Annie opened the door wider, allowing him to enter. On his back was a dark khaki messenger bag, its strap over his shoulder and chest. Once he was across the threshold and she shut the door again, she pointed to her workstation in the corner.

Auggie frowned at the sight. It was an older computer, that's for sure. Past its prime more than a couple of years ago. Hell, she even had a clunker of a monitor instead of a flat screen. The desk it stood on was large, as well, surrounded on the floor and on top by books, papers, a few coffee cups, tissues, pens and pencils. Wow, he thought, did she live in that desk chair?

At least she wasn't kidding about not being able to move it or put it back together again, he chuckled to himself. The myriad of wires out the back of it resembled a bird's nest. What she needed, he knew, was a whole new sleek system, not this dinosaur.

He looked over at her through his thick glasses. She stood there, staring at him with her arms across her chest, looking more nervous than he'd ever seen one of his customers. He could swear she was crying on the phone earlier, and her red-rimmed eyes showed that he wasn't wrong.

He was a half-step closer to her before he stopped himself and shook the thought of comforting her out of his mind. Geez, Anderson, he thought, be something of a professional here, huh? With a nod of his head to her, he sat himself in her chair.

"I see you were in the process of writing a document here?" he asked.

Annie walked up behind him, placing a hand on the back of the chair. "Mm-hmm."

The answer came closer than he thought she was standing, and a waft of citrus enveloped him. It was subtle, though, and he had to swallow to get his mind off his customer and on her computer. "Did you try a hard restart?"

"A what?"

Slower and more deliberately, he asked, "Did you try turning it off and on again?"

"Oh, no, I can't," Annie cried. "I can't lose what I've written. I was almost done."

"Well, didn't you save it as you were working?"

"Well, a couple of times, yeah, but when I'm translating, I have to concentrate."

Auggie nodded, so that's what he saw on the screen, he thought. She was a translator. Pages upon pages, according to the Word document, of Spanish language text. "Well, do you at least have an external hard drive?"

She didn't answer, and he turned to look at her. She looked perplexed at his question, so he said, "Did you save it anywhere else but here?"

"No," Annie answered, growing a bit more exasperated at his questions. "Listen, all I need for you to do is to make that pointer thing stop spinning," she said, pointing to the monitor.

Had she not looked so earnest and upset and on the verge of crying – again – Auggie would have laughed at her lack of computer knowledge. He'd had clueless people bring their computers in to him before, people who didn't know anything other than how to turn it off and on, but none of them intrigued him more than Annie Walker.

With a smile, he said, "I'll try to get it from spinning, he said, "but you should be prepared for the fact that you may lose all of your work since your last save."

Annie's hand flew up to her mouth, "Are you sure?"

Auggie nodded, "Yes, but surely you can –"

"You don't understand!" Annie cried, interrupting him. "I'm already spending a lot to have you here. If I don't get this project printed off and in the overnight delivery by tonight, I'll lose my client. And if I lose my client, I lose a good hunk of my current income, and it's so hard to get new jobs nowadays."

She looked so forlorn that Auggie again had to fight the urge to wrap his arms around her. Instead, he reminded himself he'd just met the woman. And besides, most women as beautiful as she was – even without makeup, barefoot, and dressed in a tee shirt and cotton pants – usually had a boyfriend. And those he'd met that didn't were usually turned off by his profession, or when they found out why he wore such thick glasses, suddenly weren't as interested as they were at first.

"I'll do my best to save your work," he said, wondering as the words left his mouth why he was promising something that he knew had only a small chance of succeeding.

"Oh, thank you," Annie said, impulsively bending down and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. The impromptu hug lasted only a few seconds, and she stepped back to let him get to work.

The hug startled Auggie, and he placed his hands on the keyboard after a few seconds of allowing himself the enjoyment of her embrace. At least he knew where the citrus smell was coming from now, though.

Annie took a step back, but kept her eyes on him and the computer. She told herself she just wanted to make sure her work didn't get lost, but she found herself watching him more than the monitor.

Her spontaneous hug – not something she did on a regular basis with strangers – was purely a show of gratitude, but it showed her something else, as well. The muscular build peeking out from the short sleeves of his tee went all the way through to his shoulders and chest. With the exception of his glasses, his looks could qualify him to be a male model, she thought. But then again, she'd seen plenty of models with glasses in fashion magazines, but they weren't thick and hid the eyes beneath.

She hadn't realized how hard she'd been analyzing him until his voice broke through her thoughts.

"You're staring."

"I'm sorry, what?" Annie asked with a small shake of her head.

"The hair is rising on the back of my neck. Do I have something in my teeth?" Auggie asked.

"Oh, no," Annie said quickly. "I was just thinking."

"About what? How much I need a haircut?" Auggie chuckled.

"No, it's just – well, with the exception of your glasses, you don't really fit the definition of a geek."

Auggie's good mood from the banter and slightly sexual tension between them dropped a bit at her mention of his eyes. "Yeah, well, my glasses serve a deeper, more important purpose than solidfying my geekiness," he said.

Annie heard the harsh tone of his voice and immediately knew she crossed a line. "I'm sorry," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "That was crass and insulting. I'm usually not so rude, you know. It's just, with this deadline, and the translations, and then the computer –"

Whether it was her soft words or the softness and warmth of her hand through the thin cotton of his shirt, Auggie regretted his kneejerk response. He'd heard so many comments about his glasses and eyesight throughout his life, though, that it was a bit of a sore subject with him.

"It's okay," he said. "I just meant that, without the glasses, I'd be pretty much blind – not that I'm not blind with them," he said, chuckling at his own joke.

"I don't follow."

"I'm legally blind," Auggie explained. "No sight through my right eye at all, and severely nearsighted with my left eye. Hence, the heavy glasses."

"Oh, okay," Annie said.

Auggie continued to work all through their conversation, but at her last couple of words and the minute of silence that followed it, he raised his hands from the mouse and keyboard and turned toward her. Her hand still rested on his shoulder, and as he looked up at her face, she smiled at him.

"What is it? Are you done?" she asked.

"No, no – I mean, yes, I think I'll be able to save your work, but –"

"But what? Do you need help or more information –"

Auggie shook his head, and the corners of his mouth lifted in a smile. "No help, thanks. It's just, most people are full of questions about my sight after they learn I'm legally blind."

Annie shrugged, "I'm sure if you wanted to tell me more, you would."

Auggie nodded and turned again to the computer. She surprised and further intrigued him, if nothing else, and that feeling made him want to work all the more harder to solve her computer problem and remove the sadness from her face.

During the next few minutes, Annie tried to keep her nervousness to a minimum, even when the document she was working on disappeared and her desktop wallpaper appeared. He was working so fast, though, his fingers flying over the keyboard and mouse, that she had a hard time following what he was doing.

"Okay," Auggie said.

"Okay?" Annie repeated. "Okay what? What'd you do? What happened? What was wrong?"

"Well, I could explain exactly what I did to you, but since you didn't know what an external hard drive was –" Auggie teased.

Annie rolled her eyes at him, "Okay, okay, just tell me you were able to save my work."

"If I do, will you hug me again?"

At first, Annie thought he was upset at her previous show of gratitude, but no, a look at his face showed a smile, and as she peered through the lenses of his glasses, she saw warm brown eyes. Oh, wow, she thought. He was flirting with her. And even more astonishing, she felt herself responding.

"I don't know, I generally have a one-hug-a-day rule with guys I just meet."

"Too bad," Auggie said in a low voice. Then louder, "Without going into specifics, I was able to save your document."

"Yay!" Annie shouted, throwing her arms in the air and dancing around in a circle. Then, realizing she wasn't alone in the house, she turned back to him. "I mean, that's great, thank you."

"You're welcome," Auggie said with a laugh. "Now, if you're done celebrating, I do have a few recommendations."

"Oh, right, the external hard drive thingy? Are they very expensive?"

"Umm, depending on what size thingy you want, it can be," Auggie said. "Although what I was going to recommend was a whole new system altogether, with a more up-to-date operating system, online hard drive backup, and yes, an external hard drive."

Annie's face fell. "Now that, I know, is expensive." She sighed. "Are you just saying that because you want my business, or is my computer in that bad of shape?"

"Both," Auggie said simply. Then, as the sadness returned to her large brown eyes, and her mouth turned down again, he added, "You don't have to go out and buy it today, though. I've removed the – well, the problem that caused your computer to freeze, so you shouldn't have that problem again. But since your livelihood depends on your computer, I'd think you'd want to have a more stable system."

Annie nodded. He was right, and she knew that someday she'd have to upgrade, but getting all that stuff he just mentioned meant delaying her travels. "Well, I guess the mineral springs will have to wait 'til later, then."

"I'm sorry, what –"

"Oh, I was just planning on going to Reykjavik next week, but –"

"Iceland?"

"Yeah, have you been –"

"No, it's just – I didn't peg you as someone interested in Iceland, is all."

"Well, it's one of the few places I haven't been yet, but I guess I'll have to wait a bit longer now."

Auggie wanted to continue the conversation and ask about where else she'd been and how often she traveled, but he reined in his curiosity and returned back to their initial subject. "If you want, there's something you can use now as a backup. I guess you don't have any thumb drives, huh?"

Annie shook her head, not even knowing what he was referring to.

Auggie reached into his messenger back at his feet and retrieved one. "This is a thumb drive. Their official name is USB flash drive. It's a small hard drive that can store information, and you can take it with you wherever you want."

"Oh, that's cool," Annie said. "I'd heard of something like that, but never really looked into it."

"It's a failsafe, if nothing else. As you're working, you can save your documents directly onto this instead of the computer's hard drive, then whenever the little pointer thingy starts spinning again, you shouldn't have a problem."

Annie's eyes narrowed at his teasing. "I thought you said you'd fixed the spinning pointer thingy," she countered with a smirk.

"Touche, Miss Walker. I have, but there are other things that can go wrong."

"Okay, so just add the cost of the USB flash drive to your bill, and I promise I'll buy a new computer soon."

Auggie shrugged, turning to her CPU to insert the thumb drive into the USB port. "No charge for the flash drive. I always keep a few of them on hand for emergencies. As for the in-home service charge, if you promise to get your new computer at my place, I can add it to your bill then."

"Why would you do that?" Annie asked.

For a second, Auggie didn't have an answer for her. He'd never offered to do such a thing for a customer before, but then again, he'd never met anyone quite like Annie Walker, either. She had a sweetness and genuineness about her that he found refreshing and, he had to admit, pretty sexy. "Let's just say I want to hear all about your trip to Reykjavik, and I can't do that if you're spending your travel money on other things now, can I?"

"So, you're planning on coming by again after my trip?" Annie asked.

"No," Auggie answered, turning back around to her so he could see her reaction to his proposal. "I'm planning on taking you out for a drink after your trip."

"Oh, you are?" she said, tilting her head to the side. "That's rather presumptious of you, isn't it?"

"Only if you say no, which I haven't heard yet."

Annie smiled and felt a blush color her cheeks at his words. "All right. I'll have a drink with you, but only if you stop teasing me about my lack of computer knowledge."

Auggie stood up from the office chair and swung his messenger bag back over his shoulder. "I promise." Then, pulling his business card from his pocket, he handed it to her. "Stop by when you get back, and we'll set it up."

Annie took the card from his fingers, noting at once the small thrill that traveled through her arm at the slight contact. "I'll do that, August."

"Auggie," he corrected. "I'll see you later?"

Annie nodded, her eyes on him until the door in his wake. Wow, she thought. Not a half hour ago, she was sobbing at the thought of losing so much, and now she had a working computer, her plans for Reykjavik safe, and a date.

But, she thought, all that had to wait. She had work to finish first before she could think about the new cute and funny computer geek she'd just promised to call when she got back from Iceland.