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imagine the humiliation of having Jolie find him lying on the floor with a compound fracture or something. As it was, he was bruised but not broken, and he had time to clean up the evidence before anyone got there.
Or in theory he should have had time. He’d just retrieved a broom and dustpan when he heard the very unwelcome sound of the key sliding into the front lock. A few seconds later the door opened, the bell jingled and Jolie stopped dead in her tracks just inside the doorway. Slowly her green eyes moved up from the sea of nails to his face.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said gruffly, shoving aside an empty nail box with his boot.
“Oh, but I do,” she said.
She pointed from the broken bulb he’d set on the shelving unit to the burned-out light above him. “Did we break some safety rules?”
“Enough,” Dylan said in a clipped tone as he started to sweep nails. Flat nails didn’t sweep well.
“After all the grief you gave me about following rules? Enough?” She walked forward, stopping a few feet from him. “Wear your goggles, put on your apron, no elbows on the table.”
“I didn’t want to lose points for stupid stuff,” he said, finally bending to brush the nails into the dustpan with his hand.
“You were crazed.”
“I had to do the work of two.”
“No. You never gave me a chance.”
“You were never serious enough to focus.”
Her jaw shifted sideways. “Maybe I acted like that because of the way you treated me.”
“Well, that was a crappy thing to do.”
“So was treating me like I was stupid,” she said, turning and walking around the counter to start up her computer.
“If it walks like a duck...”
“This duck was never given a chance.”
“The duck never stopped quacking. And, for the record, I never thought you were stupid.”
He glanced over in time to see Jolie’s chin come up in an expression that he knew well—in fact, it surprised him how well he remembered.
“I can barely see in here,” she said, surprising him by changing the subject instead of launching into an argument. “Do you think you can change that lightbulb without killing yourself?”
He didn’t answer as he scooped nails out from under the shelving unit. A second later feet in metallic sandals that showcased intricately painted toenails came into view. He looked up as she dropped a box to the floor.
“For your nails.” She cocked her head. “I hope you didn’t reinjure your leg.”
“No.”
“Thank goodness for small blessings, eh?” She turned and walked away.
“Hey,” he said, stopping her. “Shouldn’t you be wearing shoes with toes?”
“Really?” she asked flatly. “You’re going to go there?”
“I get the irony,” he said, gesturing to the mess he’d made by breaking the rules himself.
“Worried I’d file a workman’s comp claim?”
“Maybe I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Maybe I could wear goggles and a rubber apron, too.”
“Damn it, Jolie.” Suddenly he was seventeen again, fighting the tide that was Jolie.
“Fine,” she said before he could come up with anything better. “I’ll wear shoes with toes from now on. But...if I find you lying in a heap somewhere, all I’m doing is calling 9-1-1. No first aid. No mouth-to-mouth.”
There was no reason in the world for the term “mouth-to-mouth” to catch his attention, so Dylan pretended it didn’t. But damn if it hadn’t gotten him thinking. And once again those garter belts flitted into his mind, which kind of pissed him off. “If I croak, you may not have a job.”
“As things are now, I may not have a job. Your store is slowly dying, Dylan.”
His mouth tightened as she took her seat behind the counter and shook her mouse, bringing up a screen as she pointedly ignored him.
Given he had no response to her assertion, since he knew she was right, he put his head down and started gathering the remaining nails and dumping them into the box.
* * *
WHO DID HE think he was, lecturing her on safety when he’d attempted to kill himself that morning?
The boss.
Jolie propped her elbows on her desk and pressed her fingertips against her temples.
There was no arguing that point, even though she had. He was the boss. She was the employee. If push came to shove, and if she wanted her paycheck, then she needed to abide by the rules of the game.
Boss. Employee.
So reminiscent of their chemistry class relationship where he’d been the self-appointed boss. She hadn’t been the employee, but she definitely hadn’t called the shots and had resented being ordered around. The curse of being the youngest in the family.
Dylan had finished cleaning up the nails and disappeared out the front door to get the big ladder from the warehouse, so Jolie went to the supply closet and found another lightbulb. She set it on the counter and went to hold the door as Dylan began awkwardly dragging the long stepladder through the entryway.
She waited until he set it up and had a foot on the first rung before she said, “I was out of line earlier.”
He paused, his hands gripping the sides of the ladder, waiting, as if for a punch line.
She didn’t have one.
“Thank you,” he said gruffly before starting to climb. He shot her a quick look after he took out the dead lightbulb, as if still waiting for her to say something else.
Jolie had nothing.
She stood silently with one hand on the ladder, steadying it until he’d climbed most of the way down, then she headed for her side of the counter. She had accounts to mail out today, which meant it would be one of their busier days—that was the way it’d happened the only other time she’d mailed accounts, four weeks ago. It was as if people wanted to get in and charge things quick before they knew how much they owed. But more than 90 percent of their accounts were years old and the people all paid, eventually, according to Finn. Jolie didn’t want to alienate the paying public, so she put a happy face next to the words past due, which she wrote in pink ink instead of using the official red-ink stamp.
A couple happy faces later she put down the pen and headed for Dylan’s lair, where she knocked on the half-closed door. He looked up from the file he’d been staring at with a frown.
Dragging in a breath, Jolie took his silence as permission to enter.
“Here to take back your apology?”
“No. Just to say one more thing.”
“I’m all ears.” No. He was all long, lean muscle, but she wasn’t going to allow her mind to drift in that direction.
“Chem class ended ten years ago. Obviously it had a big effect on both of us since we’re sniping at each other like we’re still seventeen.”
“So...?”
“So.” She came forward to lean her palms on his desk. “We say whatever else we want to say on the matter here and now. Get it out and over with, then we bury it. As we should have the instant we knew we had to work together.”
“All right.”
“You go first.”