LITMIR.BIZ

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satisfaction, folding his arms over the ridiculous breadth of his chest and looking at her, pleased that she had lived up to his every unspoken judgment: rich, useless, frivolous and chased away by the slightest hint of a challenge.

      In less than ten seconds, too!

      Jessie was compelled to wipe the smirk off his face, even if it meant she closed the escape door. She straightened her shoulders and tilted her chin.

      “Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” she said, though of course a split second ago that had been exactly her intent, to cut and run. Aware he was watching her with every ounce of his ill humor returned, she looked for a place to set her purse. She found a tiny corner of clear floor under the desk. Her skirt tightened uncomfortably across her derriere when she bent over, and she straightened hurriedly.

      “My specialty is disasters,” she said, with cocky confidence that she was far from feeling. “I can fix a mistake like this one—” she motioned to the office with her hand “—in a week.”

      “A week,” he muttered dubiously, and then brightened marginally as he watched her. “Honey, if you last half a day, I’ll eat my shorts.”

      “Briefs or boxers?” she asked. And then she added quickly, “And don’t call me honey. It’s tacky.”

      “Tacky,” he repeated, stunned, as if one of those precariously leaning boxes had slid off the counter and landed on his toe. Thankfully, he focused on the tacky enough that he didn’t even appear to notice how uncomfortable she was with the uncharacteristically bold remark she had made. Talk about tacky—how about discussing a man’s underwear preference?

      “Is there any particular part of this mess you’d like cleaned up first?” she said, eager to shift the focus completely.

      They were faced off, and she could see she was somewhat of a surprise to him and not an altogether pleasant one, either.

      Oh, why hadn’t she just turned around and walked back out the door while she still had the chance? Oh, no, Little Miss Has-To-Prove-Herself had to pick the worst moment to put in an appearance.

      “Miss King, MBA, that’s entirely up to you.”

      She should really correct him. She had never said a thing about an MBA. “Good,” she said decisively. “I’ll begin with—”

      “No, wait. On second thought, coffee would be a good place to start.”

      “Coffee,” she repeated uneasily. She was pretty sure affirmative action meant that she didn’t have to make coffee.

      He regarded her rebellious expression cynically, then shook his head.

      Something snapped loudly in the vicinity of her desk, and she started, turned and saw nothing. Still, she knew the startle reflex had given away her wee bit of nervousness.

      He hadn’t missed it. He smiled grimly. “I’m downgrading. Two hours. That’s how long you’ll make it.”

      “I hope they’re boxers,” she shot back. “Those would take you a little longer to eat.”

      Good grief, this had to stop! She’d known this man less than ten minutes and she had mentioned his undergarments twice! She and Mitch had never discussed undergarments, ever.

      “And just for future reference, for your next job, in the real world work starts at seven, not—” he glanced at his watch “—eight forty-five.”

      She wanted to defend herself. Not everyone came in from Harrisonburg, either! But she sensed under these circumstances that excuses, even very legitimate ones, would be wasted.

      He picked up a sheaf of papers from a leaning stack on the counter, looked at her once more, shook his head ruefully and headed for the door. The phone started ringing again, and he moved to pick it up, then stopped.

      He grinned at her, that grin that made her heart do traitorous and treacherous things. She was glad she was engaged to a man who did not make her feel so topsyturvy. It would be exhausting to feel this way all the time!

      “Hey,” he said, his deep voice edged with just a trace of sarcasm, “that would be your job now.”

      The door shut behind him, and thankfully he took all his bristling energy with him, though without him in it, the room seemed even more depressing than before, if that was possible.

      She went around to the other side of the desk, closed her eyes, tried to concentrate. Surely she must have hit her head harder than she thought. She felt shell-shocked, but she took a deep breath, picked up the phone and said, “K & B Auto.”

      She had barely gotten it out when she was assaulted by a description of a malfunctioning carburetor in an accent so deep it was nearly indecipherable.

      She loved cars. She always had. She loved how they looked and how they smelled and how they sounded when they were running perfectly. She realized what she loved was the cosmetics of cars, because she was not even entirely sure what a carburetor was. Maybe she had been a little overly confident in telling that annoying man she was going to bring calm to chaos. She wasn’t sure how her master’s degree was going to help her with this challenge.

      “Call back. Later. Tomorrow would be good.” She hung up the phone and sank into a padded leather chair in front of a scarred metal desk overflowing with paper.

      The connecting door to the work bay swung open.

      “That coffee? I like it strong.”

      He was zipping himself—very unselfconsciously—into a pair of faded blue coveralls, the jeans and white T-shirt underneath.

      The politically correct reply would have been to tell him to make his own damn coffee, but her eyes were mutinously glued to that zipper.

      The door shut again before she came to her senses enough to become politically correct.

      Coffee. Strong. Now would really be the time to march into the dark cavern of the auto repair bays to tell him he had obviously mistaken her for someone she was not. She might be able to manage an office. But girl Friday? Really that was beneath her dignity! She hadn’t spent the last six years of her life at school so that she could make coffee and fetch doughnuts!

      What on earth had her father been thinking? It was totally evident she was going to be a fish out of water in this environment. It was totally evident this had been a mistake.

      “My specialty is disasters,” she said, mimicking herself. “I can fix a mistake like this one—in a week.”

      She pushed back several leaning stacks of paper to make enough room for her elbows. Then she rested her head in her hands and ordered herself to think. Thinking was generally her specialty, not that she had let even a hint of that show in the encounter she had just survived. Nor was any of her natural intelligence surfacing now. Because instead of formulating a plan of attack for the terrible mess in this office, and the huge coffee machine that gloated at her from its perch on the crowded counter, she was lamenting her choice of outfit.

      A terrible choice. A suit, classic Chanel, jacket and straight skirt, in a small plaid pattern that had made her feel exceedingly professional when she had chosen it, along with dark stockings and plain black pumps, this morning. It was the type of outfit her fiancé, Mitch, approved of. Respectable. Mature. Appropriate for someone planning an academic career.

      It makes you look fat, a voice inside her head wailed. Plus, it was going to be too hot. Her office space already seemed sauna-like, though in fairness, part of that might be her reaction to Garner Blake.

      And her hair! Why had she ever allowed her sister Chelsea to talk her into cutting it? Oh, because Chelsea had talked about bone structure and her eyes and had made her believe, somehow, that having only two inches of hair could make her other features seem extraordinary!

      Of course, under Chelsea’s hand—that wheat-blond hair coaxed into a riot of cheerful curls—that had happened. For Brandy’s wedding, Chelsea had also used makeup like an artist used a brush. In

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