Saying Yes to the Boss

by Jackie Braun

  “There’s a little shop in town that has some really adorable, one-of-a-kind outfits. They’re handmade and come with matching shoes.”

  Dane’s expression brightened. “Shoes. Aud is big into shoes. She has a special walk-in closet in her new home dedicated to footwear. Her footwear. I don’t think she allows Seth’s best loafers to share shelf space.”

  “There you go, then,” Ree said on a grin. “The perfect gift.”

  He nodded, jiggled the keys some more. Cocking his head to one side, he said, “So, want to play hooky for the rest of the day and come with me?”

  The invitation surprised Ree as much as it delighted her, but she managed to keep her tone casual. “Does this mean my boss is giving me permission to cut work and shop for shoes?”

  “Shoes for a baby,” he replied with mock sternness. “And don’t think you’re going to drag me into every shop and boutique in Petoskey. We’ll hit the one you mentioned, I’ll buy something for the baby and that will be the end of it.”

  “Little girls grow up to be women,” she reminded him.

  He muttered what sounded like, “Yes, and God help the other half of the population,” although she was too far away to be sure.

  “Stick with me and I could have you set for the next eighteen or so birthdays.”

  He waved in the direction of the front door. “Go get your coat and whatever else you need before I change my mind about springing you for the day.”

  Dane never would have guessed that shopping could be an almost erotic experience. But it was with Ree. She was passionate about everything—oohing and ahhing over crocheted booties, closing her eyes dreamily as she rubbed a monogrammed satin comforter against her cheek, clutching at his arm in excitement when she spied a hand-carved and hand-painted rocking horse.

  He told himself he found it annoying and that was why he gritted his teeth each time one of those appreciative little noises hummed from her throat. But he knew he was a liar. The truth was, even knowing he couldn’t have Ree hadn’t stopped him from wanting her.

  Once upon a time, he’d foolishly hoped their forced proximity would file the dangerous edge off his attraction, but he’d been sadly mistaken. The more time he spent with Ree, the more he liked her and the more he wanted to be with her. Of course, his hormones had been engaged since she’d flung open the door of her Victorian that first night. Now, it went much deeper than that. He appreciated her dry sense of humor, her innate curiosity, her work ethic, her sheer will. She’d handled so much heartache and she’d done so with grace and courage and an abiding love for the grandparents who had stepped into the breech and raised a young girl.

  Recalling his conversation with Ree on that long-ago stormy night, he decided they would be proud of the way she had thrown herself into the renovation project, making lemonade from the lemons life had handed her. Hell, he was proud of her.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked and Dane realized he’d been caught staring.

  “Just, uh, wondering if coming here before eating lunch was such a smart idea. I’m probably going to starve to death before you make up your mind,” he evaded smoothly.

  She made a face at him and went back to inspecting the store’s goods. They had spent the past forty-five minutes in the same specialty boutique—and they still hadn’t made it to the display of hand-sewn baby outfits and shoes Ree had mentioned. She said she just wanted to look, since she, too, planned to purchase something for Audra’s baby. Every time Dane thought Ree had finally made her selection, though, she changed her mind.

  For the past several minutes she’d had her eye on a miniature tea service. She’d even peppered the saleswoman with questions about how easily replacement pieces could be found since it was made of fine bone china and something was bound to get broken over the years.

  “So, are you going to buy it?” Dane asked when the saleswoman had gone to help another customer.

  “I think so.” Ree glanced past him then and her eyes grew round. “Oh my God!”

  On the table in the middle of the store was a scaled down version of a Queen Anne-style Victorian that was eerily reminiscent of her Peril Pointe home.

  She rushed over, making those sexy little noises all the way, and then bent to peek through the windows of the fully furnished dollhouse. The pose and her nicely rounded posterior did things for a couple plain denim pockets that Dane decided should be illegal.

  “You’ve got to check this out,” she said.

  Gaze still riveted to her bottom, Dane murmured, “Oh, I am. Believe me, I am.”

  But then he walked over and peered inside, unable to resist the awe and excitement brimming in her tone.

  “I always wanted one of these when I was a girl,” she mused after a dreamy sigh. “My grandfather tried to make me one for my tenth birthday. It was a kit and he had it nearly assembled and ready for painting. He’d hidden it in the attic so I wouldn’t find it. He wanted it to be a surprise.”

  Dane turned so he could see her face. She looked so beautiful, caught up in memories, these ones apparently good. “What happened?”

  “The surprise turned out to be that our roof had a leak and the dollhouse was ruined before I ever got to play with it.” She shook her head, and though she had to have been disappointed at the time, she was grinning now. “I was already pretty fluent in Italian, but I became bilingual in cursing that day.”

  “Your nonna couldn’t have been pleased.”

  “No.” She chuckled.

  They both straightened.

  “I think I’ll go with the tea service,” she said.

  “Not the dollhouse?”

  “It’s kind of an extravagant gift for a, um, work acquaintance,” she replied, and he got the feeling the bland description was for his benefit, since he knew Ree, Ali and Audra had lunch every Friday after their meeting at Saybrook’s. And the other night, his sisters had met Ree in Petoskey to go to the movies. “Even the tea service is a bit over the top, but I can afford it now. Besides, I really like Audra. And Ali, too.”

  That should bother him, Dane thought. Or, at the very least, he should be indifferent to the fact his sisters and Ree enjoyed one another’s company and had common interests that transcended work. Yet he found their burgeoning friendship damned pleasing, and he tried not to recall that, while always polite, Ali and Audra had never really warmed up to Julie to the point where the women hung out together.

  Forty minutes later, he and Ree were seated inside a small bistro that faced the water. The waitress had taken their orders and brought their beverages. Ree had her fingers wrapped around her coffee cup for warmth. They’d stowed their packages in his car, which they left parked near the boutique. Ree had talked him into walking to the eatery on the pretext that it was good exercise. He now suspected it had more to do with the fact she’d wanted to window-shop along the way than any desire to improve her cardiovascular health.

  “Audra is going to die when she opens your gift,” she told him. “The embroidery on that pinafore is a work of art. And those little shoes…” A smile curved her lips and she hummed.

  Dane burned.

  “What is it about women and shoes?” he asked, forcing his thoughts well below her knees and even then his mind came up with fantasies.

  Ree raised an eyebrow in challenge. “What is it about men and power tools?”

  “Tools are useful. You can build things with them, fix stuff.”

  “Are you saying shoes aren’t useful?”

  “Okay, they’re useful. But how many pairs do you need?”

  “Do you have a handsaw?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded slowly, already wary of the smug superiority he saw in her expression. Audra and Ali often got that look right before they landed a verbal punch he hadn’t seen coming.

  “A power saw?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “A chain saw?” she interrupted.

  “Two, actually,” he admitted. When she merely blinked, he explained,
“But only because I needed something with a bit more horsepower to tackle a big oak that fell across my driveway after an ice storm last winter.”

  “So, you have a lot of different saws, but you use them all. You need them all.”

  “Oh, no.” He shook his head. “It’s not the same.”

  “It is. Men can get away with the same pair of wingtips with just about every suit they own. Women’s wardrobes require variety, especially since one outfit can be paired with different shoes for a totally different effect.”

  “I’m not even going to ask,” he muttered.

  “Because you know I’m right.” She sighed then, apparently deciding he’d already accepted defeat. “God, I’ve really missed shopping for shoes.”

  Pumps and power tools—their conversation was so ridiculous, Dane couldn’t help but laugh. Amazingly he was having the best time he’d had in weeks…maybe even longer. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that. Thankfully the waitress arrived with their meals, sparing them both the awkwardness such an inappropriate confession would create.

  Ree had ordered California chicken salad in a pita pocket. When their meals came, however, she surprised him by picking up her fork and shaving off a sliver from one of the meatballs on his submarine sandwich. After popping it into her mouth and chewing, she made a comical face.

  “They call those meatballs,” she tsked after glancing over her shoulder to be sure the waitress was out of earshot.

  Dane eyed the sub. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “Nothing. I’m sure they’re fine. They’re just not… Italian despite the tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese that have been heaped over top of them.”

  While they’d shopped, Ree’s sound effects had turned Dane on, but that was nothing compared to the geyser of unadulterated lust that shot through him after hearing her pronounce the word mozzarella.

  “S-say that again,” he whispered, with all the urgency of an addict.

  Ree frowned. “Say what again?”

  “Mozzarella.”

  Her brows remained tugged together as she repeated the word, turning four seemingly innocuous syllables into what might as well have been foreplay in his mind.

  Dane swallowed hard and closed his eyes on a groan.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “No.” And he meant it. He wasn’t all right. He was teetering on a ledge, part of him wanting to jump. Had he ever been this sexually aroused or this sexually frustrated in his adult life?

  “I’m sure your sandwich is fine,” she assured him, sounding sheepish. “I didn’t mean to make you queasy.”

  God, she thought he was nauseated. Wasn’t that a kick in the old ego? Here he was burning up with desire and she believed he was suffering stomach upset.

  “I’m not queasy,” he said, opening his eyes. “I’m…just forget it.” He picked up the sandwich and took a big bite to prove his point.

  “How is it?” she asked after a moment.

  “Fine.” He shrugged. “Tastes Italian to me.”

  She made a different humming noise then, this one no less unsettling. “Well, that’s only because you’ve never eaten my grandmother’s cooking. Her cannelloni al forno was the best.”

  He set the sub back on his plate. She had used that sexy Italian inflection again and he was lost. “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “Nonna used only the freshest spices and ingredients. And her pesto con basilico? Delicious.”

  She moaned softly and so did he.

  “I sometimes ate the pesto without the pasta, spreading it on a thick slice of bread,” she was saying.

  Lost in those lushly fringed dark eyes, Dane murmured, “Homemade bread, I suppose.”

  “Homemade bread, homemade pasta. She made it all—linguine, fettuccine, tagliatelle, tortellini.” His libido absorbed the hits as she rattled off the varieties.

  “Sounds…great,” he somehow managed to say.

  Ree grinned then and Dane was amazed that he didn’t combust given the heat that was singeing his insides. She leaned toward him and in a confidential whisper, admitted, “My grandparents made their own wine, too.”

  He did his best to corral his stampeding hormones. Food…wine…concentrate, he ordered himself. He thanked his lucky stars that his voice was only marginally hoarse when he asked, “So, where did they get the grapes?”

  “On Peril Pointe. Those are grapevines that cover the arbor on the side of house. They don’t yield a lot of fruit, but enough for a few bottles of wine. The stuff my grandparents made was pretty good.”

  Despite Dane’s best efforts, his gaze dipped to her lips. “I wouldn’t mind sampling some of that,” he said.

  Ree wanted the magic of the day to last. The laughter, the teasing…the flirting. This wasn’t a date, and yet it was the best one she’d ever been on.

  She credited Dane for that. It was so easy to be herself around him. For so long she had been ashamed of her passionate nature. The specter of her mother’s ruin had always loomed over Ree’s encounters with the opposite sex. Perhaps that’s what had made Paul so safe. He’d never been able to make her burn just by staring at her mouth. Nor had he been able to make her laugh so freely…feel so deeply.

  In the short span of her association with Dane, Ree had discovered so many things about herself—truths that she’d denied, old wounds that she’d pretended didn’t exist. They were healing now. She was healing.

  And, for the first time in her life, she was falling in love.

  “Ready?” Dane asked, standing to shrug into his coat.

  “I am.” She meant it.

  Soon, soon, she thought, mentally counting off the days on the calendar. If all went well, she would have her divorce not long after the new year.

  They returned to the Victorian just after the sun set, having spent another couple hours talking as they browsed through a bookstore and an art gallery before stopping at a small pub just outside town for Irish coffee.

  Beneath the laughter and joking, sexual tension simmered and sometimes snapped like an exposed wire. Dane had remained a perfect gentleman, although he had reached across the Trailblazer’s console and taken Ree’s hand not long after they settled into their seats. He was still holding it when they reached the house.

  The lights were out. Ree hadn’t thought to turn any on before leaving earlier in the day. She hadn’t expected to return so late. Without so much as a lamp burning, the place looked so cheerless. So lonely.

  “Let me walk you to your door,” Dane said, letting go of her hand to shift the vehicle into Park and remove the key from the ignition.

  “Technically it’s your door now.” When they were standing before it, she worked up the nerve to ask, “Do you want to come in for a drink or maybe dinner? I have some pesto in the fridge. Nonna’s recipe. I made it yesterday.”

  In the dimness, she couldn’t see Dane’s expression, but he set down her packages and took the keys from her to unlock. Ree entered, crossing the foyer so she could switch on a light. When she turned, Dane had set her shopping bags just inside the door, but he was still standing on the porch.

  “I really should get back.” He held out the keys.

  “Oh, sure.” She nodded, took the keys. “I’m going ahead with the divorce.” The words just popped out.

  She heard Dane’s swift intake of breath and saw his Adam’s apple bob in his throat just above the collar of his coat. But he didn’t say anything.

  “Paul hasn’t responded to my previous attempts to end our marriage and I, well, I haven’t pushed it. Until now. My lawyer says it will be a little while yet before I can get a default judgment and the divorce is final. Certain steps have to be taken. But I thought…I thought you should know.”

  “I don’t want to be responsible for that, Ree,” he said at last. And she loved Dane all the more for his sense of honor, misplaced though it was.

  “You’re not. My marriage was over long before I ever met you.”

  “But you s
tayed in it.”

  “It was easier that way.” She hadn’t had to disappoint her grandmother with a divorce. She hadn’t had to admit to herself that she’d made a royal mess of things. The admission was embarrassing but she made it anyway. “I never should have married Paul.”

  “Did…do you love him?”

  “I respected him, admired his intellect. He was a safe choice, but he wasn’t the right man. Not for me.” She moistened her lips. “I know that now.”

  “How do you know that?” Dane asked softly.

  “You,” she said simply.

  He still didn’t step inside, but the look on his face before he bid Ree good-night told her they had crossed an important threshold.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE last Friday in October dawned cold, with frost turning the grounds around the Victorian white. Ree bundled up in a wool coat and drove to the dock, hoping Oliver’s sputtering carburetor was not the bad omen that it seemed to be.

  On the passenger seat was the gift she’d bought for Audra and Seth’s soon-to-be-born baby. She’d wrapped it the night before, after Dane’s departure, needing to keep herself occupied. Afterward, she’d cleaned out her closet, putting away the last of her summer things and then sorting the heavier garments to hang by color. Even that tedious chore hadn’t kept Ree’s mind off the look Dane had given her right before leaving.

  Winter was coming, but in her heart, it was spring.

  Dane was the only one in the conference room when Ree arrived. He had one hip resting on the low window sill and was just getting ready to take a sip of his coffee. Their gazes locked over the rim and the cup remained a good couple inches from his lips for a long moment before he finally brought it to his mouth and drank deeply.

  “Hello, Dane.” And because she knew she hadn’t, Ree asked, “Sleep well?”

  It gratified her immensely when he replied, “No. Tossed and turned all night. You?”

  “The same.”