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His eyebrows lifted, too. “The whole package, sweetheart.” With another of those slow smiles warming his rugged face, he touched two fingers to his forehead in a casual salute and then jogged back to his game.
Struck dumb by his good looks and almost offhand charm, Lori found herself staring after him. She was still standing there three baskets later, when despite his large size, he made a graceful, clean swish of two points and glanced over at her, grinning in triumph.
With a jerk, Lori got herself moving again, even as yet another blush crawled up her neck to her cheeks. Steering way clear of the game, she headed for the locker room.
There were some things it wasn’t smart to forget, not even for a moment. South Carolina hadn’t been safe because of a man. She wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to her here in Montana.
By the time she was back in her outerwear, she was feeling a lot less flustered. She hadn’t seen Josh at the gym before today, and she probably never would see him again. If she did, she’d ignore him. That would be simple enough.
* * *
The day after Christmas, Lori braked her car in front of a small building and opened her notebook to recheck the address she was seeking. Though a small sign declared the place was indeed Anderson, Inc., the site of her temporary job, the dark-red, wood-sided building looked more like an old schoolhouse than the office of a construction company.
But the address was the correct one, so she parked her car in the small attached lot beside a behemoth four-wheel-drive SUV, then headed for the front door. Her black boots made quiet clacks against the brick pathway. She’d teamed the boots with a long black wool skirt and a chunky black sweater. An austere look, maybe, but warm. Her roots might be in Montana, but her leaves were definitely more accustomed to the milder Southern winters.
Despite her woolen clothing, a small shiver rolled down her spine. But it was normal apprehension, not a quaking, stomach-knotting fear, thank God. She was starting the first job of her new life today, and she desperately wanted it to go smoothly.
Through the plate-glass front door, Lori spied the orangey curls of Lucy Meyer. The fortyish woman was a new mom and Lori had been hired to replace her as the receptionist while Lucy took maternity leave. They’d met once—in Lucy’s home. Her baby had just arrived—a month early—and Lucy was anxious to get someone to help “the boss” as she referred to the head of the company, Mr. Anderson, as soon as possible.
When Lori opened the door, Lucy turned toward her with a smile. “Come in, come in,” the other woman said, bustling forward with characteristic energy.
Lori walked into an expansive reception area. Centered on the wall to her right sat a woodburning stove that was pumping out pleasant heat. A large oval rag rug, in shades of red and cream, covered a honey-toned wooden floor. Several comfortable-looking chairs and a selection of magazines made the room appear even more homey.
Lucy took Lori’s coat and hung it on one of the brass hooks attached to the wall by the door. “I want to get you as familiar with things as I can before the squeaker gets hungry,” she said.
Lori smiled, her nervousness allayed by the unexpected pleasantness of the office. “Where is Baby Walt?”
Lucy jerked her head in the direction of a doorway off the waiting area. “With the boss. I’ll introduce you to him in a minute.”
Lori had only a second to peer through the indicated door, and only another to absorb a glimpse of a massive desk with a pair of giant-sized, booted feet propped atop it. Then Lucy drew her away.
“This is where you sit,” she said. Centered a few feet from the front door was an old wooden desk that looked as if it had once belonged to a schoolmistress. A computer and state-of-the-art phone system on its top appeared efficient, though anachronistic.
Lori took notes as Lucy explained the workings of the phone and the small amount of computer work the receptionist’s job entailed. Then she followed the other woman down a short hall that led to a bathroom, a large conference area and an almost-closet that held a refrigerator and coffeemaker.
They were standing in the filing-cum-supply room when Lucy suddenly stilled. “Uh-oh,” she said. “The squeaker. I’d better go rescue the boss.”
As they exited the room, Lori could hear the baby fussing herself, and a man’s deep voice trying to soothe him. Then the baby and man noises sounded louder, as if both were coming toward Lori and Lucy. Lori straightened her shoulders and smoothed her skirt, hoping she was going to like Mr. Anderson as much as she liked his office space.
Lori and Lucy turned the corner into the reception area, coming face-to-face with Baby Walt and Mr. Anderson. Lori stiffened.
Apparently Mr. Anderson was Mr. Josh Anderson.
Lori’s Josh.
Not her Josh, she amended hastily, but that mammoth Josh she’d hoped never to see again. Just that morning, she’d been relieved not to run in to him—figuratively or literally—when she’d worked out at the gym right after dawn.
His eyebrows rose in mild surprise as he transferred the baby to his mother’s arms. “Who’s your new friend?” he asked Lucy over the child’s fussing.
Lucy had eyes only for the baby. “She’s your new receptionist. I told you she was coming in today. Josh Anderson, this is Lori Hanson.”
“We’ve met,” he said.
That caught Lucy’s attention. She looked up. “What?”
Lori tried to think what to do. Even with five feet separating them, Josh was so big. Too big. And her heart was pumping too hard. “I—”
She clamped her mouth shut on her immediate urge to say she couldn’t take the position after all. The temporary agency she’d signed with wouldn’t be exactly thrilled if she couldn’t stay on the job for even an hour. “We met at the gym,” she told Lucy.
The other woman’s gaze sharpened. “Really? How—” The baby wailed louder, and Lucy broke off to change his position. Then she looked over at Josh, her expression rueful. “I’m taking Lori through the files, and the squeaker’s noise is going to echo like crazy off the metal cabinets. I recommend you take an hour’s coffee break—at least a block away.”
Some of the tension left Lori’s shoulders. With Josh out of the office, she could pump Lucy for information about him and then decide if she could really take on this assignment.
But Josh was shaking his head. “I’m expecting some plans to be dropped off.”
Lori let out a slow breath. Okay, so he’d still be around. But in the privacy of the filing room, she knew that the talkative Lucy would be happy to give an honest assessment of her boss.
The baby wiggled and cried louder. Josh reached out his enormous hand and ran it over the back of the baby’s fuzzy head. “Luce, why don’t you take Walt home? I can show Lori what she needs to know.”
“Oh, but—” Another infant wail interrupted Lucy’s protest. “I think I will,” she said, with a grateful smile. “If you don’t mind, Lori?”
As if she could ask a new mother to put off taking her unhappy infant home. Smiling weakly, Lori shook her head. “I’ll be fine with Mr. Anderson.”
“Josh,” he said. “Just Josh.”
“I’ll be fine,” she echoed obediently, thinking of his big hand on the baby’s tiny head. “With Josh.” Wouldn’t she?
In the few minutes it took for Lucy to gather her things, though, Lori’s nervousness grew. When the front door shut behind the other woman, its thud was nothing compared to the loud, anxious thumping of her heart.
But she could do this, she thought, sitting down in the receptionist’s chair and pulling her notebook and pencil front and center. It didn’t matter that he was standing on the other side of her desk and that they were alone in the office. It didn’t matter that he was big. That he was young and good-looking. He was just her boss.
Keep it impersonal, she told herself. They’d concentrate their attention on files, phone calls, blueprints. Business.
Her eyes focused in the vicinity of the second button of the denim workshirt he was wearing with a pair of clean but worn jeans, she made her voice brisk. “Where would you like to start?”
“I keep thinking I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
Her gaze jumped to his. His dark eyebrows were drawn together over his dark brown eyes. His coffee-colored hair was slightly shaggy. Its ends brushed against his collar as he shook his head. “You’re familiar.”
Uneasiness drew like a cold finger down her spine. “The gym,” she said, her mouth dry.
He shook his head again. “No. Somewhere else…someone else?”
She didn’t want him pursuing that line of thought. “But I’ve never been to Montana before.” Except for the first few weeks following her conception. “Have you ever been to South Carolina?”
He hitched one hip onto the corner of her desk. “So that’s where the pretty accent comes from.”
“Yes.” His intense regard was making her palms sweat, so she cast about for another subject. “Why don’t you…why don’t you give me a little history of the company?” Maybe it wasn’t as impersonal as she would have liked, but at least it was off the subject of her person.
Josh settled himself more comfortably on the edge of the desk. She tried not to stare at the long muscles of his thigh, but sheesh! the man was substantial.
“My dad built the business,” Josh said. A little smile played around his mouth, and she wondered if he’d noticed where her gaze had wandered. “I’m the youngest of four—all the rest girls. My sisters are married now and scattered between Montana and California. But growing up, Dad and I spent a lot of time at the construction sites—pure self-defense—because a houseful of women can be…daunting.”
Hah. Lori didn’t think this man could be daunted by anyone, but three sisters went a long way to explaining his self-deprecating charm. “Your father is retired now?”
Josh nodded. “He and Mom travel around in a Winnebago most of the year in order to serially spoil their ten grandchildren.”
A big family. Sisters. Nieces and nephews. A wealth of people to turn to when times were bad.
“What about you?”
The sudden question made her jump. “M-me?”
“You.” He smiled, that slow smile that turned her insides upside down. “Are you the petted youngest, the earnest eldest, what?”
“The lonely only.” The words just slipped from her mouth and her face instantly heated. He didn’t need to know anything about her. She didn’t want a man, any man, to get that close.
It was as if he could read her mind. “Do I make you nervous?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
His face softened, as if he knew she was lying but forgave her for it. “Well,” he said. “You make me nervous.”
She blinked. “I do?”
“Yeah.” He let a beat go by. “It’s not many women who flatten me.”
Something warm flowed through the air between them. Lori felt it touch her skin, making it tingle, making her pulse skitter.
Her panic jumped to a new level. But this was a different kind of panic than she felt around most men. A new panic, or a forgotten one. Yet Josh was still dangerous.
She looked down at her notebook. “Perhaps we should get to work.”
The warm current between them wasn’t interrupted, but she knew he understood what she hadn’t said. He rose to his feet. “Where did Lucy leave off?”
For the next half hour he took her around the office, explaining what Lucy hadn’t had the chance to. Finally, they ended up in his office, where he showed her the rack of rolled blueprints that represented the company’s current projects.
He settled into the big leather chair behind his desk and she perched on the chair opposite, her gaze snagging on plaques on the wall behind his head. Probably two dozen hung there, mostly team pictures of little kids. Boys, girls, basketball, baseball, football, their uniforms all proclaiming Anderson, Inc.
Josh twisted around to see what had caught her attention then turned back. “Now you know my secret.”
“Your secret?” She didn’t want to know it. Of course she did. “What secret?”
“I’m a sucker for a kid in a uniform.” He sighed. “Any uniform.”
She felt the smile start at her toes. When it reached her mouth, he smiled back, as if delighted. “Any uniform?” she asked.
He nodded sadly. “There’s the cutest little Brownie who lives next door to me. I bought out her whole troop’s worth of cookies.” There was a gleaming wooden credenza behind him and he pulled open one of its drawers to display box after box of Girl Scout cookies. “I couldn’t help myself.”
His eyes were serious as they met hers. “So the next time you’re in the mood for a thin mint, do me a favor, will you, and eat a whole box?” Then he grinned.
That heated, tingly current rushed like a flash flood toward her. It wasn’t what she wanted, it wasn’t what she was looking for, not in the least, but she didn’t seem to have any choice but to let the feeling sweep over her. Sweep around her.
After two confusing years of marriage and three years during which she’d been both frozen and afraid, it was as if her feminine senses had come awake with one quick jolt. Or with one quick fall to the floor of the gym.
“Lori—” he started, then the phone rang. She jumped for it, but he held her off with his hand and lifted the receiver himself. She could feel his eyes on her, even as he spoke some important-sounding specifications.
Half embarrassed and half scared of what Josh might be seeing on her face, Lori looked away. Her gaze moved to the Girl Scout cookies in the drawer to another photo, this one sitting on top of the credenza itself. It was a framed photo of a blond bride.
Josh’s wife.
She didn’t question her immediate conclusion. He certainly wouldn’t choose to display just one of his sisters, and the beautiful woman looked like the type big, dark Josh would love.
He was married.
A feeling twisted her insides. Relief, she guessed. Whatever current she’d been feeling was imagined, or at the very worst, all on her side.
Josh was a married man. As he completed his phone call, she let that knowledge sink in. He wasn’t any kind of threat to her. She didn’t have to worry about him getting too close.
He was a husband.
At the click of receiver to cradle she looked up. Stood up. “I’ll just get back to my desk.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you all right?”
Lori realized he wasn’t wearing a ring. But for a man who worked with his hands, that was probably a good idea.
“Are you all right?” he asked again.
Of course. Now she was. Whatever was between them was something she’d obviously misread—she was so good at misreading men—and—
“What are you looking at?”
Until that moment, she hadn’t realized she was looking at anything. But then he swung around to follow her gaze. They both stared at the photo of the bride.
Lori swallowed. “Your wife?” She thought her voice sounded normal.
Josh nodded.
“She’s beautiful,” Lori said. Then she smiled at him, because it was going to be okay. He was safe now. He was married.
But he didn’t smile back as a shadow crossed his face. “She was. Kay died five years ago. I’m a widower.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_e3a07e74-8e46-5414-875d-bd07b907c1ff)
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Lori said, her voice soft and sincere.
“Thank you.” Josh looked away from the photo and back at the beautiful woman standing on the other side of his desk, cursing whatever it was about her that made him feel as if his hands, his feet, his Adam’s apple were all too big. But he felt more than just physically awkward at the moment.
