by Nancy Warren
He glanced up. “Should I be setting the table for the old gals?”
“No. They’ll eat later.”
“Right,” he said, secretly relieved to be spared the lippy geriatrics, and wishing Emily was half as anxious to get him into bed as her aunt Lydia was.
“Eat, eat.” She waved at him, but he shook his head. If there was one thing he’d learned from his society mother it was that you never started eating before the hostess.
She placed syrup and butter on the table and opened the industrial fridge and removed a crystal bowl full of strawberries.
Her breakfast was soon plated and she sat down opposite him, then half rose hastily to remove her apron which she folded neatly and placed on the chair seat beside her.
“Well, I don’t normally do this.”
Probably she didn’t normally roll around half naked in her office with her male guests either, but he decided not to mention that, guessing it would add some awkwardness to their cozy breakfast.
Still, it was tough to look across the breakfast table and not think that somewhere between them being half naked and breathing heavily in her office last night and gazing at each other over breakfast this morning, more should have happened.
He sipped his coffee and wondered where she got her coffee beans. Her brew was never bitter; it tasted the way he thought coffee ought to taste.
Then he bit into his French toast and felt the flavor burst and the texture was exactly right. “You know, there are restaurants and hotels all over the world that would kill to have you working for them.”
“I know. I trained for that very career in fact, but I chose this instead.”
“And you’re happy.”
“Of course. Oh, there are times I’d love a bigger challenge, and I need to get away sometimes for a city fix, but this is where I belong.”
He glanced across at Emily who’d been singing in the kitchen, obnoxiously cheerful when he’d had a crap sleep. If she passed up men like him, what did the woman do for sex?
“Can I pass you something?” she asked and he realized as he’d been puzzling about her sex life, he’d been staring.
“No. I was wondering if you’re seeing anyone?”
She took her time. Finished chewing as though she’d choke to death if she didn’t chew each bite a thousand times, then swallowed. Took a sip of coffee.
He waited for her answer in growing impatience.
She swallowed the coffee. Looked at him straight on. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“That’s not fair. You haven’t answered my question yet.”
“And I won’t, unless you go first.”
“It’s complicated,” he said.
She nodded as though she understood all about complications.
Always he liked to be honest and upfront with women. “I had a girlfriend up until about six months ago. It wasn’t really going anywhere and she’s looking to get married so she decided to cut loose. I still see her once in a while.”
“Friends with benefits.”
“Exactly. So tell me about—”
His cell phone rang. With a curse of irritation and a muttered apology, he answered. “Sorry, I missed your call earlier,” his assistant Anna said. “I was in the shower. Then I figured I’d get to the office before I phoned you. The Fellson Group are going ballistic about the merger and now they want out.”
“What? Why?” Of all days for him not to be in his office. That merger was a coup that had taken him almost eight months to pull off on behalf of the Fellson Group – a telecommunications company that was looking to grow. He gulped coffee and grimaced as it burned on the way down.
“They want you in their office yesterday.”
“Yeah. I know. But I can’t be in their office yesterday. I can’t be in their office today, and the way things are going, I won’t make it tomorrow. Bring me up to speed, what’s the latest?”
Her words were like machine gun fire and it took him a second to catch up with the speed and volume, as though he’d been speaking a foreign language and now he was readjusting to English. It wasn’t that they spoke a different language in Idaho, of course, but they treated it more gently and the words rolled out at a slower pace.
“Look,” he said, picking up his coffee, giving Emily a ‘thanks for breakfast, gotta run’ wave and heading out the door to the garden to improve the connection, “I’ve got my cell and email. We’ll get them through this. I’ll be there by the day after tomorrow. Email me the details. I’ll call the CEO as soon as I’m caught up.”
From the merger, she moved on to give him status reports on three other active deals. He felt frustration throbbing all the way to his fingertips. This was nuts. He had too many deals on, and nobody he could turn anything over to. He needed to hire more staff, but then he never had time to train them properly.
He got off the phone, checked his email and the cell rang again. He lost track of time, and felt as though he were back in his office, once going so far as to bellow for Anna – only realizing his mistake when Emily ran into the room. “What are you hollering about?”
“Sorry. For a second there I thought I was in New York.”
“Well you’re not.”
There wasn’t time to apologize, the phone rang again.
A sandwich appeared at his side and he glanced at his watch to see it was after one. He waved his thanks, reminding himself he’d have to make sure Emily charged him extra since he was using her office and eating more than breakfast.
An hour later, things had slowed a little and so he rose, stretched out his back and took his empty plate back into the kitchen.
Emily was making bread. None of your bread machine bread, either. She had her hands in the dough and was kneading with a rhythm that immediately soothed him – though he didn’t know until that second he’d been jangled.
There was a novel on the counter, with a bookmark in it decorated with dried flowers. It looked like one of those women-in-book-clubs type of novels he never found time to read.
“Thanks for lunch,” he said and put the blue and white plate beside the sink.
She glanced up from her task and he could see that she was getting quite a workout from the bread. Her cheeks were a little flushed and her breathing quicker than normal.
“Not a – what is that thing hanging out of your ear?”
“Ear piece for my cell phone.”
“Oh, how awful,” she said as though it were a malignant growth.
“Yeah, well it’s how I do business.”
“Hmm. How do you do life?” she muttered, but not so low that he didn’t hear her. He could let it go, but he kind of liked watching her at her homey task. He’d never imagined a woman kneading bread could look sexy, but then Emily could make pretty much any activity crank up his libido.
“I beg your pardon?”
She looked up at him and he knew she knew he’d heard her fine the first time. “I said, ‘how do you do life?’”
“Pretty damn well, thank you very much.” What bug had crawled up her ass? He remembered suddenly the way he’d bellowed for her as though she’d been his employee and figured she was still pissed about that. “Um, sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to yell for you.”
“Is that how you treat your assistant?”
“Anna’s very happy in her job. She’s not complaining.” Well, why would she? She was extremely well-paid and had the ambition to match her talent. He was grooming her to go places and both of them knew it. If he occasionally forgot his manners around Anna, she also sometimes forgot hers around him. “You know, New York is a bit different than Beaverton.”
She gazed at him, her blue, blue eyes so open and uncomplicated. Then she said a very strange thing. “What did you have for lunch, Joe?”
“That very nice sandwich you brought me. I believe I said thank you.” He hoped he had. Had he forgotten the simplest of good manners when she’d done him an unexpected favor?
But that apparently wasn’t
what she was getting at. “What kind of sandwich was it?”
He blinked. Thought back to when she’d brought it to him. He could see her, the shape of her, and that had caught his attention. He remembered the plate with the sandwich on it. By concentrating, he thought he’d seen a frill of green lettuce peeking out the side. But what the hell kind of sandwich had he eaten? He’d been so busy with his business he hadn’t even noticed.
Well, you didn’t get ahead in life without balls and bluster and he liked to think he had plenty of both. Certainly enough to brazen out a name-the-sandwich contest with a woman whose idea of fun was kneading bread dough in the middle of the afternoon.
“Tuna fish,” he said. And just so she knew he’d paid attention, he added, “with lettuce.”
“Was the bread white or wheat?”
Well, duh. He hadn’t hung around here for two days not to know she kept a healthy kitchen, so he said, “Wheat.”
“Did you find the pickles too salty?”
“No. They were perfect. Thank you.”
She pulled her hands out of the dough and went to the sink to wash up.
“The sandwich was made with deli beef on rye bread. I served it with carrot sticks, not pickles.” She shot him a you are so pathetic look. “But you were right about the lettuce.”
“I was busy,” he confessed, feeling like an ass. “I didn’t notice.”
“You think?”
He could tell her he’d managed to salvage a multi-million buck deal today, for which he’d earn a fat fee, but until the merger completed it wouldn’t be true, and besides, not paying attention was bad, boasting was worse.
“Have you—” She cut herself off in mid sentence as he waved his hand at her. He had a call coming in.
He turned away so he could concentrate, but not before he’d seen a pretty impressive eye-roll from the sexy bread-baker.
What? He felt like asking her. What the hell was he supposed to do? He hadn’t asked to be stuck here. He had a job to do, and a pretty damned lucrative one. It did bother him a little, though, about the sandwich. How had he not even noticed what he was eating?
Had he lost touch with the simple things in life? No, of course not. He was busy, that’s all. The next time she cooked for him, he’d make a point of oohing and aahing over every mouthful.
Since the reception was crap in her kitchen, and in most of her house, he found himself once more in the middle of the garden feeling like a fool. He was trying to make notes into his iPad, but what he really needed was his own office with all his equipment and Anna. God, he missed Anna. She was getting a raise that would knock her Gucci socks off when he got back.
“Where are you? On the plane?” Frank Gellman bellowed.
“No. I’m still in Beaverton. I’ll be in the office day after tomorrow.”
“Thought you were done down there.”
For some reason he did not feel like sharing the fact that he’d been stranded in this town in a way he suspected the townspeople were involved in. It made him sound like he wasn’t in control and that wouldn’t do. Not with the Gellmans. “Yeah. Something came up I needed to finesse.”
Emily watched Joe pacing back and forth as though the green lawn was a boardroom floor; he trampled a tiny misplaced daisy and never even noticed.
He was so clueless about the basic, every day aspects of life that he made her want to smack him. Hard. But even so, watching his long stride eat up the grass, sensing the energy that pulsed from him, she felt energized. Sure they were opposites in every way, but it was definitely a case of opposites attracting. A serious case. Besides, she could help Joe. She knew she could. If the man didn’t let up, he was going to implode.
At first she ignored the sounds of a truck, but when the beeping that signaled it was backing began and she realized it was backing into her lane, she ran out.
Joe stood there for once not engaged in anything other than staring at that truck in amazement. She got a momentary glimpse of him as a little kid watching all those construction rigs at work.
A wizened elf of a man in battered jeans, an even more battered jacket and aviator sunglasses got out of the cab. He was bow legged, whiskered and tough. She really hoped he wasn’t looking for a room for tonight.
Not that she should judge people based on appearances.
“Joe?” the guy said and her surprise grew. They knew each other?
“Yeah. Merle?” The two shook hands as though they did business every day. “You made good time.”
“Always do.”
The two men headed around to the back of the truck and before her puzzled gaze, the pair of them hefted and wheeled a Ducati down a ramp and into her yard.
This had to be the fancy toy he’d been set on getting. And it was here. In I can take you anywhere you want to go and no town meeting is going to stop me, red Ducati.
“Nice,” she heard herself say. Because it really was a beauty.
Joe grinned at her, all his grumpiness history. “Oh, yeah.”
The paperwork took almost no time at her dining room table. She had a moment’s pang about the silver but decided Joe was more than a match for biker elf.
Besides, there was something about him that was oddly endearing. Maybe it was so much mean and ugly in such a small package. And he didn’t talk mean or act mean – so far.
She made them tea and took in cookies.
And then the two guys strolled back out. “Take her for a spin?” biker elf asked.
Joe simply nodded. Merle opened up his truck and pulled out two helmets.
One was black. One was white.
“You want me to try them both on?”
“Nope. Black’s for you. White’s for the lady.”
The uncharitable thought flicked through her mind that Merle fit right in here in Beaverton. Both she and Joe glanced at the Ducati. Finally Joe spoke.
“You can only ride one on that bike.”
Merle looked at them both like they were the ones being stupid. “I know that. She should have a new helmet for when she rides along with you.”
He sent her a strange stare from curious blue green eyes, kind of like Mae West’s before her eyes got milky with age. How on earth did he know?
“I haven’t ridden in years,” she said.
“Best get her tuned up.” Still he regarded her with that strange gaze. “You show Joe all around this pretty countryside. Best thing you could do.”
“I—um,” Of course, that strange man could have no idea how his words would be taken but he was right. The best thing she could do was to get Joe to fall in love with the town and surrounding areas – see that mining the area would be a crime.
And what better way to see the land than on a bike?
When she thought of all the secluded places she knew around here that were motorcycle accessible heat danced inside her intimate places. Also a sense of urgency. If she didn’t get Joe to see how amazing this place was, and fast, they’d be mining phosphate faster than you could say wasteland.
The guy was still giving her that creepy stare, a cross between a fairy godmother and evil Rumpelstiltskin. But wherever his bizarre advice came from, he was right. Before he could get in his truck and drive away, she said, “Could you take a look at it now? My bike?”
He looked at her like he wondered why it had taken her so long to take him up on his words. He nodded. Once. “Be happy to.”
“You have a motorcycle?” Joe asked.
“Sure do.”
Okay, it wasn’t a fancy new Ducati like his. It was an old Honda Rebel 450 that she’d bought used when she was eighteen. The Aunts had helped her buy it and she’d had some fun on that bike. She wondered why she’d put it away and stopped riding. She led Merle to a shed where she kept it and he walked all around the bike, nodding as though it were a thoroughbred horse he was thinking of backing.
“Good bike for a girl.”
“I think it’s been sitting here for almost three years.” And when had she stopp
ed going out for joy rides? What had happened to her?
Merle sniffed. “It’ll need a battery. Carburetor will be contaminated with varnish.”
“Varnish?”
“Old gas. Gets sticky. I’ve got most of what I need in the truck. I’ll need to unstick the float, clean the needle valve and primary jet. Oil and filter change, obviously.”
“Okay.”
“Spark plug’s okay but I’ll replace it for good measure. That’s a four dollar insurance policy.”
He squatted and checked out the tires. Nodded. “You’re lucky. Tires have stored well.”
“And you can do that? Here?”
“Sure.”
“Great.”
As they left him to it, she walked up very close to Joe and said, “Is he a magician?”
“Gotta be.” Then he scratched his head. “You’re a biker chick, huh?”
“You bet.”
“Do you know how many fantasies I have about biker chicks?”
Oh, that sizzle went right through her. She tossed her head. Hoping desperately her leathers still fit. “You’ll have to show me.”
Okay, so she had some serious Intimate Healer blood flowing through her veins, and she couldn’t help but feel that Joe was a sad case. How could a man who ate food without tasting it possibly appreciate the simple joys of making love? As she watched his very nice body walking away from her she wondered what he’d be like in bed.
At a guess, she’d say he’d be competent and thorough – as focused on the task of getting and giving pleasure as he was in everything. She suspected no woman would leave his bed without at least one orgasm, because he would always want to close the deal. He was driven to succeed in everything he undertook, but she suspected there’d be little silliness between his sheets. Not a lot of lazy fooling to no purpose.
She sighed. She didn’t have the training of her aunts or grandmother, all she had was instincts.
She had damn good instincts.
Apart from the urge to help him was the knowledge that Joe would be in less of a hurry to leave Beaverton if he had a promising new affair to go along with the hot new bike.
Or was she flattering herself?
