and tell her she’s fired?”
Rand narrowed his gaze. “How do you know she has big blue eyes?”
“I’ve met her. She and her dad redid my mom’s staircase a couple years ago.”
“Well, you hired her, you can fire her.”
Clark glanced at his watch. “Golly gosh, look at the time. I’ll be late for class.”
“Clark!”
Clark whipped off his chef’s clothes in record time, grabbed his Tupperware, and scooted out the back door, ignoring Rand’s objections.
“Well, hell,” Rand muttered. Better get it over with.
He returned to his office to find Susan with her back to him, stretching a tape measure up to the ceiling. He’d always thought a woman in overalls was kind of cute. She squatted to run the tape measure to the floor, and the denim pulled tight across her bottom.
She had a really nice bottom.
Oh, Lord, he didn’t want to fire her. Even if he offered to pay off the contract, her feelings would be hurt. Maybe…maybe he could at least give her a chance. He would keep a close eye on her work, of course. No harm in that, was there? If at any time it seemed she wasn’t performing up to par, he could pull the plug then.
She seemed to have some trouble standing. She had to grab onto the edge of the desk and pull herself up, conjuring up a familiar scene from Rand’s memory. He’d seen a woman make exactly that movement before…
She turned, startled, when he cleared his throat, and her difficulty suddenly made sense.
“You’re…you’re…” Rand sputtered.
“I think the word you’re looking for is pregnant.”
SUSAN WINCED IN anticipation of the explosion. She was busted, she knew it. Rand Barclay was going to throw her out, contract or no contract, and she had no recourse unless she wanted to sue him.
Clark had warned her that Dr. Barclay was something of a curmudgeon, a man immersed in his work with little use for outside distractions. She hadn’t expected him to be such a hunk, though, with that raven-black hair flopping over his forehead and those piercing blue eyes, even bluer than her own. Even Gary, her ex-boyfriend, who’d had a blond, beach-bum sort of charm about him, didn’t hold a candle to this guy. With those wide shoulders and big biceps, she could picture him on the racquetball court or paddling a kayak through white water. But in a white coat behind a microscope?
She glanced over to the blank wall where she’d just made her pencil marks where the studs were. It was completely radical of her to think she could do this job when she was pregnant. But she really needed the work, and with just a little help lifting the heavier pieces, she could achieve fantastic results—if only Rand would give her a chance.
But her hopes plummeted as she studied his face, which looked like thunder. “Did Clark know when he hired you?”
“Yes. I was completely honest with him.”
“I’ll kill him.”
She straightened her spine, prepared to do battle. “Don’t blame Clark. He said no at first, but I talked him into it.”
“Well, you won’t talk me into it. I will not have a pregnant woman doing heavy manual labor in my house.”
“But I can do this, I promise I can.”
“Do you have any help?”
“No. Look, I’ve been working with wood since I was five, Dr. Barclay.”
“I’m not questioning your skills. But you can’t possibly build a massive project like this when you’re…How far along are you, anyway?”
“About seven months,” she fudged. Really she was closer to eight, but she didn’t look that far along.
“How are you going to lift big pieces of lumber and climb ladders in your condition?”
“I’ve checked with my nurse-practitioner. I know my limitations. Besides, I’ve been working out at the gym every day. I’m strong as a broodmare. The harder I work, the better I feel. Just…just please give me a chance. I’m sure people have believed in you your whole life, but I haven’t had that luxury.”
“Doesn’t your husband object to your doing this kind of work?”
Susan fingered the plain gold band on her left hand. It was her mother’s. She’d started wearing it when she got tired of explaining to people that she didn’t have a husband.
She could tell Rand the truth—that she wasn’t married and never had been, that the father of her baby had abandoned her before he even knew she was pregnant, that she was all alone in the world and nothing stood between her and the street except this job.
But she didn’t want his pity. She wanted him to have faith in her. “My husband is not a problem.”
He looked down at his shoes. Was it possible she was making headway? She decided to press her advantage, if she did indeed have one.
“Although the shelves and cabinetry look massive on paper, this particular project doesn’t require much heavy work, and Clark promised to help. The lumberyard will do all the big cuts for me, so I won’t have to lift whole pieces of lumber or anything like that.”
“Do you have insurance?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. I can show you the policy—”
“No, that’s not necessary.” He paused, staring out the window. He seemed to be deliberating.
She held her breath. Please, please, please.
He came closer, until he was only a step away from her, and eyed her up and down, making her feel like he was the stallion to that broodmare she’d mentioned earlier. What did he see? And did he like it? And why was she even wondering something so stupid?
“I guess since I signed a contract, I have no choice.”
She resisted the urge to throw her arms around him in gratitude and instead grasped both his hands. “You won’t be sorry, I promise. I’ll build you the best damn bookshelf you ever saw!”
“Um, yes, right.” He extracted his hands from her enthusiastic grip. “But I don’t want to see you endangering yourself or your baby. I mean that. Contract or no contract, I will throw you out in a New York minute if you so much as—”
“I won’t.”
“You’ll be able to finish the job before your, er, family addition arrives, right?”
Susan felt a lump rising in her throat. Family addition. That was ironic, seeing as she had no family. She forced a smile. “This job should take two weeks—well, three, tops.” And she was a good four weeks from her due date. That was cutting it a bit close, but she was pretty sure she could make it.
Chapter
