of her truck kicked out. She gasped, then took her foot off the gas. The flat, sun-baked Texas pasture stretched out around her like something from the Old West, nothing but open space for miles, but if she wasn’t careful, she might wrap her truck around one of the rare trees that dotted the landscape.
Why did he have to be so good-looking?
And why had everything inside her frozen the moment she’d realized who was behind the wheel? She’d seen pictures of him before. Of course she’d seen them. Who in the business hadn’t heard of Jet Baron? And he’d thought she was a stripper. A stripper.
It had taken nearly a year to find a job in the male-dominated industry. A year. And in the end it’d been a woman who had hired her. She wasn’t going to blow it because, miraculously, there appeared to be one latent hormone floating around her sex-starved body.
Sex starved?
Yes, she admitted to herself, turning onto the main road, a long stretch of blacktop so straight it ended in an arrowhead. It had been years. Unfortunately, Jet Baron stirred urges within her—urges she hadn’t felt since becoming a mother to two adorable, wonderful twins. She was a single working mother who didn’t have time to eat at a stupid coffee shop, much less get involved with a man.
She was still unsettled the next morning as she walked through the glass entry of Baron Energies. They were on the upper floors of a downtown high-rise. The receptionist, whose name she couldn’t remember, smiled as she walked by.
“Good morning,” Jasmine said hurriedly.
She’d overslept, not surprising since one of the twins had an earache and the other had decided 1:00 a.m. was the perfect time to start jumping up and down on her bed. Lord, she felt like the walking dead. Somehow she’d gotten Brooke’s breakfast smeared on her dress. The oatmeal had left a white stain on the black fabric of her dress that she hoped was covered by her suit jacket, and she had a sinking suspicion that a Cheerio—part of Gwen’s breakfast—had fallen down her bra. The moment she passed the reception area she paused, trying to angle her head to see down the swooped neckline.
“Ah, here she is.”
The blood drained from Jasmine’s face when she looked up. Lizzie Baron. She stood next to the conference room, her dark hair pulled back from her face, a soft blue dress hugging the gentle swell of her pregnant belly. Damn. Just what she needed. The boss.
But she wasn’t alone.
Next to her stood a man on crutches and she’d seen enough company literature to know who it was. Double damn.
Brock Baron.
“Dad, this is the new engineer I was telling you about.” Elizabeth motioned with her hands, a warm smile on her face, which Jasmine appreciated given that she’d been caught coming in late. “Graduated summa cum laude from Berkeley. Interned at the USGS headquarters. We’re real fortunate to have her.”
The man who’d founded Baron Energies and built it into a multimillion-dollar corporation might be on crutches, but he was still imposing. Tall and slim, his gray hair was slicked back from his head. He had blue eyes and a gaze that scanned her from head to toe, and not in a good way. She could tell there was something about her appearance that he didn’t like. Had he spotted the oatmeal stain?
“This is J. C. Marks?”
And she knew.
Just as Jet Baron had been shocked by her gender yesterday, so, too, was Mr. Baron.
“This is her.” She heard the edge of false bravado in Elizabeth’s voice.
“Hello, Mr. Baron.” She put on her best and biggest smile and moved forward. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you from my father that I feel like we’ve already met.”
He adjusted his crutches so he could shake her hand. “Who’s your father, honey?”
Honey. In Texas the word was used by men as much as miss or ma’am, but she had a feeling Brock had used it to make a point to his daughter.
“James ‘Mad Hatter’ Marks.”
She’d used her dad’s nickname on purpose, and just as she’d expected, one of Mr. Baron’s gray brows shot up. He peered at her intently. “Huh.” He seemed to relax a bit. “You look like him.”
She turned up the wattage of her smile. “Thank you, sir. My momma always said my daddy was a handsome man.”
“Your momma was Caroline Carter, then.”
She felt a familiar pang. Her mom had died when she was young, but not a day went by when she didn’t think about her or miss her. It was the same way with her dad.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good woman, Caroline.”
Touched that he remembered her, Jasmine swallowed back the knot of emotion his words had evoked. “Thank you, sir.”
“You haven’t seen Jet, have you?” Lizzie stepped forward. “We were just in his office and he wasn’t there.”
Big surprise. She didn’t say the words out loud, but she was thinking them. She had a feeling Lizzie was thinking them, too.
“No. I haven’t, but we’re supposed to meet this morning so I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”
Listen to you making excuses for the boss’s son. Clearly, you’re a sucker for a handsome face.
“I guess we’ll keep on looking, then.”
But Jet’s sister didn’t look hopeful. Who could blame her?
The office was a bit of a maze. The conference room to her right overlooked the Dallas skyline. Opposite, in the interior, were offices, including the office of the CEO. One of her coworkers had told her that Brock’s office was up front near the reception desk. He liked to eavesdrop on the people who called his company, and he had a habit of going out to the reception area and greeting visitors, even if they weren’t there to see him. She suspected he was something of a control freak.
“If you see him, let him know we’re looking for him. Come on, Dad. Let’s get you back to your office so you can sit back down.”
Brock grumbled something about overprotective women, but he nodded at her as he passed. Lizzie Baron stood slightly behind him and so Mr. Baron didn’t see the thank-you she silently mouthed in J.C.’s direction, although why Lizzie would thank her she had no idea. She’d been late to work for goodness’ sake. She should be apologizing to Lizzie.
Her second surprise of the day sat in her office. She drew up short at the sight of a pair of dusty, worn work boots resting on the edge of her desk, a sheaf of papers in his lap, one of them held up in front of him.
“Your dad’s looking for you.”
The boots slammed down. He about came out of his chair. “What?”
“Your dad. He’s here. I bumped into him near the conference room.”
He leaned back again. “Oh, great.”
