Boss on Notice

by Janet Lee Nye

  “Probably. Is that a wound you want to go digging in?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m starting to think want isn’t the right word. Maybe I...need to.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  “Thanks. And, Wyatt?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell Sadie not to call me about this right now.”

  Wyatt’s laugh made him smile. “I will relay your message.”

  * * *

  MICKIE LOOKED UP as she heard the front door close. She waited but Josh didn’t come back from the living room. “Josh?” She stood and moved to the opening between the kitchen and living room. He was standing facing the closed door, his arms on the frame, his forehead resting against the wooden surface. Unease prickled down her spine. “Are you okay?”

  He lifted his head. Dropped his arms. Then turned. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  She took a few steps toward him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  His eyes met hers. Some need burned in his expression, something urgent and painful. “That’s exactly what I’ve seen.”

  Taking a few more steps, she reached out for his hand and tugged him in the direction of the sofa. “Sit down. Your hands are ice-cold. What’s going on?”

  He lifted the hand she’d been holding, rubbing his thumb across the fingers before clenching it in a fist. “I’m okay, really, Mickie.”

  “No. You aren’t. You are pale and obviously upset. Something happened.”

  “You sound like a nurse.”

  “I haven’t even pulled my nurse voice on you yet, Josh.”

  That got a smile out of him before he leaned his head back against the back of the sofa and sighed. “Ever want something, Mickie? Want it your whole life? And when you get it, it only opens up another hole to fall through?”

  Mickie frowned. No. She had no idea what he was talking about. She put her hand back in his. His fingers were still cold and she absently began rubbing them between her hands. It frightened her a little to see him like this. Strong, funny, gorgeous Josh? Confused and shaken? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “No, Josh. I don’t know. Tell me.”

  He didn’t move but his hand tightened around hers, making her aware of her movements. She felt the heat of a blush cover her face and she tried to pull away. He held on. “Don’t. This feels nice.”

  “Josh.”

  He sat back up straight. He turned a little so he was facing her. “You know I grew up in foster care?”

  “Yes.”

  “I went into the system when I was five. I had a little sister who was two. She got adopted and I never saw her again.”

  Horror flooded through her. Five years old. And his sister was two! Ian was almost two. She blinked, hard, trying to stop the tears.

  Josh lifted a hand and his fingers brushed her cheeks. “Might want to work on that poker face a little bit, Mickie.”

  “That’s awful, Josh. I can’t imagine never knowing.”

  “I couldn’t, either. But now I know. That was Sadie’s fiancé. He’s a private investigator and he found my sister for me.”

  “He did? That’s amazing. Are you going to try to...” Her words faltered at the look on his face. It was not a happy or relieved look. “What?”

  “He doesn’t know if she knows. Anything. That she was adopted. That she has a brother. That we got shipped to foster care.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s happy, Mickie. A teacher. About to get married. Happy.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He patted her knee and stood. She followed. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  She looked up at him. “Does knowing she’s safe and happy give you any peace?”

  He smiled down at her. Put his hands to her cheeks and leaned in to press a quick kiss to her forehead. It took everything she had not to respond to that touch. The touch that set off a million alarms within her. “Yes. It does.”

  One hard rap on the door was the only warning they got before DeShawn came in. Mickie took a hasty step back.

  “Two more clients, signed, sealed and delivered,” DeShawn said, holding out papers.

  Mickie stepped past Josh. “I’ll take those.”

  As she went back to her spot at the kitchen table, she gasped, suddenly aware of her own ghost. She brought a hand to her mouth. Josh said Wyatt was a private investigator. And he’d gotten into adoption records. Found Josh’s sister. Found out all sorts of things about her. She crossed her arms against her chest to hide the shaking. Would it be as easy as that? No. No. It’d been barely two years.

  She stood abruptly and crossed on shaky legs to the hallway. “Hey, Josh?”

  “Yeah?” he called from the back room.

  “Would it be okay if I left a little early? Ian had a stuffy nose this morning and I want to get him home.”

  “That’s fine. See you tomorrow. Hope he’s okay.”

  She barely heard his words. She had to get to the day care. She had to see that Ian was there, safe. No. You are scaring yourself with the impossible, girl. Stop it. But it never stopped. Not once in over two years had it stopped.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SATURDAY, SHE PUSHED Ian in the stroller to the USC campus to meet Tiana for a grand tour. The campus was bustling and she wondered what it would be like come fall and the beginning of a new semester.

  “Good idea,” she told Tiana after they’d walked through the entire college of nursing and settled in the air-conditioned food court. “I’d get lost in a paper bag.”

  “I remember my first week. I spent half my time lost and the other half convinced I’d walked into the wrong class.”

  “Yep. That’s me.”

  “You’re coming in as a junior, right?”

  “Yeah. I did all my prereqs at the technical college in Asheville. The waiting list was so long and with hospitals going to using BSNs, I figured I’d better transfer. USC was the first place to tell me yes.”

  “And here you are.”

  Mickie looked up at the thoughtful tone of Tiana’s words. The woman tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “That’s never a good start,” Mickie replied. She bent to offer Ian another sip of water. Flutters stirred in her belly. Time to tell her lies and try to keep them straight.

  “Where’s your family?”

  The bluntness of it shocked her a little. But only a little because she was starting to realize that Tiana was a no-nonsense kind of person. She was going to make an amazing nurse. “I... They are...far away.”

  “Far away? Like how far?”

  “Very far. Why?”

  Tiana leaned forward on her arms, her dark gaze intent on Mickie’s face. “I’ll tell you a truth I tell hardly anyone if you’ll tell me one back.”

  Well, there was a loaded bet. Before she could think she said, “Okay.”

  “I’m twenty-two years old. I have a five-year-old little girl back home with my momma right now. If you’re doing the math, that’s seventeen.”

  Mickie swallowed. “It must be hard to be away from her.”

  “It is. But you know what? When she was born, I looked around. Where I come from? Aren’t any good jobs. The schools are terrible. And I had to decide. What did I want for my baby girl? The same old nothing? Or was I going to do something?”

  “And here you are, doing something.”

  “Yeah. And now tell me. What are you doing? And why are you doing it alone?”

  As she said alone, Tiana reached out and put her hand over Mickie’s. The simple gesture brought a lump to her throat. Don’t tell her. Don’t tell. Along with the wa
rning came a weight so heavy that she could barely take in a breath. She was tired. Tired of lying. Tired of being alone. Here was a woman who would understand. Who wanted to help her. Let her help. She glanced down at Ian. He was focused on getting the French fry she’d given him into his mouth.

  “My parents wanted me to give Ian away for adoption,” she lied. Inside, her guts shriveled with shame. Shame for making her parents the bad guys in this story because that was the most horrific part of the lie. Shame for lying to Tiana, who had been so honest with her and who only wanted to help. Shame at herself for being too cowardly to tell the truth.

  “Oh,” Tiana said, her tone oddly neutral.

  Mickie looked up at her. “They aren’t bad people, just...we didn’t have a lot to begin with... And they thought...”

  “They thought the same thoughts I had when I found out. I considered putting Lilly up for adoption. What did I have to offer her? Teenage mother. My family was too poor to even have enough dirt to be dirt poor.”

  “Well, we weren’t that bad off, but I had to make a choice.”

  “And here you are.”

  Mickie couldn’t quite look directly at Tiana. Her entire existence felt like a spiderweb of lies. She lied to her parents. She lied to Josh. She lied to Tiana. She lied to herself. She swallowed the tears. She hoped she wasn’t lying to Ian when she promised him things would be better. “Here I am,” she said.

  “It’ll be all right,” Tiana said.

  It wasn’t her words, but the absolute confidence in her voice that made Mickie finally look at Tiana. “How do you know that?”

  “Because you’re here. Doing it. You made it this far. If you were going to quit, you would have done it by now.”

  * * *

  BY THE TIME she got home, it was well past Ian’s nap time and he was letting her know about it. It started with the cranky little cries, yeah. That was just the start. But when she tried to put him to bed, he cranked up into full meltdown mode. She was walking around the kitchen with him, bouncing him and patting his back while the shrieks assaulted her eardrums. Ought to make teenage girls do this for a couple days, she thought. Better than any sex education class out there. What next? “Come on, baby boy,” she said, bouncing him up and down in her arms. Shake those bubbles out, shake it all out, calm it down.

  She caught a glimpse of something at the sliding door and jumped back, clutching Ian. Josh.

  The hell, dude? She walked over, feeling the stress run off her, and she slid the door open. “Sorry,” she said, not sure why.

  “Is he okay?”

  She stopped bouncing and the wails increased in volume. “Missed his nap time. Now we’re all paying for it.”

  “Hey, little man,” Josh said. “Little man. People are going to think your mother is taking your favorite toy away.”

  Ian turned his head, crying cut off midscream. He rested his cheek against Mickie’s. She could feel his hiccupping sighs as the tantrum subsided. Leaning back, she looked at his face. Snot and tears. Lovely. “Ian. You’re a hot mess, little dude.” Snatching some tissues from the table, she wiped at his face.

  “Yosh!”

  That surprised her and her head turned back to Josh, who was standing just inside the kitchen, hands in the back pockets of his jeans, T-shirt pulled tight against his chest. That impossibly black curly hair tumbling over his forehead. She turned away. “Very good, Ian. Yes, that’s Josh.”

  She intended to get a sippy cup of milk and hopefully get him into his bed, but Ian had other plans. He squirmed in her arms and she put him down. He toddled to Josh, who was looking down at him with obvious alarm.

  “Yosh!”

  “What’s he want?”

  “For you to pick him up.”

  “Yeah, no.”

  “He’s going to cry, then.”

  Sure enough, Ian tilted his head back as he looked up at Josh. And boom. Down on his butt. His face scrunched up but the wail that followed was a normal I-fell-down wail, not a return of the tantrum.

  “What do I do now?”

  Mickie motioned to the living room. “Take him in there and distract him for a minute so I can get him something to drink.”

  Despite the terrified look on his face, Josh picked Ian up. He put his hands under the little guy’s armpits and carried him that way, with his legs dangling, all the way to the living room. Weird thing was Ian seemed to dig it, kind of. At least the sound of the crying dialed down a bit. He was staring up at Josh like, “hey, this is something new.” Mickie could relate to that. She smiled, remembering the first day she’d met Josh and he’d carried Ian the same way. Apparently, he was only comfortable with sleeping kids. As she moved around the kitchen, she could hear Josh talking. Ian had stopped crying. Stepping into the living room, she was surprised to see Josh sitting on the floor in front of Ian, juggling three of his stuffed animals. She was sure if Ian hadn’t been so tired, he would be laughing. But the motion seemed to have hypnotized him. Maybe she should learn to juggle.

  She sat and handed Ian the sippy cup. He drank it, never taking his eyes off Josh. “That’s pretty cool,” she said. “Where’d you learn to juggle?”

  “Martial arts class. We would juggle bricks.”

  “Bricks? Like build-a-house bricks?”

  “Yep. Great for hand-eye coordination and building grip strength.”

  “I can’t imagine catching bricks like that.”

  Ian moved to snuggle beside her, sippy cup held in both hands. A very good sign. Josh let the stuffed animals fall. He held up a hand, showing her his palm.

  “It’ll give you some callouses.”

  She stared at his hand. It was a man’s hand. A workingman’s hand. Big, calloused, with long fingers. Josh was so low-key it was easy to overlook how powerfully he was built. The hand was attached to a forearm so muscled it was probably bigger than her bicep. Her eyes traveled up to the worn cotton T-shirt draped loosely over his chest and an almost overwhelming lust swept through her. Her eyes met his and he lowered his hand. There was a brief pop of heat in his eyes before he looked down at the scattered toys. He picked up the bunny and booped Ian on the nose with it.

  “Looks like little man is almost down for the count. I’ll let you get him settled.”

  She shook her head to clear it. Just for a moment, she’d forgotten. Forgotten she was a mother. And remembered she was a woman. She couldn’t get that calloused palm out of her mind. Or where she wanted it to be.

  “Yep. He’s done. Thank you for your help.”

  He stood in one fluid motion. “No problem. Listen. I’m driving down to Charleston today. I’ll be back late tomorrow. If you need anything, call me. I can get DeShawn to help you out.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  She watched him go, which proved to be a mistake because now she wanted to see that tight butt more than she wanted to know what lay under that T-shirt. If she needed anything. She climbed to her feet, hauling Ian up with her. Yeah, she needed something.

  She needed to get naked and sweaty. With Josh. The flare of lust she’d felt still burned deep in her belly. She tried distracting herself with putting Ian to bed. A late nap was going to wreak havoc on his sleep cycle, but there was nothing to be done for that.

  The rumble of a motorcycle drew her to the window. Josh paused at the end of the driveway. Again, that lust. His black curls were covered by the helmet, but those forearms were on full display on the handlebars. And she had a great view of his thigh, thick with muscle as he held the bike steady. He pulled out, taking a long curving left turn, bike roaring. What was it about a man on a motorcycle? She let her forehead rest against the windowpane.

  Whatever you are planning, just don’t. She turned away. Ian was sound asleep. Maybe a cold shower was what she needed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

/>   AS HE ROUNDED the sweeping curve in the road, Josh saw Jules standing at the edge of the lawn waving both hands over her head. He hit the throttle a little, making the bike growl as he approached. Sadie and Wyatt came out of the house and stood on the small front porch as he pulled into the driveway.

  “Can I have a ride? Can I? Just around the block? Please, Uncle Josh? Please? Please? Please?”

  He glanced over at Wyatt. He was Jules’s uncle by blood, but after her mother’s death, he’d been appointed her guardian. Recently, he’d signed adoption papers, making her his daughter. Wyatt’s head was already moving back and forth.

  “I don’t think your dad’s going to go for that,” he said as he pulled off his helmet.

  “Absolutely not,” Wyatt said.

  “I’ll hold on tight. And wear a helmet. And Uncle Josh won’t go faster than the speed limit.”

  “No.”

  Sadie slipped an arm around Wyatt’s waist. “Come on, Dad. It’s perfectly safe. I’ve ridden with Josh before.”

  “No helmet, no ride.”

  “He’s got an extra in the saddlebag.”

  Jules put her hands on her hips. “Daa-aaad! I am almost ten years old. I am not a baby!”

  Josh pressed his lips together to prevent the laughter from escaping. Sadie was doing the same. Wyatt threw his hands in the air and stomped down the porch steps. “Fine. Where’s this helmet? Is it even going to fit her?”

  Josh unlocked the saddlebag and lifted the extra helmet. “Ta-da!”

  After getting the helmet strapped on and getting Jules settled on the back of the bike, Wyatt leveled a finger at Josh. “If I even think I hear you speeding, just drop her off and keep riding, brother.”

  “Yes, sir,” Josh replied briskly. Jules wrapped her arms around his waist as he cranked the engine. He revved it a few times—once just to annoy Wyatt a little and again for the excited squeal from Jules.

  “Can we ride by Shiloh’s house?” she yelled over the noise.