He smiled when she laughed and her shoulders relaxed. Yes, those lips looked much better loose and smiling.
“There’s still testing to do before a final offer.” She turned to Josh. “Take him back and tell Molly to get started on the paperwork. I’m taking the cat to her vet so they can arrange a cremation. Oh, and have someone take Jack out.”
She held out a hand and smiled up at him. He shook her hand. His fingers tightened against hers for a second at the pleasant jolt of the touch.
“Welcome aboard,” she said.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
If only he wasn’t lying about everything. He was starting to feel bad about it.
* * *
SADIE PULLED INTO the parking lot and rested her head on the steering wheel for a moment. She’d delivered the cat to the vet. Freaking out the whole way, worried she’d get a ticket and have to explain why she had a dead cat in the car. She’d never had a pet until Jack, and it had taken everything she had to touch the too-still body of poor little Rosie. But one thing she understood quite well was the pain of being left alone. She had gone back to check on Heidi afterward. Found her tearful but coping. She wouldn’t go long without a cat. By tomorrow, she’d be looking at adoptable cats on the SPCA website.
She climbed out of the car and as she did, her eyes passed over the brick facade of the building. She still had trouble believing she owned the place. It wasn’t fancy, just a cracker box–style brick house, but it was hers. She’d bought the house six years ago after running the business out of her apartment for three years. The two-story brick building had been empty and neglected for several years. The stretch of Savannah Highway it sat upon was a short ride to downtown Charleston and the location—and price—had been perfect. She’d converted the second floor into an apartment where she lived and the downstairs was the Crew’s office.
A warm sense of pride and accomplishment filled her. She’d built this. Starting with her first job as a housekeeper, she’d put aside money and cultivated a customer base, hoping to one day work for herself. To be running the most successful, most sought-after maid service in Charleston blew her mind. And terrified her. Didn’t they know that every day she was winging it?
Jack barked happily when she let herself in the front door. He skidded down the hall and crashed into her. Eighty pounds of shaggy fur, lolling tongue and stupid. She grabbed his head between her hands. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s the best boy?”
His entire body wagged out his answer. Molly laughed from her desk. “And you wonder why he won’t behave for you. You encourage bad behavior. Jack. Sit.”
And he sat, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and his tail swishing across the floor. Sadie leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “I think you’re the best boy,” she told him. “Granny Molly is just a meanie.”
“Your new hire is still in the back, taking the personality tests. I called his references, they check out. Told them to expect a call from you.”
Sadie took the handful of mail Molly held out to her. “Anything else?”
“Deanna Carter—”
“No.”
“—asked if you’d reconsider.”
“No.”
“Says she was under stress and is—”
“No.”
“—taking medication and has her issues under control.”
“Don’t care if God Himself writes her an excuse. She groped one of my guys. No.”
Molly held up her hands in surrender. “Only relaying the message. Don’t get mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you. I’m still mad at her.”
She bit back several colorful words. There was a new hire in the back. A new hire she wasn’t sure she should hire. He was too...too much. She went to her office and tossed the mail on the desk. Get it together. You can’t deny a man a job because he makes you remember you’re a woman. You’re an adult. You’re a professional. Deal with it. She pulled the band out of her hair and shook out the curls, running her fingers over her scalp, trying to ease the brewing headache. An unfamiliar creak on a hallway floorboard was the only warning she got before Wyatt appeared in her open doorway. He stood with an easy, relaxed confidence and it made her wonder what it would take to rile him up a bit. And the thought sent a delicious little wave of pleasure through her. She tossed the hair band on her desk and squared her shoulders. “All done?”
“I think so. Hope so. My eyes are about to fall out of my skull. Not used to staring at a computer for so long.”
He turned as she approached the door so she brushed lightly against his arm when she passed. Apparently all he had to do was stand there to rile her up. She shook her head as she walked down the hall. He followed and she swore she could feel his gaze on her back. She did what she always did when flustered—reverted to business mode.
“Have a seat,” she said, waving at one of the tables set up as desks. She remained standing until he sat. Only then did she sit across from him. “There’s a reason we do so much testing. The results will be calculated and I’ll get a report.”
“Seems to be pretty standard with any job application these days,” he said.
“True. It’s for everyone’s protection. My business model is a bit odd, some might say. So I make sure everyone, employees and customers alike, are on the same page about the services provided.”
He leaned forward, crossing his arms on the table and distracting her with those tanned, muscled forearms, lightly dusted with sun-bleached blond hair. “And those services are?”
She snapped her eyes back to his. “We clean. Period. The end.”
“I understand you perfectly. Do the customers? I recently got custody of my eight-year-old niece. I’m her only living relative. I can’t afford any kind of accusation.”
It took a moment for her to answer. Eight years old. Only living relative. Her heart raced and she drew in a slow breath. She clasped her hands together, staring down at her fingers. She cleared her throat and forced the corners of her mouth up into a smile.
“A lot of our clients have been with me since before the Cleaning Crew existed. New customers come primarily from referrals. All new clients have a sit-down interview with me and they have to sign a behavior agreement as part of their contract. Employees sign one also.”
He rocked back in his seat. “That’s pretty thorough.”
“When we were first starting out, a woman made accusations. She fairly quickly confessed she’d made up the entire incident. She’d developed a crush on one of our guys, and when he did not reciprocate, she tried to get him fired by lying.”
She stopped there. It still made her furious. She took a few deep breaths so she could talk without her volume climbing to shouting range. “Even though it was straightened out right away, it scared me. Max was a college kid majoring in education. If there had been some sort of crime reported against him, it could have landed him on the sex offenders list and he would never have been able to get a job as a teacher. It could have ruined his entire life. So I take this very seriously.”
“Good. Exactly what I want to hear. I need a job and a paycheck. I don’t need to risk my future and my niece’s future.”
She stood and he followed suit. “I think you’ll be fine. I’ll get the results and call you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE DAY WAS pleasant and Wyatt would have chosen the outdoor seating, but Marcus Canard had already taken up residence in a corner booth at the Citadel Mall location of Sesame Burgers & Beer. The lunch crowd was beginning to thin out which troubled him a little. People in large noisy crowds were less likely to eavesdrop.
Wyatt hesitated, studying Marcus for a moment. He wore the Southern gentleman’s casual uniform of khakis and a polo shirt. But everything was a bit off. The shirt stretched over a too-large gut and one
collar was frayed. The fabric of the khakis was stiff and shiny. By his appearance, he wouldn’t seem to fit with the business elite of Charleston, but he did.
He’d first noticed it when he’d been summoned to the office of Henry Moody to meet Marcus. The contrast between Henry’s Old World grace and Marcus’s crude appearance and speech was almost comical. Until you realized they were both rich and powerful men. And in the business world, money and power were all that really mattered.
Wyatt had taken this assignment when he really didn’t want to. The work he did for Henry’s insurance company was his main source of income. He couldn’t jeopardize that relationship. Not with Jules’s welfare to consider. So he was stuck with Marcus Canard. He crossed the room, pulling on his bland cop face.
“Did you get the job?” Marcus asked around a mouthful of fries as Wyatt sat across from him.
“Start on Monday. It’d be helpful if you told me exactly what it is you’re looking for.”
“Anything. I know that gal isn’t running a legitimate business over there. And what’s with the guy thing? Is that a gimmick or are those boys doing more than mopping?”
Wyatt corralled his irritation while he gave the waitress his order. Clients usually knew exactly what they wanted him to find. When he turned back to Marcus, he had it mostly under control. “You think there’s something illegal going on, then?”
“All I know is she charges twice what I do, and for what? So a good-looking guy can clean your house? Who cares what he looks like?”
A spark of interest flared at that and Wyatt leaned forward. “You think she’s running a male-prostitute service?”
“Why not? Women can pay for it now, too, right?”
“My preliminary investigation hasn’t turned up anything. Not even a rumor.”
“Find a rumor. Find something. Find anything. I want her out of business.”
“Why?”
“That’s nothing you need to know to do your job. Just do it.”
Marcus had barked out the order, but his eyes had slid away from Wyatt’s and lingered on the shoppers passing the window. His hands clenched into fists on the table. The man was angry. Anger was usually personal.
“You said she couldn’t run a legitimate business. How do you know that?”
Marcus looked back at Wyatt and the silverware clanged on the table as he slammed his fist down. “There is something going on. She’s nothing. A minimum-wage trailer-park maid. Thinks she’s something now.” He leaned forward and pointed his index finger at Wyatt. “I won that ridiculous City Paper award five years in a row. She took it from me. Now I’m losing customers. Find me something. Anything.”
And there it was. She was hurting him financially and now she’d publicly beaten him. The City Paper’s Best of Charleston Award may have been the catalyst for Marcus seeking revenge, but money was always the motivation for men like him. He shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything going on, but if you want to continue the investigation, it’s your money.”
“Damn right, it’s my money. You find something. Anything. Be a shame if I had to tell Henry you let me down.”
Wyatt pressed his lips together. His first impulse was to get up and walk out. But there was Julietta to consider now. He couldn’t do anything to risk the stability he was trying to give her. If his relationship with Henry was damaged, he’d lose his biggest source of income.
He shrugged as he squeezed lime over his fish taco. “It’s your money.”
“And you’ll have a report for me next week.”
Marcus wiped his mouth and threw the napkin on his plate. He reached into his wallet and left a twenty on the table before lumbering away.
Asshole. Wyatt tried to finish his lunch, but the food tasted like sawdust and his stomach burned with frustrated anger. He shoved the plate away and smiled at the waitress to let her know he was ready.
He should probably try to dig a little deeper into the story of the woman who made the false allegation. Most likely a waste of time. He’d heard the passion and the fierce protectiveness in Sadie’s voice when she’d told him the story this morning. She wasn’t lying. She wasn’t stupid, either. There was more going on here than Marcus was telling him. His phone buzzed in his shirt pocket. The display read Springfield Elementary and everything else was forgotten in a wave of concern. Julietta.
“Mr. Anderson? This is Mrs. Rigby, the principal at Springfield.”
“Yes, ma’am. Is Julietta all right?”
“She’s having a bit of a rough time today. Would you be able to come to the school?”
“On my way.”
A bit of a rough time today. Poor kid had had a rough time the past six months. Her mother, Maddie, his baby sister, had been filling in for another flight nurse when the helicopter she was in went down in the Smoky Mountains. There had been no survivors. Julietta had been dropped off for school and had never seen her mother alive again.
He found her sitting in a chair in the school office, clutching her book bag to her chest. She sat perfectly still. No fidgeting, no swinging of the legs or tapping of feet. None of the constant motion you would expect from an eight-year-old. She didn’t smile at him, only turned those big, dark eyes in his direction. He squatted beside her and ruffled the black hair falling in a messy sheet down her back.
“Hey, Jujube. What’s up?”
She lowered her head to the book bag but her eyes, so full of a sadness he’d give anything to know how to relieve, never left his. “I want to go.”
She didn’t say she wanted to go home. In her mind, home was still in Asheville. Home was as dead and gone as her mother. He brushed back a lock of hair from her face.
“Okay, we’ll go. Let me talk to Mrs. Rigby first.”
“I’m sorry to have called you,” Mrs. Rigby said as he sat across from her. “Usually, if we give her a little quiet time in the library or here, she can regroup and go on with her day.”
“No, call me whenever you think it’s necessary. She’s my primary concern. Do you have any idea what may have upset her?”
“I think it was a geography lesson. Her teacher was talking about plains and mountains.”
Wyatt took in a deep breath. Mountains. Asheville. Home. Her mother. The child psychologist said it was normal. Anything could trigger a memory reminding her of the loss and all he could do was be supportive.
He’d spent hours on the phone with Maddie’s best friends trying to learn their rituals and habits and the things they celebrated so he could be prepared. That’s how he’d known Julietta got a new stuffed bunny rabbit for Easter every year, not candy. He’d worried it had been a mistake to try to replicate a gift from her mother when Julietta had stared silently at the bunny. After what had seemed like forever, she’d stroked the soft, plush fabric and given her uncle a hug. Wyatt had never had a better hug in his life.
“I’m going to take her home, then. School’s almost over for the day.”
“Is she still getting help?”
“Yes. We’re seeing the counselor twice a week. She’s making good progress. It’s slow, but steady. Due for some sort of breakthrough, the counselor thinks.”
“Good. If there’s anything we can do to help, please schedule a meeting with her teacher and me.”
He stood and shook her hand, thanking her. As he left, he held out a hand to his niece. “Come on, Jules, let’s hit the road.”
She stood and carefully, deliberately settled the book bag around her shoulders. After a moment she placed her little hand in his. He closed his fingers gently around hers and let out a breath as sadness washed over him. He wanted to see her have some sort of normal childhood. He simply had no idea how to get her there.
CHAPTER FOUR
A SLENDER HAND with golden-brown skin and a perfect manicure reached over Sadie’s sho
ulder and snatched the phone out of her hands. She reached to grab it back and noticed the jagged nail she’d forgotten to fix after breaking it while opening a box of mop tops.
“Magdalena!”
Her best friend slid into the booth across from her with a flounce of heavy dark hair and pinned her with nearly black eyes. She held the phone up. “Don’t try to piss me off by calling me that. You can’t distract me. Why were you looking at it?”
Sadie ignored the flare of guilt and gestured to the glasses of wine on the table. “I already got your chardonnay. And I ordered the hummus.”
Lena lifted the wineglass and took a healthy sip. “Thank you. Why do you keep looking when you know it only makes you feel bad?”
Sadie took her phone back. Setting it aside, she took a long sip of her own wine. She knew she should stop checking her mother’s Facebook page. It stirred up pain and anger she should have left behind years ago. It wasn’t healthy, she knew, to read the accomplishments of her half brother and sisters and feel the need to shout, “Hey, I still exist! I’m accomplishing things, too!” Her jealousy of mere children made her sick with shame. But she couldn’t stop. A part of her wondered if her mother had wanted her to find it. There were no privacy settings on the account. All she had to do was send a friend request.
She didn’t need to say these things to Lena. She knew. The waiter brought the hummus and, as Sadie reached for a wedge of bread, Lena put her hand over Sadie’s.
“I’m sorry, Sades. I didn’t say that to hurt you.”
Sadie shrugged and pulled her hand away. She kept her eyes on the bowl of hummus. She was capable of hurting herself without any help. “I know. You’re right. It’s like picking at a scab.”
She sat back in the booth of the Avondale Mellow Mushroom restaurant. Avondale was a booming little microcosm about a mile over the Ashley River from downtown Charleston. While Sadie’s home wasn’t quite in the Avondale neighborhood, it was close enough to walk. In the past few years, the intersection where Magnolia met Savannah Highway had become a hot spot for local restaurants, artisan shops and amazing mural art. The revitalization was the reason her property values had skyrocketed, and she tried to repay the community by frequenting the shops and restaurants.
Spying on the Boss Page 2
