A Bride for the Boss

by Maureen Child

  Mac snorted. “Why was I glad to see you again?”

  “Because everyone needs an honest friend.” Rafe lifted his coffee cup in a salute.

  “Maybe. And maybe you’re right, too, about the work thing. Andi’s determined to quit, damn it, and I can’t let that happen.”

  “It may be that you won’t be able to stop it.”

  Mac shot him a hard look. “Whose side are you on?”

  Rafe held up both hands in mock surrender. “Yours, my friend. Of course. But as I have learned in dealing with your sister, I can say that a woman’s mind is a tricky, always evolving thing.”

  “So I’ve noticed.” He took another drink of coffee.

  “And I’ve noticed,” Rafe said with a cautious glance around, “that some in Royal are still unsure about me.”

  Mac sighed a little. “Well, this is one of the reasons I wanted you to meet me here. The more people see us together, as friends, the more they’ll move on from what happened before. They’ll all figure out that the hatchet’s been buried and there’s no hard feelings. Folks in Royal aren’t the type to hold grudges, Rafe. They’ll get past it—just like I did.”

  Rafe smiled. “Thank you for that, my friend. With you and Violet on my side, I’m sure all will be well.”

  “Wish I was as sure of my own situation as I am of yours,” Mac said.

  “How are my two most handsome customers doing?” Amanda Battle walked up to their table and gave each of them a wide smile.

  “Coffee’s good and so’s the ambience,” Mac said, smiling back.

  “It’s what I like to hear,” Amanda said. “Now, Rafe, you tell Violet I expect her to come around soon. I want to keep an eye on that baby bump of hers.”

  “I will do it,” he agreed, pleasure shining in his dark eyes.

  “As for you,” Amanda said, giving Mac a wink, “you tell Andi I said to remember that ‘secret’ we were talking about.”

  “Okay,” Mac said warily.

  She gave them their check, told them to hurry back, then walked away to say hello to more of her customers.

  “Now, what do you suppose that was about?” Mac asked. “What ‘secret’?”

  “I have already said, my friend,” Rafe told him as he picked up the check and headed for the cash register. “A woman’s mind is a tricky and evolving thing.”

  “Yeah,” Mac muttered as he followed his friend. “Just what I need. Tricky women with secrets.”

  * * *

  For the next couple of days, Mac and Andi worked together on the old house. The amount of renovation that still needed to be done was staggering, though, and Mac had a twinge or two of guilt a couple times. It was because of him and his business that Andi hadn’t had time to take care of her house before. But he didn’t let regret take too big a chunk out of him because damned if he’d feel bad for hiring her, handing over responsibilities and coming to count on her for too damn much.

  If she hadn’t wanted to become irreplaceable, then she shouldn’t have been so good at her job.

  “She’s not walking away. Not from the office. Not from me,” he swore quietly. He’d figure out a way past all of this. It was what he did.

  He’d still like to know what “secret” Amanda Battle had been talking about. Especially because when he’d mentioned it to Andi, she’d blushed a fiery red and smiled to herself. And if that wasn’t enough to make a man wonder, he didn’t know what would. But she’d refused to tell him, and just got to work stripping old wallpaper off the dining room walls so they, too, could be painted.

  Now while she was in there, here he was, head and shoulders under her first-floor powder room sink. When Mac had arrived, she was about to call a plumber to fix a leaking pipe and he’d insisted on doing it himself. If she needed help then he’d damn well provide it. He was going to make himself as irreplaceable to her as she was to him.

  Mac wielded a pipe wrench on the joist that was tight enough to have been welded on, and when the damn wrench slipped free, he scraped his knuckles on the old copper pipes. He hissed in a breath and let it go on a string of muffled curses. Then he jolted when his cell phone rang and rapped his head on the underside of the sink and briefly saw stars. Cursing a bit louder now, he wiggled out, reached for the phone and muttered, “What?”

  “Hey, boss, good talking to you, too.”

  Reaching up, Mac rubbed the growing knot on top of his head then glared at the raw scrape on his knuckles. “Tim. What’s going on?”

  Tim Flanagan, a friend since college, was now Mac’s vice president. He was currently in Montana going over the details of a ranch takeover. The Gilroy ranch was being swallowed by McCallum Enterprises and would soon be stocked with prime cattle.

  “I called the office looking for you,” Tim said. “Laura told me you haven’t been in for a few days.” He paused. “Somebody die?”

  Snorting, Mac shook his head, drew one knee up and rested his forearm on it. His gaze shot around the incredibly tiny first-floor powder room. Whoever the last owner had been, they’d painted it a dark brick red, making the room seem even smaller than it actually was. And to top it off, they’d used gold paint for the trim. It looked as if it belonged in a bordello. Not a particularly exclusive one, either. Naturally, Andi had plans for it, but first thing was getting the plumbing working right—such as making it so the sink would drain.

  “Yeah, nobody’s dead. I’m taking a few days is all.” He rested his head against the bottom of the old sink and let the cool of the porcelain seep into his body. Thanks to the newly installed air conditioning, he wasn’t dying of heat, but a man could still work up a sweat when wrestling with stubborn pipes.

  “I heard Andi quit,” Tim said. “What’s up with that?”

  Mac shot a glance out the door to make sure the woman in question wasn’t in earshot. Then he said, “I’m working on it.”

  “Good,” Tim told him with a slight laugh. “Because without her as a buffer I probably would have killed you five, six years ago.”

  Mac’s mouth twitched in a smile. “You would have tried. So, is there some reason in particular you’re calling or was it just to harass me?”

  “There’s a reason. Harassment’s just a bonus. Old man Gilroy’s wanting to hold back ten acres, claiming it’s in the contract for him to get the allowance for a hay field.”

  Frowning now, Mac said, “I don’t remember it that way.” They’d made allowances for the Gilroy ranch house and the surrounding five acres to remain in their name, as a courtesy since the Gilroys had been on the land more than a hundred years.

  But the truth was, the old man couldn’t run the ranch on his own anymore and his kids weren’t interested in being ranchers. They loved the land and wanted at least some of it to remain in the family, but the younger Gilroys all had jobs that took them off the ranch. McCallum Enterprises was paying fair market value for the land and Mac wasn’t about to hand out favors. That just wasn’t how you ran a business.

  “Call the office, have Laura pull up the contract and get the details,” Mac said. “We want to be sure of our standing here and—”

  “What’s going on?” Andi stepped into the doorway and leaned one shoulder against the jamb.

  Mac looked up at her and damn, she looked good. No woman should look as fine when she’d been ripping away at dirty old wallpaper. He gave his head a shake, reminding himself to focus, then told Tim to hang on and explained, “Tim says Mr. Gilroy in Montana is insisting that we agreed to an extra ten acres set aside for him in the contract and I don’t—”

  “You did,” she said, then reached down and plucked the phone from his hand. “Hi, Tim, it’s Andi. The original contract called for just the house and the surrounding five acres to remain in Gilroy hands. But we renegotiated several points about two weeks into the deal and Mac agreed to a ten-acre
plot behind the main ranch house. Mr. Gilroy wants his daughter and her husband to be able to build near the main house. And they want to grow enough hay for the animals they’re keeping.”

  Mac watched her. She had pulled that information out of her computerlike brain, and damned if he didn’t find that sexy as hell. A woman with a mind like that didn’t waste herself. She needed challenge. Needed the kind of work she’d been doing for six years. Why the hell did she think she could be happy without it?

  “Sure,” Andi said and grinned. “It’s no problem, Tim. Happy to help. Okay, here’s Mac again.”

  She handed him back the phone. “Problem solved.”

  “Yeah,” he said, still watching her. “I see that. You always were impressive.”

  “Thanks.” She left a second later but he continued to look after her. Then he spoke into the phone. “Everything straightened out now?”

  “Yeah,” Tim said. “She is good. With all the things we have going on concurrently, it amazes me that she could just remember details like that. What the hell are we going to do without her?”

  Mac shifted his gaze to the ceiling when he heard her footsteps pass overhead. He wondered briefly what she was doing up there. Then he realized that if she left, he’d spend the rest of his life wondering what she was up to. That was unacceptable. “We’re never gonna have to find out.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, Andi set two sandwiches on her tiny kitchen table and poured two tall glasses of iced tea. If it felt odd serving Mac lunch, she brushed it off, knowing that with all the work he’d done around there the past few days, the least she owed him was a meal.

  He walked into the kitchen and grinned at her. “I didn’t even know you could cook.”

  “A ham and cheese sandwich is not cooking,” she said, and took a seat. Picking up a potato chip, she bit in and chewed. “However, I’m a darn good cook—when I have the time.”

  He winced and sat down opposite her at the table. “Time again. Point made.”

  She shrugged and smiled. “It’s not all you and the job,” she admitted as she looked around the room. “This kitchen is not exactly conducive to creative cookery. Plus, the oven doesn’t work.”

  He looked behind him and laughed. “A pink stove?”

  “It might come back in style,” she said, not sure why she was bothering to defend the appliance she had every intention of replacing. When he just gave her a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look, she said, “Fine. It’s terrible. But getting a new one is low on my list right now. Anyway, you bought pizza yesterday, so it’s only fair I take care of lunch today.”

  “Always about what’s fair, aren’t you?”

  “Something wrong with that?”

  “Not a thing,” he assured her and picked up half his sandwich. “But if you’re so fired up about being ‘fair’ you might want to rethink walking out on a business that needs you.”

  Andi watched him, and though she felt that rush of knowing he didn’t want to lose her, she knew it was still the only answer for her. Being around him so much the past few days had been so hard. Her heart ached for what she couldn’t have, and if she stayed working for him, that ache would eventually swallow her whole.

  “You were doing fine before me and you’ll do fine without me,” she said, taking a bite herself.

  “Fine’s one thing,” he said, waving his sandwich at her. “Great’s another. And you know damn well that together, we were doing great.”

  “There’s more to life than work, Mac.” At least she hoped there was. And she fully intended to find out.

  “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. My dad told me that when I was a kid,” Mac said. “Someone famous said it, I think. Anyway, turns out Dad was right. Work is fun, Andi, and you know it.”

  She had enjoyed her job, keeping on top of problems, working out strategies and plans for the future. It was exciting and fulfilling and everything a good career should be. But to be honest, doing all of that with Mac was what had really been the best part for her.

  With his free hand, he pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket and scrolled through, checking email. Andi shook her head. Even during lunch, he couldn’t stop working. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “Huh? What?” He didn’t look at her. Instead, he tapped out an answer, hit Send, then checked for incoming texts and missed calls.

  “Look at you. You can’t even stop working long enough to eat a sandwich.”

  “Multitasking,” he argued, shooting her a quick look. “Contrary to what women believe, men are capable of doing more than one thing at once. Besides, I’m just—”

  Before he could finish, she interrupted. “Twenty dollars says you can’t go an hour without checking your phone.”

  “What?” His cool green eyes shone with bemusement.

  “It’s a bet, Mac.” She braced her forearms on the table and gave him a rueful smile.

  “Yeah, I know that,” he said, setting the phone at his elbow. “But I don’t feel right about taking your money.”

  His phone vibrated and he glanced at the readout. When he looked back at her, her eyebrows were arched and there was a definite smirk on her mouth. “Oh, I think my money’s safe enough. Especially since I don’t think you’ll take the bet, because you know you’d lose.”

  Frowning, he picked up the phone and tapped out an answer to the text from Laura. “I’ve got a business to run, you know.”

  “That’s all you’ve got, Mac,” she said as he set the phone aside again. “It’s all I had until I quit.”

  His mouth tightened and she watched a muscle in his jaw twitch as if he had plenty to say but was holding the words back.

  It took a couple of seconds, but he finally put his sandwich down, tipped his head to one side and asked, “And you really believe you had to walk out to find more?”

  “Yeah.” She took a sip of her tea because her throat was suddenly dry and tight. “Look at you. You said you were going to be here, working on the house for two weeks. But you haven’t really left the office at all.”

  He grabbed a chip, tossed it into his mouth and crunched viciously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that you can take the boy out of the office, but you can’t take the office out of the boy.” She shook her head, sad to realize that she’d been right to leave. Mac didn’t need a woman in his life. He had his work. “All the while you’re painting or fixing the broken tiles or unclogging a sink, you’re checking your phone. Answering emails. Texts. Checking with Laura about the situation at the office.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing if it’s all you want. Heck, until I quit, I was doing the same thing.” Andi looked down at her own empty hands and said, “I was almost convinced my phone was an extension of my hand. Every waking moment revolved around the business and all of the minutiae involved with keeping it running. It was getting crazy, Mac. I was practically showering with my phone. That’s when it hit me that not only did I want more, but I deserved more. And you do, too.”

  “This is all because I check my phone?”

  “Because you can’t stop checking your phone.”

  It vibrated on the table again and instinctively he started to reach for it—then stopped, curling his fingers into his palm. He locked his gaze with hers. “Twenty bucks?”

  “Only if you can go an entire hour without checking your phone—or responding to a call.” He’d never be able to do it, Andi told herself. Right now, she could see it was killing him to not answer whoever had called or texted.

  He thought about it for a long moment, then seemed to come to a decision. “You’re on, but first—” he hedged as he picked up his phone “—I send one text to Laura telling her to go to Tim with any questions.”


  Andi met his gaze and nodded. “Agreed. But after that, it’s one hour. No phone.”

  Mac texted Laura at the office, put the phone in his pocket and held out one hand to her. “Deal.”

  The instant his hand closed around hers, Andi felt a rush of heat that raced up her arm to settle in the middle of her chest. As if he, too, felt that zip of something wicked, he held on to her hand a little longer than necessary. She couldn’t look away from his eyes. The sharp, cool green of them drew her in even when she knew she should resist the fall. With the touch of his hand against hers, though, it was so hard to think about caution.

  When he finally let her go, Andi could still feel the warmth of his skin, and clasped her hands together in her lap to hang on to that feeling as long as she could.

  “What do I get when I win?” he asked.

  Was it her imagination or was his voice deeper, more intimate than it had been only a moment ago? Quickly, she picked up her glass of tea and took a long drink before answering.

  “The prize is twenty dollars. But you won’t win.”

  “Uh-huh.” One corner of his mouth curved up and Andi tightened her grip on the tea glass in response.

  “When I win,” he said, “I’m going to need a little more than a paltry twenty dollars.”

  She swallowed hard. “Is that right?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He picked up his sandwich again and gave her a teasing smile over it.

  Well, when Mac’s eyes gleamed like that, Andi knew he had something up his sleeve. Over the years, she’d watched him back opponents into corners or wheedle exactly what he wanted out of a deal in spite of the odds being against him. And it was always heralded by that smile.

  So warily, she asked, “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, now,” he mused, taking another bite, “I believe that after this amazing sandwich, we’re going to be needing dinner.”

  “And?” she prompted.

  “And, the two of us. Dinner. The club.”