She was enjoying this. He told himself to walk away, to let it be for now, but instead he said, “We need to talk about working together.”
She looked surprised. “In what way? You’re the boss, and I’m the employee.”
Her matter of fact words felt like a trap.
“In the way that this is not going to be a replay of chem class.” She had never understood how important it had been for him to do well in that class, in all his classes. To get those scholarships for his dad, even though it hadn’t really mattered in the long run. His dad had passed away before he’d completed his schooling and he’d ended up being a patrol cop instead of a forensic specialist.
She stared at him for a long moment. “That’s kind of insulting.”
He flattened both palms on the counter in front of him. “I just want us to understand each other.”
“Then understand that I’m insulted.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
“What was your intention?”
He felt his blood pressure ratchet up again. It was like a Pavlovian response when she was around—one that he hadn’t felt in...oh, ten years. “My intention was to point out that this is not chem class.”
“You’re repeating yourself, so I’ll repeat myself. I’m insulted.” Jolie rose to her feet and walked out from behind the counter to take a stance in front of him, arms folded over her chest.
“When I took this job, the last thing I expected was for you to take over, but I can live with it. Finn hired me because I’m good with people and I can keep books. It isn’t like it was a mercy hiring.” She curled her lips slightly. “And I’m well aware it’s not chemistry class...although if you think about it, it’s not that much different—you being the supreme boss and me expected to do whatever you say.” She pushed her reddish-blond braid over her shoulder with a quick flip of her fingers. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I have work to do.”
“No,” Dylan said, realizing that he’d just been dismissed in his own store. “No. Nothing for now.”
* * *
ONCE THE OFFICE door closed behind Dylan, Jolie planted an elbow next to the keyboard on the crowded desk and lowered her forehead into her palm. Dylan was not the only one who didn’t want to relive chem class, but damned if she was going to tell him that.
When Finn had gotten the call to duty a few weeks ago, he’d said nothing about Dylan coming back. He’d sat on that bit of news until the day before he’d left; springing it on her at the going-away lunch they’d shared with his grandfather. She’d assured him it didn’t matter; told herself it didn’t matter. But it did.
How could it not, when Dylan was still holding on to a ten-year-old grudge? As if it had all been her fault. From day one, he’d made it clear that she couldn’t do anything right, so she’d simply quit trying and, toward the end, she’d moved into sabotage...just a little. Enough to make him scramble and to piss him off. A girl could only take being made to feel stupid for so long.
She’d gotten a C in the class. Dylan had gotten an A-and had acted as though the world had ended. Her friends had loved watching the interplay between them and had deemed him hot, because who wouldn’t be intrigued by an ultraserious, totally gorgeous guy?
His put-upon lab partner, that’s who. Wasn’t intrigued then; wasn’t intrigued now.
Just...insulted.
Jolie stretched the kinks out of her back and went to stand at the window to look out over the empty parking lot. Finn hadn’t been big on change and obviously Dylan was even less so—especially if the suggestions for change came from her. Not that she had any huge ideas, but if someone asked her to come up with suggestions, she’d put her mind to it. Regardless of what the stubborn Culver men believed, they could have more customers, if customers had more reasons to come to the place except for feed and seed. Flowers, trees, hand cream. Anything.
Oh, crap. She whirled to face the closed office door. The box.
She was halfway to the door, ready to knock and ask for it, when it swung open. Jolie knew it was too late. Way too late.
Dylan walked out carrying the box, an expression on his face that would have made her laugh under any other circumstance. He placed the box on the counter and stepped back, nodding at it.
“Yours?”
Jolie peeked inside, even though she knew exactly what was in it—garter belts, skimpy bikini panties, get-the-girls-up-there bras, lacy stockings. “Yes.”
“And this stuff is in my office why?”
“I needed a temporary place to store it between parties. I’m a distributer.” Or rather, she had been. She’d quit a few weeks ago when she’d gone to work part-time at McElroy’s. There were only so many things a person could work into a schedule... Besides, she’d discovered that in a small community, one could only sell so much lingerie. Missoula and Idaho Falls had been much better markets. “I had a couple back-to-back parties.”
“Please don’t tell me the parties are one of your ideas to bring in new clients.”
“It would work.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” He pushed the box a few inches toward her. “Maybe you could store this at your own place.”
She took the box and placed it under the counter. “Will do,” she said on a sigh.
He gave her an unsmiling look and headed back to his office, his shoulders held even more stiffly than when they’d been in school. Maybe it was due to his profession. He’d never gone on to solve crimes in a lab or whatever it was he’d planned to do with all that chemistry knowledge, but he had become a cop. And that was all she needed to make her life complete—Dylan Culver with an even bigger authority complex.
The office door remained firmly closed until the clock ticked past 5:30 p.m. At that point, Dylan was no longer her boss, so Jolie turned off her computer, put on her raincoat, grabbed her box of lingerie samples and left the building without saying goodbye. Unprofessional? She had no idea. She didn’t want to tap on that office door and appear to be asking permission to leave.
Her sister Dani was practically climbing the walls by the time she got home.
“I’m losing training time with all this rain,” she said as she emerged from the kitchen wearing a cherry-print apron. When her fiancé traveled, she ate all her meals with Jolie. “I need my arena. Damned surveyor.”
She and her fiancé and Jolie had each put up one third of the money for the training facility, but the company that was supposed to set up the canvas-covered training arena had yet to have the area surveyed and leveled. Until they did, there was no covered arena and thus no training during inclement weather.
“But we’re growing hay as we speak,” Jolie reminded her. She felt like doing a little happy dance. If this continued, there’d be meadow hay in the barn for the first time in years. One item checked off the very long list she’d made in a loose-leaf notebook. When the last item was
