He counted every one of twenty minutes; Luke hadn"t returned, and Annie hadn"t left.
"I think I found your problem. You have some invoices that the tax portion is wrong, plus it"s adding wrong, which is strange because it"s supposed to auto-calculate. I"ll do a manual override to fix it."
Within minutes she had it fixed, just as Luke said.
Brent ran his fingers through his hair. "Thanks. How much do we owe you?"
"Nothing. It didn"t take long. Consider it returning a favor."
When he"d watched her at night and stayed until she closed up and drove away, it hadn"t been a favor for Annie. It had been a favor for Luke.
Just as she stood, Luke walked in the door, his ear to his cell phone.
"Thanks, Walter, I hope you feel better soon." He returned his phone to his pocket. "I told Walter we had a problem but not to worry, we had it fixed. He said he would be in Friday, like usual."
Brent turned to Annie. "If you wouldn"t mind, can I hire you for a few hours on Friday to go over what you found with Walter? He"ll need to see what was wrong, and what you had to do to fix it."
Annie nodded. "Sure. But it"s-"
Brent held up one hand to interrupt her. "I want to pay you for your time. No more favors."
She opened her mouth then shook her head. "Okay. See you Friday."
Chapter 3.
Brent watched every step Annie made as she walked in. She went straight to Walter"s desk but didn"t sit down. She plunked a coffee mug on the corner then looked around, almost like she was nervous.
Brent sighed and walked toward her. "Walter"s not coming. He called in and said he was still feeling sick and didn"t want to spread his germs."
Her eyes widened, and she looked straight at him.
All he could do was stare back. Something was different about her, but he couldn"t place it. Or maybe it was because for the past few days, whenever they didn"t have a customer, Luke had been singing Annie"s praises, repeating what Cindy had said about Annie doing a great job while they were gone. Adding to that, apparently now one of the mechanics had developed a crush on her.
In a way, he could see that happening. If he hadn"t known about the way Annie had treated Cindy, she could be a very likable woman.
Annie reached for her cup. "I guess I should go then."
Brent shook his head. "Luke thinks we should hire you to help with our month-end financials."
"I thought your regular accountant did that."
"He does, but Walter"s been falling behind. Cindy said you might be open to try freelancing, so Luke wants to hire you for two days a month. Would that work for you?"
She smiled so brightly she almost beamed. "Yes, it would. I"ve been thinking that instead of getting a job and going all the way downtown every day, I would work from home and start my own business."
"That"s kind of what Walter does. We don"t need someone full-time."
"Luke told me Walter works for a bigger company that contracts out smaller jobs."
"Exactly," Brent said. "Now I"ve already logged in. We need you to check all these orders from the past week then do the deposit."
He showed Annie how they entered their invoicing then left her alone. But still, he was going to keep an eye on her.
Annie didn"t know whether to jump for joy or run for the hills in terror.
Brent and Luke"s company was small, so their project should have been easy, but because their company owned an entire fleet of cars, there were many liabilities, especially the insurance. From what she"d seen, they operated smoothly and ran at a profit.
Once she became accustomed to their procedure, checking the invoices and entering their expenses wasn"t difficult. However, when she started to enter the deposit, the same thing that happened to Luke happened to her. Everything she"d entered that had been paid for reconciled, but a couple of older invoices didn"t balance with the credits when she entered them into the general ledger.
She didn"t want to accuse their accountant, but she had to make Brent and Luke aware that he"d made the same mistake a number of times. Perhaps a reminder for Walter to be more careful wasn"t out of line.
Or maybe it was out of line. She knew Brent and Luke had been using the same accountant since they"d started their business. She"d only graduated from college a couple of months ago, and while she had a degree in accounting now, Walter was a CPA.
No, that didn"t make her bad or inaccurate. She was just inexperienced. The bottom line was that the ledgers balanced or they didn"t. If she was going to do the job they were paying her to do, she had to make them aware.
Just not today. For today, she would fix the errors and go forward.
Before she knew it, Brent flipped the sign on the door to Closed.
He turned to her. "How did you do?"
She looked down at the piles of paper and sighed. "I"ve finished most of it and balanced your bank deposit, but I haven"t started closing off your month end."
His brows furrowed. "Why not?"
Since it was her first day, she didn"t want to tell him about the errors or that correcting them had taken time she hadn"t expected.
Unless it was a test. She didn"t know how much Brent or Luke knew about general accounting or bookkeeping, but since it was inconsistent with the programming that there were errors, she wondered if they had duplicated the same thing Luke had found earlier and wondered if she would find it or be able to fix it.
Above all, she couldn"t lie or mislead him. In the pastor"s sermon last Sunday he"d shown how omission of the truth was as much a lie as telling one.
Annie cleared her throat. "I found another error that was the same as the other day, and it took me a while to fix it."
It was almost like the gears were whirring in his head. He cleared his throat. "Show me."
b.u.t.terflies warred inside her stomach as Brent dragged a chair to sit beside her. She pulled up the corrected entry and did her best to explain.
Brent straightened in the chair and stared at the monitor. "How did this happen?"
"I don"t know."
His look said she should have known, but she didn"t.
She hoped he wasn"t having second thoughts about hiring her. She hadn"t graduated at the top of her cla.s.s, but she"d still graduated with honors. If she had just fixed the problem and said nothing, he wouldn"t have doubted her-he would just have thought she was slow. Annie needed this job to build her reputation.
She studied his face. Not only would he make a very good business reference, he would also make a very good friend. Cindy and Luke thought the world of him. Of course, they never talked about how handsome Brent was. It was almost funny that his hair color was nearly the same nondescript shade of brown as hers, but his eyes were mesmerizing. Dark brown as rich chocolate, and he had lashes any woman would kill for.
As if he could tell what she was thinking, he jumped to his feet.
"It"s time to go. I need to check all the doors and lock up."
He strode to the back door and walked out. From her chair, Annie watched him as he walked through the lot and checked every car, making sure every door was locked and every trunk was closed. Every car was just a quick check, but when he got to a green car he stopped. After checking that it was locked up tight, he bent and pressed his hands to the window as he looked inside, and she thought he smiled.
Annie"s breath caught. All she could do was stare. A Mustang convertible. Her dream car.
She couldn"t afford to buy one, but as soon as she got her first paycheck, for one day, she could rent this one. It didn"t matter that so far she only had one customer. One day there would be more.
On second thought, she hadn"t done anything to celebrate her graduation from college, so she could justify the expense of taking a day and driving to experience the sights and sounds of Seattle on a hot day with the top down.
After she drove through the city she would go to Alki Beach and cruise along the beach road. Maybe she"d stop for a burger and go run to the sh.o.r.e and wiggle her toes in the water. Then she"d keep going east to Redmond and idle through Marymoor Park and wave at everyone who was out for a breath of fresh air. She"d be getting fresh air, too. Or she could boot it up the I5 and journey north to Canada and go to Vancouver"s Stanley Park. She sighed. No, she"d never make it back home in time to return the car for the one-day rental deadline.
The second Brent opened the door to come back into the office, the questions burst out: "How much to rent the Mustang? Is it available next weekend? What"s your deadline to have it back?"
He smiled and sighed. "It"s not a lease car. Sorry."
Her whole body sagged. "Then what"s it doing here?"
"We"re hiding it. The best place to hide a car is with other cars."
"Why would you hide such a magnificent car?"
"Luke bought it for Cindy"s birthday."
All she could do was stare at the car. She"d bought Cindy a sweater and matching scarf.
Brent grinned ear to ear. "Luke said Cindy"s truck is sometimes hard to park when she goes downtown, so he bought her something smaller. I can hardly wait to see her face."
"I guess this means you"re coming to the birthday party."
"Wouldn"t miss it. See you Wednesday."
Chapter 4.
Brent looked up as the bell tinkled. "Walter, it"s good to see you. Are you feeling better?"
Walter pressed his fist against his chest as he walked to his desk. "Almost, but it still hurts right here." He gave a feeble cough then sank into his chair. He flicked through the small stack of papers in his basket. "Where"s everything that piled up while I was gone?"
Brent smiled. "It"s done. Luke"s sister-in-law did it for us." His smile faltered. Annie wasn"t really a sister-in-law; was there any such thing as a stepsister-in-law? He shook his head. "Sorry. I got distracted. Annie just graduated with a degree in accounting, so we"ve hired her to help you since we"ve been getting busier." He glanced through the gla.s.s door to see Annie step outside Cindy"s shop. "Here she comes."
Instead of the relief Brent expected, Walter scowled. "I don"t want any help. I have everything all set up and it"s under control."
"Actually, Annie found a few mistakes. Luke and I needed to do a deposit, and we couldn"t get it to balance with the invoices. I"ve asked Annie to show you what happened. She said there was some kind of programming miscalculation."
Fortunately Annie walked in the door, sparing him from having to try to explain something he knew nothing about.
"Oh good," Brent said, his relief evident. "Walter, this is Annie. I"d like you to show her everything she"ll need to close off the fiscal month end, generate the profit-and-loss reports, and show her where everything is filed." He wheeled a chair for Annie to sit with Walter then went back to work.
While he worked he kept an eye on the two of them, watching Annie point out what had happened and Walter explaining as he fixed it. He didn"t understand what Walter said, but he felt certain Annie should have. Yet judging from her expression, it didn"t look like she did either.
He wasn"t as sure as Luke that hiring her was a good idea. As a recent graduate she would know the current accounting programs, but theirs was no longer current. It was the same program they"d bought when they started their business. Since not much changed in the way they did business, Walter saved them money by using the older version, and everything had been running fine. Until now.
When Luke walked in from a sales call, Brent laid his pen down. "How did it go?"
Luke slid the folder into the pending slot. "They still have to run it past their board, but it looks good."
Brent glanced outside to the green Mustang, parked where Cindy"s truck used to be. He smiled, thinking of Cindy"s face and squeal of glee at the birthday party. "You just gave her that car yesterday-I can"t believe you took her car instead of yours for a sales call."
Luke tossed his key ring on the counter. "I promised her I"d put gas in it, so she was happy to let me have it." He ran his fingers through his messy hair, a sure sign he"d been driving with the top down. "Gotta take it when I can get it."
At Luke"s words, Brent saw Annie gazing at Cindy"s new car with stars in her eyes, while Walter grumbled and typed furiously.
Luke turned to Annie. "Has she let you take it for a spin yet?"
Annie sighed. "Yes, but only around the block. It was magnificent." She sighed again then closed her eyes.
Brent imagined the wind blowing through her hair. He could picture her in Cindy"s car. It would suit her.
Luke cleared his throat. "Cindy told me she needed to ask you something about a back order that was supposed to come in today."
Walter waved one hand in the air. "Go. I have to fix this anyway."
Annie stood. "I"ll be back in about twenty minutes."
It should have felt normal for the three men to be alone in the building, but for some reason it didn"t. Brent stared at Annie"s purse and coffee mug sitting on the corner of Walter"s desk. He couldn"t believe it, but he"d begun to enjoy her presence.
Evan, the lot boy, came in through the back door. "I"m glad you"re back. I have to show both of you a dent in the silver Maxima."
Brent pulled the file for the car out of the cabinet then followed Evan and Luke to the lot. He made a mental note to use this car to show Annie how to do the insurance claim in case Walter was out sick again. Although, he was very happy to remind himself, this was the first time Walter had taken sick time in five years.
When Brent and Luke returned to the office, it was vacant. Walter had left a note stuck to the computer that he"d gone out to pick up his prescription and would be back in ten minutes.
"What do you think? How"s it going?" Luke asked.