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“Does that family connection trump a group of fifty-five paying customers?”
He winced. “Well, I’m sure he can find a couple of chairs for us in the kitchen.”
Erin laughed.
He liked to hear her laugh. She seemed so serious most of the time, as if there were heavy issues weighing on her mind. But when she laughed, it was like the sun breaking through on a cloudy day. The soft, sexy sound seemed to burst out of her, and her beautiful blue eyes danced and sparkled.
“For DJ’s signature rib sandwich, I would happily sit in the kitchen,” she told him.
As it turned out, DJ did manage to find them a small table on the opposite side of the room from the conference guests and with a fabulous view of the resort property. Be cause they both knew what they wanted to eat, he took their orders so that he could get it into the kitchen before the conference group started clamoring for its food. Corey ordered a beer and Erin, because it was the middle of a work day, requested a soft drink.
“So tell me,” Erin said, “how you manage to have so much free time when you’re supposed to be in town on business.”
“I’m my own boss. When I first started out, I worked more than my share of eighty-hour weeks to ensure my business was successful. Now I have the luxury of being able to pick and choose my jobs and the hours that I’m going to work.”
She eyed him over the rim of her glass. “Why did you start your own company instead of going to work at Traub Industries?”
“I did work at Traub Industries, as all of my brothers and my sister did. But, although the experience was memorable and I certainly won’t complain about the opportunities the company has afforded me, making a career in the oil business wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life.”
“So who does run the company?”
“My mother took over at the helm when my dad died, and she’s still the CEO. My brother Ethan is the CFO. My stepfather is on the board of directors.”
“So it really is a family business.”
“I guess it is,” he agreed.
She tilted her head. “Are there issues between you and your stepfather?”
“No. Not really.”
“Which is it—no? Or not really?”
“Peter’s a good guy,” Corey said. “And he makes my mom happy. It’s pretty amazing to think about the fact that he was willing to marry a woman who was on her own with six kids.”
“But—” she prompted.
He didn’t say anything.
“But he’s not your dad,” Erin finished for him.
“No, he’s not. I was so young when my dad died that my memories of him are pretty foggy, but it was still hard to accept anyone else trying to take his place. It’s only recently that I’ve realized Peter made his own place—and I’m glad it’s with my mom.” He shook his head. “But it seems that we’re always talking about my family—tell me something about yours.”
“The Castros aren’t nearly as interesting as the Traubs,” she said.
“That’s an opinion, not a fact,” he chided.
She shrugged. “Okay, my parents are Jack and Betty. My dad’s a harbor cop and my mom is a high school history teacher. I have two brothers, Jake and Josh, both of them older. Jake is a cop in New Orleans and Josh is a perpetual student. He’s currently studying geosciences at Princeton.”
“And what do your parents think of your decision to move to Montana?”
“They’re trying to be supportive. They understand that I needed to make some changes in my life. They just wish I didn’t have to make them so far away.”
“It could be worse,” Corey said philosophically. “You could have gone to New England.”
She smiled. “Which is what I remind them whenever they start complaining about how far away Thunder Canyon is from San Diego.”
“Do you get home to visit them very often?”
“Only once since I moved here,” she admitted. “I’d hoped to go back again for Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to work out now.”
“It’s hard being away from family, especially at the holidays.”
She nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever missed a major holiday with them.”
“So why don’t you invite them to come here?”
She seemed startled by the suggestion. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”
“Sometimes it takes someone from the outside to see the possible solutions to a problem.”
“That’s exactly what you do, isn’t it? Companies hire you to come in and determine what’s not working, and you fix it.”
“I offer suggestions,” he clarified.
“And if a company doesn’t take your suggestions?”
“People don’t often ignore advice that they pay for, but it’s always their choice.”
The waiter brought their lunches.
Erin plucked a curly fry from her plate and bit off the end. “How long does it usually take—your review and analysis?”
“Are you trying to figure out how long I’m going to be in Thunder Canyon?” he teased.
“I’m trying to make conversation,” she retorted, but the flush in her cheeks confirmed his guess.
“Well, the answer to that question is that it varies depending on the complexity of the problems. Is the company simply looking to improve its bottom line, or is it teetering on the edge of bankruptcy? Is it a mom-and-pop operation or an international conglomerate?” He picked up his spicy barbecue chicken sandwich and bit into it.
“So it could be weeks or months,” she guessed.
He nodded, chewing.
“Do you enjoy it?”
“I enjoy the challenge.”
“Is that why you’re here with me now—because I turned you down the first time you asked me to dance?”
“You’re here with me,” he pointed out. “And if you’d accepted my original invitation, the only thing that would have been different is that we would have shared our first dance sooner.”
“First dance?”
He grinned. “Yeah, I’m counting on there being more.”
She smiled back, not protesting his assumption this time. Then her gaze slid away, caught by something across the room. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that it wasn’t a “something” but “someone”—her boss, Grant Clifton. But it wasn’t the direction of her gaze that bothered him so much as the brief glimpse of yearning that he read in her eyes.
Then she focused on her plate again, and Corey was left to wonder if he’d just imagined the longing he thought he’d seen. He hoped so. He sure as heck didn’t want to think that she was lusting after a man who was his friend, her boss and married to boot.
However, it would explain why she’d been resistant to his overtures. Not that he thought he was irresistible, but in his experience, most women were flattered by his attention and often sought him out, and he’d been trying to figure out why Erin seemed impervious to his legendary charms.
He’d considered the usual reasons—she was just getting over a failed relationship, she didn’t like the color of his hair or his eyes, she thought he was too tall/too short or too young/too old, or she just wasn’t attracted to him—although he’d discarded that possibility after their first kiss because he knew that a woman couldn’t kiss a man the way she’d kissed him if she didn’t feel at least some degree of attraction. It had never occurred to him that she might be infatuated with her boss.
“How’s your sandwich?” Erin asked.
“Great,” he said, and picked it up again.
They chatted casually as they finished their lunches. He noticed that Erin was both attentive and entertaining, her focus never again wavering. Maybe he had imagined the look she’d sent in Grant’s direction. Maybe she’d actually been looking at someone else’s lunch—or their dessert. He’d dated a lot of women who looked enviously at the cheesecake on someone else’s plate but refused to order their own.
“Dessert?” he asked her.
There was still a handful of fries on Erin’s plate when she pushed it aside, shaking her head. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”
“Not even a tiny slice of pecan turtle pie?”
She sighed wistfully. “As much as I love DJ’s pecan turtle pie, I know they don’t serve tiny slices.”
He flagged down their server and ordered a slice anyway, asking for it to be boxed so Erin could take it home.
The cake was delivered along with his credit card slip, and Corey slid the dessert across the table to her.
“I really don’t need the three thousand calories in this box,” she told him. “But I’ll say ‘thank you’ anyway, knowing that I will savor every last bite while I’m watching American Idol tonight.”
“What do you watch on Fridays?” Corey asked, as they headed out of the restaurant.
“Nothing in particular.”
“Then how about catching a movie with me?” he suggested.
“What movie?” she asked.
“I don’t even know what’s showing,” he admitted.
“I would have expected you to find that out before you decided you wanted to go.”
“I just thought it would be fun to go to a movie with you.”
“I don’t like horror flicks,” she warned him.
“You could snuggle up to me during the scary parts.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
She laughed but shook her head. “All the parts are scary parts, and I’d have nightmares for a week.”
“Okay, no horror flicks,” he promised.
“And I’m not big on sci-fi, either.”
He nodded his understanding. “Aliens can be pretty scary.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Are you mocking me?”
“Of course not,” he said, but his lips twitched as he tried not to smile.
“Just for that, you have to buy the popcorn.”
“It would be my pleasure,” he told her, and he meant it.
She eyed him warily. “What are we doing, Corey?”
“Setting up a date.”
“Is it that simple?”
“For now.” They were back at the reception desk, and as much as he wanted to linger, he knew she needed to get back to work. “I’ll give you a call to let you know what time on Friday.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “Thanks for lunch.”
As she started around the counter, he caught her hand. She looked up at him, questioning, and he bent his head to touch his lips to hers. It was a quick and easy kiss that was over before she could think to protest about the inappropriateness of him kissing her at work.
“It was my pleasure,” he said, and walked away with a smile on his face.
Chapter Seven
He called her on Wednesday, ostensibly to discuss the movie schedule for Friday night. They talked for more than an hour.
They went to the local theater on Friday to see a romantic comedy that Erin had expressed an interest in. Corey grumbled about “chick flicks” throughout the drive back to her condo, but she’d heard him laugh out loud at different parts of the film so she knew he was only teasing.
Because she’d missed work on Monday, she agreed to cover Carrie’s shift Saturday morning. She planned to spend the afternoon catching up on the chores she’d neglected during the week—most notably her grocery shopping and housecleaning. But Corey’s truck was in her driveway when she got home from the Super Saver Mart, and when he asked her to go horseback riding again, it sounded a lot more fun than scrubbing her shower.
Afterward, they picked up a pizza and a bottle of wine and took them back to Erin’s. As she sat beside him on the couch, watching the flames flicker in the fireplace, she found it hard to believe that she’d only met him a week earlier. So much time seemed to have passed since then.
Sunday morning she awoke to find the snow blowing outside of her windows and decided that the near-blizzard conditions were reason not to venture out of the house. But Corey had no similar qualms because he came over shortly after lunch with some movies he’d rented, and they spent the rest of the afternoon snuggled together on her couch, munching popcorn and watching the original Star Wars trilogy. Because, despite her admitted lack of appreciation for the sci-fi genre, he somehow managed to convince her that the George Lucas masterpieces couldn’t be so simply classified, and she soon found herself deeply engrossed in the movies.
As the final credits of The Empire Strikes Back scrolled on the screen, Erin’s stomach began to grumble. Glancing at the glowing numbers on the DVD player, she was surprised to realize how quickly the afternoon had gone and it seemed natural to invite Corey to stay for dinner. Though she hadn’t consciously thought about it while she’d been grocery shopping the day before, she’d picked up all the necessary ingredients for her mom’s famous enchiladas and Corey seemed pleased by her invitation and happy to eat with her.
After dinner, they tidied up the kitchen together, but when Corey suggested that he should head out, Erin was the one to protest. She wanted to know if Leia succeeded in rescuing Han, to which Corey reminded her that the movie was about a lot more than a romantic subplot. But, of course, he put the third movie on.
It was late by the time he finally said good-night, and several inches of snow had fallen. Erin cringed at the sight of the white stuff covering her car and her driveway, but she decided to ignore it until the morning. Corey wouldn’t hear of it though and, after locating a shovel in the garage, insisted on clearing her steps and driveway. Although she appreciated not having to do it herself, she wasn’t sure how she felt about his insistence on taking charge.
