“I happen to have a master’s degree,” she said tightly.
She decided now might not be the best time to mention it was in science. Still, she was confident that anybody who could spend two years painstakingly researching and documenting the effects of pesticides on the bone structure of prairie dogs, as she had just done, could handle a little office work.
He looked at her narrowly, his gaze so long and so stripping that she had to disguise a tiny tremor of…something.
“A master’s degree,” he repeated slowly. “Okay, that’s a surprise.”
“Didn’t my father tell you anything about me?”
“No. And I didn’t ask.”
She was struck with a sensation that she had been dropped in the middle of a war zone, completely unarmed.
“You might as well come and see what you’ve gotten yourself into.” Again, she heard a hard note of satisfaction in his voice.
He turned and walked away from her, not even waiting to see if she would follow.
Used to having women follow him like puppies?
Not this woman!
“What about my car?” she asked.
He glanced back at her. “You picked a good place to crash it. Kind of like having a heart attack while visiting the hospital. I’ll limp it around to the service bay and have a look at it.”
Feeling somehow chastened by his offhand courtesy, she followed him inside. Going from sunlight to indoors, Jessie tried to get her bearings.
Her eyes adjusted and she saw the shop was as humble inside as it had been outside. There was no decor. The floor was black and white linoleum tile, the white squares long since gone to gray. A glass-fronted counter separated the work area from the customer waiting area. The case contained several models of old cars, a faded placard that announced the oil and filter change special and a sample container of the brand of oil that was presumably on sale. Both areas, waiting and work, contained old kitchen chairs, the gray-vinyl padded seats patched with black swatches of tape. The walls held an assortment of calendars, which featured cars, cars and more cars, but thankfully no nude or near-nude women.
The nicest thing about the entire space was a huge picture window that looked onto the main street of Farewell. The morning mist was lifting, and she could see K & B faced the town square—a lovely little park surrounded by a wrought iron fence. It contained several mature trees, green grass, two benches that faced each other and a fountain. In the near distance the mountains looked cool, green and mysterious.
But by the looks of things, she wasn’t going to be spending much time admiring the view. Every single surface had papers sliding off of them. There were boxes on the floor with yet more papers and what appeared to be stacks of car parts.
“I think there’s been some kind of mistake,” she said. The place was a dump. And depressing. The computer was at least a thousand years old. Somehow, even when confronted with the rather dingy exterior of the place, she had imagined she would be running a sleek, state-of-the-art office. She had talked herself into thinking it might be a tiny bit fun.
The phone, which was ringing incessantly, looked like an antique. Black, rotary dial. The red light of the answering machine was blinking furiously. From a door that connected the office to the service bays she heard clanking.
“A mistake,” she repeated. Jessica King did not do well with chaos.
It was a far cry from the neat little office she had set up in her apartment, from the order of classrooms, from the quiet of fieldwork….
“A mistake,” he agreed with silky satisfaction, folding his arms over the ridiculous breadth of his chest and looking at her, pleased that she had lived up to his every unspoken judgment: rich, useless, frivolous and chased away by the slightest hint of a challenge.
In less than ten seconds, too!
Jessie was compelled to wipe the smirk off his face, even if it meant she closed the escape door. She straightened her shoulders and tilted her chin.
“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” she said, though of course a split second ago that had been exactly her intent, to cut and run. Aware he was watching her with every ounce of his ill humor returned, she looked for a place to set her purse. She found a tiny corner of clear floor under the desk. Her skirt tightened uncomfortably across her derriere when she bent over, and she straightened hurriedly.
“My specialty is disasters,” she said, with cocky confidence that she was far from feeling. “I can fix a mistake like this one—” she motioned to the office with her hand “—in a week.”
“A week,” he muttered dubiously, and then brightened marginally as he watched her. “Honey, if you last half a day, I’ll eat my shorts.”
“Briefs or boxers?” she asked. And then she added quickly, “And don’t call me honey. It’s tacky.”
“Tacky,” he repeated, stunned, as if one of those precariously leaning boxes had slid off the counter and landed on his toe. Thankfully, he focused on the tacky enough that he didn’t even appear to notice how uncomfortable she was with the uncharacteristically bold remark she had made. Talk about tacky—how about discussing a man’s underwear preference?
“Is there any particular part of this mess you’d like cleaned up first?” she said, eager to shift the focus completely.
They were faced off, and she could see she was somewhat of a surprise to him and not an altogether pleasant one, either.
Oh, why hadn’t she just turned around and walked back out the door while she still had the chance? Oh, no, Little Miss Has-To-Prove-Herself had to pick the worst moment to put in an appearance.
“Miss King, MBA, that’s entirely up to you.”
She should really correct him. She had never said a thing about an MBA. “Good,” she said decisively. “I’ll begin with—”
“No, wait. On second thought, coffee would be a good place to start.”
“Coffee,” she repeated uneasily. She was pretty sure affirmative action meant that she didn’t have to make coffee.
He regarded her rebellious expression cynically, then shook his head.
Something snapped loudly in the vicinity of her desk, and she started, turned and saw nothing. Still, she knew the startle reflex had given away her wee bit of nervousness.
He hadn’t missed it. He smiled grimly. “I’m downgrading. Two hours. That’s how long you’ll make it.”
“I hope they’re boxers,” she shot back. “Those would take you a little longer to eat.”
Good grief, this had to stop! She’d known this man less than ten minutes and she had mentioned his undergarments twice! She and Mitch had never discussed undergarments, ever.
“And just for future reference, for your next job, in the real world work starts at seven, not—” he glanced at his watch “—eight
