by Kate Swain
“Is that a challenge?” I heard my other brother yell.
Matthew laughed. “No. Trust me. I value my life.”
I heard them both laughing as Matthew went back to work. It made me smile despite my annoyance. The love my brothers felt for one another was something precious and rare, and it served as a reminder that it was possible for that kind of human connection to exist.
I wonder about myself.
I had never had much luck with love—not in the romantic sense. The love I had from and for my family made up for that somewhat. I had to admit, though, that I hadn’t made much of an effort to find romantic love over the years. Ever since Sloane had walked out, I had tended to avoid relationships. I didn’t want to get that close to anyone and feel that kind of pain again.
I knew it was silly, but I hadn’t found the nerve to get back into those waters. Like everything else I didn’t want to do, I had a habit of putting that off too.
“I’d do it eventually.” I told myself.
I paused, hearing a giggle from the yard. That, I thought, was Matthew’s daughter. My niece. Matthew’s family had been one reason for starting up the bike shop again. It was something we were all well-placed to do, and my little brother needed a job now that he was a single parent.
I sighed and made myself turn back to the immediate problem, which was tidying the desk. I kept to the rules I’d just invented now—receipts in the book, schedule on the top left side of the desk, calls logged on the pad of paper. Seeing the chaos made me mad. I was just finishing when I heard the door open.
“What?” I barked.
“Hello?”
I stared.
There, in the doorway, looking at me with big chestnut eyes, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She had long blonde hair, a soft face, and a curvy figure—wide hips and a narrow waist. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“Hi.”
Of all the responses I could make, that was clearly not the smartest one. But at that moment, I could barely make myself speak. I was lost.
Come on, Carter! The girl’s the same age as your brothers. There’s no way she’d be interested in you.
We rarely had women come to the shop. And none looked like her. But she was clearly here with a purpose even though she looked scared.
I cleared my throat. “Um… can I help you?”
“Yes… I came for the job announcement in the paper. You were looking for a receptionist.”
“Oh.”
Again, my brain walked out on me right at the moment when I needed it. I made myself focus.
I had not had somebody like her in mind when I placed the advertisement. Really, I hadn’t thought very much about the sort of person I wanted. Somebody older would be nice—sensible, mature, responsible. Somebody stable, too; somebody who wasn’t about to run off and leave me in a ditch. And somebody who wasn’t a distraction. Was that too much to ask for?
I didn’t know what to say.
The phone rang. I wanted a diversion desperately, so I grabbed it. I cleared my throat.
“Hello? Brand’s Bike Shop. Carter Brand.”
“Hi! How’s it going?”
I felt my indrawn breath exhale. It was Tex, one of my favorite customers. And one of our most regular customers. He was always coming by for help with his custom-built BMW. We all liked him—he was one of us, a real biker. I cleared my throat. Talking to him was easier by far than dealing with our job candidate.
“I’m fine. How’re you?”
“Great. Listen… a friend of my friend is going to be coming around soon to apply for a job. Do you think you could consider her seriously?”
I paused.
“When will she be coming?”
“I don’t know,” he said after a pause. “Today? Tomorrow? Anyhow, her name’s Amelia. I just thought I’d mention it.”
“Okay. Great.” I felt my breath catch in my throat again. “Um… is she a pretty blonde thing?”
Tex chuckled. “I think so, yeah.”
“Quite young?”
“Yeah. I guess. About Tanya’s age. Bit younger.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. I looked up. Two eyes like sheet-metal were boring into me. Gone was the gentle sweetness—this woman had the look of somebody ready to kill. I looked away.
“She’s a good girl,” Tex said. “I’m sure she’ll do the job.”
“She has experience?” I asked. “She seems really young.”
“Sure she does,” Tex said gently. “Just think about it.”
“Great. Thanks.”
I hung up.
I looked back at her. She glared at me.
“You know I’m not deaf?”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to fight with her, but there was something so enticing about having her attention, even if it was hostile attention. I tried not to grin.
“I suppose so.”
She stiffened. “Are you always this rude?”
I felt that hit home. She was right—I was being rude, and I really, truly didn’t want to be on her bad side. I straightened my back. “No… sorry. I didn’t mean to be.”
She softened a little. “Well, then,” she said. “In that case, it would be nice if you didn’t talk about me when I’m here.” She shot me a glare.
“Sorry,” I said again. I meant it. I felt really dumb.
We looked at each other. Her brown eyes softened a bit. I felt my heart uncrimp.
“So?” she asked.
“Um… what?” I asked. I felt awkward. Here I was, alone in an office as the boss of the place with the most stunning woman I ever saw in my life before, and all I could think to say was coming out in single syllables with no meaning.
“Are you going to interview me or something?” she asked.
I sighed and cleared my throat. “Okay,” I said. “Want to sit down?” I felt at an utter loss of words.
She looked at me as if I’d slapped her. But she pulled out a chair anyway and perched herself on the edge of it. I tried to tear my eyes away from her gorgeous legs. I wanted her so badly it actually hurt.
Pull yourself together! You’re supposed to be in charge here.
I cleared my throat and put on a more serious face. What would she think of me if I looked soft?
“Do you have any office experience?”
I put my hands under my chin, trying to look remote and cold.
“I did some book-keeping once. For my aunt. Five years ago.” Her voice was defiant.
“Oh.”
I felt my brain getting away from me again. I was staring at her gorgeous face, which held a mix of anger and vulnerability. Neither emotion made her any less than beautiful. I couldn’t think straight, but I could tell that she was probably not as experienced as we would have chosen. I really needed somebody who knew what they were doing more than that.
“Can you use MS Word?”
She smiled and nodded. “Of course.”
“Okay.” I breathed out slowly. “You can keep things in order? I mean… you have organizational skills?” Man, what was I saying? I could feel the interview slipping away from me. All I could think about when she was sitting there was the massive response I was having in my loins and how much I wanted to kiss her. I was sure I was making an utter fool of myself.
She looked at me blandly. “Of course I can.”
“You have a good manner with people?”
She raised a brow. “You think you would know what that was?”
I grinned. I didn’t know what to say to that. This felt like a battle to me. “Point taken,” I said.
We looked at each other. She caught my gaze and held it. I was surprised when she smiled. The expression tugged at my heart, and I felt as if the whole world got brighter.
“Okay,” I said after recovering somewhat. “Are you sure you’d want to be a receptionist?”
“Try me,” she shot back.
I smiled. She was so quick! I was enjoying this more than I imagined. “I mean,�
�� I elaborated, “that being a receptionist can be demanding. And you might have to work long hours.”
I was fishing there, and I knew it. If she was in a relationship, she might be reluctant to work late. If it was going to be an issue, it should be discussed now.
She smiled. “I’m fine with that. You pay hourly, right?”
I nodded. “We do.”
There was another pause. I looked at her and wished from the depths of me that I could offer her the job, but I really felt that we needed somebody with more experience than her.
“Okay,” I said again. “Well, then. In that case, if you could give me your number? Then, when I know more, I’ll get back to you.”
She gave me a look. I knew she was too smart for me. She knew my inquiry about her details was just a way for me to not have to tell her she wasn’t who we were looking for in a direct way.
“Fine,” she said. She looked at me.
“Um, what?” I asked. Man, what had I done now? I felt like I was the one taking some harrowing interview and she was the boss. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant feeling—not for someone who was expected to be in control permanently.
“How can I give my details when I have nothing to write with?” she asked.
“Um… yeah!” I blinked. “Here,” I added, passing her the pad of paper I’d placed near the phone. As she wrote down her name and phone number in neat handwriting, I realized I’d already messed up my own organization system, just by handing her the pad of paper. She handed back the paper. I so badly needed a receptionist around here.
I just, despite my thoughts about her, didn’t think that she was the one we were looking for.
3
Amelia
I drew a deep breath and tried to think straight. Here, in front of me, was a guy that looked like a cross between The Hulk and Hercules. I had never met anyone who had such an effect on me.
I studied him surreptitiously while he read through my details on the pad of paper. He was square-jawed and dark-haired, with big shoulders and a strong presence that smelled of manliness. I had never seen somebody so alluring in my life, and I was having trouble thinking clearly.
“Okay,” he said, looking up from the sheet of paper. “So. Thanks for dropping in, Amelia—we appreciate it.” His voice was pleasant and deep.
I swallowed hard. He held out a hand to me. I took it.
I almost groaned as his fingers gripped mine. Strong, solid, calloused—his hands were easily the most stunning things I’d ever seen.
I looked up at him. His dark eyes held my gaze. I coughed, trying to break my discomfort. I wanted him, even though I knew he was also the rudest man I had ever seen in my life. One of them, anyway.
He was also tall and muscled and he had the most beautiful gray-blue eyes. He had his hair just over an inch in length, brushed severely back, and I could see a little gray sparkling in his dark hair. He must be in his late thirties or early forties, I thought, older than me for sure, but incredibly pleasing to look at.
If he was only a bit more friendly, I could fall for him.
“Bye,” I said. My voice sounded unusually tight.
I walked to the door.
“Bye,” he said, in a voice so gorgeous that I thought I might actually die.
I was about to walk out the door when a young man burst through the door in front of me, almost flattening me against the wall. I gasped, but neither he nor the boss seemed to notice. He went straight to the desk.
“Bro, listen. We’ve got a problem. I need help.” He sounded frightened.
“What is it?” Boss-man asked, instantly shooting to his feet.
I stayed where I was. I was stuck there as the two men moved through the door.
“It’s the Harley,” the young man said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with the gears, but we just started it up, and there’s this terrible smell, and… ”
“It could be that the clutch is overheating,” the boss said as they ran outside. “Have you changed the transmission fluid? Sometimes this happens if you don’t change the fluid properly… ”
I was sneaking out after them, and just then, the phone rang. I reached for it.
“Hello?”
Answering the call had been so automatic that it was only now, when I was standing with the thing in my hand, the customer on the other side speaking to me, that I realized what I had done. I breathed in.
“Brand’s Bike shop,” I said. “Can I help you?”
“Hi,” the customer said. “I have a new bike, and it’s giving me problems with starting up.”
“Okay,” I said, reaching for a notepad and pen. “What kind of bike is it?” My mind filled in the details that I knew. It sounded like the sparkplugs, a repair that I knew wouldn’t take long.
“A Honda. VFR800,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, tapping the pen briefly against my teeth. “What year is it?”
He told me. I became aware that I was no longer alone in the office—in fact, there were two pairs of eyes watching from the doorway. I felt my cheeks go red.
The nerve! Staring at me like that.
I willed Boss-man and his friend to go away. As if he hadn’t been offensive enough to me today, now he and some guy were making me feel like some kind of specimen. I tried to ignore them. It was hard. Knowing he was there made my heart beat fast.
“When will you be able to bring it by?” I asked, paying attention only to the caller.
“Um… can you look at it tomorrow?” he asked hopefully.
“Tomorrow?” I felt my heart thud. It was hard enough to do a job that wasn’t mine without having to give answers to questions like that. I grabbed the first thing I saw that looked like a schedule. As luck would have it, the page I got was the one for this week and there was empty space right after lunch. “Sure,” I said.
“Great. What time?”
“Tomorrow at one?” I asked. There was a break of about an hour there, and I was sure that the mechanics in such a good establishment would have plenty of time to diagnose the problem with his motorcycle.
“Sure!” he sounded relieved.
Amelia jotted down his name and number and confirmed the time once more.
“Great. I’ll be there,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Great. Bye! Have a nice day.”
“Bye.”
He hung up. When I was finished, I put the phone down, located a pen on the desk, and wrote down the details in the schedule. I did all of this while ignoring the two faces in the doorway.
I heard somebody cough. I looked up.
“Who is that?” the younger man asked, sounding shocked.
I wanted to smile. It had been a long time since I had a reaction like that, and it pleased me.
The boss’s next words shocked me.
“That,” he said, turning to the younger man. “That, Matt, is our new receptionist.”
I felt my heart almost go through the floor.
Matt, the mechanic, looked at the boss. The boss looked at him. I looked at the desk. My heart was thumping hard, and I couldn’t make sense of anything. Had he really just said that?
“Hi,” Matt said, turning to me with a broad smile. “Good to meet you. I’m Matthew Brand.”
“Brand?” I asked faintly. “Are you… ” I pointed at the boss, whose surname was also Brand, like the shop.
“Yeah,” Matt grinned. “He’s my brother. It’s a family business.”
“I see,” I said. I turned my confused stare to the boss, who was looking at me sternly, though I could see a twinkle deep in his blue eyes.
“Well,” he said, lifting a shoulder, “you have twenty-four hours to say if you want the job.”
I felt my blood shoot up to my brain, dizzying and euphoric. I laughed.
“I want the job,” I said.
It was only after I said it and saw the satisfied smirk on his face that I recalled that I had just considered him the rudest man on Earth. But now, he had just given me the o
ne thing I had wanted most.
4
Amelia
“…And when the payments come in, you can put them in this box.”
I nodded. I made myself focus on what the guy was saying, though my brain was floating in a haze of confusion. I couldn’t quite make sense of what had happened. Somehow it didn’t fit together.
The guy just hired me? Just like that? Even though it seemed like he didn’t like me?
I didn’t know what to say. I thought back over the conversation he had when he’d been speaking on the phone, and my cheeks heated up. He really was rude! And the things he said were less than flattering about me. I bit my lip.
“Okay,” he was finishing. “And, if you have any questions, you should ask immediately.”
“Good,” I said swiftly. “What day do I start on?”
He gaped at me. I bristled. What did I say that was so funny?
“You’re starting today.”
I stared at him. “Today.”
“Yes. It did say the position was opening immediately in the advertisement.”
I frowned. This was all a bit much! I mean, first he treated me so badly, then he hired me, and now he expected me to drop everything and start at that very moment!
“Um, okay… ” I said slowly. “But, do you think I could maybe call Tanya and tell her I’ll be late today? What time do we stop?” I added, realizing that I didn’t even know the shop’s hours.
“We close at seven,” he said swiftly. “And we go home after we’ve tidied up.”
“Fine,” I said. Damn it, he talked to me as if he was giving a lecture! It got to me.
He caught my eye. The contact felt like swords crossing. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t say anything. He just sighed and turned away, as if he was weary of the whole business.
“Come on. We have to take that bike out sometime soon.” He addressed his brother, who turned around.
“Great!” Matt nodded. “Come on. Um, Amelia?” He smiled hesitantly at me. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I said warmly. At least, I thought, one of the Brand family had manners. I looked away. What was it he said I should do first?
