Saying Yes to the Boss

by Jackie Braun

  “I hope it helps to know you’ll be part of the renovations,” Audra said. “Part of restoring the house to its original glory.”

  Ree smiled now. “It does. And I want to thank you for that opportunity as well. Dane told me that you and Ali suggested it.”

  “We did?” Audra said at the same time Ali piped up with, “He said what?”

  Dane cleared his throat noisily, a damning flush staining his cheeks.

  “It’s really not important who actually decided Ree was a good choice for the job. What’s important now is that we’ve entered into what hopefully will prove to be a profitable venture for Saybrook’s.”

  “Uh-huh.” Audra crossed her arms over her chest.

  Ali struck a similar pose. “Whatever you say.”

  Luke kept his mouth firmly closed. Even so Ree couldn’t help noticing how hard he was working to suppress a grin.

  After a muttered curse, Dane announced, “I need to make a phone call.”

  Ree watched him go, a mixture of elation and nerves assailing her. The fact that the job offer had been entirely Dane’s doing, touched her deeply. And because it did, it left her feeling vulnerable.

  There was nothing between the two of them but the contract they’d just signed. Dane had made it clear that his interest in her was purely business. When Ree was using her head, she knew that was for the best. The problem was, more and more often when it came to Dane Conlan, she found herself leading with her heart.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  REE intended to go directly home, where she planned to put on some comfortable clothes, crank up her Three Tenors CD on the stereo and spend the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen making rigatoni from scratch using Nonna’s recipe. Maybe she’d stop at the little wine shop near the dock on her way home and pick up a bottle of Chianti so that she could alternately wallow in self-pity and celebrate her life’s new direction.

  In the parking lot, however, she discovered to her embarrassment that her car wouldn’t start. She listened to the finicky engine whine and whir during half a dozen attempts before finally giving up. She was going to have to call a tow truck and she hoped to God that whatever was wrong with the Beetle could be fixed at an island repair shop in relatively short order.

  As she withdrew the key from the ignition, someone tapped on the window. She turned to find Dane hunched over.

  “Car trouble again?” he asked once she’d manually cranked down the glass.

  “Yes. Oliver’s being temperamental.”

  “Oliver.”

  Dane rested his elbows on the open window frame and shook his head slowly. Amusement brimmed in his eyes.

  The rain had subsided into a fine mist, leaving droplets of water sprinkled in his dark hair. Without thinking, Ree reached up and ran the tips of her fingers through the short layers at his temple. Afterward, they simply stared at one another.

  “You’re getting wet,” Ree said at last, hoping her words served as enough of an explanation for the intimate way in which she had just touched him.

  Dane didn’t say anything, but after a long moment, he reached through the window. She felt a featherlight touch on her cheek, as if his fingertips had just barely grazed its slope on the way to tuck a handful of hair behind her ear.

  Then he straightened and the connection she’d felt—the connection that had gone well beyond the mere physical—was broken once again.

  “You’re dry…but stranded.” He smiled, his tone matter-of-fact, and Ree wondered if she had merely imagined the interest that had sparked in his eyes.

  “You really need to trade in this heap. I think it’s safe to say you can afford more reliable, not to mention stylish, transportation now.” He thumped the roof of her car with one hand.

  “Trade in Oliver? Are you crazy? A new…engine and he’ll be running like a dream.”

  Dane rolled his eyes. Reaching inside his suit coat, he retrieved the cell phone clipped to his belt. “Your best bet for fast turnaround service is The Island Garage. Dial information for the telephone number and have them connect you.”

  As Ree spoke to the mechanic, Dane let himself in the passenger side, apparently deciding not to stand out in the rain any longer. Ree had brought a photo album she’d found while cleaning out the attic earlier in the week. The cover was faded and the binding frayed, but it was stuffed with priceless pictures of the house.

  She had intended to leave it with the Conlans, but then she’d forgotten it in the car before their meeting. Dane had to move it take his seat. Now, as she finished her call, he opened it.

  “Well?” he asked when she hung up and handed back the phone.

  “Someone named Lester assured me that a tow truck will be out to pick up my Beetle within the hour. He said they have a loaner I can use until they figure out what the problem is. Do you know the time?”

  Dane glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly noon.” After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “I was just on my way to have lunch. Why don’t you come with me?” Tapping the cover of the photo album with his index finger, he added, “We can go through these pictures and I can tell you a little about the contractors we’re considering for the job.”

  Dane sat next to Ree in a booth at the back of The Sandpiper and tried to concentrate on the photos. It was damned hard when he kept catching faint whiffs of her perfume and stray curls from her hair teased his cheek whenever he leaned in to inspect the pictures. The woman had seriously gorgeous hair. He’d been surprised that she’d left it down today.

  The last time she’d worn her sexy little black suit, she’d pulled back her hair in some clip or another. Angry as Dane had been with her at the time, his fingers had itched to set it free. Earlier, at her car, he’d given in to the urge to touch her, touch her hair. He was paying for that now. He knew he would continue to pay late into the night.

  “As you can see, the photos are a little out of order,” she said, pointing to a Polaroid that had been affixed to one of the pages.

  Dane dragged his mind out of the pool of hormones it had been happily drowning in and looked at the picture she was indicating. In it, Ree stood on the porch dressed in a full-length gown. Standing next to her was a gangly limbed boy decked out in an ill-fitting tuxedo.

  “Prom?” he asked.

  “Sadie-Hawkins Dance my freshman year of high school.”

  “Nice ’do.”

  “It was the nineties,” she replied defensively. “Big hair was still in.” But after studying it another moment, she admitted, “Okay, I’ll regret that hairstyle until the day I die. The only comfort is knowing that just about every girl in my high school wore hers the same way.”

  “Who’s the guy?”

  “Joshua Borders. He played saxophone in the high school’s jazz band. He was a junior,” she confided.

  “An older man,” Dane mused.

  “I had a major crush on him, but my grandparents wouldn’t let me date yet because I was only fifteen. They made an exception for the dance, but only on the condition that my grandfather drove us.”

  Dane winced on her behalf. “Ooh…embarrassing.”

  “Tell me about it. My grandparents were a little…overzealous in some regards,” Ree said. “I think they worried I’d turn out like my mother.”

  “Like your mother?”

  She fiddled with the album’s frayed binding for a moment before admitting, “She wound up pregnant at eighteen.”

  “That’s awfully young for so much responsibility. You mentioned that your father wasn’t around much while you were growing up.”

  “Actually he wasn’t around at all.” She looked up then, her gaze open, her tone confidential. “He was married. Still is as far as I know. My mother was an extramarital affair and I was…a mistake.”

  Dane said nothing, not sure what words were appropriate given the obvious pain the topic caused her.

  Ree apparently interpreted his silence differently. “You’re probably thinking the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree whe
n it comes to honoring wedding vows—”

  “No, I wasn’t,” he interrupted. He couldn’t have her believing that. It was better—certainly smarter—to keep all their current dealings impersonal and professional, but he would have to be inhuman not to be affected by such revelations.

  So much heartache, so much loss, and Regina had absorbed it all.

  “You’re not a mistake, Ree. Not then. Not now.”

  Silence stretched between them. His words, Dane realized, could be taken another way. Lost in her dark eyes, he wasn’t sure exactly how he’d meant them.

  Finally Ree tucked the photograph carefully back into the plastic sleeve. When she turned the page and launched into a monologue on the background of one of the ensuing photographs, he knew the subject had been dropped.

  That was for the best. Wasn’t it?

  “I don’t recall seeing a rose trellis off the side of the front porch,” Dane said. “Is it still there?”

  “No.” Ree grimaced. “My grandmother had a real green thumb, but once she became ill she wasn’t able to take care of her flower beds. By the time I moved back, several of the rosebushes, including the climbers, had been seriously damaged by insects and disease. I cut them back, hoping for the best. But only one of them made it through the winter and it didn’t flower this year.”

  “I hear roses can be difficult and a lot of work. Maybe we should go with something that requires a little less care.”

  “Oh, no. They’re worth the work.”

  She said something else, a couple Italian words whose silky syllables set off an atomic blast in his libido.

  “Wh-what was that?”

  “Just something my grandmother used to say. Something about how rose petals are tiny treasures sent from heaven.”

  “Saybrook’s has a grounds crew that sees to the resort’s landscaping and maintenance. I’ll send some workers over when the time comes. You can tell them about the roses and offer suggestions if you’d like.”

  She smiled fully and his heart seemed to buck against his ribs. “Thanks, Dane. I have lots of ideas.”

  She turned the page. “Ooh, here’s a good one of the house. This one was taken before my grandparents owned it, back when they used to come to the Petoskey area to vacation.”

  Dane leaned over for a closer look and his heart thumped again when Ree scooped the hair back from one side of her face, securing it on the other side of her neck with one hand. The move was practical given the way it kept tickling his cheek. But it left her neck exposed and all but begging to be nuzzled.

  He gave himself points for self-control when he not only ignored the impulse but managed to sound completely normal.

  “Too bad it’s black and white. I’m curious about the colors that were used originally on the home’s exterior.”

  “Why?”

  She sat back, let her hair loose. It tumbled around her shoulder and his mind went blank.

  “Why what?

  “Why are you curious about the exterior colors?” Ree said on a laugh.

  He cleared his throat and glanced back at the photograph, trying to recall his last coherent thought.

  “I, um, I guess I would like the restoration to be as authentic as possible once it’s complete. We tried to do that with the resort and so far the feedback from guests has been very favorable. People have a strong attachment to the past.”

  “That’s not always healthy,” Ree noted and Dane wondered if she truly understood that.

  “No, but in this case, it’s good for business.”

  But Ree was shaking her head. “I don’t know. I’m not so sure we’ll want to replicate the original paint job. I’ve been doing a little more research on Queen Anne-style Victorians. The color schemes were varied, with individual homes decked out in a virtual rainbow of hues. But overall the color palette tended to be dark.”

  “How dark?”

  “Think sienna reds, browns and burnt yellows.”

  “Hmm, not quite what I’m picturing for Saybrook’s on the Pointe,” Dane admitted.

  “Me, either. Not with Lake Michigan and those small dunes as the backdrop. Too romantic.”

  And Dane recalled that they had been—for a while, at least, while he’d gazed out at them from her kitchen window the morning after the big storm.

  “So you think we should keep it white?” he asked.

  “No. A lot of the ones in town have gone to pastels and I don’t see anything wrong with that.” Pointing to the picture again, she tapped various parts of the house. “I’m thinking lighter shades of blue, lavender and mauve or maybe even pink.”

  She smiled at him, obviously pleased. Dane could envision the house she described right down to the roof finials, crestings and gingerbread trim. But he knew that wasn’t what he was referring to when he said, “You’ve got me intrigued.”

  Ree was cocooning her grandmother’s china in bubble wrap when Audra telephoned Ree late the following day with a surprising invitation.

  “My husband has a show in the new gallery on Trillium this weekend and we were wondering if you would like to attend? Seth would love to meet you.”

  “I didn’t realize you were married to an artist,” Ree said, shifting the cordless phone to her other shoulder and reaching for another dinner plate.

  “Seth’s not an artist in that sense of the word. He’s a photographer. Nature now, human nature before,” Audra added on a laugh. “That’s actually how we met.”

  “I see.”

  Audra’s laughter trilled again. “No you don’t, but I appreciate your politeness. Seth was a tabloid photographer who took some really horrible shots of me back when I was, well, to put it mildly, a self-destructive idiot. He had his reasons for doing what he did, reasons that aren’t important now. What is important is that he saved my life…in more ways than one.”

  “I’d say you’re both very lucky then.”

  “Yes.” Audra sighed, and then sniffled. “Sorry. Damned hormones. Anyway, I know the invitation is very last minute, but we were thinking that if you were free, maybe you could join us Saturday night.”

  Ree absently snapped a few of the wrap’s air-filled pockets.

  “Will, um, Ali be there?” she asked, even though that wasn’t the Conlan sibling whose whereabouts really interested her.

  “Yes and Luke.” After a short pause, Audra added, “Dane, too, of course. He wouldn’t miss it.”

  “It sounds like a real family affair.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t be intruding. There will be lots of other guests, half of whom I will hardly know. Besides, this will give you a chance to meet my husband and get to know all of us a little better now that you’re working with us.”

  Ree couldn’t have said why, but she felt there was more than that behind the invitation. Even so, she accepted. What else did she have to do on a Saturday night?

  “What do you mean, Regina Bellini will be there?” Dane said.

  It was Friday evening and Seth, Audra and he had just finished dinner. Dane was a frequent guest at their table. On this night Audra had invited him over for grilled pork chops in a mango-basil sauce she’d prepared herself. Throughout her pregnancy she’d had cravings—not for bizarre concoctions, but for five-star restaurant-quality food. Sometimes she had the entire meal flown in, sometimes just all the fresh ingredients. All Dane could say was God bless impending motherhood, especially since he didn’t have to live with her and bear the brunt of her wild mood swings.

  The food was delicious as usual, but his sister’s bombshell as she served dessert had all that perfectly grilled pork turning to a lead weight in the pit of his stomach. He eyed the slice of cherry upside down cake Audra had set on the table in front of him. No way he was going to be able to enjoy it now. What a waste.

  “I invited her to Seth’s show, that’s what I mean,” Audra repeated as if she were talking to a slow child.

  “Why? You barely know her.”

  “I know her enough to like her. Besides, she�
�s working for Saybrook’s now. I invited some of the other people we have on our payroll.”

  “Well you might have cleared it with me first,” Dane grumbled.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Ree again. He did. A little too much, which was why he’d been planning to let a good week pass before they started the restoration work that would put them in close proximity on a regular basis for the next several months.

  Audra’s eyes narrowed. It was her turn to ask, “Why? I thought whatever misunderstanding you two had had was old news. Do you still have a problem with Regina?”

  “No.” Other than the fact that being around her was pure torture. For the first time in his life, Dane thought he understood perfectly why moths fluttered around lightbulbs, getting so close they sometimes wound up being incinerated. That’s how he felt whenever he was near Ree. Desperate. Doomed.

  “Then what’s the big deal?”

  Dane glanced at Seth for support, but his brother-in-law pushed back from the table. “Oh, no. Don’t try to drag me into this. Think of me as Switzerland: neutral.”

  “Neutral. I’ve got another word for it,” Dane muttered. “Doesn’t it bother you that your wife is like a pit bull.”

  “It’s a Conlan family trait,” Seth mused as he left the room. “One head is harder than the next.”

  Audra let their comments slide. “I don’t need your permission to be friendly, Dane. I like Ree. I thought she would enjoy Seth’s show and having a night out. She’s in that big house all by herself while her husband is away.”

  “He’s not just away.”

  Dane knew he’d made a fatal error when he spied the gleam in his sister’s eye. “Oh?”

  Grudgingly he admitted, “They’re legally separated, okay.”

  “I knew it! I knew something was going on. Especially with the way you—” She broke off abruptly.

  No doubt he would regret asking, but he did so anyway. “The way I what?”

  She forked up a dainty bite of cake and ate it before answering. “You’re interested in her, Dane. It’s obvious. It’s also obvious that the attraction is not all one-sided. Something is going on between you two.”