bang, but this night was fizzling.

Immediately after they'd arrived, Deacon's dad started dragging him off to meet people. When it seemed like he might be able to spend more than five minutes with Molly, some crisis had occurred at Hardwick Designs, so she'd disappeared with her cell phone to do her job and troubleshoot the problem.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed since Molly had left him waiting by the door, but he was bored out of his fucking mind. It led him to imagine how Molly must have felt, left to her own devices all day and most of tonight.

He'd make it up to her.

In trying to avoid the bar-too tempting to get liquored up-and steering clear of his dad's intention to introduce him to everyone and their fucking dog, he meandered down the hallway.

It'd been years since he'd stepped foot in the Barclay Country Club. Looked like the club still put up pictures of members and their accomplishments. Even club members' grandchildren's accomplishments were lauded.

These people needed to get a damn life.

But he couldn't help smiling when he saw the newest photo on the wall. A picture of Warren after he'd won the annual junior division golf championship.

Deacon meandered, recognizing few faces in the pictures. He stopped when he reached the last grouping of photos and saw a picture of his granddad at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The caption read:

Jefferson Westerman, at the official opening of the new golf-cart cleaning facility, generously donated by his sons, Bing and Clark, of JFW Development, in his name.

The picture was at least twenty years old. Strange to think his granddad had always looked that age to him.

There was an even older picture next to it, with the entire Westerman family. No caption indicating the occasion. But Deacon had a vague memory of the official family photo. Mostly of Clive bawling like a baby so the photographer had to retake the picture a million times. In the photo, he and Dante sat side by side, dressed identically. Even studying the picture now, he didn't know which one of the blond mop-headed twins was him.

Next in line was a picture of Tag in a cap and gown. The caption listed him as class valedictorian. He snorted. Tag had always been an overachiever.