just start calling the office line, then.”
He lifted the baseball bat and rested it over his shoulder. “She?”
“Gigi.”
“Your mom must be pretty anxious to talk to you. Six calls from her at least.”
Which he knew because he’d looked at her cell phone. “She’s annoyed that I didn’t include her in my little New Year’s vacation.” At the mammoth understatement, her pen nearly went right through the paper as she struck out another phrase. “Did you know that you repeated yourself twice here about the Decker rebound?”
He sat again on the edge of her desk and slid the paper out from beneath her pen. He glanced at it, then handed it back. “That’s what I’ve got you for.”
Misspellings were usual for him. Repetitive phrasing was not.
She quickly continued reading, but for some reason it was harder than it usually was ignoring the bulge of his very well-shaped thigh beneath his charcoal-gray trousers.
And there was at least a yard of space between them.
“I, um, I hope you’re already packed for your trip to Texas.” She realized she was skimming the last paragraph and made herself slow down. The last thing she wanted to do was disseminate something with an error that she should have caught just because she was feeling particularly distracted by her boss. “Because you’re supposed to meet the jet at the airfield in two hours.” She’d arranged, then rearranged the corporate jet for him, when it became clear earlier that day that he was not going to make the first flight as she’d scheduled it, nor the second.
He was supposed to be in Red Rock by morning where his father, William, was to be married. And even though Drew had a jet at his disposal, the earliest he’d be arriving now would be the middle of the night.
“What’s the weather supposed to be like there at this time of year anyway?” She knew Red Rock was about twenty miles outside of San Antonio, but only because she’d looked for it on the map.
“Breezy with a scent of hell,” he muttered.
She lifted her eyebrows a little, giving him a quick glance. “I know you’re no fan of marriage—” he made that abundantly clear to every woman who passed through his revolving door “—but this is your father’s wedding. Aren’t you happy for him?” William Fortune had lost his wife—Drew’s mother—four years earlier.
She remembered that time distinctly and not simply because she’d just begun working for Drew. It was the only time she’d ever seen him completely devastated.
It was also the only time she’d ever come close to making the mistake of forgetting that he was her boss.
Perilously close.
She blew out a silent puff of air, feeling ridiculously warm.
Four years had passed since that time, but it might as well have been yesterday for how clear it was in her mind.
He’d kissed her.
One time.
One … very … memorable time.
And she’d been a head case for much too long afterward.
Which was all over now, thank goodness. No way would she let herself fall into the same behavior as her mother.
“No, I’m not happy.” His voice was short. “And why are you nodding?”
She blinked, focusing in on the present and the look Drew was giving her. “I, um, I was just glad to be finished with the proof.” She raced through the last few sentences and was relieved that it was perfect as drafted and set down her pen.
She turned to her side desk where her computer sat and moved the papers next to her. “Don’t you like the woman your father is marrying?”
“Lily? She’s his cousin’s widow.” He leaned across the desk and slid open her drawer, pulling out the cell phone. It was buzzing, yet again.
Afraid he was going to answer it, she snatched it out of his hand and slid it into the side pocket of her jacket. She definitely didn’t want chancing her mother getting her boss’s ear. “So?”
“So I don’t see why they have to rush into anything. Wouldn’t it just be easier to talk to your mother?”
She let out a faint laugh. Her fingers worked quickly over the keyboard as she made her corrections to his document. “You’re obviously dreading the trip to your father’s wedding. Maybe you shouldn’t be giving me advice on dealing with my parent.”
He exhaled roughly and shoved off the desk again. “It’s not the wedding,” he muttered. “Not entirely.”
Her fingers slowed fractionally and realizing it, she hastened her pace again. Letting Drew get under her sympathetic nerve was not a wise course of action.
His father was getting married. Effectively replacing his mother. And Deanna had seen for herself, up close and personally, how deeply affected he’d been when she’d died.
“Your brothers will be there,” she offered, trying to be helpful. He’d told her once that he had four of them, but only he and one other brother, Jeremy, didn’t live in Texas. “How long’s it been since you’ve seen them?”
“We were all in Red Rock together a few years ago.”
She didn’t have any siblings and so often had wished she had. She wouldn’t have felt so alone in the world. “Well, then, aren’t you looking forward to that?”
He swung his bat like a golf club, but he looked anything but leisurely. “What the hell does it matter?”
Irritation skittered along her nerves. “I guess it doesn’t,” she snapped back, “except that this whole project—” she waved her hand over the stacks of papers littering her desk “—that you insisted had to be done now, is obviously just a way for you to put off going to Texas. Were you hoping that we wouldn’t actually get it finished, so you could claim that you couldn’t get away at all?”
Drew nearly did a double take at his assistant’s tart words. Her hazel eyes were practically snapping up at him and a blaze of color was burning in her lightly tanned cheeks.
Usually, she was the soul of calm.
And for some reason, the fact that she suddenly wasn’t was just one more thorn under his saddle.
“Guess I didn’t realize how important your spa weekend with the girls was,” he countered.
Her lips tightened. “You know, Drew, sometimes you are such a—” She broke off and shook her head so hard that her brownish-red hair bounced around her shoulders. She turned her softly pointed chin back to her computer monitor and began typing, her fingers pounding furiously over the keys.
“A what?”
“Nothing.” She was typing even faster, the keys clicking madly.
“Just say it,
