Once Upon a Lumberjack

by Dallen, Maggie

  Until now.

  Now that he was about to see Kat, a woman he’d really only known for less than two days. A woman who’d been haunting his dreams and stealing away every spare brain cell, but who was nearly a stranger.

  A stranger he might love.

  Oh crap, he really needed to get a grip before he saw her. The fact that he was even thinking that this might be love spoke volumes about his sanity where this woman was concerned.

  And now, it brought into question his sanity in buying this company. Her company.

  Well, the company she worked for.

  How exactly was he going to explain this? And how would she react to him being back in her life...as the new owner of the company she worked for?

  He tugged at his tie. The clock was ticking. In only a matter of hours he would not only see her again, but would have to explain the fact that, in what most would call an eccentric move—he’d decided to buy her company.

  For her.

  Well, not just for her.

  He let out a long exhale as he looked up at the numbers flashing by on the digital screen. Who was he trying to kid? He was a self-aware grown man, he could admit the truth to himself, at the very least. While it had been financially sound, his main incentive had been to buy it for her. For Kat.

  Who may or may not be happy to see him. Who hadn’t reached out in any way, shape, or form these past two weeks. And who had shown absolutely no desire to see him again.

  Ever.

  Oh crap. What on earth had he done?

  But it was done now, no time for regrets.

  Telling himself that didn’t make the uneasiness abate. His ever-trusty gut churned in discomfort.

  Bryce had been unusually off-kilter ever since he’d arrived in New York to finalize the deal. Two weeks had gone by and he’d only grown more obsessed with the idea of seeing Kat as each day passed.

  He’d toyed with the idea of calling each and every day but dismissed it. He’d told himself he was waiting to reach out until business was finalized. He’d even managed to convince himself that he was waiting to surprise her, as though this was a birthday present or something.

  But now… Well, now he was starting to have his doubts about how well this news would go over. In truth, he was beginning to doubt whether this decision had in fact been gut-approved or if, perhaps, he’d had ulterior motives. Like, an intense need to not only see Kat again but to have her intrinsically in his life. Or maybe it was the crazy and overwhelming desire to protect her from the Todds of the world in the only way he knew how.

  Yet, she didn’t need his protection and she hadn’t shown any desire to see him again, let alone be a part of his life. So maybe his gut had been wrong, or maybe it hadn’t been his gut talking at all, and maybe this was a terrible idea and she would be horrified to discover that he was now her boss’s boss’s boss’s boss.

  But there was no avoiding the fact that he’d have to tell her. His gut was definitely telling him that if Kat found out he’d bought her company from someone else, it would not end well.

  There was still some red-tape to cut through but the press release would be sent out the next day. The deed was as good as done. All sides were happy, even Darren. And Darren was rarely happy. So this was clearly a good deal. A good, sound financial deal.

  So why was he trying to convince himself of that?

  Because, for the first time ever he was starting to wonder if it had been his gut steering this one, or perhaps a totally different part of his anatomy.

  His heart lurched uncomfortably as if it knew it was guilty.

  Crap. At what point had his heart gotten in on his decision making?

  He shoved his hands in the pocket of his hand-tailored, but still remarkably uncomfortable suit.

  “One more meeting and then you’re free,” Darren said. They’d been working together side-by-side for six years now—he supposed it would have been odd if his colleague hadn’t been able to read his mind to some extent.

  “Yeah, but then the hardest part is still to come.”

  He felt Darren’s gaze on him but didn’t turn to face him. This chat with Kat would be hard enough without suffering through Darren’s quiet but pervasive judgement. Oh, Darren might have known how to keep his mouth shut, but Bryce just knew he’d be silently judging him for making a huge business decision based on a crush.

  An infatuation?

  Ugh, he didn’t even know what this was, or if it was reciprocated.

  Most alarming of all? His inner voice was starting to sound startling similar to a whiny, angsty teen. He supposed it had been a while since what he’d wanted hadn’t come easily to him, whether it be in business or relationships. And Kat had made it pretty clear that she didn’t want him.

  So what on earth was he doing buying her company? He could have gone about this in so many other ways.

  Once again he came back to his original position on the matter: he should have called.

  Too late now. The elevator slid to a stop at their floor. They were here. The last meeting of the day before he did the inevitable and broke the news to Kat as diplomatically as he could.

  Ding.

  The doors slid open and a familiar pretty blonde stared at him. Her mouth parted and her eyes widened. She gawked at him but no words came out.

  Oh no. No, no, no. This was not how she was supposed to find out.

  His mouth opened too but he found himself just as speechless, his brain caught in a loop of curses that were definitely not the eloquent speech he’d had planned.

  “Bryce?” Kat’s voice was higher than he remembered, and in a ‘holy-crap-what-are-you-doing-here?’ kind of way.

  Not in a good way.

  It was definitely not excitement he saw on her face but something like…

  Oh no. She looked horrified to see him.

  She also looked…hot. He couldn’t help but notice. In a fitted black blazer, with her curls piled on top of her head, she was professional and elegant. But that pencil skirt. Holy crap, that pencil skirt.

  He decided then and there he would wear a tie every day for the rest of his life for the chance to see her in a pencil skirt.

  She was still staring.

  Also not in a good way.

  Years of remaining calm, cool, and composed during intensive negotiations made it so that the adrenaline shooting through his system triggered a laid-back demeanor. Rather than tensing up, he gave her a slow grin, which most women seemed to like.

  Kat scowled at him like he’d just said something offensive.

  “What are you doing here?” she snapped.

  Yeah, she was definitely not happy to see him.

  Darren cleared his throat and gestured for Bryce to exit the elevator. Since Kat was standing in the elevator doorway clearly waiting to get on, this meant having to squeeze past her.

  She smells good. Like sunshine and vanilla and—

  Not helpful, inner monologue. If this kept up, he’d be nothing more than a drooling pile of teen angst for the meeting.

  The meeting which was scheduled to start any second now.

  Ah heck, this wasn’t the time or the place to be having this conversation with her, but she was watching him, clearly expecting an answer.

  As if on cue, Gary and the other executives came out of a conference room. Spotting him, they headed in his direction with broad smiles and exuberant greetings.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked again, her voice softer this time so only he and Darren could hear.

  Stupidly, and completely irrationally, he went on the offensive. He who prided himself on his ‘I work best under pressure’ mentality, completely caved in the face of her anger.

  He couldn’t have this conversation now. Not here and not in front of this audience.

  “What are you doing here?” he snapped back, his own voice taking on a peevish quality he’d never heard from himself before. He spotted hints of his childhood principal in the voice he was using, like at any mo
ment he might start calling her ‘young lady’ and send her to detention.

  “I work here,” she said, confusion and anger there sure, but he caught the flicker of amusement.

  It was at his expense, of course, but he’d take it.

  Man, he loved this woman’s laughter. More importantly, he loved that she loved to laugh. That she could find the humor in any situation…even this one.

  The executives were almost on top of them so he leaned over and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Look, I’ll explain everything, I promise. But later, okay? I’ll come to your office.”

  Her brows drew together but she glanced over her shoulder and nodded. “Okay, fine. My office is on—”

  “I know.”

  She blinked at him and he realized admitting that was not the epitome of playing it cool.

  Just wait until she found out that he’d bought the company…basically, for her. He winced at the mere thought.

  “Ah, Kat, I see you’ve been keeping our friend here company,” Gary said with a wink. Bryce’s gaze narrowed—what did he mean by that?

  But Kat seemed to take it in stride. “Yes, I just bumped into him while getting into the elevator. Good to see you again, Mr. Dalton.”

  Mr. Dalton.

  It felt like a line drawn in the sand. A not-so-subtle boundary being set between them.

  Despite the overwhelming urge to pull her into his arms, he resisted, instead giving her a small nod. “Kat.”

  She moved as if to walk past him, into the still-open elevator, but Gary surprised him—and most likely her too, by the looks of it—by throwing an arm around her shoulders. Giving Bryce a grin and a knowing wink, he said, “No use keeping the cat in the bag much longer, is there, Dalton? The press release comes out tomorrow so I say we go ahead and announce the news to the employees today.”

  Gary turned his grin on a confused-looking Kat.

  No. No, no, no. This was really not how this conversation was supposed to happen. Not at all. Not even a little—

  “Mr. Dalton here is going to be our new fearless leader in the very near future,” Gary said.

  Oh Gary. You blithering idiot.

  He made a mental note to fire Gary and then promptly deleted it as his morals kicked in. But he swore right then and there, if he found out that man was subpar at his job, he was out of there.

  Along with Todd.

  Where the was that moron, anyway?

  It didn’t matter. No amount of distracting thoughts could shield him from the shock in Kat’s eyes as she stared up at him.

  As he watched, he saw her calculating, deducing.

  She was probably getting it all wrong. She probably thought he knew he was going to be her boss from the very beginning. Before he’d kissed her. Before he’d spent the best twenty-two hours of his life with her.

  But he couldn’t explain anything now so he watched in horror as she forced a smile, muttered something that sounded like “congratulations” and shuffled past him.

  Gary and the others didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, not even when he turned back for one last look.

  All he caught was the steel doors snapping shut.

  Six

  Kat sat at her desk pretending to work for nearly an hour. She sat there, determined to be calm and cool, despite the way her brain was racing.

  It was trying to rush to conclusions. The worst possible kind, actually. But she was being irrational and overly emotional.

  She was sane enough to see that.

  So she forced herself to sit there and at least pretend to work, since actual work seemed too much to ask of her brain at the moment. All the while, she took long deep breaths and tried to calm herself down.

  The best course of action was to wait to talk to the source directly. Surely he would have an explanation that would clear all this up.

  Because if her worst suspicions were right and he’d known that he was going to be her boss while kissing her—five times, not including that first kiss—then she might murder him.

  Kat was the first to admit that she had a fair amount of rules for herself out in the real world—namely, don’t fall for a guy until she was at least thirty-two and had her life in order, don’t wear Uggs or Crocs or any other trendy shoe no matter how temptingly comfortable they might appear, and never ever day drink no matter how bored one might be—okay, that last one was a new entry to the list.

  That last one she’d learned the hard way.

  But when it came to work, she really had one rule. Don’t date coworkers, and that was especially true for bosses. It was hard enough being a woman in a corporate setting and she refused to allow anyone any fodder for gossip. She’d worked hard to be where she was.

  Even if she didn’t particularly like where she was, she’d earned it fair and square.

  And now, with that awesome surprise announcement this morning, she’d discovered that she’d not only inadvertently broken her one and only workplace rule, but she may have done it in epic fashion.

  She’d kissed and flirted and poured her heart out to the owner of the company.

  Sure, she hadn’t known he was the new owner, of course, but what did that matter? Good intentions were worthless when it came to matters of kissing one’s boss. So she hadn’t known. Big whoop. Good for her. The fact that she’d been ignorant made her feel a million times worse, because she’d been a blind fool on top of a rule-breaking idiot.

  Hindsight was twenty-twenty, and suddenly all those whispered conversations she’d overheard where Bryce Dalton’s name was spoken in hushed, reverent tones—they all took on a new significance.

  Her idiocy knew no bounds.

  Why hadn’t she thought to ask Bryce or even one of her bosses what was going on after she’d found out who he was? Why hadn’t she taken a moment to think it through?

  Granted, she hadn’t known the lumberjack bartender was Bryce Dalton until after it was too late, but still. She could have shown some restraint after the fact. Once she’d found out who he was, she could have put an end to their little flirtation.

  Her brain volleyed back and forth between guilt, anger, shame, and then back to anger. Because she might not have known he was going to be her new boss, but he’d known.

  Fury rose inside of her but she shoved it back down. She refused to stew and fume until she’d heard him out. Maybe there was an explanation. A perfectly logical explanation for why he’d chosen to make a fool of her.

  She’d thought she’d done a decent job of keeping calm…until Bryce walked into her office and gave her that freakin’ sexy-as-sin grin.

  She had to clench her fists to keep from hitting him. It wasn’t fair that he was so dang handsome, even now when she was livid.

  “What did you do?” Her enunciation was on point when she was furious, and the words spat out of her mouth cold as ice.

  He blinked and she noted with some pleasure that his sexy grin faded ever so slightly. Good.

  He scratched his head and she nearly spit. “Don’t give me that aw shucks routine,” she said. “What did you do?”

  “I, uh…” He cleared his throat. “I bought your company.”

  She stared at him. Even knowing it was coming, the words were still shocking, especially the easy way he said them, like he’d just admitted to buying her a latte when he knew full well she was on a diet.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she tried to sound as cool and even as he always did. “And at what point did you know that you were going to be my boss? That first night we kissed?”

  He flinched.

  “Or was there some confusion on your part about which company I worked for, exactly.” There was no way he could have been confused on that score and she was grateful he didn’t try to lie and claim that he hadn’t known.

  That little flicker of gratitude lasted approximately one second.

  “I didn’t know I was going to be your boss.” He said it on one long exhale, like it was a big
confession instead of the lie she knew it to be.

  “Bull,” she bit out. “I’d heard my bosses whispering about the great Bryce Dalton before we even left for that stupid retreat. And I’d straight up told you that I worked for CRBO that very first night.” She drew in a long inhale through her nostrils to try to steady her voice. She hated it when emotion made it shaky. “Don’t treat me like an idiot, Bryce.”

  He straightened, his brows lifting in surprise. “I’m not, I swear I’m not. I can explain—”

  “Good luck.”

  He took a step toward her, stopping when she backed away. He kept the little bit of distance between them but his gaze was so warm and insistent it felt like he was too close. Like he could see too much. Resisting the urge to back away once more, she took another deep breath to calm her racing heart. She needed more space.

  A continent between them might suffice.

  “I didn’t know I was going to buy the company.” He held up a hand to stop her from interrupting with another call of bull. “The board had approached me with the deal and my finance guys were looking into it but I’d basically decided to pass.”

  “Basically,” she repeated.

  He shrugged. “It was a good deal but I didn’t have a…” He shrugged again as if at a loss. “There was no pull.”

  She blinked at him as if the act might help her to comprehend what he was saying. “You based this massive decision on whether you felt a pull? What does that even mean?”

  He shook his head and thrust a hand through his hair so it stuck up in an adorable way.

  Dang it, why did he have to go and be adorable at a time like this?

  “Never mind. I can’t explain that right now. What matters is, I swear to you that I didn’t think I would be your boss when I kissed you.”

  She took a deep breath and studied him. He was serious. And genuine. She let out a sigh, slightly mollified. But it still didn’t add up. One minute he was going to pass on the deal, and then two weeks later Gary was ready to announce the new buyout to the world.

  “Okay, let’s say I believe you.” Which she did, she realized. She might not know him well, but she believed he was being honest. “What made you change your mind? About buying the company, I mean.”