What Are Friends For?. Naomi Horton

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      Conn started to nod, then thought better of it, relaxing against the warmth of her hands and feeling her fingers work through the knots across his shoulders. “So we’re still having quality-control problems with that remote-controlled underwater seismic unit. Damn!”

      “They’re running at a fifty percent reject rate, with no sign it’s improving. Frank swears the problem isn’t with the design, but with something in the manufacturing process.”

      “And Production swears the problem’s in the design.” Conn flexed his shoulders, wincing slightly as a jolt of pain shot through his skull. “That design is sound, Andie. I went over the schematics with Frank six dozen times. The damn thing should work. The prototype met every test way above specification.”

      “So there’s a bug in the manufacturing process,” Andie said thoughtfully.

      “Seems so. Wherever the hell it is, though, we’ve got to track it down fast. DeepSix Exploration has just signed a billion-dollar oil exploration contract with the Canadian government and needs those remote units now. We can’t sell them a product that might work half the time, and they’re not going to wait around while we try to figure out what’s going wrong.”

      He groaned again, this time in frustration, and tipped his head forward so she could massage the nape of his neck. “What’s your take on the situation?”

      “Our design and production teams are the best in the business, but they mistrust each other on principle. What if they’re spending so much time blaming each other for the problem that they’re overlooking something else? Something no one’s thought of yet.”

      “Such as?”

      “I don’t know.” The rhythmic motion of her fingers paused as she thought about it, then resumed their slow massage of his neck muscles. “Some element in the manufacturing process that neither has control over. Something we don’t make. Something that comes in from the outside that—”

      “The system program chip.” Forgetting his aching head, Conn sat straight up. “We subcontract it from Schoendorf Systems for less than it would cost to make it ourselves.”

      “So what if there’s some sort of sporadic manufacturing problem at Shoendorf’s end? It’s possible that flawed chips are getting through our spot checks and into our units. That would explain why only some are faulty, while others are fine.”

      Conn was already reaching for the phone. “I’m going down to the production floor to talk with Bob Miller. You call the warehouse and have them send over a random sampling of chips—pronto. We’ll test the little suckers this afternoon.”

      “On it,” Andie said, already heading for the door. “I’ll call Shoendorf and have them fax over copies of all their quality-control tests for the last six months. I’ll also see if they’ve changed suppliers. Maybe the problem is farther up the line.”

      Grinning, Conn watched Andie as she strode across the room and out the door, his hangover miraculously gone. “Tell that Frenchman of yours if he wants to marry you, he’ll have to go through me to do it,” he called after her. You’re mine!

      Hell, he’d be bankrupt without her, he thought idly as he waited for someone down in Production to pick up the phone. It chilled him a little, just the thought of losing her.

      There was no one else in the company whose judgment he trusted as much as he trusted hers. She didn’t just know the business inside out; she knew him just as intimately, able to finish his thoughts for him while he was still struggling to put an idea into words, able to follow his leaps of logic when he was sorting through a problem while everyone else stood around trying to figure out what he was talking about.

      She was his sounding board when he needed to talk an idea through, and had enough solid ideas of her own that he’d learned to listen when she had something to say. She could cut through the clutter to the heart of a problem faster than anyone he knew, too, playing devil’s advocate when she needed to, knowing which questions to ask, which issues to raise.

      Besides, unlike most of the people who worked for him, she wasn’t afraid of him. She tolerated his occasional lapses in temper, ignored his bellows of impatience, told him to shut up now and again when she got tired of listening to him rant and rave over some problem.

      He had to grin. Everyone else just ran for cover and lay low until the storm blew over. But Andie always seemed to take things—and him—in stride, rarely rattled, never confused, a small spot of calm in an otherwise chaotic world.

      He thought of holding her this morning. Of how she’d felt in his arms, all female softness and warmth, of the taste of her skin, her hair, her mouth. It had surprised him a little, how right she’d felt there. And his strong response had surprised him just as badly; he hadn’t realized until then just how damned sexy she was, how much he’d enjoy making love to her again.

      How much he’d enjoyed it twelve years ago, he reminded himself with an inward smile. Strange, how a man could forget something like that until it all came rushing back, every detail of it, of her, so clear it could have been merely a night ago.

      He realized what he was doing suddenly and sat upright with a breathed oath, irritated at his own wandering thoughts. He had to stop this. She’d kill him if she even suspected he was thinking of that night more than a decade ago, let alone remembering it in fond detail.

      And this morning. This morning had nearly been the mistake of his life.

      It had been too easy, reaching for her like that. Too comfortable. Granted, it had been a hell of a long dry spell since Judith had walked out, but a little sexual deprivation hadn’t killed a man yet. Simple lust was no excuse to ruin the best friendship he’d ever had or would ever have, so unless he was prepared to lose Andie completely, he had to make damned sure he kept things strictly business between them from now on.

      * * *

      Andie glanced at her watch, frowning at how quickly the morning was slipping by. Bob Miller and Frank Czarnecki would be in the third-floor meeting room in another half hour. And if she wasn’t there to referee, they’d be at each other’s throats in minutes, each convinced the other was responsible for the seismic unit’s dismal failure rate on the assembly line.

      It wasn’t that neither wanted to take responsibility, it was just that both felt more loyalty to Devlin Electronics—and Conn—than they did to each other. They wanted the DeepSix seismic project to work. And took it very personally when it didn’t.

      Her phone gave a subdued chime and she reached for it absently, doing some quick mental calculations on the new production figures for that gigantic order of memory boards they were putting together for a well-known computer company. On schedule and under budget, so far. She made a mental note to congratulate Bob Miller.

      “Andie,” Margie said into her ear, “trouble’s on its way.”

      “Trouble?” Instinctively, Andie looked up at her office door. “Who and what?”

      “Killer shark,” Margie said with a chuckle. “Good luck.”

      “Killer what?” But Margie had put the receiver down with a click, and before Andie could figure out what on earth she was talking about, her office door swung open and a swirl of red silk, swinging blond hair and expensive perfume came through.

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