The Bachelor's Brighton Valley Bride (Return to Brighton Valley)

by Judy Duarte - The Bachelor's Brighton Valley Bride (Return to Brighton Valley)

  Of course, he doubted anyone around Zorba’s would figure it out even if he pinned the magazine to the bulletin board by the restroom.

  Not that Megan wasn’t sharp enough to spot any similarities. She probably could if she stayed in the same room with him for longer than two minutes at a time.

  And then there was the store’s manager. Clay didn’t even know what to think of Don Carpenter. But the man’s mind was clearly not on business these days.

  Last night, when he’d gone over to the office shredder to put the magazine through it, Clay had found the missing invoices piled up in the “to be shredded” box. And the books and accounts were in complete disarray.

  Megan had been right, though. There was no way they could convert the accounting to a new computerized program until they organized the current old-fashioned system. And that was going to take much longer than Clay had anticipated.

  A second car door slammed shut outside, and Clay suspected that both employees had finally arrived. He hoped so, because it was going to take all three of them to sort through the mess he’d uncovered last night.

  Either way, it was time to get to work. So he climbed out of bed. After a quick shower, he made his way downstairs, where he caught the aroma of fresh-perked coffee. It wasn’t Starbucks, but he’d take what he could get in this Podunk town.

  When he stepped into the back office, he spotted Megan standing at a tiny counter, taking mugs from the small overhead cupboard. She was wearing a pair of black slacks today and a green blouse. Her long red hair had been pulled back into a ponytail again, as if she knew she’d be bent over a desk all day.

  It was good that she’d planned to work, although he’d always been partial to long hair that flowed around a woman’s shoulders—much as hers had yesterday when she’d removed the rubber band.

  Don Carpenter, a sixty-something man with a receding gray hairline, sat behind the biggest desk. He wore a short-sleeved polyester polo shirt, the light blue fabric stretched tightly across his well-rounded belly. He looked up when Clay entered and scrunched his weathered brow.

  “Mr. Carpenter,” Megan said, as she hurried from the coffeepot to his desk and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “This is Peyton Johnson. He’s the accountant from Geekon who came to help us convert our books to the new computerized accounting system. He’s staying in the apartment upstairs while he’s here.”

  “Right, right,” Don said. “I’m afraid you caught us at a bad time. We’ve gotten a little behind, although I hope to get caught up soon. Maybe it would be best if you could come back next month.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Clay said.

  “Here, Don.” Megan pushed a foil-wrapped package at her boss, doing that forced-smile thing again. “This is the breakfast burrito you wanted.”

  Was she purposely trying to interrupt their conversation?

  “No thanks, dear. I already had breakfast this morning.”

  Her smile faded, and after a beat, she turned to Clay—apparently in default. “Would you like an egg-and-cheese burrito, Mr. Johnson? I also have a peach muffin.”

  Whether he’d been second choice or not didn’t matter. Breakfast sounded pretty darn good. And it smelled good, too. “Sure, thanks.”

  Don Carpenter settled back into his desk chair and returned to reading whatever paperwork he’d been looking at moments ago, then he slipped on a pair of headphones as if a corporate accountant had never even entered the store.

  Clay could have made an issue, he supposed, but his stomach rumbled at the sight of that muffin and the foil-wrapped breakfast. If nobody else was in any sort of hurry to get to work, he might as well take a bite.

  “So, Megan,” he said, as he unwrapped the burrito, “what’s your job here? Besides being the resident chef.”

  “Oh, I’m not a chef. That’s just what I made the kids for breakfast. And I always bring in something for... Well, when I have extras, I bring them in. Anyway, I work here part-time. I’ve been doing some bookkeeping and customer service and basically helping out wherever I can.”

  “No kids with you today?” Clay looked behind her toward the front of the store.

  She crossed her arms, the movement causing the fabric of her green blouse to tug and pop a button out of the hole, revealing a glimpse of her yellow bra.

  Apparently she didn’t realize what she was flashing, and he didn’t think he ought to be the one to point it out. So he looked back to Don, who continued to shuffle through the papers on his desk, studying each one carefully.

  Clay had already gone through those same papers last night and knew for a fact that they were all outdated memos, not a single one relevant. He turned back to Megan.

  When she caught him looking at her, she quickly smiled again.

  Yep, she was covering for her boss, all right. But covering what exactly? The fact that he’d been neglecting his work? Or was there more to it than that?

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  He must have looked as if he needed it, because she proceeded to pour two cups, even though he had his mouth full and hadn’t been able to answer.

  “Cream and sugar?” she asked.

  He nodded, and she added two packets of sugar. Then she scooped out two spoonfuls of nondairy creamer and mixed it in, too. After giving it a little stir, she handed the cup to him.

  The other coffee she left black, keeping it for herself. He was surprised someone who cooked so many treats didn’t seem to enjoy sweet things herself.

  “How’s the burrito?” she asked. “Is it still warm?”

  “Uh, yeah. It’s perfect.” And it really was. Clay took another bite and followed it up with a sip of coffee.

  No one had ever taken an interest in what he ate or how it tasted. He’d grown up cooking for himself and his mom, who’d rarely cared if the grilled cheese sandwich he’d made them was burned or if the frozen chicken pot pie wasn’t cooked all the way through.

  But here was Megan, a complete stranger, looking at him as though her single mission in life was to make sure that everything he put in his mouth was just right.

  When she raised her own cup to her lips, he chanced a second peek at her green blouse, which had popped another button, allowing him to catch a better glimpse of that yellow lace bra and even a flash of skin.

  Get a grip. He was no longer a teenager on hormone overload. Besides, she was an employee. And as if that weren’t enough, she also had kids, and Clay never dated women with children.

  That was it! He needed to talk about mom things with her.

  “So, uh, how’s the little hacker this morning? Is his split lip healing?”

  His question wiped the smile, one that had been a little more genuine than forced, right off her face.

  Shouldn’t he have brought that up? He had no idea what else to talk to her about, so asking her about her kids seemed like neutral territory.

  She gave a little shrug, which caused the fabric of her blouse to tug at the unbuttoned gap. “Tyler? He’s at home with a very, very long list of chores to finish before I check on him at noon.”

  “You didn’t have to leave him at home.” Clay looked at the waiting repairs that Don didn’t seem in any hurry to get to. “We could’ve found some things for him to do around here.”

  Actually, Clay was pretty sure his legal department wouldn’t be okay with having a twelve-year-old in the shop working on repairs. But they were so backed up, and the kid could certainly do some of the easier things.

  “Are you kidding?” Megan laughed—a real one, complete with a genuine, bright-eyed smile, the sight and sound of which warmed Clay in a way the coffee never could. “Working in here with the computers would have been a reward for Tyler, not a punishment.”

  The teenage geek inside Clay felt a tug of sympathy for the boy. And the gr
own man felt a tug of something entirely different for the boy’s pretty mother.

  “Speaking of work,” Clay said, trying to shake both unwelcome feelings and renew his focus. “Should we get started?”

  Megan’s real smile faded, but she managed to paste the fake one back in place. “Of course. Where do you want to begin?”

  “Why don’t we get the new accounting program loaded up and running so we can start entering last year’s fiscal reports? Once we have that established, we can input this year’s billings and receivables onto the spreadsheet. That way we can see where we stand.”

  “Sounds good.”

  As Clay carried his coffee cup, which was now almost empty, toward Don’s desk and the main office computer, Megan whirled her petite frame in front of him and pointed to an empty desk that he could have sworn wasn’t there last night. “Where did that come from?”

  “I set it up for you this morning.” She force-smiled again and Clay couldn’t help wondering if many people fell for that overdone grin. But he wasn’t going to comment on it. Yet.

  He looked at the freshly wiped-down work surface that must have been buried under a pile of unfiled paperwork last night. Now the desk held only a jar of recently sharpened pencils, a blank notepad and a fresh daisy in a small ceramic vase.

  “I’ll need the master computer to upload the program.” He looked back at Mr. Carpenter’s desk. “Isn’t that it?”

  “Um, it used to be. But I figured we should just start a new program with a fresh computer.” She gestured toward a wall of refurbished PCs for sale. “We can make use of one of these.”

  Her fake smile, some home-baked goods, a clean apartment and a spiffy new desk complete with a flower must be part of some smoke-and-mirrors routine to keep him from seeing the big picture.

  “But won’t Don need access to the master computer on his desk?” Clay asked.

  “I’m sure he’d rather have it over here where it won’t get in his way. He’s been a little, uh, overwhelmed lately with his wife being sick and all. He’s really busy with other stuff, so why don’t you and I take care of it and not bother him with the little details.”

  But that’s the guy’s job, Clay wanted to yell loud enough for the manager to hear despite the headphones.

  Don Carpenter was being paid to be bothered with the little details. Yet before Clay could argue, Megan placed the muffin on his new desk and began to pull down one of the old PCs from the shelf. She might know her way around a mixing bowl, but clearly she knew nothing about computers. The new Geekon500 sitting in the box on the lower shelf would be best suited for the master computer.

  He stopped her. “While you file away some of those documents over there, I’ll set up the computer.”

  She hesitated, then moved to the back of the room, picking up loose papers and putting them into stacks.

  As Clay bit into the tempting peach muffin she’d left on his desk, he had to agree with something Sally the waitress had told him yesterday. Megan was heaven in the kitchen. And after seeing her moving around his bedroom yesterday, he thought she looked as if she could be heaven in there, as well.

  There he went again. What was he thinking? He had a strict no-dating-in-the-workplace policy. And he wasn’t about to break his own rule now, despite the fact that last night he’d ended up downloading the entire Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits album onto his personal laptop as he sorted through the office, thinking about the sway of Megan’s hips while listening to the music.

  She wasn’t his type of woman. And even if computer geeks like him, rather than star athletes, actually were her type of man, it wouldn’t be fair to get too close to her. After all, he still might need to fire her, although not for embezzlement, as he’d originally thought he might have to—or for incompetence, which he’d now begun to doubt.

  GeekMart and Zorba the Geek hired only corporate-minded employees, which the gorgeous mom clearly was not.

  Trouble was, something about Megan had gotten under Clay’s skin, something that had him thinking about small-town life, about holding hands at the movies on a Friday night and stopping by the local ice-cream shop afterward for a banana split.

  And Clay’s new life had blasted light-years away from a world like that. In fact, he was eager to zip out of here and back to the city as quickly as he could.

  But something told him he’d have to give Megan Adams one hell of a severance package so he could once again leave town without a backward glance.

  Chapter Five

  Megan had no idea how many times she’d looked up from the stack of papers on her desk. It wasn’t even lunchtime, but her frustration level was growing by the minute.

  The prices and totals she could handle just fine, but as usual, the letters swam before her eyes and jumped around the page until that old familiar ache knotted at her temples.

  You can do it, Meggie. Just concentrate.

  Her mom’s advice might have worked back when she was in elementary school, but how was she supposed to concentrate with the sexy corporate accountant sitting just a few feet away from her?

  She refused to glance over at Peyton again and instead tried to focus on the invoice in front of her.

  Just because reading doesn’t come easily for you doesn’t mean you’re not a smart girl. Look at how well you can do other things.

  It never seemed to matter how many times her mom reminded her how quickly she could add a column of numbers or how often Gram had praised her ability to memorize recipes and quickly convert cups to pints and quarts; Megan had always felt like a confused first grader when it came to reading. And while she’d finally learned to compensate for the disability by the time she’d graduated from high school, she still struggled with the notations on the invoices, especially when written in Don’s illegible scrawl.

  To make matters worse, she couldn’t find the missing paperwork that Don had managed to leave in various places all over the shop—or figure out his weird filing system, even though he’d tried to explain it to her. But once she did, she’d be able to sort everything in a way that made sense to her.

  She knew a computerized accounting system— especially in a store that repaired and sold computers!—was the ideal solution. But that would require her to learn an entirely new way of doing things, which might not be easy. However, if someone with a little patience took the time to go over the instructions, she knew she would catch on.

  Trouble was, Peyton Johnson was here to do just that, but he was the last person in the world she wanted to sit next to her and point out anything, especially the intricacies of the digital age.

  Maybe if he taught the new program to Tyler, then her son could show her. But presenting that idea to the corporate accountant was sure to go over like sprigs of poison oak in a pair of long johns, which meant she was back to square one.

  So she took another shot at deciphering Don’s notation on the invoice she’d been reading. The machine in question was a laptop, but she had no idea who’d even brought it in, let alone what brand it was or the reason it needed to be repaired. And she hated to ask Don to look the paper over while Peyton was here because she hated to point out yet one more reason they were so behind the times.

  In her frustration, she risked another glance at the man seated across from her.

  Peyton had almost perfect posture as he typed diligently away on the keyboard in front of him. He’d rolled up his shirt sleeves to his elbows, revealing a smattering of hair on his well-muscled forearms.

  She studied his strong tan fingers moving across the plastic letters and numbers, wondering if she was more envious of his ability to quickly and effortlessly type out the words or if she was merely jealous of the keyboard’s luck in being the recipient of such smooth and solid strokes.

  As his right hand reached for the mouse, she shifted in her desk chair and imagined him re
aching for her....

  Oh, for Pete’s sake. What was wrong with her? She might have been without a man for longer than she cared to ponder, but she wasn’t interested in doing anything to change that. At least, not unless she found someone who was more interested in sharing an emotional relationship before a physical one—no matter how hot and heavy it promised to be.

  She had two kids, a shattered happily-ever-after dream and a barely recovering FICO score to remind her that all sex and swagger made for bad husbands.

  Too bad she hadn’t listened more closely to Gram, who’d warned her to stay away from the boys who raced to scoop up the overly ripe fruit off the ground rather than wait for the perfect peach to ripen before climbing up into the tree to pick it at just the right time.

  However, if she kept sitting here staring at Peyton and letting the tingle in her feminine core continue, she’d be in danger of letting her ripe peach fall directly into his lap.

  “You know,” Megan said, pushing her chair away from her desk, “I’m going to run to Caroline’s and pick up some lunch. Anyone want me to bring something back?”

  Don, who was still wearing his headphones while fixing one of the computers that had been brought in for repair, appeared to be oblivious to her announcement, which had rung out a little louder than she’d planned. But Peyton studied her in awe.

  Or had her voice and sudden movement merely startled the man?

  “Sure. You can pick up something for me.” Peyton reached into his wallet, pulled out a twenty and handed it to her.

  “What would you like?” she asked.

  “Surprise me.” His trust, at least when it came to his meal order, took her aback. And she found it difficult to break away from his gaze, which seemed to wrap around her, tethering her in place.

  Finally noticing the activity around him, Don took off his headphones. “What’s going on?”