small group.
“Yeah! They got him. Look at him surrendering like a wimp after putting up such a fight.” Jedd stuck out his office mug. “Yeah, that’s right, sucker. Hands up in the air.”
Sarah poured Jedd’s coffee and glanced up at the TV. The man they’d arrested looked an awful lot like... But no. It couldn’t be. Everybody had a doppelgänger in the world. Right?
“Ow! Sarah!”
Sarah yanked her attention away from the nightmare occurring on national TV. She’d kept pouring into Jedd’s cup and nearly all over his arm. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
“I got a splash, but I’m fine. That coffee’s hot.”
She’d also spilled all over the counter and down the floor. She grabbed a rag and ran it under cold water. “Here, put this on your hand.”
She glanced back up at the screen to see that the man was now on the ground, cops blocking him in on every direction. Maybe she was seeing things. She’d been under so much stress lately, with her father’s death and coming out to Fortune to settle his estate, that something like that could happen. She might be hallucinating.
“D-did you hear them say what the guy’s name is? The one they arrested?”
“Nah, the news probably won’t release his name.” Jedd used the wet rag she’d given him to mop up the floor instead. “Hey now, Sarah, you don’t need to cry about this. I know it was an accident.”
But Sarah wanted to cry. She also wanted to scream and curse. The ticker tape across the screen read “Contractor on the run arrested.” And the man they’d just arrested sure looked an awful lot like Gus Hinckle.
MATT CONNER HAD returned from a quick chartered hop to San Francisco and checked back in with Emily and Cassie when he heard a commotion in the converted hangar the airport used for several offices and the Snack Shack. Cheers and a few claps. In other words, not the norm at their quiet south county airport. He stuck his head out the office door, and as usual his gaze focused on Sarah like a laser beam. The waiting passengers were excited and pleased about something or other. Sarah, on the other hand, stood behind the counter of the Snack Shack openly sobbing. Jedd was doing his best to comfort her, his face broadcasting the same pained expression men all over the world wore when they didn’t know how to comfort a woman but still had to try.
In seconds, Matt made his way out the door and to the middle of the hangar.
“I don’t know what you’re so upset about. Everybody makes mistakes. It was just a little coffee,” Jedd said as he patted Sarah’s shoulder.
“What the hell happened?” Matt barked.
“She spilled some coffee on me and then she...she just started crying. I’m not hurt, I swear!” Jedd held up his hands.
“Sarah. Tell me what’s wrong,” Matt said, his voice sounding clipped and edgy even to his own ears. He tried his best to soften his tone, but she worried him. The passengers were beginning to stare, too, and she’d hate that.
This had nothing to do with the coffee. He’d only known her a few months but everything about Sarah said confident, capable, independent woman. He’d never seen her give way to her emotions like this, even after losing her estranged father and fighting with Stone over the flight school and their inheritance. Every instinct in him said this was much bigger than spilled coffee.
She shook her head, wrapping her arms around her body like she’d cave in at any minute.
Never one to lack initiative, Matt tugged her gently from behind the counter and then led her, hand on the small of her back, toward Magnum’s main office. He opened the door, and when Emily glanced up from the desk where she sat next to their office assistant, Cassie, he waved away the look of concern in her eyes.
“Need a minute.” He led Sarah inside Stone’s smaller inner office and shut the door.
“I’m okay.” She hiccupped and grabbed a tissue from the box on Stone’s desk. “R-really.”
“Yeah, not buying it. Try again.”
“Seriously. This isn’t your concern. Just give me a few minutes in here. I’ll get myself together.” She jerked away from him, but he caught her by the elbow and turned her toward him. The same energy he’d tried to ignore again and again surfaced as it did every time he touched her. A jolt of electricity coursed through him because every time he touched Sarah he got a one-two-punch reminder he was a man. And she was a hot woman. Beautiful. Smart.
But not his.
“Tell me.”
Her green eyes, now red-rimmed, found their fire again. “Why? So you can try to fix this for me? I don’t need your help.”
Good. He had pissed-off, fighting Sarah again. He could deal with her. What he couldn’t handle was falling-apart Sarah because she only made him want to haul her into his arms and kiss her until she forgot her name.
“Something happened out there, and it didn’t have anything to do with coffee.” He leaned back against Stone’s desk and folded his arms across his chest.
She slapped her forehead. “Of course it didn’t have to do with coffee! This has to do with the fact that I’m an idiot. I trusted a man. I paid him good money, and he didn’t deliver!”
At this, he was sure he’d lost a couple of brain cells. He didn’t speak for a moment, clearing his throat as he tried with a Herculean effort not to picture Sarah paying for a gigolo’s services. But that’s exactly what it sounded like even if he knew it couldn’t be true. Still, his imagination was enjoying this little side trip. Maybe a little too much.
“Oh my God! Wipe that look off your face. I hired a contractor. Somebody up there must really hate me because I picked the loser of contractors. I picked the guy who leads the police on a car chase and gets arrested on national TV!”
Crap. “That was your contractor?”
“It’s him.” She slumped into one of the chairs. “We were all watching. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t him, and that it could be someone who looked like him. I don’t know what he did, but the man got himself arrested. He hasn’t returned my calls and now I know why.”
“Great. How much did you pay him?”
“Too much. I gave him a deposit, and there hasn’t been much labor. He could never seem to finish a project. Always had to run to the store to get another nail or another stud or God knows what.”
“Where did you hear about this guy, anyway?”
“Eloise’s List. He had plenty of good reviews so either the people were being blackmailed into leaving them or he’s recently changed his work ethic.”
There had to be something else, though, or she wouldn’t be this upset. “No worries. I’ll find someone else for you. I’ll check him out first.”
“No.”
