by Amy Andrews
Sounds of Wade’s whistling—since when did he start whistling?—drew closer, and CC skulled the remainder of her Red Bull, needing that extra little charge. This was it. The first time she’d faced him since the dream. She could do this. He didn’t know about the dream, and he couldn’t see inside her head.
She had this. Think of the endgame, CC. Only three months.
“Hey.”
Her stupid stomach clenched at his standard casual greeting. She drew in a slow breath and exhaled before turning in her swivel chair to face him.
“Hey.”
He was lounging in the doorway, his shoulder shoved against the jamb as casual as his greeting, and CC had to work overtime to keep her smile in place even though she was almost swallowing her tongue behind her closed lips.
Dear Lord. He was all farmer porn again.
Sure, his shirt was on this time, but it was damp with sweat, clinging to his abs. His hair was all tousled, and there was dirt on his jeans.
Since when had dirt been so damn sexy?
CC blinked. For the love of Pete, this town was turning her into some kind of farmer groupie/sex maniac. If she started having sex dreams with him in dirty jeans, he could sue her all the way to Timbuktu and back—she was out of here.
He tipped his chin at her computer screen. “What’s going down?”
She swallowed at his choice of words. Now all she could think about was that sweaty tousled head going down on her and his apparently talented tongue getting busy between her thighs.
He frowned. “CC?”
“Sorry.” She gave herself a mental shake. “Just…doing some website updates.”
He nodded slowly, then frowned again, looking at her strangely. “What?” he demanded.
What? CC swallowed. “Nothing.”
“You’re looking at me funny.”
CC shook her head. “No, I’m not.”
“You’re all…tweaky.” He glanced at the empty can on her desk and sighed. “How many of those god-awful drinks have you had today?”
“This is my third.”
“Jesus. It’s a wonder your heart hasn’t exploded from all that stimulant.”
CC swallowed. God…why would he use that word? Now she was back to how she’d exploded around his fingers in the dream.
California. California. California.
“Says the man who should have been in a sugar coma a decade ago from his Nerds consumption.”
He grinned at her and, even though he was a good distance away, it brushed against her body like feathers. “Enablers anonymous unite.”
CC laughed at his easy comeback. It felt good to do something natural with her mouth, and she liked being reminded that at least 50 percent of the time she didn’t want to stab him with the fancy letter opener he’d bought her for Christmas a few years back.
“Anyway…” Wade crossed his arms. “We’re going out. Give me time to grab a shower, and I’ll be down.”
CC’s brain battled between resentment at his casual disregard for her timetable—the urge to use that letter opener returned—and a frenzy of sensations all centered on a naked Wade with soap bubbles running down his body.
“Where are we off to?”
“The old folks’ home,” he said as he pushed off the doorway.
CC couldn’t figure out why he wanted to go there. “Are you visiting someone?” In which case, why the hell did he need her?
Take notes for his book? Grease the wheels of conversation? Hand-feed him Nerds?
“No. I’m going to do a little meddling.”
And with that he was gone, the smudge of dirt on his ass horrifyingly fascinating.
…
“What do you mean you joined the committee?!”
CC looked out the car window as Wade drove. “Your mom called and asked me, and I said yes.”
“Why?”
“Why did she ask me, or why did I say yes?” CC was feeling pretty damn annoyed at the moment, and his exasperation wasn’t helping. She had a bunch of stuff she needed to get done, not to mention Wade needed to sit his ass in the chair and write, but instead they were going on this fool’s errand, hoping to enlist the town elders in a campaign against the single-women scheme.
“Both.”
“Because I’m the demographic they’re hoping to attract. Single and of child-bearing age. I also run your social media, so I know a thing or two about it. They thought I’d have some good ideas about how to attract and entertain the women who decide to come to Credence while they’re here. I do have ideas outside of the Wade Carter brand, you know that, right?”
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “You’re supposed to be on my side with this.”
“Says who?” CC snorted. “You might very well have bought and or manipulated every single second of my time for the last five and a half years, but you don’t get to buy my opinions. I still get to make up my own mind about which side of things I come down on. That’s not for sale.”
He flicked her a quick raised eyebrow. “Is there a particular reason why your panties are in a twist today? Did I do something to piss you off?”
Yeah. Being naked in her dreams had really pissed her off. Her dreams were the one place Wade hadn’t been able to dominate her life. Also, the crack about her panties hadn’t helped.
“I have work to do, work you pay me for. I don’t see why you can’t go to the old folks’ home by yourself.”
“’Cause I’m paying you to do that as well,” he said, clearly annoyed at her recalcitrance. “Look…I’m hoping I can get some kind of petition organized, maybe some kind of joint letter of objection to present to Don. You know how to do all that stuff.”
Oh yeah, because putting pen to paper was real hard.
CC sighed. “Fine.” How the man thought he could write a whole damn book, she had no idea.
Whatever. She was out of here in three months. A pinch under her diaphragm made itself known. She ignored it. “What makes you think the old people are going to care about this?”
“Oh, trust me,” Wade said, “they’ll care. Two years ago, a wind generation company wanted to put up a turbine. A single turbine. Five miles outside of Credence. Bob Downey—he used to be the mayor about forty years ago—and his gang at the old folks’ home ran that company out of town with their tails between their legs.”
CC frowned. That was just plain dumb. Wind power was cleaner and greener and would have meant some money flowing into the town coffers, as well as some initial employment opportunities. “What on earth for?”
“I know this might be hard for a SoCal soul to understand, but they don’t like change, CC. They like their quiet backwater existence. They especially won’t like the idea of their little corner of the earth being some kind of chick magnet or curiosity or media drawcard. Bob Downey is a stickler for rules and formality, and I just can’t see him getting his head around a bunch of screaming city chicks looking to get hitched. And when Bob Downey ain’t happy, trust me, ain’t nobody happy.”
He sounded like a real tyrant. CC was even less sure about going there now.
“Come on, CC, you must be able to see the downside of something like this?”
“Sure.” CC understood his concerns, even if they were, largely, as Annie had so rightly pointed out, coming from a place of self-interest. The media could be your best friend or your worst enemy. She’d dealt with a lot of media outlets as PA to CEOs and even more so since working for Wade. The trouble was, a person never quite knew which way the wind was going to blow.
“So why agree to help my mother?”
“Well for a start, she’s your mom and she asked me. And hey, if I have to be single in Credence, I might as well have company, right?”
And God knew there were enough hotties to go around.
But also, she had to
admit, there was a tiny bit of revenge involved. For dragging her here in the first place. And the sex dream. Yeah…that wasn’t his fault, but she wasn’t in a particularly charitable mood at the moment.
“Okay…fine. How much of a time commitment is this committee crap?”
“Don’t worry, Wade, I’ll do it while you’re at the farm so I can be back here to help you type.”
“You do have your panties in a wad.”
CC shot him a bland smile, disguising the fact her panties had been in a freaking uproar all day. “Are we there yet?”
“One minute.”
It couldn’t come fast enough.
…
The Credence Retirement Home for the Aged was a nice little set up. Quite large, considering the town population.
“I didn’t think it’d be this big,” CC whispered to Wade as they waited in a large sunken sitting room overlooking a lush garden area. They’d been told to wait there while the staff gathered the residents.
He nodded. “Credence has an aging population. That’s half the problem, everyone growing old and passing on with no families and babies to replace them.”
Which is what Annie had meant last night when she’d said Credence was dying.
A woman who looked to be in her early twenties wandered by.
“Hey, Della, are they coming?”
She glanced in their direction, but her gaze almost immediately skittered away from Wade’s to meet CC’s instead, her cheeks pinking up. “The first one should be here any tick of the clock.”
CC did an internal eye roll as the woman scuttled away. Wade’s ability to fluster the female sex was damn near universal. Even in rural Colorado, young women were swooning over him just as much as the rest of the female population in the New Adult demographic.
“I thought you said there weren’t any younger women in Credence.”
“There’s the odd one,” Wade said. “Not many. That’s Arlo’s sister…half sister, actually. He didn’t know he had one until a couple of years ago. She’s had a bit of a tough life. She’s shy and wary and not really in the market for a relationship just yet.”
Interesting. CC had assumed Della’s shyness was due to Wade’s dazzling celebrity, but maybe it was deeper than that.
“She needs TLC, and Arlo is very protective of her, so…”
Yeah. Definition—men didn’t dare approach her anyway, with the chief of police hovering. Part of CC admired that—a brother looking out for a sister—but having five brothers herself, she knew how overbearing it could be as well.
Snowy-haired residents trickled in over the next ten minutes. Some weren’t as agile as others, but they generally seemed quite mobile and happy, chatting amongst themselves and greeting Wade with surprise, pleasure, and affection. They asked about his career and what he was up to now and reminisced about his high school football days. But they also asked about his parents and Wyatt and the farm, talking about hog prices as if they watched it as closely as the Dow Jones.
“Wade, that you?” A spritely-looking man in what CC judged to be his late seventies, early eighties, squinted at Wade from across the room, then bounded over enthusiastically. Bushy white eyebrows moved expressively as he pumped Wade’s hand. “Heard you were in town for the summer.”
He bashed Wade on the back a couple of times, and CC bit her lip to suppress the smile as Wade fought against coughing. He may be getting on, but the old guy still packed a bit of a punch.
“It’s good to know our number one son still appreciates where he was brought up.”
“Hey, Mr. Downey.”
Bob Downey? So this was the guy who’d led the charge against the wind company? The old man turned his attention to CC. He smiled at her as he extended his hand, and Wade said, “CC, this is Mr. Downey.”
“Bob, please,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “No need to stand on formality.”
CC suppressed another smile as Wade almost choked on Bob’s statement. “Thank you, Bob.” She shook his hand. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Oh no… The pleasure is all mine.” And he performed a little bow over her hand.
Aww. CC almost sighed over the old-fashioned gentility. What a pussycat. Wade rolled his eyes.
“So…this your girlfriend?” Bob asked, piercing Wade with inquisitive eyes.
“No.” Wade’s response was blunt.
CC’s was equally as blunt. “Absolutely not.”
“She’s my PA.”
Bob glanced at CC, his white caterpillar eyebrows extraordinarily mobile. “PA?”
“Personal assistant,” CC explained.
Bob hooted out a laugh. “He needs someone to wipe his ass and tie his shoelaces, does he?”
CC laughed at Bob’s frankness. “Something like that.”
“Nothing like that,” Wade insisted, giving CC a don’t encourage the old coot look. “CC takes care of all aspects of my schedule. She keeps me on track and on time and keeps away the time-wasters.”
“So she’s like…a girl Friday.”
“Well, yes, except women take exception to being called girls these days.”
Two fat, hairy eyebrows lifted high on his forehead as he turned to CC for confirmation. “What on earth for?”
CC suppressed a smile. “Um…because they haven’t been girls since they were twelve?”
“Well…yes…I guess,” Bob said gruffly. “If you want to get all technical.”
CC supposed Bob’s old-man bluster and confusion should annoy her. But it didn’t. He was a guy of a certain era, when things had been different. She preferred a bit of misguided, old-fashioned paternalism about the way things were now than the more frank displays of sexism she’d been subjected to as a PA over the years.
And a girl growing up in the shadow of her father’s desertion tended to yearn for old-fashioned values.
“I still think PA sounds more like a nurse.”
Wade grimaced. “Then think of her as my left tackle, Mr. Downey.”
Bob perked up at that, narrowing his eyes slightly as he thought it through. “Left tackle, huh?”
“Yep.”
CC had heard Wade describe her as his left tackle about a million times. In fact, they were the words he’d used that day in Denver to convince her to come and work for him. Come be my left tackle, CC. That’s what he’d said after he’d whisked her away from her ex-boss, who was still rolling on the floor clutching his testicles.
It didn’t sound as romantic as girl Friday, but CC hadn’t been looking for romance. In fact, Wade had sworn that day that he’d never do anything necessitating his balls being mashed against CC’s knee and, apart from her sudden penchant for farmer porn and an embarrassing sex dream she was trying to forget, their relationship had remained strictly business.
“She stops anyone who isn’t supposed to be close from getting close.”
Hell yeah she did. She worked her ass off at that. As far as she was concerned, she should have a dozen MVP awards all of her own. She should be on the TV ads selling Disney World.
“You want me?” Wade tapped his chest. “You gotta go through her”—he pointed at CC—“first.”
Yep. Apart from a select group of family and close friends, nobody got to Wade unless she allowed it.
Bob nodded. “I had one of those. She was so good at it, I married her.” He cracked up then and slapped Wade on the back a couple more times before turning twinkling eyes on CC. “You better watch out, little lady.”
Chapter Eight
CC couldn’t decide if she was amused or horrified. The last person on earth she would marry was Wade. Hell, she wouldn’t even date him. And one sex dream did not alter that conviction one little bit. The man went through women like he was trying to be with every single female on the surface of the planet before he died. But Bob cracking himself
up was funny as hell.
“Okay then.” Wade rolled his eyes. “How about you take a seat, Mr. Downey, and we’ll get started.”
Bob nodded, still laughing as he sat his ass down in the circle of chairs that CC had quickly thrown together.
“He’s a sweetie,” CC murmured in an effort to quash the awkwardness Bob’s warning had produced.
Wade snorted. “Don’t be taken in by the silly-old-fool act he’s got going on. He’s a bloody shark, he owns half of the buildings and businesses in this town.”
CC’s admiration for Bob grew. “Why’s he in an old folks’ home, then?” she asked. “He’s pretty spritely still.”
He shrugged. “Mom says he got lonely after his wife died. Likes the company, apparently. So now he terrorizes the town from behind these walls instead.”
“Oh, don’t say that.” CC half laughed at the image. “He looks like he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” She remembered his potent backslap and mentally revised it to horse-fly.
Another snort told CC exactly what Wade thought of that statement. “I do like his description of you, though,” Wade added, a smile playing on his mouth. A distracting enough mouth without the addition of that smile.
CC shot him a stern look, folding her arms. “You ever call me your girl Friday, I’ll kill you and bury your body where no one will find it.” It was one thing for an eighty-year-old to say it, something entirely different for a thirty-eight-year-old to say it.
He chuckled, and all the hairs on CC’s arms prickled. “How are you going to get paid if I’m dead?”
“I know the combination to your safe, as well as all the passwords to your bank accounts.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but Bob, still in fine form, jumped in ahead of him. “Well come on then, Wade, don’t keep us in suspense. None of us are getting any younger around here, you know.”
Another gale of laughter, this time added to by a dozen other seniors.
“Thank you, Mr. Downey,” Wade cut into the laughter, and everyone hushed. “And thanks to everyone for coming and listening to what I have to say.”
There were general murmurs of “Of course” and “Anything for you, Wade.” Clearly, they’d have turned up to listen to Wade read the dictionary.