In Love With Her Boss. Christie Ridgway
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in the vicinity of the second button of the denim workshirt he was wearing with a pair of clean but worn jeans, she made her voice brisk. “Where would you like to start?”
“I keep thinking I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
Her gaze jumped to his. His dark eyebrows were drawn together over his dark brown eyes. His coffee-colored hair was slightly shaggy. Its ends brushed against his collar as he shook his head. “You’re familiar.”
Uneasiness drew like a cold finger down her spine. “The gym,” she said, her mouth dry.
He shook his head again. “No. Somewhere else…someone else?”
She didn’t want him pursuing that line of thought. “But I’ve never been to Montana before.” Except for the first few weeks following her conception. “Have you ever been to South Carolina?”
He hitched one hip onto the corner of her desk. “So that’s where the pretty accent comes from.”
“Yes.” His intense regard was making her palms sweat, so she cast about for another subject. “Why don’t you…why don’t you give me a little history of the company?” Maybe it wasn’t as impersonal as she would have liked, but at least it was off the subject of her person.
Josh settled himself more comfortably on the edge of the desk. She tried not to stare at the long muscles of his thigh, but sheesh! the man was substantial.
“My dad built the business,” Josh said. A little smile played around his mouth, and she wondered if he’d noticed where her gaze had wandered. “I’m the youngest of four—all the rest girls. My sisters are married now and scattered between Montana and California. But growing up, Dad and I spent a lot of time at the construction sites—pure self-defense—because a houseful of women can be…daunting.”
Hah. Lori didn’t think this man could be daunted by anyone, but three sisters went a long way to explaining his self-deprecating charm. “Your father is retired now?”
Josh nodded. “He and Mom travel around in a Winnebago most of the year in order to serially spoil their ten grandchildren.”
A big family. Sisters. Nieces and nephews. A wealth of people to turn to when times were bad.
“What about you?”
The sudden question made her jump. “M-me?”
“You.” He smiled, that slow smile that turned her insides upside down. “Are you the petted youngest, the earnest eldest, what?”
“The lonely only.” The words just slipped from her mouth and her face instantly heated. He didn’t need to know anything about her. She didn’t want a man, any man, to get that close.
It was as if he could read her mind. “Do I make you nervous?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
His face softened, as if he knew she was lying but forgave her for it. “Well,” he said. “You make me nervous.”
She blinked. “I do?”
“Yeah.” He let a beat go by. “It’s not many women who flatten me.”
Something warm flowed through the air between them. Lori felt it touch her skin, making it tingle, making her pulse skitter.
Her panic jumped to a new level. But this was a different kind of panic than she felt around most men. A new panic, or a forgotten one. Yet Josh was still dangerous.
She looked down at her notebook. “Perhaps we should get to work.”
The warm current between them wasn’t interrupted, but she knew he understood what she hadn’t said. He rose to his feet. “Where did Lucy leave off?”
For the next half hour he took her around the office, explaining what Lucy hadn’t had the chance to. Finally, they ended up in his office, where he showed her the rack of rolled blueprints that represented the company’s current projects.
He settled into the big leather chair behind his desk and she perched on the chair opposite, her gaze snagging on plaques on the wall behind his head. Probably two dozen hung there, mostly team pictures of little kids. Boys, girls, basketball, baseball, football, their uniforms all proclaiming Anderson, Inc.
Josh twisted around to see what had caught her attention then turned back. “Now you know my secret.”
“Your secret?” She didn’t want to know it. Of course she did. “What secret?”
“I’m a sucker for a kid in a uniform.” He sighed. “Any uniform.”
She felt the smile start at her toes. When it reached her mouth, he smiled back, as if delighted. “Any uniform?” she asked.
He nodded sadly. “There’s the cutest little Brownie who lives next door to me. I bought out her whole troop’s worth of cookies.” There was a gleaming wooden credenza behind him and he pulled open one of its drawers to display box after box of Girl Scout cookies. “I couldn’t help myself.”
His eyes were serious as they met hers. “So the next time you’re in the mood for a thin mint, do me a favor, will you, and eat a whole box?” Then he grinned.
That heated, tingly current rushed like a flash flood toward her. It wasn’t what she wanted, it wasn’t what she was looking for, not in the least, but she didn’t seem to have any choice but to let the feeling sweep over her. Sweep around her.
After two confusing years of marriage and three years during which she’d been both frozen and afraid, it was as if her feminine senses had come awake with one quick jolt. Or with one quick fall to the floor of the gym.
“Lori—” he started, then the phone rang. She jumped for it, but he held her off with his hand and lifted the receiver himself. She could feel his eyes on her, even as he spoke some important-sounding specifications.
Half embarrassed and half scared of what Josh might be seeing on her face, Lori looked away. Her gaze moved to the Girl Scout cookies in the drawer to another photo, this one sitting on top of the credenza itself. It was a framed photo of a blond bride.
Josh’s wife.
She didn’t question her immediate conclusion. He certainly wouldn’t choose to display just one of his sisters, and the beautiful woman looked like the type big, dark Josh would love.
He was married.
A feeling twisted her insides. Relief, she guessed. Whatever current she’d been feeling was imagined, or at the very worst, all on her side.
Josh was a married man. As he completed his phone call, she let that knowledge sink in. He wasn’t any kind of threat to her. She didn’t have to worry about him getting too close.
He was a husband.
At the click of receiver to cradle she looked up. Stood up. “I’ll just get back to my desk.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you all right?”
Lori realized he wasn’t wearing a ring. But for a man who worked with his hands, that was probably a good idea.
“Are you all right?” he asked again.
Of course. Now she was. Whatever was between them was something she’d obviously misread—she was so good at misreading men—and—
“What are you looking at?”
Until that moment, she hadn’t realized she was looking at anything. But then he swung around to follow her gaze. They both stared at the photo of the bride.
Lori swallowed. “Your wife?” She thought her voice sounded normal.
Josh nodded.
“She’s beautiful,” Lori said. Then she smiled at him, because it was going to be okay. He was safe now. He was married.
But he didn’t smile back as a