by Lori Ryan
Bethany, one of the two perky brown-haired interns, spoke up. “Okay, so, um we can confirm all of the reservations for you and double-check that the van company is booked and ready for pickup tomorrow.”
Kaeden looked a little stunned that she’d ask to do anything. “Not necessary. I called them all on the road out here today. We’re all set everywhere.”
“Oh,” was all Bethany managed at that, but the other girl sent a beaming smile Kaeden’s way.
“We can start planning next week’s agenda, then,” Callie said. “And maybe we should plan a few alternate events for this week in case anything falls through.”
“Falls through?” He asked the question as though the plans he had made wouldn’t dare fall through.
Joy suppressed a smile at that.
This guy.
She had a southern friend back home who would have been saying an awful lot of bless-his-hearts to all of this.
Callie shifted on her feet and glanced at Beth.
“Well, like it could rain or something,” Beth suggested. “Or one of the places you booked might have some kind of emergency or something. It’s always a good idea to have a backup plan.”
That seemed to get to him. “You’re right. That’s a great idea. Why don’t you guys come up with two proposed alternate plans and get them to me by the end of the day. If they look good, we’ll go ahead and pencil them in as alternates.”
Because heaven forbid the interns just plan a backup event without him overseeing every detail. Heaven forbid this jerk didn’t control every possible outcome of this retreat.
The women weren’t going to let that bother them. They smiled and immediately ducked their heads together as they exited, talking about possible activities and what they could do with the kids during the adult-only events Kaeden had booked.
Kaeden looked at the woman across the table from him and braced himself for a fight. She clearly didn’t like him but he didn’t know what he’d done to merit any kind of response like that in the twenty minutes they’d known each other.
Joy Wilson had been a surprise when she walked into the room. She wasn’t at all what he expected when Jack told him he’d have someone from the lodge to work with. He had no idea why, but after meeting the old man that owned the place, he hadn’t expected the delicate woman who walked into the room.
She somehow instilled the insane unwanted desire to protect her. Not that there was anything to indicate she needed protection. It was the big brown eyes and the way her hair fell from its ponytail to frame her face in wisps that made her look fragile, he guessed.
But that was really where any hints of softness ended. He had watched during the meeting with his interns as she’d let her disapproval become obvious. Though he had no idea why she should disapprove of his plans. They were good plans. Even if he had thrown them together over the course of two days, they were solid.
He tilted his head at her. He didn’t exactly want to start an argument with her but he also wasn’t the type of guy to just ignore things if she had an attitude about something.
“Do we have a problem, Ms. Wilson?”
She actually laughed at that. “Ms. Wilson? You can call me Joy. And no, we don’t have a problem.”
“You sure about that? It feels a little like you’ve got a problem with some of this.” Understatement of the century. She might be all ‘call me Joy,’ but she definitely wasn’t throwing off friendly vibes.
And why did that make her all the more appealing to him? He liked that she wasn’t flirting with him and trying to please him. He didn’t know what that said about him so he ignored it. And ignored the way his body was all too aware of her.
She shook her head. “Nope. No problem. Not from me. I’m your yes-woman. It’s all yesses from me.”
He saw the minute her words hit her ears and she flushed pink, highlighting the freckles that danced over her nose and cheeks.
Good. Because there was no damned way she didn’t have a problem with him. She was lying through her teeth right now and he knew it.
“Perfect,” he said. “Then we won’t have any trouble working together.”
Her eyes flashed and he knew she wanted to argue with him.
He could see it eating at her.
He raised a brow and waited, but she only stood and gave him the kind of tight-lipped smile that really said, “fuck you” and walked out of the room.
Well, that went well.
Chapter 3
Kaeden watched as the entire Sutton group off-loaded at one of what turned out to be many art festivals Breckenridge hosted throughout the summer. There were art installations throughout the town with music and food booths set up along the main street.
Kaeden faced the group, raising his voice above the crowd. “We’ll meet back here at one p.m. to head back to the lodge,” he said. “If you miss the bus, you can walk up to the top of Main Street and catch one of the city busses back up the hill. They’re free and then the lodge is only a short walk from where they drop you off.”
He wasn’t sure if everyone heard him or not. He should have written out a schedule for everyone and included the lodge’s address and all the shuttle bus information.
He turned to the interns to tell them to work on that for tomorrow only to find them grinning at him as they handed out sheets of paper. He took one and looked at it.
The schedule, lodge address and phone numbers, and the shuttle bus information were all neatly printed on the little slip.
Well, that was creepy.
He looked up to find Joy Wilson watching him with what he could only describe as a knowing expression. Like she’d just watched the whole exchange and knew the Stepford Twins—that was what he’d taken to calling the interns after they’d finished three of his sentences for him before breakfast was half over that morning—had read his mind yet again.
She smirked at him and he wondered if it would be wrong to tell her she could ride back to the lodge with the van. Sure, her boss had sent her in case they needed her, but really? They didn’t really need a babysitter on this outing.
But then she was walking up to Jack and she had him smiling and laughing at something she’d said. Perfect. He couldn’t very well blow her off when it was clear Jack liked her.
Jack raised his voice to the milling group. “Joy tells me the lodge can ship anything you all buy at the booths back home for us.” He grinned at them all and winked at his wife, Kelly. “Not that I want to encourage you to shop, but I figure it would be rude not to pass on the offer.”
Joy put up her hands in mock apology. “Sorry!”
Great, she was charming the hell out of everyone.
And she was walking his way. He didn’t know what it was about her that irritated the hell out of him.
Maybe it was the unnerving way she had of looking at him like she saw just how out of his depth he was with all this.
Joy stopped in front of him. “Kaeden, a few of the group want to stay behind for a glass blowing demo that’s happening at three o’clock.”
He looked down at the sheet in his hand. “We have a hike at three.”
She tilted her head at him and squinted. “Have you had that OCD looked at?”
“It’s not OCD,” he bit out.
She shook her head. “You’re probably right.”
Samantha Page walked up then. The tall dark-haired woman worked at Sutton but she was also one of the world’s leading hackers and the designer of Tangled Legacy, an online multiplayer game that half the world played.
With what she could do with a computer, Kaeden knew she had to be working at Sutton because she loved it, not because she and her husband Logan needed the money. They had more than enough of it.
“Hey, are you being nice to Joy?” Samantha said to Kaeden, putting an arm around Joy. “We like her.”
He might have growled.
Samantha laughed at him. “Down boy, down. You need to play nice.”
“I messed with his schedule
when I told you about the glass blowing,” Joy told her and he knew he’d lost this fight if Samantha was one of the people who wanted to see the demonstration.
He plastered a smile on his face and pulled up his phone to make a note. “No biggie. I’ll have the van drop off whoever is planning to hike and then swing back down and pick up anyone who stayed for the glass blowing.” He looked at Sam. “Should I have the van meet you back at this location at four?”
Samantha and Joy smiled. He was screwed.
“That would be perfect, Kaeden, thank you” Joy said but he had a feeling what she was saying in her head was more like, “good boy.”
He was in hell.
Chapter 4
Joy looked around at the people laughing and having fun in the dining room. She had liked the people she worked with before her life had changed so dramatically, but she didn’t really know if she would have had fun on a work retreat like this.
These were people from all levels in the company hanging out with their bosses and their bosses’ families like they actually liked spending time with them.
All except Kaeden O’Shea. He was sitting at a table with a bunch of the people from Sutton, cup of coffee in his hands, but she could see that he held himself somewhat apart from them. It wasn’t blatant. He wasn’t refusing to talk to them and he wasn’t rude or anything, but she could see that he somehow wasn’t letting them in.
As much as she didn’t want to, she wondered what had happened to make him that way. It could be that he had always been that way, but she knew how the last two years had shaped and changed the way she was with people.
She would laugh and joke, but there was always the need to keep things superficial. Not only because she didn’t want to answer questions about her life and her past, but because everything in her world was temporary now. Friends, jobs, cars. All of it was short term and short term only.
But his job with Sutton didn’t sound that way, so what had him keeping himself at arm's length from the people around him?
She shouldn’t be wondering this. The man was obnoxious with his lists and schedules. She was pretty sure she’d seen him check his watch three times so far during dinner.
They had a campfire with s’mores planned during several of the nights they were here and tonight was the first one.
Still, he didn’t need to do anything to get it ready. Carl and some of the high school kids working at the lodge had already stacked the wood and Carl had gone out and lit the fire about an hour ago. She’d be bringing down all the fixings for s’mores after dinner.
But this man and his schedules….
Joy scanned the dining room once more. So far, the group seemed to like the set-up they had going where they were serving dinners family style. Starting tomorrow, they’d be doing breakfast at the sideboard buffet style. Lunches were always going to be eaten out since the group had so many activities planned and most dinners would be out as well after tonight.
The ringing of the front desk phone interrupted her thoughts and she slipped from the dining room to answer it.
“Trembling Tree Lodge, may I help you?”
“Hey, it’s Burt out at the sliding hills, who’s this?”
Joy paused a beat. There was always that slight pause when someone asked her that question. It was hard to overcome the anxiety even when she was using a fake name and even when she knew Burt couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her old life. Burt ran one of the companies that ran tube slides down the mountains in Breckenridge.
“It’s Joy. What can I do for you, Burt?”
“That group you have out there, the Sutton group?”
“Mm hmm?”
“They’re scheduled to come out here tomorrow and slide the hills, but we’ve got a hiccup.”
Joy bit back a sigh. She could imagine how well Kaeden O’Shea would handle a hiccup.
“What’s the hiccup?” she asked.
“Our toilets have all backed up. It’s uh, well, the truth is it’s not pretty. We’ve got the plumber here, but we’re going to need a day or two to clean things up here before we open back up.”
Joy cringed. Yeah, she didn’t want to be there until that was all cleaned up and she could pretty much guarantee the Sutton group didn’t either. She pulled out the copy of the itinerary Kaeden had given her for their group and scanned it.
“Do you think you’ll be ready by Wednesday? I think we can switch out that activity.” They were booked to go horseback riding Wednesday, but she knew the riding stables could handle a pretty good number of people so chances were good they could fit them in tomorrow.
“Yes, ma’am. We’ll have things cleaned up by then.”
“Okay, can you go ahead and put them down for Wednesday and I’ll see if we can juggle stuff here? If we can’t do that day, I’ll get back to you to rearrange things.”
“Works for us. Thanks for understanding.”
Joy grinned. She was really tempted to tell him shit happened, but didn’t.
Now to tell Kaeden the news. She went back to the dining room and waved at him, tilting her head back toward the lobby.
She could see him tense the minute he spotted her. This was going to be fun.
It only took her a minute to summarize the situation for him, but she could see his alarm when she did.
“And what if the stables can’t take us tomorrow? Why didn’t you get me while he was still on the phone?”
Joy’s jaw dropped for a split second, but then she closed her mouth and put her hands on her hips, stepping into this idiot.
She went toe to toe, enjoying the look on his face when she did. “Then we stick with riding Wednesday and pick another day for the slide. Or we scrap the slides if that’s what you want. But I told Burt this was tentative. It’s not a big deal to call and ask the stables.”
She took a breath. “And you’re welcome, by the way.”
Now he stepped in. “You’re welcome? You’re welcome?”
“Damn Skippy.” Oh Lord, she’d just said ‘damn Skippy’ to the man. Wonderful.
He sighed and rubbed his forehead. Then he shocked the hell out of her. “I’m sorry.”
Joy stared. Well, that was unexpected. She crossed her arms. “Um, okay.”
“That was a dick move on my part. Thank you for handling it. I can call the stables.”
Joy shrugged. “I don’t mind calling if you want to finish your dinner. I know the woman who runs it.”
“We’ll call,” Bethany said from beside them, making Joy and Kaeden both jump.
Joy hadn’t seen her and Callie walk up but those two seemed to always be waiting a half step behind Kaeden.
Joy had to suppress a grin when she saw a muscle in Kaeden’s jaw tick. She could see him struggling to say yes to them.
Callie threw him her brightest smile. “It’s no problem. We can handle it.”
Kaeden relented and Joy wondered how long he would wait before he called the stables to double check their work.
“Let me know what they say when you get through, please,” was all he said and Joy felt the urge to pat him on the shoulder for taking such huge strides.
She didn’t know when she’d gone from seeing this man as nothing more than a control freak she should avoid to seeing him as a man who desperately needed someone to help him loosen up, but the move was a dangerous one. Thinking you could change a man is what got women into trouble.
As the interns walked away, Joy focused on them.
“They’re like the Stepford Wives,” she whispered.
Kaeden’s eyes went wide. “I’ve been calling them the Stepford Twins in my head. I keep thinking I’m gonna slip one day and call them that to their faces by mistake.”
Joy couldn’t help but laugh at that.
Kaeden let a slow grin cross his face and wondered what it was about this woman that tempted him to flirt. More than tempted.
Normally a vacation was the perfect time for a short-term hookup, but she wasn’t a dis
traction he needed on this trip. He needed to make sure nothing went wrong on this retreat.
But damn, he couldn’t help but watch in fascination as her face transformed when she laughed. She went from a woman who looked like she had too much to carry in the world to a woman who flat out stole his breath when she laughed. Her eyes lit up and her cheeks were tinged with a hint of pink. Her mouth, too. It was pretty fucking kissable, and he had to focus hard on keeping his eyes on hers so he didn’t stare at those lips and wonder what it would be like to taste them.
“Crepes.” She said the word like it hadn’t come out of nowhere.
He blinked. He had no clue what she was talking about. “Crepes? Is that your way of swearing or something?” He knew his boss’s sister-in-law didn’t like to swear and there were times when the things that came out of her mouth made no sense. She’d say things like “aw monkey toast” or “skidget.” Skidget wasn’t even a word but she didn’t care.
The look Joy was giving him said it had nothing to do with swearing.
“No. The food. Crepes. There’s a crepe place in town that’s amazing. Actually, they’re so good, they have two locations not even a block apart to handle the demand. It’s not something you should miss on the trip and you don’t have anything planned for tomorrow morning. Since you have the vans, you might want to see if a group wants to go into town for breakfast.”
“Isn’t breakfast served here?”
“It is.” She gave a small shrug of one delicate shoulder. “It’s just something you shouldn’t skip if you’re in Breckenridge. Carl told me I should make sure you hit all the local hot spots.”
He laughed. “Crepes are a hot spot?”
“In Breckenridge in the summer? Yeah. Crepes count.”
“Noted. I’ll see if anyone wants to make the trip into town tomorrow morning for the world’s most amazing crepes.”
