A/N

Ok so this story douse not belong to me I was reading a book and thought it would be funny if it was a story about the h2o characters but throughout the story there is obviously no mention of mermaids like I said the story douse not belong to me and the characters don't either I decided to use Rikki and Zane for this story

Prologue

"OH, MY GOD, I CAN'T DO THIS, it's hopeless! We're not going

to be able to pull it off."

Penny Rausch heard the panic in her partner's voice and

Struggled to keep her own alarm under control. One of them had

to stay calm. Otherwise they were both going to lose their

minds…not to mention their fledgling graphic design business.

"Calm down. We're almost there."

Janice, her partner and more-than-slightly ditzy younger

sister, thrust her hand into her spiked blond hair, sending it into

even more crazy directions than it had been before. A highly

sought-after graphic designer, Janice had no head for business,

but wow, was the girl creative…and not just with her hair. Her

graphics were incredible. Her drawings collectible. Her fashion

sense wildly imaginative.

Too bad she was pretty helpless in nearly every other aspect

of her life.

"I dropped the file. The last six photos went everywhere. Just

shoot me now."

She looked utterly exhausted, with dark circles under her

eyes and a haggard hollowness in her cheeks. Janice was usually

very precise about her appearance, but right now her yellow

T-shirt was stained with something that was either ketchup

from today's fries or tomato sauce from last night's pizza.

They hadn't left their office in thirty-six hours. Not since

8 Slow Hands

Janice's expensive, nearly brand-new computer had crashed,

taking most of the files for the high-end, glossy brochure they

were producing down with it. And almost taking down their

company, too.

Because if they lost this job—creating the programs for a ritzy

charity bachelor auction scheduled for next week—they were

finished. They wouldn't make the already-late rent, or keep the

power on, or cover the printing bill. They'd be out of business

overnight, after only being in it for eight months.

"We can handle this," Penny insisted. "We've come this far,

we're almost there."

"Maybe we could contact Mrs. Baxter…"

"No. Absolutely impossible." They could not let the snooty

Junior League socialite know they'd had yet another mishap in

the design job. No way. They were already on probation, thanks

to a few hiccups—like Janice's case of the flu and a flood in the

office. If they admitted to the computer crash, the woman would

kick them to the curb for good.

"I can't even tell them apart anymore," Janice wailed, waving

toward the table laden with photographs and copy. "Looking at

one gorgeous man after another, hour after hour…"

"Tough job."

"It's not funny. I thought we were in the clear when we found

the backup set of hard copies. Why didn't we put the bachelors'

info on the back when we made them?"

The biographies of the bachelors being auctioned off to

support Chicago's needy children had been on the backs of the

originals. But the originals had gone back to the penny-pinching

auction organizer, Mrs. Baxter, once they'd been copied and

scanned. Now they had the scans on disc, and they had the hard

duplicates. They even had the printed biographies.

They just didn't have any of those things together. And they

had no way of knowing who was who.

Leslie Kelly 9

If not for some easily identifiable, well-known bachelors,

some handwritten notes, as well as Google, which they'd

accessed on Penny's still-working laptop, they would have had

to give up. But not now. We're not giving up now.

"We're down to those last six men, Janice," Penny insisted,

bending to pick over the spilled photos. She laid them out on the

worktable, grabbing the small index cards with the bios. "And I

just identified four of them."

Janice's eyes widened in delight. "Really?"

Penny nodded, putting the correct bio cards with the correct

faces, clipping them together in case there were any more spills.

"I have spent the past five hours looking at archives in the Trib

and I've found more of our boys. Eligible bachelors apparently

get a lot of press coverage."

Janice threw her arms around Penny and squeezed her. "So

we're down to these last two."

Yes. Just two. "But we're out of have less than an hour

to get the whole package to the printer's if we're going to make

the deadline." No more time to research…no more hesitation.

Penny lifted the two photographs, studying the handsome

faces carefully. Both were dark-haired, but that was where the

resemblance ended. One had warm brown eyes, the other vivid

blue. One's hair was short and conservative, the other's a little

longer, almost brushing his collar. One had a dangerous glint in

his eye, the other a sexy smile on his curved lips.

"One is a paramedic, the other an international businessman,"

Penny whispered, knowing their bios by heart. "One of you is

Zane and one of you is Sean."

Janice came closer, looking over Penny's shoulder. Penny

could almost feel her sister's heartbeat just inches from her arm.

She could definitely hear her deep, quick inhalations.

This was the moment—she had to choose. Suddenly remembering

that old Lady or the Tiger story from her school days, she

10 Slow Hands

drew in a deep breath and pointed to the unsmiling one with the

short hair and brown eyes. "He's got to be the businessman."

Beside her, Janice immediately nodded, pointing toward the

other picture with the smiling, longer-haired guy. "And that's a

strong rescue worker if I ever saw one."

"So we're agreed?"

"Agreed. Absolutely. No doubt about it."

Then it was done. Penny clipped the bios to the back of each

picture, glad her sister was just as confident as she was that

they'd made the right choice. Then she sat down to finish up the

program on her own, older computer. And as she typed away as

fast as she could, incorporating the newly recreated graphics, she

tried hard to pretend she didn't hear her younger sister's whisper.

"I hope."