leaving a box of condoms in the nightstand beside her bed as they were driving away from Boca Raton. The poor girl had nearly had a heart attack right there on I-95! Flo hoped to avoid causing that reaction a second time.
* * *
Lynn dressed with extra care in the morning. She told herself it was simply because she always tried to look nice when she was working for Raylene in her upscale boutique. She knew, though, that the pink blush on her cheeks and the mascara she was applying had more to do with Mitch stopping by than it did with impressing Raylene’s customers.
She was in the kitchen with a pot of coffee brewed when Mitch tapped on the back door.
“Come in. It’s open,” she called out.
He walked into the kitchen, frowning. “Do you leave that door unlocked all the time?”
“Only when I’m expecting someone to pop in from right next door,” she said.
“Well, it’s a bad idea,” he grumbled, clearly not placated.
“Duly noted,” she said, amused by just how far his protectiveness seemed to go.
His gaze narrowed suspiciously. “You’re not really paying a bit of attention to me, are you?” he asked.
“Honestly? Not so much.”
“I’m beginning to think you and Raylene are going to be the death of me. She refuses to wear a hard hat in a construction zone. You leave the door open for anyone to just walk in. I was taught to look out for women.”
“And I was taught to look out for myself,” she replied.
“Then do it,” he said with frustration.
She regarded him with a tolerant expression. “Coffee?”
“Are you trying to change the subject?”
“Yes,” she said, already pouring the coffee into a mug. “Otherwise, I fear our working relationship is going to get off to a very bad start. Besides, you seem to be caffeine-deprived. That would explain the cranky mood.”
Mitch shook his head and sighed. “You’re probably right.” He set the laptop on the table. “Is this okay for now?”
“Sure. I’ll make room for it on my desk later.”
“I have the printer in the truck.”
“Looks as if the laptop will work with mine,” she said. “Let’s hold off on that till we know.”
“Okay, but I’m bringing you supplies tomorrow—paper, ink cartridges, whatever you need.”
“Fair enough.”
He took a sip of coffee, then opened the laptop and turned it on. “Pull up a chair and sit here next to me,” he said.
Lynn dragged a chair closer and peered at the screen, trying not to notice the heat radiating from his body or the solid masculine strength suggested by all that muscle. She gave herself a mental shake. She hadn’t spent this much time noticing a man’s body in a long time. Now surely wasn’t the time to start.
“You paying attention?” Mitch asked, amusement suddenly threading through his voice.
She blinked over at him. “Of course. Why?”
“You seemed a little distracted, that’s all.”
She waved a little notebook and pen in his direction. “See. Ready to take notes.”
“Written anything yet?”
“So far you haven’t even opened the program.”
He grinned. “Fair enough. It’s password-protected, okay?” He told her the password, which she wrote down. Then he walked her step by step through the billing system and the payroll program. “Make sense so far?”
Lynn nodded. “So far, but then I haven’t actually had to use it yet.”
He pulled several pieces of paper from his back pocket. “Notes for the billing,” he explained. “You’ll find the customers, their addresses and their account numbers in the system. Mostly people pay about fifty percent upfront, the remainder when the job’s completed. If there’s an interim bill for fixtures, that’s sent out when the expense is incurred. My fee is usually paid once everybody has signed off on the punch list that indicates all the details are done to the customer’s satisfaction.”
“So those notes of yours indicate exactly what sort of bill I’m sending out, right?”
He winced. “Well, in theory they should. Since I usually know what they’re for, I might not have written it down on these pages. Why don’t I do that before you get home this afternoon, make sure you have everything you need?”
“Then I’ll just fiddle around with the system until I leave for Raylene’s this morning, see if I understand how it works.”
“Sounds good to me. Any questions?”
“None so far, but I imagine I’ll have plenty for you by this afternoon.”
“Okay, then. I’ll get out of your hair. See you later, Lynn.”
Suddenly he seemed anxious to leave, which suited her since she didn’t understand why being close to him got to her the way it did.
“See you,” she said, determinedly focusing on the computer screen and not on Mitch.
She knew he hesitated before leaving, but eventually he walked away, closing the back door securely behind him. Locking it, too, if she wasn’t mistaken. Even though the gesture exasperated her just a little, she couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
* * *
The woman was going to be trouble, Mitch thought as he walked back to Raylene’s. Oh, not when it came to the work. He had every confidence she would pick up on that with ease. No, it was this attraction simmering between them. It had always been there, for him, anyway, but thanks to Grace’s interference, he was forced to acknowledge that on some level it had never died the way he’d thought it surely had.
As for Lynn, well, he couldn’t say with certainty what she was feeling beyond gratitude, but there’d been a moment there when he’d had the feeling she was as attuned to him as he was to her.
His cell phone rang just before he headed into the back door at Raylene’s. Caller ID told him it was his older son.
“Hey, Nate. What’s up?”
“Just checking in, Dad. What’s up with you?”
“Working, the same as always.”
“You still building that addition for the police chief and his wife? How’s it going?”
“It’s coming along. Did you really call just to check on my job progress, or do you need money?”
“Dad,
