by Susan Meier
Bunny had put a little bit of a spin on it. She sandwiched her insult between a compliment and a request for a favor. Same effect, though. The insult reminded her that she should be grateful anybody wanted to work for her, so she should grant the favor.
“I’m not so sure the Nelsons quit because of Piper.” Jenny Forsythe, a tall brunette who’d spent her entire life at least twenty pounds overweight, walked to her cash register, apparently just arriving for the nine o’clock shift. “Wendy and Cathy both got jobs at the candy factory.” She shrugged into her O’Riley’s Market smock. “There’s a waiting list for those jobs. They didn’t just walk in this morning and get hired. This has been in the works for months.”
Piper smiled at Jenny. But regardless of why the Nelsons quit, she was still short cashiers. She faced Bunny. “Have your friends stop by and fill out applications.”
She headed toward the back of the store again. Even from a distance she heard Bunny needle Jenny. “So you think it’s a coincidence that Piper takes over and the Nelsons quit?”
Her face reddened. Here it came. Scorn about her being the runaway bride. The condescending attitude. The snickers behind her back. The refusal of anyone to completely respect her.
Cool as an October morning, Jenny didn’t miss a beat. “Yes. But even if it isn’t, if I were you, I might be a little more careful about how I treat the new boss. This isn’t Health Aid. She doesn’t answer to a corporate office anymore. You can’t torment her and threaten to call the corporate office and complain if she fights back. She is the corporate office here.”
Piper stopped walking. Holy crap. Had Jenny just defended her?
“I’m just saying—” Bunny began, but Jenny interrupted her.
“I know what you’re saying. The woman’s a nutcase who likes to get engaged and embarrass her fiancé when she publicly dumps him. But she’s a nutcase who is our boss. You can gossip about her all you want when we leave. But while we’re in here, we have to pretend to like her.”
It wasn’t the best defense in the world, but Jenny was smart enough to at least respect her as a boss. For now, that had to be enough.
She straightened her shoulders. Rome wasn’t built in a day. It might take her the entire year she owned this store with Cade to repair her reputation, but she intended to repair it.
A head of lettuce flew over the bread aisle, bounced off her shoulder, and fell to the brown tile floor in front of her with a thump.
“What the—” She bent and picked it up as Myrna Feodore and Alice Lenosky came roaring around the corner. Myrna’s tennis shoes made a screeching noise as she skidded to a stop. Alice had one hand on her ever-present floppy sun hat and the other on the blue store basket she held.
“It’s mine!” Myrna said, grabbing the lettuce from Piper’s hand.
“Mine!” Alice disagreed, trying unsuccessfully to snatch it from Myrna.
“I got it first.”
“But you saw me reaching for it!”
Piper sighed. No one had ever come to blows over a vegetable in the drugstore, but there had been squabbles over greeting cards. Like it or not, solving these nitpicky problems was part of management.
“Alice, if Myrna picked it up first, it’s hers.”
“Just like an O’Riley to side with her friends.”
“This has nothing to do with friends—”
“Of course it does.” Alice straightened regally. “You know how your family has been, Piper.”
Myrna harrumphed. “At least O’Riley supporters took care of each other. Hyatt supporters were too busy walking around with their noses in the air—”
Before she could finish, Cade said, “Did I see a head of lettuce flying over the bread aisle?”
Not sure if she was grateful or annoyed that he’d felt he had to show up, Piper turned to answer Cade, but the words froze on her tongue. His white shirt might be a sensible grocer’s choice, but it hugged broad shoulders and tapered down, cruising his lean torso to trim hips. After years in the Marines and working on a ranch, his body was probably perfect—
She shook her head, flabbergasted at her thoughts, especially since they were in the middle of the great Hyatt/O’Riley lettuce war.
Alice turned to him with grateful eyes. “Cade, thank goodness you’re here. I had this head of lettuce and she”—she angled her thumb at Myrna—“took it from me.”
“That’s a lie. I already had it when she tried to snatch it out of my hands.”
Cade stretched around Myrna and looked at the tall stack of lettuce still in the bin. Piper’s gaze fell to his butt, taking in the sweet way the worn denim of his jeans caressed the well-defined muscles.
God help her, she had to stop looking at him.
“Alice, there’s lots of lettuce back there. You can’t pick another one?”
“This is the best in the bin.”
“I’m sure there are others—”
Alice dropped her blue O’Riley’s basket to the washed-out brown tile floor. “Well, Cade, I see your true colors are coming out, too.” She stepped over the basket. “I’d debated whether or not I wanted to support a man who’d walk away from a child. I gave you the benefit of the doubt,” she said, striding down the aisle toward the door. “I can see how wrong that was.” The automatic door opened, then closed after she walked through, her head high, nose in the air, just as Myrna had said.
For thirty seconds, stunned silence filled the store, then Myrna headed for the checkout with her coveted lettuce, and everyone began shopping again.
Cade met her gaze. “Are you okay, darlin’?”
Staring into his brown eyes, Piper couldn’t speak. The way he called her darlin’ in that sexy western drawl of his melted something inside her. He’d also just been insulted, yet he’d barely reacted.
“Piper?”
She sucked herself out of her reverie. If she wanted to make herself look sane to the town, she had to stop noticing his voice, his body, and his reactions to the customers.
Even though it was odd that what Alice said hadn’t insulted him.
She straightened her shoulders. “Yeah, I’m fine. The day I let a fight between two little old ladies throw me is the day I need to get out of management.”
Then the miraculous happened. He laughed. The sound was deep, rich, pure, and sent a tingle of delight up her spine. Her chest tightened. Butterflies danced in her tummy.
Luckily, he picked up Alice’s blue basket, turned, and walked back to the cashier’s cage. “Show’s over,” he said, unlocking the door. “So let’s all get back to work.”
Stifling the urge to kick her own butt, Piper headed for the bakery. Even Hyatt supporters didn’t like the fact that he’d left Lonnie to raise Hunter alone. Yet there she stood—Lonnie’s best friend—with her body tingling and her heart racing.
Worse, if anyone ever saw her noticing Cade, it would take about thirty seconds for that to circulate around town, and she’d be an even bigger laughingstock than she already was.
She’d better figure out a way to control this—soon.
…
A little after nine that night, Piper unlocked her apartment door and stepped inside. A bright aqua couch sat on a multicolored area rug that added life to the otherwise rundown room. She tossed her purse on the round table with mismatched chairs in what she called the dining room of her cramped living space and ambled into the old-fashioned kitchen with white cabinets and walls she’d painted sunny yellow.
As she grabbed a bottle of water from her old refrigerator with one hand, she pulled her cell phone from her jeans pocket with the other. After clicking a few icons, she pressed the one that dialed Lonnie’s number.
“So? How’s it going?”
Falling to her sofa, Piper winced. “It’s okay.”
“No problems from Cade? No fights? He didn’t bring me up, did he?”
“Nope. It’s like he’s pretending it didn’t happen. Basically, he’s all business.” Except when he called her darlin�
� and gave her chill bumps. But Piper intended to ignore that until she got accustomed to it. Surely his voice and good looks couldn’t affect her forever—
Could they?
She didn’t know. She’d never been this kind of attracted to a man before.
“I could have told you he’d pretend the past didn’t happen.”
“Yeah, well, he seems to want to play fair.”
“That’s good then.”
“It feels weird working with the guy I know left you at the altar.” And weirder to be attracted to him. Horribly attracted. Breathlessly attracted. And she just wished she could talk about this with someone. But Lonnie was not that person.
“It doesn’t have to be. Just don’t talk about me with him and you’ll be fine.”
Except for the big honking attraction.
“Yeah. You’re right.”
The following morning, Piper woke at six, glad she’d talked to Lonnie. Cade might be a jerk, but he acted like a businessman. As Lonnie said, as long as they didn’t talk about her and/or Hunter, they could run the store.
She showered and almost dressed in her favorite jeans and a sexy top, but her inner good girl paused her hand over the lacy shirt. No woman trying to avoid an attraction dressed up when she’d be with the guy who made her heart stutter. Best to fade into the woodwork. Be humble Piper. Capable Piper. Helpful-to-customers Piper. Anything but sexy Piper.
She put the top back and chose a plain pink T-shirt. She also didn’t curl her hair. She pulled it into a high ponytail. Nothing sexy. Nothing interesting. Just plain, boring Piper, the woman who could live and work in a small town where she’d left two guys at the altar because she was emotionally in control. Always. No guy, no matter how sexy, would throw her off her game. She could handle this.
Driving her car into the grocery store parking lot, she noticed Cade’s truck was already there. She shoved open her car door and walked into O’Riley’s. Cade stood by the coffee and doughnut stand. The rich, sweet scent of warm doughnuts surrounded her, but she barely noticed. She was too busy staring at Cade.
He wore jeans as he had the day before, but today he didn’t wear a sedate white shirt. Today, he had on a thin cotton T-shirt. Unlike yesterday’s dress shirt, the T-shirt slid nicely across his broad chest and molded to his muscled torso. Short sleeves showed off a Semper Fi tattoo on his right bicep and a dragon tattoo on the left. The tail of the growling beast slithered down his forearm, almost to his wrist.
“Mornin’ darlin’.”
She swallowed. Desire rippled through her, making her fingers itch and her mouth water.
Damn it! What the hell was wrong with her? This guy was trouble and she was salivating?
She shook herself out of her haze. “Good morning.”
He motioned toward the cashier’s cage. “How about if we go to the office? There’s a little something I’d like to discuss before we open.”
She held his gaze but couldn’t stop thinking about that soft T-shirt molded to his perfect chest, and she prayed to God he could not read minds. Because right now hers was envisioning her fingers rippling along those corded muscles. “There is?”
He smiled again, but the automatic doors swished apart. Bunny entered for her shift. “Morning.”
Cade and Piper simultaneously said, “Morning.”
As Bunny stowed her purse under her register, Cade gestured to the office again.
She almost followed him but couldn’t quite get her feet to move. Given her desire to run her hands down the smooth line of his torso, she wasn’t sure being alone with him was such a good idea. She wasn’t worried that she’d actually touch him, but she might stutter. Or her voice could quiver. Or her tongue could tie.
And wouldn’t that be embarrassing?
…
Cade watched her debating coming into the office and frowned. Why the hell was she hesitating?
Then her eyes met his. Their green hue glistened. His gaze moved to her throat where her pulse beat just enough that he could see it jumping. Just as it had on Saturday, at the drugstore, when she flirted with him.
He smiled.
He’d thought the attraction had fizzled when she realized who he was.
Apparently not.
A wave of heat surged through him. Vivid images popped into his head. All those things he’d wanted to do that day at the drugstore came tumbling back in great detail. The devil took his impulse control and tossed it so far away, Cade grinned.
“Come on, darlin’. Ten minutes. That’s all I need.”
“Ten minutes?” She met his gaze. “A lot can happen in ten minutes.”
She pressed her fingers to her lips as if she couldn’t believe she’d said that, and he laughed. So she does remember our encounter in the drugstore.
“I can make it ten minutes you’ll never forget.”
But he suddenly noticed Bunny Farmer, standing in her checkout aisle, watching every move he made, hearing every word they said.
“If you wanna count green beans, go ahead.” He took a step back, too. The reminder that this entire town had eyes and ears brought him back to reality. What was he doing flirting with Piper O’Riley? Was he insane? “We can talk whenever you’re ready.”
He turned and headed back to the office, forcing himself to think about finding the proof that his grandfather hadn’t cheated her dad. The day before, he’d skimmed through the computer records but hadn’t found a file marked “proof I didn’t cheat Sean O’Riley.” It was absurd to think his grandfather would be so brazen about whatever it was, but he’d have been a fool not to look for the obvious. Today, he’d get into the subtleties.
He worked for two hours, once again seeking files that might have the word “proof” in them. When that didn’t pan out, he searched for Sean O’Riley. Nothing. He searched poker game. Nothing again.
Rubbing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair just as there was a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
The door opened slowly. Piper entered hesitantly. “Hey.”
Seeing her brought back their thirty seconds of flirting that morning, after she’d given him the once-over. He bolted up in his chair. His gaze ran from her long inky-black ponytail, down the press of her breasts against her pink T-shirt, along her delectable behind. Heat swooshed through his blood.
He caught her gaze.
Glancing away, she headed for one of the chairs in front of the desk. “I…um…You’d wanted to talk to me this morning?”
She clearly intended to pretend the attraction between them didn’t exist and, honestly, that was probably the best way to go. But he’d just spent two hours staring at a boring computer screen. And besides, they were alone…and her family and friends had tortured and tormented his for years. Was it so wrong to want a little payback?
Especially since he had such an innocent way to get it?
He rose from the chair behind the desk and walked to the front corner—close enough to her that when he leaned against the desktop, their knees almost touched.
“I was going to suggest a strategy session.”
Her gaze rose slowly to meet his. “You mean like how we both shouldn’t have to be at the store at the same time?”
He laughed. Wow, no subtlety to this woman. “You don’t like working with me? I’m crushed.”
“It’s not that.”
His laugh was smooth and easy. “Oh, I know exactly what it is.” He inched closer. Feigning innocence, he egged her on. “It’s the whole feud thing.”
She edged away. “It’s not that either. It’s more about efficiency.”
“Right.”
She boldly caught his gaze. “I mean it. No store needs two managers in-house at the same time.”
He slid down the desk again, angling his legs next to hers, almost touching but not quite. “What if we get a delivery?”
She swallowed hard. “Huh?”
The devil currently residing where his common sense should be laughed with glee. She
was so attracted to him that she was silly with it. Like a teenager. Almost as if she’d never really been attracted to a man before. If she wasn’t the sworn enemy of his family, he could have her blouse off in one good, wet kiss.
“You know…” He nudged her shoe with the toe of his. “You weren’t this eager to get away from me on Saturday.”
That seemed to bring her back to reality, and she laughed. “Yes I was.”
“Maybe after you figured out who I was. But before that…if I remember correctly, we talked about a stripper pole.”
“Temporary lapse of sanity.”
He chuckled. “Right. You keep telling yourself that.”
She rose so she was standing in front of him. “What’s the matter? Can’t handle dealing with a woman who doesn’t find you irresistible?”
With her delectable body inches away, it was hard to keep his hands at his sides. He wrapped them around the edge of the desk. “Oh, you find me irresistible. You might be able to tough talk your way through this, but it won’t make what you feel go away.”
“What I feel is stupid.”
He frowned. “Really? ’Cause to me it feels like nothing but fun.”
She snorted. “Maybe that’s why you’re the Donovan who got stuck running the store.”
“What?”
“Maybe if you thought about more than fun, your grandfather wouldn’t have exiled you here. Devon’s a lawyer. Finn’s the most successful small-business owner in Harmony Hills, and you…” She tapped her chin. “What is it you do? Aren’t you a cowboy or something?”
“I’m a ranch foreman.” He rose, putting them toe-to-toe. “And as soon as my work here is done, I’m buying the Double K.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh. That’s great.”
Her instant reaction made him chuckle. “You’re not really impressed by my job?”
“Sure I am.”
He laughed. “Ah, darlin’. You’ve got to learn to watch your eyes. You cannot lie as long as your eyes are telling a different story. And right now they’re telling me that you like standing this close.”