The Last Groom On Earth. Kristin James
“If there’s something wrong, we would have found it already. Maybe the IRS is on a wild-goose chase. They haven’t told us what they expect to find, have they?”
“No. They’ve been frustratingly tight-lipped.” Angela was pleased that Kelly was supporting her. “They’re just poking into our records and making a nuisance of themselves. I don’t think they even know what they’re looking for.”
“Maybe they don’t,” Bryce agreed. “But if you think that the IRS is going to look at a few records, then shrug their shoulders and leave, you’re incredibly naive. Once they’re on your trail, they’ll be after you till they get you.”
“But there’s nothing to get!” Angela burst out. “We’ve paid our taxes every year. We reported all our income. Our deductions are legal.”
“That’s true.” Tim nodded. “I mean, everything we’ve done is aboveboard, so we really shouldn’t have anything to worry about. It’s a nuisance, but in the end they’re bound to find out that there’s no basis for their suspicions, and they’ll drop the investigation.”
Bryce turned his cool gray eyes on him for a moment, then began to shake his head. “I think all three of you are in for a rude awakening. The IRS is like a terrier with a rat. Sticking your head in the sand is not going to make them go away.”
He paused for a moment. All three of the others in the office stared back at him. Finally he shrugged and stood up. “All right. I can’t beat you over the head to make you do it. It’s your business.” He turned and looked directly at Angela. “I‘ll tell your mother you prefer to go it on your own. Goodbye, Angela.” He nodded at them all. “Good luck.”
He didn’t need to add the next line. “You’ll need it.” His expression as he turned away from them made that opinion clear.
He closed the door behind him. Angela leaned back in her chair with a sigh and closed her eyes. “The past few months,” she said softly, “have been the worst of my life.”
The IRS had begun an audit of their company in January. At first it had seemed perfectly ordinary, and Angela had not been worried, as she was sure that their record-keeping would bear them out. But as the thing went on, it had seemed to mushroom, until Angela had begun to be afraid—so much so that she had divulged her worries to her mother last week on the telephone.
“Amen,” Kelly agreed, plopping down in the chair Bryce had just vacated.
Tim began to rub his chin in a familiar nervous habit. “Come on, you guys, cheer up. It’ll turn out okay. It has to.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Angela opened her eyes and looked at him. Tim was a sweet guy and a good friend, not to mention an absolute whiz at computers, but he was not a person who liked to face reality. He was more likely to deny an unwelcome truth and ignore it than to try to change it or adapt to it. “What if Bryce is right? What if we are being ostriches? We could lose our whole business.”
“Don’t say that!” Kelly squeaked.
Angela looked over at the blonde. They had been friends for over ten years. In fact, she had met Kelly before she even knew Tim. Kelly had lived in her dorm at the University of North Carolina, and they had met in the cafeteria. Much to Angela’s amazement—she had never dreamed she could have anything in common with an accounting major—they had become fast friends. Three years later, when the tiny business of computer games that Angela and Tim had started had grown so big that they needed someone to handle the accounts full-time, Angela had pulled Kelly into the business. Her levelheadedness had proved to be the perfect complement to Angela’s and Tim’s dreamer tendencies. Over the years, as their business had grown, so had Kelly’s job; she presided over the entire business end of H & A Enterprises: orders, shipping, and accounting. Angela and Tim both agreed that whatever their creativity had produced, the business would never have boomed as it had without Kelly.
“Kelly…” Angela began thoughtfully, “why did you say you didn’t think we needed Bryce’s help?”
Kelly shrugged. “It seemed pretty clear to me that you didn’t like him. That you didn’t want him to be messing in our business records.”
“You’re right, I didn’t.” Angela got up and began to pace the room.
Her instinctive reaction had been to get rid of Bryce. But now she was beginning to wonder if she had acted in a hasty and childish manner. Her parents had been worried enough about her situation to send him&—and whatever else one might say about the elder Hewitts, they knew the business world. They were not likely to panic or act impulsively; they were logical and coolly analytical to a fault. They also knew exactly how good Bryce Richards was at his business. If, in their opinion, he could help H & A Enterprises out of this trouble, then he probably could.
“Maybe I was wrong to kick him out so quickly,” Angela admitted with a sigh. “Maybe I should have given him a chance to see if he could find anything.”
“Your opinion is good enough for me,” Tim responded, smiling at her reassuringly. “You know him better than Kelly and I do. I’m going to leave the decision up to you.”
“I agree.” Kelly chimed in.
“Thanks.” Angela smiled at her friends. It warmed her heart that they had such confidence in her. People had told her that it would be impossible to be partners with a friend, but time had proven those doom-sayers false. She had worked with Tim and Kelly for almost eight years, and both the business and their friendship had flourished.
Still, today was one time when she would have wished that they were not so quick to rely on her judgment. She was open-minded enough to admit that her dislike of Bryce was not rational, but emotional, and she worried now that she had made a mistake that might hurt their business.
Tim and Kelly returned to their offices, and Angela settled down behind her desk to work. But after several minutes of staring at her blank blue computer screen, she realized that working was impossible at the moment. Her mind was like a hamster on its wheel, circling endlessly.
With a sigh, she planted her elbows on the desk and sank her head onto her hands; she stared down at her desk, thinking. She disliked Bryce Richards, and she did not want him here at the office, poking his nose into everything. But, on the other hand, she would never forgive herself if he could have found the key to their financial troubles, and she had not let him just because of an old childhood antagonism.
Finally she picked up the phone and dialed her mother’s number in Charlotte. A few minutes later, she was in her car heading toward the Radisson Hotel.
Bryce leaned back in his chair and massaged his temples wearily. He had checked into his hotel and started work on his presentation for CompCon tomorrow, just as he had planned, but he found it difficult to concentrate on the numbers strung out across the sheets in front of him. His meeting with Angela had left him irritable and dissatisfied.
He made a noise of disgust and got to his feet. That woman! He got up and began to pace the room. Angela Hewitt was as great a pest as she had been as an adolescent. He could remember with great clarity the silly tricks she had played on him when he came to visit her mother. A slightly chubby girl with wild, curly red hair and a mouthful of braces, she had seemed to delight in making Bryce feel foolish and out of place. And, of course, he thought, remembering his own gawky, uncertain self, he had been the perfect foil for her tricks. He had already felt ill at ease just being in the Hewitts’ house. It was gracious and obviously expensive, but without a breath of ostentation, a jewel of old-money taste. Being inside their house had been a glimpse into an entirely different sort of life for him, a life that he had wanted with every fiber of his being. At the same time, he had been terrified that he might break something in his awkwardness or that he might make some gauche mistake that would reveal his ignorance.
Angela seemed