Chapter 1

ARIANA

CHAPTER ONE

As a forensic accountant, I generally work from home through files sent to me and the internet, so when the power goes out for the fourth time this week, I scream and slam my hands down on my desk.

Outside my window, the sun is shining.

"What the hell?" I get up and go to the front door to see if I can tell if my neighbors have power.

In the street is a truck from the electric company. Two men are on the ground staring up at the one man in a cherry picker.

That guy up there is the reason for my problems. He's the reason I've just lost an entire morning of investigating.

I storm out of the house without bothering to put my shoes on. I point up at him. "You. You're ruining my life! Get down here right now. Who do you think you are turning off my power in the middle of the day."

The cherry picker starts to lower.

One of the men on the ground says, "Um, ma'am, we knocked on your door, but no one answered."

Ignoring him, I focus on the source of my problems. As the bucket reaches the ground, a man steps out. He's tall and broad. The sunshine bounces off of his orange hard hat. His eyes sparkle with mirth.

That fuels my fury. "Are you laughing at me? I lost an entire morning of important work."

He scans me from head to toe as if assessing the danger. "I'm sorry, but like, Joe said, we knocked, and no one answered."

My thoughts wander back to when I was examining an interesting bank document and there was a noise that I brushed aside so I could continue to concentrate. Blinking, I refocus on the lineman. "You knocked on my door?"

His smile erases all logical thought from my mind. "We did. Miss…?"

Is he flirting with me? No. It's my imagination. Why am I imagining a hot electrical worker flirting with me? Maybe it's because I stopped dating a year ago and only socialize with family. In my defense, I have an enormous family. I'm studying him when I remember he asked me something. "Oh, um. I'm Ariana Lane."

It seems impossible, but his smile gets even sexier. "Ariana Lane. I met a guy named Jacob Lane at Billy's Mill and Tap Room last week. Your brother?"

"Cousin."

Joe laughs. "You'll meet a Lane around every corner if you stay in Roseville long enough."

He's not wrong. I shrug.

The guy from the cherry picker says, "Well, Miss Lane, I'm sorry we interrupted your work. We're fixing the problem that caused the outages during the storms. Give me an hour and we'll be out of your hair and you'll have power back."

I start calculating how long it will take me to get the work I lost back now that I know where to find it. "Fine."

"I'm Tyler Strand since you asked." He winks.

"I didn't." Then I realize he's being sarcastic. It's not unusual for me to miss a joke, especially when thinking about numbers.

The other two men chuckle and go back to the truck.

Tyler steps close and lowers his voice. "Would you like to have dinner with me?"

Of all the options of things this stranger might say to me, that was not on my radar. "I don't know you."

"That's what dates are for. We can get to know each other."

I must look as stupefied as I feel.

He holds up a palm toward me. "I'm not a creep. I moved to town about a month ago. I work hard and have no terrible habits. I'm a nice man and you're beautiful and…"

"And what?" I suppose I should thank him for the compliment, but I don't.

Moving one more step closer, he studies my face. "And I can practically see you thinking, which makes me curious about what's happening inside that head."

"I doubt you'll find it interesting." It's the truth. None of it ever interests anyone but me and maybe a hundred or so other mathematicians in the world.

He shrugs. "I'll meet you at Billy's Mill at seven tonight and you can see if you're right. Consider it an apology for ruining your morning."

The local bar will be full of people who know me and likely a few of my relatives will be there. I'll be safe and Tyler is very attractive, even if he will be disappointed with what he learns is going on in my mind. Maybe I'll get a needed dose of human contact out of it. "Seven. I'll see you there." I walk back inside my house.

Leaning my back against the inside of the front door, I can't believe I just agreed to a date. I hate dating. It always ends badly after it goes horribly. Either the guy realizes I'm a total numbers nerd and is turned off or he hates women who are smarter than him.

As good-looking as Tyler Strand is, he will not like it when he learns I can split the atom and have done the math for that a dozen times in my mind. I shake off the stream of calculations.

I have to kill an hour. In my bedroom, I change into workout clothes, grab my earbuds, and head out the back door. With nineties rock and roll blaring in my ears, I head to the park for a run. I give the linemen a wave and avoid looking up at the cherry picker though my cheeks heat at the thought of the man fixing my voltage problem.

At five, I call my sister Meghan. "I have a date."

There's silence on the other end of the phone for a full three seconds. "I'll be over in five minutes."

I pull everything from my closet and spread it all out on my bed. Jeans are appropriate to the venue. I grab a dark pair of skinny jeans that I never wear and put away all the other pants.

Most of my tops are either business-y button-downs or T-shirts with cute things like "Coffee is My Best Friend" or "If You Don't Like Cats, We Can't Be Friends." I put those back in the dresser.

As if they know, my cats, Digit and Cipher start crying in the other room. I find them standing at the screen door, staring outside at Meghan as she exits her car and gathers something from the trunk. My cats love their Auntie Meghan.

"Alright, boys, back up and let her in." I nudge them away from the door when Meghan is close, then take the clothes from her. Three feminine tops in pink, blue, and black.

"Who is he?" She crouches down and pets the cats, one with each hand.

Cipher purrs and rolls to his back for belly rubs.

Digit arches against her hand and shifts his head this way and that so she gets all the spots.

I clutch her clothes to my chest. I have no idea why I said yes to this. "His name is Tyler Strand. He knocked out my power this morning."

She blinks at me with wide green eyes. We actually look a lot alike except my eyes are blue. "Can you clarify?"

"He's a lineman with the electrical company. He came to fix my voltage problem and upgrade the line that keeps getting messed up when it storms. I lost the entire morning's work, threw a fit, and got a date."

Much to the cats' dismay, Meghan stands up. "Does he know what you…do?"

"No. Why? Should I have told him?" I think about the entire conversation from the morning and wonder where I could have inserted my occupation. If there was a spot, it eludes me.

She smiles. "No." She takes the clothes from me and walks into my bedroom. Staring at my options, she says, "We need to take you shopping for ‘casual nice,' Ari. You have a big gap in your closet between heading off to a Mensa conference and lounging on the couch with a bucket of ice cream."

Deflated, I slump onto the bed and flop back amongst the clothes. "I should cancel. I'll call the bar and ask them to tell Tyler."

"No," she says sharply. "I don't know what made you say yes to this guy, but it's good for you to socialize with the opposite sex. Brock was a long time ago, and I'm willing to bet you haven't been out with a man since then."

Even the sound of his name makes my chest tighten. I thought Brock and I would stay together. We made sense. He loves numbers. I love numbers. I'm socially awkward. He's awkward in every way. We talked about mathematical problems. It should have been enough. However, he met someone else and told me he was in love.

I never loved Brock. He made sense in my life and I liked him. Honestly, I doubt love is real. I doubt anything that I can't do an equation for. "I think I said yes to Tyler because when he smiles, it shows in his eyes like stars."

Meghan's mouth gapes. "Was that a romantic simile from my sister?"

I think about it. Was it? I suppose it might sound that way, even though I was being literal. "He's esthetically pleasing."

An unattractive snort followed by a laugh escapes Meghan and she puts her hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry, Ari. I don't mean to laugh, but you never talk about men."

"Maybe we should. I mean, that's what sisters do, isn't it?" I look in the mirror as she holds the three tops she brought up in front of me.

"Wear the blue. It goes with your eyes." She starts hanging everything back up in my closet. "You are a great sister. I wouldn't change anything about you."

"You don't want to talk about men?" I never know what to say or not say, but Meghan doesn't judge me.

She grabs my work blouses and hangs them, then puts my jeans in the middle of the mattress with the blue top. She pulls a pair of white flats from my closet and sets them on the floor at the end of the bed. "It would be a lot of fun to talk guys with you, but talking about how to get a spaceship out of the atmosphere is fine, too."

Part of me knows she's teasing, but also that she means it. My sister is smart and funny. She is always the life of any party, whereas as I usually find a quiet corner to hide in. I'm not complaining, it's good to have family who understands me, and I like to watch the party from that safe place.

"You'll look great in this. Just be yourself. If that's not for him, it's his loss." There's worry in her eyes.

"You think I should cancel?" I'm terrible at reading people, but Meghan's body language is awkward. That usually means she's saying something she wants to be true but doesn't believe.

She hugs me. "I think you should go and have a good time. Everyone at Billy's knows you and the entire family. Half the clan will be there on a Friday night. Just don't let this guy try to twist you into someone you're not."

"I don't think I can be anyone else." I'm sure I'm missing a subtle point, but it's lost on me, as much as I want to grasp it.

"That's true. Do you want me to help you with hair and makeup?"

"Yes. Just not too much fuss." I walk into the bathroom and get my small bag of cosmetics. In the mirror, my cheeks are flushed. Adrenaline. It's not a bad look.