Lost and Found by Bernadette Marie Page B

Certainly Ed was going to notice she
wasn’t there. Their little relationship wasn’t starting off on the
best foot.
    When the door opened, Darcy hurried
down the hallway toward her desk, but stopped when Mary Ellen waved
her over.
    “ Your boss was looking for
you,” she said with a grin.
    “ Oh. Yeah, I’m a little
late. I stopped by HR to drop something off.”
    Mary Ellen waved it off. “I don’t
think he was worried. I think he just missed you.”
    Darcy nodded nervously. “I should get
to my desk.”
    “ Ed is in Zach’s office.
They said to have you come in when you get here.”
    Her mouth went dry. “They didn’t say
why, did they?”
    Mary Ellen laughed. “You’re jumpy this
morning. Is everything all right?”
    “ Yes. I’m fine.” Darcy
looked at the closed office door. “Should I just go in?”
    “ I’ll announce you.” She
stood from behind her desk and went to the door that separated the
small outer office with Zach’s. She tapped lightly and then pushed
open the door. “Darcy is here.”
    She heard Zach say, “Send her
in.”
    Mary Ellen stepped back with her grin
straining to turn upward into an enormous smile. “Go on
in.”
    Darcy adjusted her purse on her
shoulder and headed into the office. Zach and Ed were there, seated
at the desk, but on the couch, Regan and Simone sat drinking
coffee.
    “ I thought maybe I’d scared
you off.” Ed stood and crossed to her as Mary Ellen shut the door.
He took her hands in his and gave her a kiss on the
cheek.
    Darcy felt the surge of nerves rattle
in her breathing as she realized everyone in the room was watching
them. She hadn’t even been this uncomfortable when she’d gone to
the fundraiser and met Ed’s family—alone.
    Ed stepped back and looked her over.
“Everything okay? Was your bus late?”
    Darcy shook her head. “No. I just had
to drop some things off at HR.” It wasn’t a right out lie. She’d
walked Candy to her desk and lingered, that’s all.
    “ Oh, good.” He turned
toward Regan and Simone, who both sat on the couch hiding their
grins behind gourmet coffee cups. “Simone and Regan want to take
you to brunch and shopping.”
    Darcy bit down on her lip. “Oh, thank
you, but I have so much to do. And I was late. Really, thank you,
but I’m just getting settled. I can’t really go
shopping.”
    Simone stood first and crossed to
them. “Brunch then. It is a perk to being one of the Benson/Keller
women.”
    Darcy looked at Ed, who nodded. She
now wished he’d kept them a secret a bit longer.
    Regan crossed over to them. “I wasn’t
very comfortable when she did this to me either.” She laughed.
“Zach threw me into the limo with Simone and sent me to his
mother.”
    “ I didn’t throw you in a
limo,” he scoffed from across the room.
    “ If I’m not mistaken
though, you did make me go to lunch at your mother’s, and you
didn’t show up.”
    Darcy saw Ed’s jaw clench and then
turned back as she heard Regan laugh.
    “ He set me up,” she
whispered. Regan turned back to the couch and picked up her purse.
“Ed, we’ll have her back in a few hours.”
    “ Take care of her,” he said
as he reached for Darcy’s hand at her side and gave it a
squeeze.
    “ As if she were my own
daughter,” Regan said, holding her hand up in a pledge.
     
    They had a car waiting out front and
Darcy, though comfortable with the women, felt as though her nerves
were going to have her sticking her head out the window and
throwing up. How could she be so nervous?
    Simone examined her manicure as they
pulled away from the building. She spoke eloquent as a princess,
Darcy thought. What could possibly make a woman give up the
oil-heiress life to move to America and live in the
South?
    Regan, though very put together in her
own right, had a more laid-back style. Her dark hair had a few
steaks of silver, but she didn’t seem worried by it. And her
clothes, though very nice, were obviously off the rack, where as
Simone might have