by Lisa Wells
“Fuck,” he said. “Should we be worried?”
Chapter Eight
Aggie stared at Max. “I’m not worried. Meemaw loves to come up with fun surprise ideas for me.” Of course, she was worried, but he didn’t need to know that.
“You’re not worried that they’re trying to throw us together?”
She shook her head. “Meemaw knows you’re not my type.” This caused him to scowl, but he let the comment stand. “Shall we get back to the desk fiasco?” No surprise he didn’t like the desk. It required a certain amount of coolness to see the fun of a standing one. Well, he’d asked for something to impress his clients, and these desks would impress clients.
These days, you couldn’t just sell a great product or service, you also had to be green, into a healthy lifestyle, and a visionary of what today’s youth would want in tomorrow’s markets.
“It’s no longer a fiasco. I caved and said they could stay.”
“Touché.” That was not boss-man-like of him. She wasn’t sure how to process the information. “You should leave. The paint fumes will make you lightheaded.” She bent down to pick up her white face mask and slipped it over her face.
His long legs carried him swiftly to his temporary desk. “Where’s my Rolodex? I need a number.”
She lowered the mask and eyeballed him. A vein had appeared in his forehead. It hadn’t been there a few moments ago. “Your what?” Was he about to pop a gasket?
“The thing on my desk holding all my phone numbers?”
“Oh. I tossed it. Not worth giving to charity. No one, and I mean NO one, uses those anymore.” She’d have to ask Meemaw if she’d used a Rolodex back in the old days.
“I do.” The vein turned a bruised-blue color. “It belonged to my grandfather.”
“Then put it in a memory box where it belongs and move your office practices into this century.” According to the stubbornness in his eyes staring back at her, he didn’t give two flips about her suggestion. “You really don’t care if customers call you an ol’ fuddy duddy behind your back?”
He gave her a lackluster smile. The kind you give the checkout lady at the grocery store when they ask if you’re having a good day, and you’re not, but you don’t want to burden them with your problems. “I can always hide it in my desk when customers are in my office. Dig it out of the trash and bring it to me. It holds numbers I don’t have written anywhere else.”
“Not necessary. I saved all the numbers. I created a Google Docs for you.”
“I prefer my grandfather’s Rolodex. It’s super easy to find a number in it.”
“For a guy who wants to appear young, you sure have some ancient habits. How about we compromise? Lend me your phone, and I’ll insert the numbers into your contacts.”
“You can’t have my phone. I’m expecting a call.”
Did he seriously think she meant to drop everything and do it right at this moment? Could he not see how busy she was? Reminding herself she wanted to impress him, she responded accordingly. “How about Monday morning? I can enter the information while you’re in your meeting. That’s a time you’d have your phone turned off anyway. Correct?”
He stepped over to the windows and looked out. A position that gave her an inordinate amount of time to take in his ass. And since today, he’d been roaming land with a surveyor, he’d worn jeans and boots. And, lucky her, those jeans were singing the chorus to “Sexy and I Know It.” Girl, look at that body. They gloved his ass in a caress, making her want to forget all about trying to appear as grandiose as the women Meemaw said he normally dated. Those jeans were practically shouting in her ear, Ask him if he wants to break in his desk with some good old-fashioned sex. Which she wouldn’t do even if he were the type. Right? Well, maybe on the last day of the contract. Meemaw liked to say Aggie had more balls than a herd of bulls.
“I guess that will work.” He twisted and caught her eyes focused where they shouldn’t be.
Instead of raising her gaze and seeing his no doubt sardonic smile, she pivoted and picked up a bucket of paint. There were places on the back wall she planned on touching up whether they needed it or not.
“What in tarnation do you have on?” Meemaw’s voice slammed into Aggie’s back, causing her to stumble and some paint to slop out onto the floor and her foot. “Where are the rest of your shorts?”
Aggie spun. Meemaw and Ms. Grace stood in the doorway of Max’s office. Meemaw’s eyes shot daggers at Aggie, and Ms. Grace’s mouth hung open.
“These are my painting shorts.” Aggie spoke slowly, as if explaining to a child. “You know that. You’ve seen me wear them while painting.”
Meemaw clutched her heart. “Those are your home painting shorts. Not your work painting shorts. What in the world must Max think having you show up to work in those child-size things?”
They all turned and stared at Max.
He cleared his throat. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Aggie read his face for signs of lying. Of course he was. Her legs were her best feature. She just wanted to figure out his tell. That kind of information could come in handy.
“Bless your heart,” Meemaw said to Max. She hiked over to Aggie and blocked Max’s line of sight and Aggie’s line of sight, which meant she didn’t have enough time to get a good read on his tell. “I’m inclined to believe you, because if you had, you surely would have died of a heart attack. Or had her arrested for indecent exposure.”
“You’re exaggerating. They’re not that short. I have shorter ones.” Aggie stepped out from behind Meemaw. “In my defense, he’s not supposed to be here. He promised me he wasn’t coming back to the office until told it was safe to do so.” She glanced toward Max to see how mad he was, because she’d just thrown him under the Grandmother Bus.
He chuckled, the vein in his forehead gone.
Ms. Grace snapped out of her stupor. “Maxi, dear, is that true? Have you broken a promise to this poor child and thus placed her in this embarrassing social situation?”
All three ladies once again turned their full attention on him.
His mirth died the quick death of a spider smashed to smithereens by an arachnophobe. “What brings you two beautiful ladies to my office today?”
His grandmother moved over to him and laced her arm through his.
Meemaw did the same to Aggie.
“What are you two up to?” Aggie smelled a scheme.
“What Aggie asked,” Max said, directing the comment to Ms. Grace.
“Why do we always have to be up to something?” Meemaw patted Aggie on the cheek. “I wanted to come by and see your progress on the office transformation project.” She turned toward Max. “You know, she’s talked my ear off ever since you hired her. Your name’s been mentioned a thousand times. I can’t remember the last time she dithered so over a job or boss.”
Aggie nudged Meemaw. “I’m sure Max couldn’t care less about our personal conversations.” Max did not need to know she found herself liking him more than she’d thought she would. While, yes, she wanted to impress him, at the same time she didn’t want to appear like a conquest falling all over herself to please him. According to Meemaw, who’d heard it from Ms. Grace on more than one occasion, he’d had too many of those types of women in his life.
“On the contrary, what you say about me when I can’t hear is of utmost importance to me,” he said in a smooth voice. The one she’d liked earlier from on the phone.
Goose bumps popped on her arms, but she didn’t rub them. No way did she want to draw Meemaw’s attention to her body’s reaction to Max.
“The reception area looks like a million dollars,” Ms. Grace said. “The color is stunning.”
Aggie smiled. Going with a bold blue instead of a tame white had taken a leap of faith in her ability as a decorator. “Thanks. That means a lot coming from you.”
�
�And I like the color scheme in here,” Meemaw added. “Very manly. Yet not caveman manly.”
“Ladies, why are you here?” Max asked, interrupting the love fest. Did he not like it when he wasn’t the center of attention? Or did he also smell a scheme and wanted the lowdown?
“Maxi, dear, remember the other day when you asked me what I wanted for my birthday?”
“Aggie, dear, remember the other day when you asked me what our next new thing to learn should be?”
Aggie and Max glanced at each other. Max looked like a fly caught in honey and just noticing the golden syrup was in the pathway of a descending flyswatter. Aggie was pretty sure she looked like a thief caught in floodlights.
They looked at their grandmothers and nodded.
“Well, we know what our answers are,” the ladies said in unison.
“We?” Aggie asked.
“As it turns out,” Ms. Grace said, beaming up at Max, “our answers are the same.”
“Sugar Britches,” Meemaw said, “we’re going to learn to play Bridge. Isn’t that just as nice as a sweet Georgia peach in the summer?”
Aggie untangled herself from Meemaw’s arm. “Bridge? As in the card game? The one you called—”
“Fun,” Meemaw said, cutting Aggie off from saying the actual word she’d called the game. “You always were so smart.”
“Maxi, darling, I’d like for you to help me teach Ms. Hazel and Aggie how to play Bridge.”
Aggie shook her head. Nope. Spending more time in the presence of Max was a terrible idea. She couldn’t quite pinpoint why. It wasn’t like he was her type. But still… “Meemaw, I thought we’d finally take those motorcycle driving lessons we’ve been talking about. I know a guy who said he’d teach us for free. And this is a good month for him.”
Max gave her a squinty-eyed stare. One she had no idea how to interpret. If only she could crawl inside his brain for a few hours and hear his thoughts. Did he or did he not want to help teach her and Meemaw how to play Bridge? If he didn’t, she could stand back and let him be the bad guy and squash their grandmother’s latest bad idea.
…
Max waited for Ms. Hazel’s response to her granddaughter.
“Bless your heart, you know you prefer being the plus-one on the back of Bill’s Harley versus actually driving a Hog,” Meemaw said to Aggie. “And at my age, well…I’m not sure I want to wear leather past the age of sixty-four.”
“Sixty-four?” Aggie said in a teasing tone, drawing a pinched-brow expression from Ms. Hazel.
Bill and Aggie were an item. Not just a hookup. Women didn’t tell their grandmothers about hookups. Max flipped that information around in his brain. Every way it landed caused him heartburn. “Grandmother, what happened to your Bridge partner?” Bridge brought up old memories he’d prefer to not dwell upon.
“Her husband transferred to the Dallas office.” Grandmother sighed as if they’d done so just to spite her. “And Grace and I ran into Dottie Monday night while out…having a cocktail, and she suggested I should ask Hazel to be my partner for the upcoming tournament, only Hazel doesn’t know how to play. It’s so hard to teach someone if you don’t have another couple to play against.”
“Meemaw, is this something you really want to do?” Aggie asked, worrying her bottom lip with her perfect white teeth. “I didn’t think you particularly cared for Ms. Grace’s Club friends.”
Ms. Hazel propped her hands on her hips. “Sometimes you have to do what you have to do to prove what you want to prove.”
Aggie angled her chin to the right. “What does that mean?”
“Dotty implied the reason I didn’t want to learn was because I wasn’t capable of learning, because I dropped out of school.”
“You told her you dropped out of school?” Aggie’s words came out a high-pitched squeak as if she’d been goosed.
“I most certainly did not,” Meemaw scolded. “Which means someone else did. And when I find out who ratted me out, I will give them a good piece of my mind and just possibly a knuckle sandwich with that hammer of yours.”
Max looked at Grandmother. How did she feel about being friends with a woman who’d give anyone a knuckle sandwich with a hammer? Strangely enough, he didn’t feel at all bothered. He liked a woman who stood up for herself against men who behaved like pigs.
Grandmother stared off into the distance. He immediately forgot about the other two women in the room. Something was bothering her. Something big. She should have had ladies begging to become her new Bridge partner if her old one had moved. Grandmother had a record of winning that tournament. Why had it come down to her asking Ms. Hazel? The two of them were great friends, but they weren’t club friends. “Grandmother?” he prodded gently.
She gave him a bright smile. “Maxi, are you going to give your grandmother what she wants for her birthday?”
“If I say yes, how would this work?”
“You’ll partner up with Aggie, and I’ll partner up with Hazel.”
“But—”
She gave him a look of reproach. “A sentence starting with the word ‘but’ is never worthy of a Treadwell. Especially when it’s being used in reply to when a seventy-five-year-old woman tells you what she wants for her birthday.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Maybe he should run this idea by Grant, make sure he wasn’t crossing a line that would get him slapped with a sexual harassment charge down the road.
“Perfect. Our first lesson will be next Wednesday evening at my place,” Grandmother said. “And, by the way, I’ve invited your dad over for dinner tomorrow night, and I told him you’d be there.”
Max’s good mood dissipated. Hell, he was going to win “worst story of the week” two weeks in a row.
Chapter Nine
Thursday night family dinner came quicker than divorce gossip makes the rounds in a country club. Now Max, Grandmother, and Father all sat at one end of Grandmother’s formal dining room table.
“Max, Mother’s been full of enthusiasm over a new employee you’ve hired. Did you steal her from your competition or find a treasure all on your own?”
Max placed his fork on his plate and picked up his wineglass. The thought of Aggie being referred to as a treasure amused him. “She’s more like a diamond in the rough.”
Father would stroke-out if he knew he and Aggie were pairing up as Bridge partners to help Ms. Hazel and Grandmother shore up their signals before the big tournament.
Disappointment filled Father’s eyes. “Do you think it’s wise hiring from the bottom of the pile instead of the top?” Condescension oozed from his tone like pus from an infected scab. “Surely, by now, you can afford to pay enough to attract the top-tier candidates. By your age, I had at least four well-paid employees on my payroll.”
If only Father knew just how far on the bottom Aggie’s work history placed her. “Actually, Grandmother connected us.”
“Mother, who exactly is this woman you’ve brought into my son’s life?” He tugged at his tie, not to loosen it, but to no doubt make sure the knot sat perfectly in the middle of the collar of his pale blue dress shirt. His way of pointing out to his son that he, too, should be wearing a tie and a jacket.
Grandmother dabbed her lips with her cloth napkin. Of course, she had changed for dinner. But, unlike Father, she didn’t do it for status reasons. Dressing for dinner was simply a tradition hardwired into her brain she never chose to ditch. Max, on the other hand, discarded it the moment he turned eighteen. Unless it was a special occasion, he showed up to dinner at Grandmother’s wearing slacks and a pullover shirt.
“If you must know, she’s Hazel’s granddaughter.”
Father slammed his palm on the table, causing the china to shake. “Of course that woman’s involved in this fiasco.”
Max and Grandmother both glanced at their watches. They had an ongoing bet on the number of
minutes it would take before Father did his table slapping. The loser had to buy the other breakfast the next time they met. Tonight, he made it a full ten minutes. His record, fifteen.
Grandmother gave Max a slight nod of her head in acknowledgment he’d won tonight’s bet. He’d guessed nine minutes. She’d gone with four minutes. “What does ‘of course’ mean?”
“That woman has tried to weasel herself into this family ever since you’ve met.”
Max didn’t intervene—Grandmother could handle her own battles. Hell, she’s the one who taught him how to stand up to Father.
“And what does that mean?” Disapproval dripped like a slow-leak from her words. “Hazel has not once asked me for money.”
“Not yet. And why should she, if she has a bigger picture of setting her nobody granddaughter up with your somebody grandson?”
Like a piece of driftwood doused in kerosene and lit with a blowtorch on a windy day, Max’s anger ignited. “Aggie Johansson is a lot of things, but a nobody isn’t one of them. She’s funny. She’s energetic. She’s a force that will turn your world upside-down and make you glad for it. She’s not an invisible nobody.” He abhorred how the man judged the world by the size of their bank account or the status of their parents. “She’s efficient and enthusiastic. Bold and proficient. Those, Father, are not the fucking traits of a nobody. Make no mistake, Aggie Johansson is not a nobody. She’s very much a somebody.”
Father narrowed his eyes and peered closely at him. Like he saw or heard something Max hadn’t meant to disclose. “She has the same last name as her grandmother. That alone tells you she’s quite likely a bastard child.”
Max bolted to stand. He hadn’t given much thought to Aggie’s birth status. Probably because he didn’t give two cents if she carried her father’s last name or not. Not to mention there were a couple thousand holes in Father’s absurd assumption. And, besides, the marital status of her parents when she was born was irrelevant. “Bastard child” should have never crossed Father’s lips. “You’re so fucking unbelievably snobbish. Grandmother, please tell me you didn’t raise him with these views.”