by Alyssa Cole
“To be honest, I didn’t think there’d be much for an apprentice to do, but you’re finding all kinds of stuff without even touching a scrap of metal!” Cheryl said this with bright-eyed enthusiasm, but then winced when she realized she’d touched a sore spot. “I’m sure Tavish will start teaching you soon. He’s just been busy.”
“How was your morning?” Portia asked. She didn’t want to talk about Tavish’s crystal-clear avoidance of her.
Cheryl windmilled one of her arms. “I’m a little sore from the broadsword practice this morning, but I think we’re ready for the exhibition. What about you? Do you need to borrow a dress? A corset?”
Portia had no idea what Cheryl was talking about. “Exhibition?”
The front door to the building opened then, and Kevyn walked out, hair mussed and sweaty as he demonstrated some sort of swinging sword move to Tavish, who followed him. Tavish was also sweaty, but for some reason he wore the sheen of sweat like a fine suit.
Cheryl waved her hands dramatically to get their attention. “Tav! You didn’t tell your apprentice about the exhibition?”
Portia could already feel the embarrassment gathering in the air, ready to rain down on her.
Tav turned, and his gaze flicked from Cheryl to Portia. His aggravation with her very presence was etched into the scowl lines that deepened on each side of his lush mouth as he looked at her. “Aye, I told her. Told her that’s what you and I were practicing for a week ago.”
He had mentioned an exhibition during that first meeting, but he hadn’t elaborated and Portia had been too busy imagining her humiliating return home.
“Well, did you invite her?” Cheryl asked archly.
Tav chuckled ruefully. “Why would I do that? So she could barrel into the middle of a match and attack someone again?”
Kevyn laughed, too, shaking his head as he took a seat at one of the tables. “Because she bloody works here?”
The tension that had started to release its grip on her back and shoulders readjusted and dug its claws in even deeper. Getting talked down to by your father over the phone was one thing, but being humiliated by your boss in front of people you barely knew was quite another.
“And because I run your social media and need to promote special events, like a public exhibition,” she added, trying to hide the hurt in her voice. She was a grown ass woman, and even when she didn’t feel like one she still had to keep up appearances. “And because I could help out.”
Tav sighed and rolled his neck. “I don’t have time to manage the exhibition matches, answer questions, handle sales, and watch over you.”
She didn’t think he was trying to be mean, but it was like he instinctively knew she was the kind of woman always teetering on the edge of disaster. As if he could tell that fucking up came naturally to her.
“I know you don’t have a serious bone in your body, but . . .”
Tav glanced at her and his expression changed. Softened just a little bit. “What’re you looking at me like that for? I simply don’t have time to mess about.”
“Tavish,” Cheryl said, her voice low with warning. “You’re being a wanker.”
“No. He’s right,” Portia cut in before he could respond. She wasn’t sure how she managed to keep the waver out of her voice, but she could be proud of at least one thing. It was likely smoothed over by the flash of anger that currently had her in its thrall. “If Tavish is incapable of explaining basic things to his apprentice, it’s probably best that I don’t go.”
“Wait a minute—”
“I mean, it’s not like I’ve streamlined the databases and reorganized the shipping process to save money over the past week because I’m apparently too silly to bother teaching swordmaking to. It’s not like I upended my life to move to a strange country, expressly to learn a new skill, only to be told I’m not capable of handling something that a child running a lemonade stand is entrusted with. So yeah, maybe it’s best I don’t go to the exhibition. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone.”
Her eyes were glossy with unprofessional tears and she wanted more than anything to disappear, or perhaps get carried away by a passing flock of birds. She felt ridiculous. She was ridiculous. She’d traveled thousands of miles just to be reminded that at the end of the day, Portia Hobbs wasn’t the kind of person you counted on—a lesson she’d learned well enough in the US of A.
Cheryl and Kevyn were silent—the oh shit this is awkward do we stick around or make ourselves scarce kind of silent. Tavish sighed and dropped into the seat beside Kevyn.
She was ready to go inside and pack her bags. If she stayed, he might see her cry, and she’d been humiliated enough for one day. She had a job waiting for her in New York after all, not that she would embarrass herself any less at that one.
“Come here, Freckles.” He looked up at her. “Please.”
She walked over stiffly and sat down across from him, not meeting his gaze.
“The problem is . . .”
She braced herself. She should stop him. She knew her own faults better than anyone and didn’t need to hear them listed out.
“. . . that I’m a bit of an arse. Grumpy. Stubborn. Recalcitrant—I’m sure you’ve got a thesaurus on your electronic hingmie.”
“What?” Portia asked. She had been so ready to be told about her faults that she had no response to Tav listing off his own.
He folded his hands together and spoke to her like he was taking her concerns seriously, something she hadn’t been expecting at all. “I’m used to working with my family, and my family is used to said arseyness.”
Cheryl had gone inside the food stand to continue setting up for lunch, but she made a sound of annoyance at that. “That’s no excuse! You’re supposed to treat your family with kindness, you muppet.”
Tav shot her a look, then turned his attention back to Portia. His expression was . . . contrite?
“I’m not suddenly going to be puking rainbows and hearts, but you’re right. I haven’t been a good boss. I pushed everything off onto Jamie and then left you to figure out the rest. If my master had done that during my apprenticeship, none of us would be here right now because I wouldn’t have become a swordmaker.”
“Are you apologizing?” Kevyn asked incredulously. He turned to Portia. “Did you hit him in the head when you maced him the other day, love?”
“I’m not apologizing. I’m saying that my behavior has been shit and I’ll try to do better.” His gaze was on Portia and even though he was frowning, she could see the slightest hint of vulnerability.
Fuck. No! Unfortunately, it seemed that “gruff but vulnerable” was a trait she could really appreciate in a man. She ignored the way her breath caught and reminded herself that gruff was a synonym for “acts like an asshole because other people enable him.”
“That sounds like an apology,” she said, then worked her bottom lip with her teeth. New Portia didn’t do enabling. “But if you’re really trying to be a better boss you can give me a real one.”
She felt the sudden, ingrained shame of having asked for something she wanted, but fought against it and waited.
Tav cleared his throat and inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry that I treated you like one of these knuckleheads instead of like a delicate flower,” he replied, eyes narrowed. “How’s that work?”
“Works great if it means I’m getting the delicate flower treatment from now on,” she shot back, and was shocked to see a ruddy pink begin to spread over both of his cheeks.
Shit. Gruff but vulnerable Tavish was bad enough, but flustered and blushing Tavish landed a direct hit on all her attraction buttons, pushing down on them with the pressure of a sonic boom. She sucked in a breath.
Actually, both are your boss and both are off-limits.
Tavish slapped his hands on the table and stood. “Right then. I’ve got work to do. Kev, you can tell her about the exhibition.”
With that he was up and swaggering back into the armory, moving quickly for such a bi
g man.
“Ha!” Kevyn looked at Portia with wide eyes. “I just witnessed a miracle. The taming of Tavish.”
“I don’t do taming,” Portia said nonchalantly. “That requires time and effort that I could be putting into myself.”
“Are you both hungry? I have some tasty ribs on the menu today!” Cheryl called out.
Kevyn raised his brows. “Do you want to grab a bite while I tell you about the exhibition?”
Portia had writing and research to do, and should really finish those damn spreadsheets, but work could wait.
“Sure,” she said, then turned to Cheryl. “Can I have some dumplings with the ribs?”
Cheryl carried over their plates and joined them at the table, ready to spring from her seat if any customers approached.
“So. What are your feelings about renaissance faires? I know they’re dorky and everything but—”
Portia held up a hand to cut her off.
“Cheryl, I think there’s been some misunderstanding,” Portia said. “I’m not a geek, but I am a dork. There’s a ren faire every year at this park near where my friend Ledi lived in Manhattan, and I used to drag her along with me.”
Cheryl clapped with glee and Portia bit into the delicious lunch she’d been served. She could worry about Tavish and his weird behavior later. She had somehow come out of their conversation the victor, and she was going to celebrate.
Chapter 6
Tavish had been grinding in his workshop for hours and the restless energy hadn’t left him. Two weeks of body-intensive labor, really putting his back into production and sparring, plus a newfound interest in jogging, and he still hadn’t gotten the sudden, simmering need that had coincided with Portia’s arrival out of his system.
He turned on the power grinder and began the first passes of the sgian-dubh blade over the whirring, textured surface, smoothing away the imperfections in the metal. Someone had placed a somewhat substantial order for the small traditional daggers, and he was trying to get them out as quickly as possible, before the customer could change their mind. With his recent business luck, he couldn’t risk delay or sending out anything but perfect products.
He tried to clear his mind of everything else but the work before him. He braced himself against the shock that ran up the tang, gripped tightly in his hand, and reverberated through his body. Beveling the edge of the blade to make it sharp required slightly less concentration than other parts of the process. It required focus, like everything he did, but years of experience meant that stray thoughts of his business woes, or of his apprentice, wouldn’t result in the loss of hours of work.
Portia. Something about her clung to him like the fine steel mist thrown off by the grinder that was a pain in the arse to wash away. He was interested in her, and that talk of treating her like a delicate flower hadn’t helped. He wasn’t one to keep floral arrangements about the house, but he knew that you nourished flowers and in return you got to inhale their fragrance and run your fingertips over their soft petals. He didn’t need to think about either of those things when it came to his apprentice.
He growled, twisting his wrist to turn the blade back and forth. He didn’t mind getting dull with age, but was he really all hot and bothered about a snooty American? Pish. It was infatuation, like when he saw a well-made sword with an ornate hilt and brilliant artwork etched into the blade. Beautiful, but not essential.
Essential or not, he had to train her. That’s what she was here for. For the last two weeks he’d had her working on updating databases and shipping and anything that would keep her behind a desk and out of his sight. He’d admitted to being a bad boss, but the only thing he’d done to change it was growling slightly less when in her presence. Even that had him worried. Growls served as a warning to keep potentially dangerous creatures at bay. If he stopped, she might figure out that he was bloody terrified.
He turned off the grinder and examined the blade, running his thumb along the bevel. Still a little rough, but he needed to take a break. He placed the knife onto a soft towel on his worktable and was in the process of removing his protective ear coverings when a sudden, animal awareness went through him.
He turned, still holding the ear coverings over his head, and there she was.
Dammit.
She leaned against the doorway of his workshop, quite comfortably, as if she’d been there for some time. She held a folder or something to her chest, but Tav fixated on the way her lips were parted and her eyes were fixed on him.
Her gaze skittered to the ground, but in the second during which they’d locked eyes, Tav had felt it like a solid thing knocking into him. Desire. He wasn’t a fucking mind reader, but he was old enough to know when someone was giving him the eye. Portia had been thinking something decidedly naughty. About him.
Fuck’s sake.
“Need something?” he asked, sounding more aggrieved than he’d meant to.
She stepped forward, expression polite and professional. Good. Between their age difference and the fact that she was working for him, Tav had no interest in knowing what exactly had been going through her mind a moment ago. He wasn’t trying to become some kind of midlife crisis cliché.
“I was talking to Jamie about the website and he said that my initial plans look good, but nothing could be changed without your approval.”
Website?
“The site is fine as it is,” he said, glad she’d landed on the topic most like being dunked in ice-cold water for him.
“Actually, it’s not. It’s really not.”
“It lists our name, phone number, and address, and it has pictures of the products and their prices. What else does it need?”
She opened her folder and pulled out a slim, sleek tablet.
“I should have known you’d have that hingmie with you,” he muttered as she approached. She always seemed to have her nose stuck in her phone or tablet, and her tapping away at a keyboard was generally what alerted him to her presence around the building, allowing him to avoid her.
She leaned back against the table next to him, leaving a bit of space between them. That didn’t stop the scent of whatever perfume she was wearing from drifting over to him. Delicate. Floral.
Tav sighed.
“So. Here is your site,” she said, pulling it up.
He glanced over to placate her, but what he saw drew a grunt of perplexed disgust from him.
“Why do the pictures look stretched like?” he asked, taking the proffered tablet from her. It looked like someone had copied the photos on Silly Putty then pulled.
“Because you’re not optimized for mobile. You also have a weird pop-up that blocks the site and is really hard to close out unless you’re on a desktop or have a large screen.” She took her tablet back, as if she didn’t quite trust him not to drop the thing. “The majority of hits to the site these days are coming from mobile devices, in case you were wondering.”
“The pop-up is for people to sign up to be notified about sales,” he explained. That’s what the designer had told him when Jamie had forced him to commission a site upgrade. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually had a sale or even looked at the email addresses that had been compiled. “Can’t people just look at it on their laptop?”
“I guess they could. But when I navigate to a site that I can’t access because of a pop-up like that, I keep it moving and find a store that cares enough not to annoy me. Customers are fickle. You shouldn’t make them work to see what you’re selling.”
Tav couldn’t argue with that. “Okay, so you want me to . . . optimize for mobile, then? Because of the hits?”
“Well, no. I want to make a completely new site.” She swiped her fingertip over the screen and now he was looking at a different site. It had his business’s name on it but bore no relation to the monstrosity she’d just clicked away from. It looked clean and modern, but with a background like a faded medieval tapestry to give it an aged look. Simple but engaging. He didn’t know tech, but
he knew what good, solid design looked like.
“This is just a mock-up,” she explained as she scrolled. “But there’ll be a separate page for the armory, with detailed lists of products—I’ll talk more about that later. One page for the European martial arts lessons. Another for Jamie’s workout classes. A history page, with information about the armory building itself, and the history of Scottish swordmaking. And there’ll also be a gallery with photos and videos, like of Jamie giving a quick workout lesson that people can do at home, and you in action with that thing.”
She inclined her head toward the grinder.
Tav abruptly pushed off of the table to face her. “Why do I need to be recorded?”
Her brows raised again. He had the oddest compulsion to smooth his fingertip over one dark arch as it scrunched in annoyance.
“You don’t have to do anything but what you were doing just now, except I’ll be recording a couple of minutes of it.”
“And throwing it up on the internet for everyone to gawk at. I don’t see the point of it,” he said, shaking his head. “Jamie’s lessons I understand, I suppose—people can get a taste of the boot camp and see how fun it is. But I’m certainly not inviting strangers here to grind with me.”
Portia licked her lips, then pressed them together.
“Actually, I was invited here to grind with you, as you put it,” she said. More brow scrunching—he was fairly certain she was capable of carrying a conversation with just her eyebrows. “But since you’re too worried that I’m going to cut you, in the meantime I’m trying to set you up with a website that will attract potential buyers. And if what I just watched is any indication, video of a large, attractive man using a power tool to hone a sharp object is going to induce a significant portion of the population to at the very least click, and some portion of those who click to buy.”
Tav’s throat went dry. She was giving him that look again and, worse, he didn’t think it was on purpose. Her gaze passed over his body and her chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath.
“How long were you watching me before?” he asked. His voice came out low—much too close to a groan for his liking.