Coming In Last

by Shiloh Walker

  She had a computer, which was used pretty frequently. Part of her job description included having safety meetings with the three different shifts that worked in the factory.

  Now maybe she hadn’t had a date in nearly a year, and maybe she would have liked some adult companionship, some sweat in her hair as she bounced on the sheets with a hot guy. Maybe a few less Cheerios in her hair would be nice. And maybe she could drop fifteen pounds tomorrow and have Chris Hemsworth—or, hey, Chris Evans—she was an equal-opportunity Chris-afficianado—dropping to his knees in front of her—and not to propose marriage either.

  But all in all, life was pretty damn good.

  Tossing in her purse, she pulled the door shut behind her and turned, smiling widely as one by one, the kids noticed her.

  ♥

  The kids adored her, Jamie observed as the sixteen children—from brand new up to preschool—all received personal attention from her. One baby, pudgy arms wrapped around Andi’s leg, waited patiently, with adoring eyes while the object of his affection finished talking to a gap-toothed little brunette who proudly displayed a dollar bill.

  And it looked like she adored them every bit as much. Her eyes gleamed and shone as she stroked one hand down the ebony curls of the little black girl with a tooth missing.

  There was something about a woman surrounded by kids, Jamie mused. Some guys tended to be put off by the sight, but Jamie loved it—loved watching women as they held and rocked, soothed and played with children.

  Her laugh floated above the higher-pitched laughter of the kids as she unlocked the pudgy little arms from her leg and lifted the baby. Settling him on her hip, she answered one question after another as she wove her way through the maze of toys and games already spilled out on the floor.

  The high-pitched peals of laughter and the squeak of excited voices had his head pounding again. Wincing, Jamie pressed his hand gingerly to his throbbing temple, wishing for a bit of peace and quiet. Hell, he had planned on coming down here with a feigned injury, not a real one.

  Right before he could open his mouth, she stopped mid-stride and turned her head, meeting his eyes across the room. Light reflected off her glasses, keeping him from seeing her eyes. She turned her head and the chunky teenager took the baby from her.

  “Hello.”

  Squinting against the bright light, cursing the throbbing in his head, he managed to growl out, “Hi.”

  “Looks like you bumped your head,” she said. Without asking, she laid one hand on his arm and guided him around the perimeter of the room, sidestepping toys and toddlers with ease. “The clinic is right over here.”

  Moments later, lying flat on his back, eyes closed against the harsh glare of light, Jamie mumbled around the thermometer, “Is all this really necessary?”

  “Company policy,” she replied as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm. Competent, quick hands checked his vitals while Jamie lay there waiting for the ibuprofen he’d taken to kick in. Strong, cool, slender fingers wrapped around his wrist.

  It was just the pain that caused his pulse to race, Jamie told himself.

  A subtle scent wafted over to taunt him. She smelled good.

  Through the fringe of his lashes, he watched as she rose from kneeling on the floor and smoothed down the plain, simple white utilitarian scrubs she wore. As she turned away, his eyes locked on the long reddish-brown braid that hung between her shoulder blades. Her hips swayed as she moved around the small office, gathering up paperwork, asking questions that he replied to as quickly and tersely as possible.

  A soft wail rose from the other room and he waited for her to respond. When the wail continued for more than ten seconds, he asked, “Aren’t you going to check on whoever that is crying?”

  “It’s Amy, our newborn. And she’s hungry. Angie’s got to get her bottle ready.” She glanced at the simple band of braided leather on her wrist.

  “Quite a lot of A’s.”

  With a grin, she said, “This is the A-team. We have Andi, which is me, Angie, Alex, Amy, Aaron, Aspen, and Arnie, the pet hamster.” Another glance at her watch, and a few seconds later, the tiny cry was silent as laughter and excited voices filled the air.

  Her skin was smooth and pale, not a single freckle marring her milky complexion.

  “Hectic job,” he said.

  With a roll of her eyes, she said, “Any job that involves anybody under the age of thirteen is hectic.”

  “What happens after thirteen? Does it become less hectic?”

  “No. After thirteen, it just becomes more traumatic. Ever had to deal with a thirteen-year-old girl who was convinced the world was going to stop turning on its axis because the boy from math didn’t call the way he said he would?”

  “Actually, yes. I have two sisters.”

  “Then you should already know what happens after thirteen.” Lowering herself to the rolling stool, she asked, “Dizzy?”

  Some twenty minutes later, he was ushered out into the relative quiet of the hall, and he had to admit, he agreed with Johnson.

  She didn’t fit the image of a corporate thief at all.

  And she smelled better than he ever would have imagined.

  Her mouth, hmm, well, her mouth was probably going to be giving him some sweaty dreams for a night or two. Those naked, pouty lips put only one thing in a man’s mind. And the thought had his cock stiffening up like a pike. Just the thought of her putting that mouth on him—

  “Enough, McAdams,” he muttered, stalking down the hall, absently rubbing his temple. “The girl is a damned embezzler.”

  ♥

  Behind him, Andi pushed the door closed and leaned back against it, her eyes meeting Angie’s across the room. Both women, separated by roughly six years, grinned. Yum. Double-yum. The kind of yum usually reserved for strawberry sundaes, chocolate-covered strawberries, and chocolate-chip cookies.

  He’d stood a good five inches taller than she. But Andi was only five four, so it didn’t make him unusually tall. He’d just been unusually handsome, with pale green eyes that had seemed to shift shades every time she looked at him.

  His black hair had fallen over his forehead in a way that made her want to brush it out of his eyes. A lean face, dimples slashing each cheek, and a chiseled mouth she would have cheerfully chopped off a hand to taste, just one time.

  Wide shoulders, narrow waist, long legs. Of course, she hadn’t been able to check out his butt, but she imagined it would be just about perfect.

  Definitely double-yum.

  He’d be worth a wet dream or two, she had no doubt.

  By the glint in Angie’s eyes, the younger girl knew exactly what she was thinking.

  ♥

  The following day, Andi had forgotten about the rather delicious man who had momentarily graced her clinic. As expected, she’d had a dream of the baser variety. No time for daydreaming right now though. That bastard Letcher was after her job again.

  Absently, she reached up and rubbed her temple. A tension headache was brewing. No wonder, considering she had spent the last forty minutes ‘discussing’ the merits of on-site daycare with the company president, the HR department head, and Art Letcher, the money guy of the plant.

  Doug Johnson, Jeb’s right hand man and VP, rushed in. Trailing behind him was an older man that reminded Andi of a middle-aged Humphrey Bogart and, to her surprise, Jamie McAdams, the double-yum who had banged his head while roaming around the factory. She absently wondered, again, what he had been doing there. Suits generally didn’t hang out in the factory unless they had to. Unconsciously, her tongue darted out to wet her lips as the forgotten dream leaped back into conscious memory.

  Her attention was jerked back to Letcher as he gave the latecomers a dour look. How dare they be late for his meeting? The nerve.

  “We need to…downsize our expenses,” he had said.

  Flatly, Andi had told him, “I am not cutting corners in the daycare or in the
clinic and I will not sit passively and let others do it.”

  Fortunately, one of the children in the daycare was the president’s grandson, and Jeb liked being able to see Lucky whenever he could. And little Amy, the newborn, was Samantha Dowers’ daughter. With both the HR boss and the president having kids in the daycare, Andi pretty much knew Art was just wasting his time.

  And hers.

  “Honestly, Jeb. How many of our competitors have a daycare on the grounds? Especially one like this, that is practically free of charge,” Art said, smiling his smarmy little smile, dismissing Andi as unimportant. “These parents need to be more responsible for providing for their kids. That is their responsibility. Not ours.”

  “I don’t rightly know, and I don’t rightly care,” Jeb said, smiling at Andi and shaking his head.

  You don’t have anything to worry about, she knew he was telling her.

  With a roll of her eyes, she settled back into her chair and started trying to work on a plot she’d been having trouble with. Glancing up, she met the cool green eyes of the double-yum, and suppressed a shiver before he turned his attention back to Letcher.

  Who is he? Sighing quietly she realized it wasn’t likely she’d ever find out. Guys like him tended to go for the wealthy pedigrees with legs up to here and size six figures with augmented breasts.

  Well, mine aren’t augmented. But I don’t have the legs, the pedigree, or the income. Well, I will have the income. Soon. But that man’s a wet dream that ain’t never gonna happen… Then she refocused her attention on the meeting.

  Of all the absolute gall, Andi mused ten minutes later. She was sitting right there, right there, and he up and says, “You know, maybe we could save some money on this daycare if we didn’t have a licensed nurse running it. Licensed personnel tend to command higher fees.”

  Sam rose and laid a restraining hand on Andi’s shoulder, an unnecessary one. Andi was still staring at Art as if the financial officer had just grown another head. She remained in her seat while the cool-eyed blonde faced Letcher from across the room.

  “We reduce safety hazards having a nurse at the plant,” Sam said quietly. “This is not up for debate.”

  “I’m not saying we should not have a nurse,” Art said, smiling at Sam, and then at Andi, as if to say, ladies, ladies, calm down. Let the men handle this. “But perhaps part-time. Andi, you’ve wanted to go back and get your RN.”

  “You planning to pay for it, Art?” she asked with a cold smile. When he sputtered, she smiled, arched a red brow and said coolly, “Relax. An RN degree isn’t in the cards anymore. Not for the past two years.”

  Again, as if she hadn’t spoken, he went on. “Three days a week,” Art suggested. “She can still handle the safety issues and participate in the meetings. And maybe cut back to a part-time nurse on the evening shift. Do we really need one here around the clock?”

  Now he was attacking Eliza and Mike, the two nurses who covered the clinic during the night and evening shifts.

  Sending Sam an apologetic look, Andi rose. “Yes, we do. If you’d bother to read up on it, you’d learn that most serious accidents do occur at night, when the body is naturally supposed to be asleep. We aren’t nocturnal creatures by nature, Mr. Letcher. At night, our bodies tell us we are supposed to sleep. Lack of concentration in night-shift workers is not unheard of, through no fault of those workers. A high percentage of night time incidents that end up in the hospital are either serious injuries or heart attacks.”

  Art opened his mouth, his florid face gone red.

  Jeb failed to notice this, spinning in his chair to face Andi. “I think I remember reading that somewhere. You have numbers on that anywhere?”

  Gritting her teeth, ignoring Art’s angry eyes on her, she took a deep breath and said, “Yes, sir. It’s one of the reasons I do so many QC meetings with the night and evening shifts. I have the numbers and sources in my files downstairs.”

  “Hmm. Not necessary,” Jeb said, waving it aside. “I’m not getting rid of any employees simply to cut a few corners, especially not in this area. I was just wondering where I had read that.”

  Andi already knew where he had read it. She presented every subject of the QC meetings to either Jeb or Dara, his executive assistant, before proceeding with scheduling for the following quarter. And Jeb had a mind like a steel trap. He probably remembered the essay he wrote for fifth grade, What I did on my Summer Break.

  It was Jeb’s very calm, very subtle way—very firm way—of letting Art know the president’s support went to Andi in this matter.

  Moments later, the meeting ended. As Andi gathered her jacket up, she raised her head, and met the narrowed eyes of the financial officer. She fluttered her lashes and smiled sweetly at him before swinging her bag over her shoulder and sailing out the door.

  She was barely going to make it back on time.

  And wouldn’t you know it? She had missed lunch.

  Again.

  Jamie caught the exchange and bit back a smile. Regardless of whether or not she was a crook, the girl had something. She’d managed to insult Letcher, preen over Jeb choosing her side and rub Letcher’s face in it, all without saying a single word.

  ♥

  Some days, it just wasn’t worth the effort it took to chew through the restraints.

  Andi had seen that on a bumper sticker somewhere and she wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment. This day had just gone from bad to worse, starting with her oversleeping and ending with that meeting Art had set up.

  It was with barely suppressed anger that she stomped into the changing room. Her ribs throbbed and her lower lip was split open. She was forced to breathe shallowly and still, every time she moved, it hurt.

  She was going to have to go get a bloody chest X-ray. With each deep breath—oh, fuck, that hurt—tears blinded her and she rested her forehead against a cool locker, waiting for the rushing in her head to pass.

  She had a bad feeling one of her ribs might be broken. Unfortunately, she’d experienced it before, although not since child protective services had removed her from a particular abusive son-of-a-bitch they’d placed her with. It had taken a call from a teacher before they’d gotten the point.

  Damn it.

  The only thing that enabled her to keep her cool was the knowledge that the person responsible not only had a bloodied nose, but he was currently locked in the office with the school’s owner, Jake Robinson.

  If Andi’s fist was any indication, his nose was broken.

  Nobody liked to be locked in the office with Jake Robinson. Nobody liked having to stand in front of him, with him staring at you with those unreadable, cool gray eyes and cocked brow. Andi would never admit it, but she had spent months in front of a mirror, practicing that cocked brow and blank face until hers was nearly as good as Jake’s. It was, in itself, a very formidable weapon.

  Nobody liked having to answer to Jake when one of his rules had been broken.

  And Jeff Simms had broken the rules for possibly the last time. That blue belt he had just tied on two weeks earlier may be coming off very shortly.

  Permanently. And if it didn’t, then Andi was bringing the X-rays with her tomorrow. That man was a fucking psycho. He had no business being here.

  Gingerly, she pressed the back of her hand to her lip, probed the inside of her mouth with her tongue. All her teeth were in place, even if it didn’t feel like it. She gingerly lowered herself to the wooden bench and started to work her bra off.

  “You okay, Andi?”

  The cool air felt good on her overheated skin and she stood there for a moment, half-naked, cooling down. “My ribs are a little sore,” she said, reaching for her sweatshirt and tugging it on over her bare torso. Her bra was tossed into her bag. There was no way she was banding that thing around her ribs right now.

  Leslie leaned forward, studied her slightly swollen mouth and shook her head. “I’m glad it was you with him tonight and not me.
I doubt I would have been able to land anything on him. And I’d still be hurting.”

  “Oh, I’m definitely hurting. But hopefully, this is the last straw.” Striding over to the sink, she splashed cold water on her face, ran her fingers over her damp hair. “And I’m glad it happened when Jake was here. If Mike had been teaching tonight, Jeff would have gotten his hands slapped, nothing more. And I’d be in trouble for retaliating.”

  Her eyes troubled, Leslie asked, “Why doesn’t anybody see that there is something wrong with him? Why can’t they see it?”

  Quietly, Andi said, “Because it isn’t something you can see. It’s a feeling he gives you. And the male species tend to ignore those sorts of feelings, for some odd reason.”

  “I can’t believe he was bitching about you popping him in the nose,” Leslie said, rolling her pretty blue eyes as she shoved her short wavy blonde hair back from her face with a blue wrap.

  “He’s lucky I didn’t pop him where the sun doesn’t shine,” she muttered.

  Leslie wiggled her eyebrows and said, “Maybe you should have. The last thing we need is Simms fathering some child. Then we’d have two of them to deal with.”

  Andi laughed, winced, and gasped. “Please, don’t crack any jokes.”

  “It wasn’t a joke. It was a humane suggestion.”

  Rolling her eyes, Andi said, “Hopefully, the women of the world are smart enough to recognize him as the slime he is.” Dragging her leggings up, she stuffed her gear in her bag to take home and wash.

  “You mind if I ask you something?”

  Glancing over her shoulder, Andi said, “Sure.”

  “Why do you dress like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like that. Girl, you gotta body I’d kill for, hips, boobs, butt, the whole shebang and you wear clothes that make you look dumpy. You got any idea how many people I’d kill to have an ass like yours?”

  Absently, Andi said, “Got any idea how many people I’d kill not to have an ass like mine?” But she turned and stared into the mirror. Dumpy? Good Lord. She had started to look dumpy. The shapeless clothes had started out when she had been receiving far too many lewd comments and stares from the other kids in the group home she had lived the last two years before escaping.