He played with his coffee mug, spinning it with the tips of his fingers. “I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Tell me what you think we should do. To get it going.”
“We should start small. I’ll go back through the requests. See who’s interested and what services they want. Put together a team. Columbia’s close enough we don’t need to start out renting office space and spending a ton of money on it. Get some clients, take a team up, do the cleanings, come home or overnight at a hotel if we need. If it catches on, I can move up there. Rent an apartment and run it from there until we get big enough to need a separate location.”
“In other words, sort of how we built it here.”
“No. Exactly how we built it here. It worked. We didn’t get in debt. We didn’t have to cut corners to pay bills. There’s no rush on this.”
Sadie nodded. It made perfect sense. Get some clients on board and let it grow by word of mouth. She knew Josh would see it without the anxiety clouding her thinking. She smiled at him. “Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot more than thinking. You’ve come up with a solid plan.”
“So it’s a go?”
“It’s your baby, Josh. It’s a go if you want it.”
He nodded. “I’ll start getting it together.”
They both stood and Sadie pulled him into an embrace. “You’re going to do awesome.”
“You going to be okay if this takes off and I move away?”
She hugged him tighter. That was the million-dollar question. “Yes. I will.”
He kissed her forehead. “Thank you for lying.”
She rested her head on his shoulder and he put an arm around her. “I’m not lying. I mean it. You are going to do an awesome job.”
“Still not taking him off your hands.”
She pushed him away. “Brat.”
He picked up his coffee cup. “If that’s all, boss, I’ve got to get to Kiawah and finish up the rentals.”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s all. Get out of my face. I’ve got real work to do.”
Real work. Like keeping her hands off Wyatt Anderson. Like stopping her mind from imagining all sorts of ways he could end her two-year drought. She pulled the client books for the day and poured another cup of coffee. She loved this time of the morning before Molly got in and the guys started to arrive. She and Josh had created this. It was more than a business. It was a family. She frowned as she thought about it. She could only think of two of her guys who came from solid, intact, middle-class families. Most were children of divorce, not uncommon these days, but many were from bad situations. Drug-addicted or alcoholic parents. One was gay and had been forbidden to return home on his eighteenth birthday. She hadn’t hired the guys because of their circumstances. Not purposefully. Maybe subconsciously. Like Wendy, she was collecting Lost Boys.
Her thoughts drifted to the letter from her half brother. She needed to decide what to do about that. She wanted to ignore it but Lito had made her promise. To give Grant a chance. If it were only him, she might. But to open a door to her mother? No way.
“Is that frown for me?”
She startled, sloshing a bit of coffee on the table. Wyatt. She hadn’t heard him come in. He leaned in the doorway, his arms crossed, displaying those biceps and forearms. He smiled. Those dimples. She looked away, flustered. No more hiring guys with dimples. There. Problem solved.
“Sorry. Thinking deep thoughts. You aren’t the first person to point out I look angry when I concentrate.”
He sat next to her. “Eight o’clock in the morning seems an odd time for deep thoughts.”
She looked into his eyes. She loved his eyes. Loved the sparkle of humor and the flare of desire she saw in them. “And what time is most appropriate?”
He leaned back, hooking one arm over the back of the chair. “I’m staring at the ceiling at two in the morning.”
“I’ve got some of those, too,” she said. Liar. Those weren’t deep thoughts keeping her awake. They were simple thoughts. I want you. I want your body. Her cheeks began to warm.
He lifted his arms and stretched, tempting her to peek at the display of pure male muscle. Damn, he was hot. Okay, see, right there. That is not helping with the “sleeping through the night” problem. And neither was the way his biceps flexed as he rested his hands on top of his head.
“Anything you want to talk about? These deep thoughts of yours this morning?”
“No, just boring business stuff. What about you? Anything I can help with?”
* * *
WYATT SMILED AT her sincerity. Her entire manner changed. Her face softened from its worried frown, her eyes and voice warmed. She did care about her employees. Deeply. What must it be like to have her care about you, as a man? An aching pull returned to his chest. That was what had been keeping him up at night. The hope there might be some way to get out of this without her hating him. The idea there might be a way to see if this attraction could be given a chance. He’d like that. But he couldn’t see how. And it ate at him. He sat forward and brought his arms down.
“Nah. The usual. Worrying over Jules.”
Her fingers, warm and soft and tender, touched his arm. His breath stopped in his lungs for a moment as the heat raced up his arm.
“Is she having trouble?”
“No. The opposite. She’s taking giant steps. Has a friend, even. They walked to school together this morning. I worry about how we lost Maddie and now I’m it. I’m all she has in this world.”
“That’d keep anyone up at night, I’d think.”
He shrugged. He hadn’t meant to reveal that. He preferred to keep his fears to himself, but she invited confession. The sense of truly caring about her employees. He focused his attention on her fingers still lingering on his arm. Which was much more pleasant than the fears haunting him in the night. He leaned back again, trying to nonchalantly pull his arm away.
“Don’t forget you’re still grieving, too, Wyatt,” she said quietly.
The words rocked him to his core. Yes, he was still grieving. Maddie was his baby sister. Their father had died before Maddie was old enough to remember him. She was nineteen when their mother lost her battle with cervical cancer. It had been the two of them for so long. He’d helped her with college. Helped her with Julietta. They’d been close. And he’d pushed his own grieving aside to help Jules. Confined his pain and tears to the privacy of his bed. He took Sadie’s hand in his.
“I know,” he said, his eyes on hers. “I’m doing okay. It’s difficult. To be strong for Jules. To not let her see me falling apart.”
“Maybe she should.”
“What? See me fall apart?”
“No, not that. But maybe she should see you be sad. See you miss her. So she knows it’s okay.”
He squeezed her hand. Then regretted it when she noticed and drew back.
“How’d you get so smart?”
She stacked the books and stood. “Oh, I’m not smart. That’s for sure. I just know...”
“People?”
* * *
HIS WORD CHOICE surprised her. Pain, she was going to say. She didn’t know squat about people. Hadn’t she proven that time and time again? She got drawn into those eyes and their gazes locked and held. The air between them filled with all the things she wanted to say. If only she could say them. If only she wasn’t his boss. The front door banged open and Molly called out a cheerful greeting.
“There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want a to-go cup. I’m going to bring Jack down. We’ve got a busy day today.”
She went upstairs and took a moment to get her emotions under control. What was that? One of those bonding moments you hear about on Oprah or Dr. Phil? He’d held her hand. And it hadn’t been sexual. It’d felt—she groped for a word—nice. Comforting. Right. She wanted to sh
ake off the rules and sit and talk with him. Tell him how amazing she thought he was. The way he was committed to Jules. Only a truly good man would rearrange his entire life to help a child. And be glad to do it. She shook her head and headed back down with Jack leading the way.
“Jack. Go sit with Molly,” she said, pointing.
Jack ran in circles around the conference room, greeting each of the guys who’d arrived. Wyatt leaned against the counter, at the sink where he’d almost kissed her. His eyes were dark, serious, contemplating. Had she upset him with her comment about grieving? Open mouth, insert foot. Again. She sighed and picked up the books. Wasn’t the first time she’d said the wrong thing at the wrong time.
“Ready?”
He pushed off the counter and took the books from her, tucking them under his arm. “Let’s do it.”
Okay. He’s going to have to stop saying things like that.
They powered through the morning. They knocked out two residential deep cleans before ten and headed downtown to the Saga magazine office. All eyes swiveled to her when she pushed open the door. DeShawn’s arrival seemed to be a much anticipated event.
“Where’s DeShawn?” one of the women asked, clearly disappointed with Sadie until Wyatt walked in behind her. “Oh. Hello.”
“DeShawn who?” a second woman asked, pure lust dripping from every syllable.
“Hi, ladies, good to see you, too,” Sadie called. “DeShawn’s out with a family emergency. This is Wyatt. He’s a new guy. I’ve warned him about you people. Remember the rules.”
Hands hit the air amid laughter. “Lookie, don’t touchie,” the women called out in singsong.
Wyatt glanced at her. A slow grin crossed his face. Expect catcalls, she’d told him. Good-natured ribbing. Mostly harmless. His gaze swept the small crowd of women with that grin and those dimples on full power. The estrogen level in the room rose about a million points judging by the sighs and face fanning. Her own lust was like a low-grade fever.
“Hi, ladies,” he drawled out in a bedroom voice. “Hope you don’t mind, but we might take a little longer than usual today. I’m still learning, and I like to go slow.”
“Stay as long as you like.”
“We can show him everything, Sadie, if you want to take a break, pick him up later.”
Sadie set the supply cart down. “I’m not leaving him alone with you degenerates.”
* * *
SADIE HAD INSISTED on treating him to lunch at Hominy Grill after finishing at the Saga office since they were only blocks away. They had the best shrimp and grits in a town where every restaurant had it on the menu. While he would happily pay nineteen dollars for that dish, he was eating the turkey club instead because Sadie was buying. She was working her way through the curried chicken salad sandwich with a gusto he liked to see in a woman. He hated salad pickers and calorie worriers.
Sadie pointed a French fry at him. “You handled that very well. Played them perfectly.”
He grinned and shook his head. It had been a performance. The women pretended to gush over him. He’d played the role of the polite good old boy by enhancing his accent a bit and tossing out lots of “yes, ma’ams” and “no, ma’ams.” Before they left, the women thanked him for being a good sport and he even got a round of applause.
“How do the younger guys handle responses like that? The sexual innuendo? I’m old enough to know it was a game, but it could be misconstrued by someone barely out of high school.”
“That’s what the preemployment testing is for. Extroverts with high emotional IQ and strong social skills do the best. Josh and DeShawn are the only ones who go solo. Everyone else is partnered up. Speaking of which, I think we can cut you loose from orientation and put you with a partner starting next week.”
This announcement startled him. He’d hoped to turn in his resignation and walk away from Sadie Martin as soon as he figured out how to get clear of Marcus without repercussions. But a few days with an employee not in the top echelon of the company would give him the opportunity to show Marcus he’d exhausted every opportunity to find some wrongdoing.
“You sure?”
“Positive. Unless you feel you need more time?”
He shook his head. “Not if I’ll have a partner to keep me on track.”
She took a sip of iced tea. “Good. Noah needs to be partnered up. His partner is taking an internship ahead of graduating next December. I think he’s ready for more of a leadership role.”
Wyatt nodded and tried to keep his face neutral. Noah. He was the kid Aaron said got the extra tips. The one he’d wanted to ask what he did to earn them. Now it seemed he was going to get the chance to find out. Perfect. He’d do a few more days. He concentrated on his sandwich for a minute. “So what’s the story with that Canard guy?”
A flicker of annoyance crossed her face before her expression settled back into a careful neutral. He was beginning to know that expression. It meant he’d hit a nerve.
“There’s no story.”
“But he seemed to be trying to mimic the Crew with that ad. He’s a rival, isn’t he?”
She bit into a French fry and shook her head. “I don’t consider him one. We serve different clienteles. His business is losing customers—I know that. Some of them are coming to us, but not that many. We’re too expensive. I think he’s just mad about that stupid City Paper award.”
“Ever met him?”
Her dark blue eyes went hard. She glanced at the traffic passing on Rutledge Avenue and sighed. “I used to work for him.”
He managed to put an appropriately interested expression on his face. There it was. Now he’d found the reason for Marcus’s grudge. “Really?”
“My first job. I lasted less than a year. He was a terrible boss. A bully.”
“And he carries a grudge, I guess.”
She wilted back in her chair. “Yeah. I don’t like to talk about it. But he’s fairly vindictive.”
“What do you mean?”
“A couple of his clients wanted me to keep working for them when I quit. He tried to sue me, said I had signed a non-compete agreement with my employment. Said I used what he’d taught me to steal his clients. When he couldn’t provide the documentation, because there never was any, he withdrew the complaint.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Use what he taught you to steal clients?”
“The only thing I learned from Marcus Canard was how not to treat employees. Everything I learned about cleaning houses came from the women who worked for him. Please don’t repeat any of this to the guys. I don’t want it spread around. I prefer to ignore Marcus.”
“I won’t. Was just curious.”
So this was revenge. Marcus was going broke and he was blaming Sadie. After all this time. He’d have to be careful extricating himself from this situation.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHY COULDN’T JULES’S first new friend’s mother have been a happily married woman? Or a dude? A simple my-two-dads situation would have been great. Anything but this. Shiloh’s mother had been divorced too long. He knew because she’d told him. Several times. Wyatt declined her invitation to come inside, opting to remain on the porch. The small ranch house was a street away from his place. Not a plus right now.
Charlotte—call me Charlie—stood in the doorway holding open the screen. He hoped she always looked like this and hadn’t gone to such trouble on his account. More makeup than he’d seen on the last four women he dated. Combined. A miasma of desperation clinging to her words and laugh. He was sure it was hard to be a divorced fortysomething mother, but he had no intention of helping her back into the dating pool.
But he’d seen her daughter make Jules giggle like an eight-year-old girl should, so he would deal.
“So she
did okay?” he asked. This was the first time he’d left her anywhere other than school.
“Perfect. She’s a doll. A real doll.”
Charlie stepped out on the porch and pulled the door almost closed behind her. The flirtatiousness disappeared. “She did mention her mother like you said she might. Said they used to watch a movie together after school on days she didn’t have to work late. I said it sounded like a lot of fun. She said it was, and they went to color.”
Shame stung him for his unkind thoughts. Charlie was a good person. She’d been appropriately concerned when Wyatt had talked to her about Jules’s situation. It hadn’t scared her away. He’d run across that a few times. Mothers who didn’t want their children to know parents could sometimes die. She’d simply asked him the best way to respond.
“Thanks,” he said. He started to say more, but the door pulled open behind Charlie and the two girls peeked out. Jules’s dark hair and eyes contrasted with Shiloh’s blond hair and blue eyes. “Hey there, Jujube. Ready to go?”
Her eyes rolled so hard in her head he worried she’d hurt herself. “Uncle Wyatt. Don’t. Call. Me. That.”
“Can she stay for dinner, Mr. Wyatt? Can she? We’ll do our homework and everything. Please?”
“It’s okay with me,” Charlie said. “In fact, both of you can stay. For dinner. Dessert. I’ve got a nice bottle of wine.”
Wyatt responded carefully. “Sorry, Jules. We’ve got to go see a friend of mine. I was thinking we could go out to dinner tonight.”
She came along without any further protests. It’d been a lot for her to spend a few hours in a new situation. Maybe she was tired. And he realized he didn’t want to go home and eat alone. He smiled at how quickly he’d become used to her company. She was a funny, bright little girl. Much like her mother had been. The comparison tugged at his heart. It was becoming less painful, the stabs now mellowing to these unexpected tugs.
“Who are we going to see?” she asked when they got in his truck and he made sure she was buckled up.
Spying on the Boss Page 11
