The Boss Next Door (Harlequin Heartwarming)

by Fox, Roz Denny

  “If Keith’s feelings were such a big priority, why did you go after this job in the first place?”

  “My reasons are personal.” Shutters clicked firmly into place.

  What reasons? Too bad she was an advocate of a person’s right to privacy. Anyway, secrets didn’t stay secret for long on campus. She felt herself giving in. Lunch for the sake of a little boy wasn’t a major sacrifice. “Mark knows the way to the pizza parlor. You guys go stake out a table. Megan and I’ll join you when we finish here.”

  “Thanks. I owe you, Doc.” He said it as if he meant it.

  “No biggie,” she mumbled. “And stop calling me Doc. You’re one, too.”

  “I know, but referring to women by their last name goes against my Southern upbringing. I was taught to call ladies ma’am. A courtesy I had to unlearn as times have changed. Genderless titles are safest. Especially with you. You did object to our being on a first-name basis, remember.”

  She had. She’d been pretty annoyed, and it’d be a cold day in Panama before she’d apologize for being a feminist. “At work I insist on formality. Off campus, I guess there’s no harm in our using first names,” she grudgingly agreed.

  The good Professor Campbell was as bristly as a hedgehog. Oh. Did she think he wanted them to be more than colleagues? Garrett tensed briefly until he recalled the ear-dusting campus gossip and relaxed. She wasn’t a big fan of men. “Okay, since it’s settled, the boys and I will take off. Shall we order or wait?”

  “Order yours. Megan and I’ll decide after we get there. I’d better go keep her from buying out the store.” She waved toward the window.

  “Good luck with that. I believe I hear my pizza calling.” He walked off, leaving her looking bemused.

  Garrett had sprung from Confederate stock, so he knew better than to provoke a battle he had no hope of winning. Considering who he’d taken on, it was better to sound a retreat.

  Sherry watched him collect the boys. In those square-toed boots, Garrett Lock had an intriguing walk. A walk that defied definition. But walk or no walk, he was her boss. She fanned suddenly hot cheeks and ducked back into the store.

  Bitten by the shopping bug, Megan didn’t want to stop for lunch.

  “Mark’s already gone to save us a place,” Sherry said.

  Megan flounced along beside her. “Pizza is so fattening.”

  “Serious shopping burns a lot of calories,” Sherry returned dryly. “Not that you have to worry. What are you? A size three?”

  “Five.” Megan said it as though five was one step from requiring the services of a tentmaker.

  Sherry rolled her eyes. “This place has a salad bar.” They were still heatedly discussing what constituted fat when they arrived at the table occupied by Garrett and the boys.

  “Fat? Who’s fat?” Garrett demanded. “Present company excepted, of course.” His assessing blue gaze skipped over Megan’s skinny frame to loiter on Sherry’s more womanly curves.

  She felt like a rabbit caught in the crosshairs of his sight. That look was precisely why she’d had second thoughts about this impromptu lunch date. No, not a date. Not by any means. She dropped her purse on the empty seat between them, then relieved Megan of her shopping bags to build the buffer higher.

  “Girls always think they’re fat,” Mark informed Keith Lock with the superiority of his advanced age. “If you hadda sister, you’d hafta listen to girls gripe about stuff like that all the time. Girls always think they’re fat.”

  “’Least you’ve got company,” Keith said wistfully.

  Megan leaned across the table and slugged her brother in the shoulders.

  Rubbing the spot, Mark said to Keith, “You’re the lucky one being an only kid. Look at the abuse I gotta take. ’Cause guys can’t hit a girl back and they know it.”

  “Girls shouldn’t hit boys, either,” Sherry put in after noting a faint frown between Garrett’s brows. Although he appeared to be staring at Keith, Sherry thought his disapproval must be aimed at her for not having better control of her charges. “Mark, if you’ve ordered, would you go tell them Megan and I want the salad bar?” She dug in her purse and handed him some bills. “Take out enough for your pizza, too.”

  The boy pocketed the money. “Can I keep the change? When Keith and me finish eating, we wanna drop some coin in the techno peeps.”

  Sherry gaped. “Say what?”

  Megan interpreted. “He means they want to play the video games. They have cool ones here. Can I play, too?”

  “You may,” Sherry said. “All of you may, if we have time.”

  Keith slouched. “My dad probably won’t let me.”

  “It’s just in the back room,” Sherry informed Garrett, again wondering if he was a real tyrant. Or did he resent not having a macho son? How many times had she heard that complaint from the moms she counseled? Her heart pinched. Where was Keith’s mother that she’d allow him to suffer through this machismo routine?

  Garrett was genuinely puzzled by Sherry’s harsh expression. Now what? What had she read into his thoughts this time? Well, he’d put up with her attitude for Keith’s sake. His son had been so down since their move it worried Garrett.

  “If you clean your plate,” he murmured, “you may do the videos.” Garrett hated resorting to bribes, but lately Keith only picked at his food. He’d always been wiry, and it wasn’t so much the boy’s ribs sticking out that Garrett found troubling as his inertia. Keith didn’t seem to care about anything. Not where they were going to live or the prospect of starting school, though he’d always loved his classes. More baffling, he seemed angry at Carla. And wouldn’t you know she’d told her lawyer Garrett was turning their son against her. He’d been so careful to hide his feelings from Keith.

  Mark’s getting up to go and place Sherry and Megan’s order jostled Garrett from his private thoughts. “I’ll buy drinks,” he said, rising, too. “What would you like?”

  “Water for me,” Megan said.

  “Me, too, but I’ll fetch mine after we get our salads,” Sherry said.

  “You’ll fetch it?” Garrett laughed, his good humor restored for the moment. “Don’t razz me anymore about coming from Cowpatty college.”

  “I never did. I love listening to you talk.” The instant the admission left her lips, her face flamed, and so did his.

  He muttered something about buying sodas while the line was short.

  Megan pushed her chair back. “Hey, there’s a girl I met at registration. I’ll be right back. I want to ask her what kids are gonna wear the first day of school. Go on through the salad line, Aunt Sherry.” She left Sherry alone at the table with Garrett’s son.

  “Um, Keith, around here kids your age wear a lot of denim shorts and T-shirts at the start of school. It’s still hot and humid in the classrooms.”

  He sat straighter. “Really? That’s what we wore in Texas. Will you tell my dad? He’s been lookin’ at dweeby plaid shirts.”

  Sherry tried not to smile. “Our schools do have strict rules about the kinds of logos on the

  T-shirts,” she cautioned.

  “What’s a logo?”

  “Pictures and advertisements.” Then she reduced it to his level. “No shirts with bad words and stuff.”

  “Oh.” He wriggled forward in the seat, swinging his knobby knees. “My dad’d never buy me those.”

  “What won’t Dad buy you, buddy?” Neither Keith nor Sherry had heard Garrett return. Smiling, he pulled out a chair, sat and placed a pitcher of soft drinks and several empty glasses on the table. “My line went faster than Mark’s,” he said, tilting back in his chair. “Now, what is it you want that I won’t buy you, Keith?”

  “Nothin’.” Keith shut down.

  Sherry recognized the sullenness. Exactly how Megan had acted toward Emily at the start of the w
agon-train expedition. Taking pity on Garrett, Sherry apprised him of what he’d missed. Except for the remark about dweeby plaid shirts. That was for Keith to relay.

  “See, son? Your new school won’t be much different from your old one. That should make you happy.”

  “I still won’t know nobody,” he said defiantly.

  Garrett sighed. Unconsciously he turned to Sherry for support.

  She didn’t know what he wanted from her. Clearly his son was no happier than she that Garrett had come to Columbia. What could she say? That it wasn’t too late for him to bow out? It was. Who’d step in knowing he—or she—was second-best? The person would never get respect.

  The silence dragged out between them.

  Mark clomped up in his size-eleven unlaced sneakers and threw himself into the chair next to Keith. “Sheesh! What a dork taking orders. Like, how hard is it to punch in two salads? Here’s your plate, Aunt Sherry. Where’s Megan?” He waved a second platter in the air.

  “Talking to someone she met about school.”

  Nudging Keith, Mark said, “I really like livin’ here. Things are...comfortable, you know?”

  Keith’s shrug said he didn’t agree.

  Sherry felt Garrett had been left in the dark. “Emily’s in-laws were pretty controlling. They ran the town and everyone in it. Columbia’s a much bigger city, so life here is a very different experience for these guys.”

  “A better one!” Mark threw in.

  “Uh, thanks,” Garrett mumbled. “As new kid on the block I still have a lot to learn about this place.”

  She rested an elbow on the table. “I’ve never lived anywhere else. I can’t imagine moving, although I like to travel.”

  Keith Lock’s lower lip trembled. “I don’t see why we hafta move closer to Mom.” Leaping up, he knocked his chair over as he ran toward the rest room.

  Sherry gasped. “I’m sorry if I caused that.”

  Garrett fumbled to right the chair. “This isn’t like him. Excuse me—I need to go straighten things out.”

  Megan, who’d wandered back to the table in time to hear Keith’s outburst, winced, remembering, no doubt, her recent shouting matches with her mother.

  Still shaken by Keith’s blowup, Sherry wished she’d declined Garrett’s invitation.

  “You’d better hurry and get him,” Mark hollered after Garrett. “Here comes our pizza.”

  Needing space, Sherry announced that she was going to the salad bar.

  “Me, too.” Megan trotted after her. “Keith Lock is one unhappy puppy,” she said, heaping lettuce on her plate. “I feel bad for him, don’t you?”

  “You and Mark are starting new schools,” Sherry said, bypassing the croutons and other toppings. “Is transferring really so hard?”

  “No. But we’re getting a new dad, a big house and a dog. What do you suppose happened that Keith’s so bummed at his mother?”

  “I don’t know, Megan. Those aren’t questions one asks a new boss.” Although Sherry was more curious than ever. She’d assumed Garrett’s move had to do with trying to avoid his ex. Now it sounded as if the opposite was true. Maybe he still loved her.

  Sherry’s hands tightened involuntarily on her plate. Maybe he was one of those men who obsessed over a wife who’d rejected him. Last year they’d accepted a young woman into the program whose ex-husband wouldn’t let go. First he stalked her. In the end he killed her, then turned the gun on himself.

  Heart pounding, Sherry watched Garrett and Keith navigate the rows of tables as they returned. The man’s face was positively grim. He kept a firm grip on his son’s shoulder. Sherry felt so sorry for Keith that she lost her appetite.

  “Is that all you’re eating?” Megan asked, eyeing the small lump of salad on Sherry’s plate.

  She thrust her Mickey Mouse watch under Megan’s nose. “Look at the time. We still have a lot of shopping to do.”

  “Gotcha. So let’s eat fast and split. Amy—she’s the girl I went to see—she bought this really great dress at a boutique on the lower mall. She said they had one left in my size. It’s lime green and so cool.”

  “By all means.” Sherry sighed with relief. “Eat and we’ll split.”

  Keith ate in silence. Garrett tossed out various topics that nobody took up. Sherry responded with a sentence or less, spread her salad around and kept staring at Garrett in a strange way.

  “Have I done something to offend you?” he finally asked, a little exasperated.

  “No.” She pushed her plate away. “Are you kids finished?” She gathered her purse and packages and stood.

  “What’s the rush?” Mark asked around a mouthful of pizza. “Me’n Keith were gonna do videos, ’member?”

  Sherry started to say no but caught sight of Keith Lock’s blue eyes resigned to yet another disappointment. “One game,” she said, slipping back to balance on the edge of her chair. “Two, max. And make them short ones, Mark.”

  “You got it!” He stuffed the last bite into his mouth, latched on to Keith’s hand and dragged him toward the dark cavern that housed the noisy games.

  Megan rose with more grace, then—forgetting her age—chased after the boys.

  Garrett set his slice of pizza aside to pour another soda. “I appreciate what you just did,” he said. “I know it’s biting into your day.” With a quick glance toward the room that’d swallowed the kids, he said, almost too softly for Sherry to hear, “Carla is forever making him promises she doesn’t keep.”

  A million questions whirled through Sherry’s mind. She didn’t ask a single one. Always conscious that counseling was her job, she tried hard not to grill her friends. She stayed out of people’s problems unless they specifically asked for her advice.

  The longer she sipped at her water, the more apparent it was that Garrett Lock hadn’t been seeking advice. In fact, if anything, he regretted letting slip what he had. On the heels of his unexpected statement, he’d plunged right into shop talk. He quizzed Sherry about the department she chaired—asking how she managed enrollment, determined outcome assessments and handled student quotas. He kept the questions rolling, never giving her an opening to mention Keith’s mother.

  “Whoa!” She finally held up a hand. “These are things you should bring up at a staff meeting. You do plan to meet with us on a regular basis, I hope.”

  Eyes hooded, he tipped back in his chair and laced his hands over his flat belly.

  “You’re not,” she accused, setting her glass down with a crack. “Dean Kruger kept his department staff in limbo. It was a big mistake.”

  Garrett walked his fingers together one at a time, starting with his thumbs. “Do you intend to undermine my efforts to administrate unless I agree to play the game your way?”

  “You call dissemination of information a game?” Sherry hadn’t intended to let her voice rise, but it did. The boys came barreling back, interrupting her glaring match with Garrett. “Don’t sit down,” Sherry ordered Mark, scrambling up herself. “I’ll phone you tomorrow regarding enrollment in that class,” she snapped at Lock. “At least information will flow one way.”

  Garrett balled his napkin. “If our work relationship starts off rocky, I don’t have a hope of striking a positive chord with the faculty who report to you. How long are you going to hold it against me that I got the job?”

  “What?” she bristled. “To couch this in Texas terms, Lock, except for that teensy lie I told yesterday, I’m about the squarest shooter of all the Human Services chairs you’ll deal with. Yes, I’ll fight for program expansion, but you’ll see me coming. I don’t strike from ambush. If there’s an uprising in the ranks, I won’t be involved.” Chin held high, she wove through the tables like a blue-ribbon slalom skier. Megan and Mark caught up with her halfway down the mall.

  “He called you a hard-boiled
egg,” Mark said, puffing in his effort to match his steps to Sherry’s. “I said you fly off the handle quick, but cool off fast, too. I didn’t want you to get in trouble, Aunt Sherry. I mean, you said he’s your boss.”

  Her steps lagged. Already she felt bad for having lost her temper in front of the kids. She reached over and ruffled Mark’s hair. “So, which of us is the psychologist, huh, kid? Okay, I’m calm now. I doubt we’ll see the Locks again today, but how about if I promise to apologize tomorrow when I phone him about enrollment?”

  Grinning, Mark strode ahead, whistling.

  “He’ll have a big head for a week,” Megan complained. “How can you be so nice to my dorky brother and rag on a hunk like Dr. Lock?”

  Sherry stepped on the escalator, pretending she hadn’t heard Megan. Why worry about it right now? As she’d told Mark, she didn’t expect to see Garrett again today.

  Wrong. The father-son duo lurked outside the boutique where Megan’s friend said they’d find the lime green dress.

  Deciding there was no time like the present to clear the air, Sherry immediately said, “I apologize for mouthing off.”

  Garrett pushed away from the wall, caught her wrist and at the same moment she spoke said, “I was out of line at lunch.”

  Pinpricks of heat spread from his fingers to the underside of Sherry’s arm. When it seemed as if the silence was stretched so tight it was about to crack, they both laughed and Sherry pulled free.

  Garrett sobered first. “I had no call to go on the attack. If I have an excuse, I guess it’s because the dean at my old college called meetings for the purpose of putting faculty on the hot seat. He pitted faculty against department chairs and vice versa.”

  “Kruger did everything by memo. After ten or so memos filled with backpedaling and double talk, ideas always ended up being shelved. The previous dean was never in his office. Under his leadership all the departments stagnated. The chairman before me got so frustrated he quit. Faculty elected me, and I’ve spent two years smoothing ruffled feathers. The apathy is terrible. No one likes to lose out on a promotion, but when it comes right down to it, I’m relieved you inherited the whole mess.”