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Calvin laughed, shaking his head, and Owen smirked.
Bastian had learned the hard way that Paula’s father dabbled in gaming development. Paula had warned him not to get suckered into testing the ancient—coding wise—medieval archery game Stuart had programmed too many decades ago. It was terrible, slow and buggy, and worked only on old systems.
But apparently it was a rite of passage he put all Paula’s serious boyfriends through. So how could Bastian let the challenge go unmet?
He couldn’t. His intention all along had been to be the most serious of all the serious boyfriends.
Surprisingly he’d connected with Stuart Raymond nearly as well as with Calvin. After a full year of telephone and email exchanges, he’d gotten a good sense of the man. Stuart had a reputation in the real estate world as an honorable man whose word was gold. He shared a love of epic fantasy with his daughter and was inordinately proud of her.
Months ago, he’d confided to Bastian that his biggest mistake with Paula was not supporting her leaving TineeSoft. They'd had many clashes about her future. In the end Paula simply went and got another job. They fought again when she quit that one.
“Foolish, I called her,” he lamented. “She showed me. Do you have any idea how often somebody her age wins all those high-profile contract and consulting jobs? Let me tell you, not that often.”
He went on to brag that Paula was skilled at every level of coding from the initial phases of setting up the framework to filling in on staff shortages.
“She gets permanent job offers constantly,” he boasted. “Did she tell you that?”
Bastian said she had.
“And those aren’t the only permanent offers she refuses on a regular basis,” Stuart had told him slyly.
Bastian read perfectly between the lines: the offers in question were marriage proposals.
He didn’t mention his own personal experience with that. As close as she was to her family and friends, Paula had apparently told none of them how many times he’d asked her the question that would end all his fears.
Fears that Paula would turn out to be a fleeting mirage in his life.
That he would insult her one day and she’d be gone.
That she’d choose a better man than him.
He’d learned that like father, like daughter also applied to matters of honor. Paula’s word was gold. She only gave it when she meant it.
It had taken him months to secure her promise. But at last he had it.
Only a few hurdles remained.
And they all involved parents.
THE OPPORTUNITY TO ANNOUNCE THEIR NEWSdidn’t come until Christmas carols had been sung, the children had settled down with their toys, and coffee had been served.
Into the relatively quiet lull, Paula stood up and raised her voice to a resonant pitch. “Okay, everyone, now listen to me. We’ve got something important to say and it affects all of you.”
That got her everyone's undivided attention.
“Last year as you all know, I met this guy here. He took me to a Christmas party and then a week later, dragged me onto a freakishly tiny plane. Due to my, um....”
“Aversion?” Bastian suggested.
“Right,aversionto, uh, vertical experiences—” objections arose that she quelled with a glare—“I took sleeping pills to get through the horror flight from hell and slept right through it. Bastian insisted on coming along and meeting you all, as you know.”
“I didn’t meet him,” Owen said pedantically. “I wasn’t there. So Idon'tknow.”
“Me, neither,” Cassie said.
“Ahem. As you also must know,” she plowed ahead doggedly, “to those who were there at the time—”
“Aunt Elizabeth came up last year too, didn't she?” Cassiecut in. “Where did she go this year, Aunt Lori?”
