Julia skirted the room and sidled up to Callum.
“Um, Callum.” She spoke in the direction of his shoulder.
“Is this about work? Please, let it be about work.” He stood, ready to run as she’d suspected.
Julia swallowed hard. “I, um, got a call. There’s a family emergency.”
She found herself in the uncomfortable position of being the sole focus of Callum’s laser-like attention.
“Whose family?” he said.
“Oh.” She folded her arms around her stomach. “Mine. Sorry. Should have said. My grandmother has been arrested.” Daring a peek up at his face, all she saw was concern. Okay, so it was grumpy concern, but it was still there.
“Your grandmother’s been arrested?”
There was incredulous disbelief in his voice. Most people, when they thought of grandmothers, would imagine a tiny, grey haired woman who sat around knitting all day long. That wasn’t Julia’s grandmother.
“Yes. I wondered if it would be okay to have some time off, to go…” She wasn’t sure what the right term was. “Bail her out?” She looked up at him and he nodded. Okay, that was good, she was making sense. “I might need quite a bit of time—she’s in Peru.”
“Peru?” Callum’s voice rose and attracted unwanted attention.
Julia shuffled around slightly, to make sure her back was to the room.
Callum ran a hand down his face. “Okay, Peru. Who’s going with you?”
She startled. “No one. My gran told me not to tell the family.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re going to deal with the Peruvian authorities alone?”
She nodded, even though his scepticism was clear. Callum let out a sigh.
“Julia, you know you can’t go alone, right?” he said softly. “You have trouble dealing with authority figures. Do you even speak Spanish?”
“I’m going to hire someone to help with that.” Fingers crossed. It was on her list.
His sigh was heavy. “Things are slow right now. The office doesn’t officially open for another month. You can hand your oversight of the renovations to Ryan. It will keep him out of trouble.”
Julia nodded as relief surged through her. She could also tick off the first item on her to-do list—she’d managed to successfully talk to Callum. Her joy was short-lived as he kept on talking.
“I don’t like the idea of you dealing with this alone. And I definitely don’t like you relying on a stranger to translate for you.” He raised his head and shouted. “Joe, come here.”
Panic! Alert! Abort mission! Retreat! Run, woman, run!
Unfortunately her feet stayed stuck to the spot. She felt, rather than saw, Joe approach. He stood a little too close to her, his hands in the pockets of his faded jeans.
“What’s up?” He glanced at her, but spoke to Callum.
“Julia here has to go to Peru to get her grandmother out of jail. You speak Spanish, right?”
“Fluently.” It was a low, amused rumble.
Run! Run now! Still Julia remained frozen.
“Great,” Callum said. “You mind going with Julia? Helping her out?”
“It would be my pleasure.” Joe’s lazy drawl momentarily robbed her of thought.
“Fantastic,” Callum said. “Keep in touch and let me know if you need anything.” He looked behind Julia. “Crap, it’s turning into a party. I need to go.” And then he shot for the door.
It took time, but Julia eventually looked up at Joe. Dark eyes considered her, making her want to hide behind her plant. Those eyes started to sparkle and a slow, sexy grin appeared.
“Gonna be hard to avoid me now, Jules,” the infuriating man said.
And as usual, Julia couldn’t get any appropriate words out of her mouth.
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Invertary Books
Lingerie Wars, Invertary Book 1
Goody Two Shoes, Invertary Book 2
Magenta Mine, Invertary Book 3
Calamity Jena, Invertary Book 4
Bad Boy, Invertary Book 5
Here Comes The Rainne Again, Invertary Book 6
Caught, Invertary Book 7 (coming 2016)
Benson’s Boys
Reckless, Benson’s Boys Book 1
Other Books
Mad Love, London Book 1
Laura’s Big Break, London Book 2
Action
Coming late 2016—Invertary Book 7, Caught
Confirmed bachelor, Mitch Harris, laughed every time one of his friends got married. But a near death experience changed his priorities. Now Mitch does want to settle down—unfortunately, the woman he falls for has sworn she’ll never get married again…
about the author
I grew up in Scotland, but after I met my Dutch husband in America we decided to move to New Zealand and that's where we've settled. We bought a patch of land that we've filled with other people's unwanted animals—we didn't advertise for them, they found us! So far we have three miniature horses (we took in two and were surprised eleven months later when a third appeared—yep, we know nothing about horses), three anti-social alpacas, a grumpy cow, one pet sheep who wants to live in the house, a crazy goat who keeps eating my manuscripts and an escape artist chicken who breaks into our house through the cat flap. And that's just the pets who live outside the house—don't even get me started on the demented, farting dog who keeps burying my shoes! On top of this I have two small girls, one DIY obsessed husband (I said "obsessed" not "skilled") and a 92 year old neighbour who thinks she lives with us.
In between cuddling animals and herding kids, I write books. If you’d like to sign up for my newsletter, which happens sporadically – usually when books are being released – click on this link. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my books!
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copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Janet Kortlever
ISBN 9780473363000
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful privacy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior permission can be obtained by contacting the author through her website. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.
Author's website:
www.janetelizabethhenderson.com
Reckless (Benson's Boys Book 1) Page 27