A Bride For The Boss

Yeah, he thought, recognizing the stubborn set to her chin, the flash in her eyes. Her mind was set. But then, he reassured himself, so was his. And when Mac McCallum made a decision, it was set in stone. In short order, he was going to prove to Andi that she wasn’t the kind of woman to walk away from a high-powered job. She liked the responsibility. Thrived on it.

He had no doubt at all who was going to come out the winner in their little contest of wills. And by the time Andi had spent two weeks doing nothing but nesting, she’d be yearning to get back to the office and dive right in.

Giving her a slow smile, he said, “Tomorrow morning, I’ll go in, take care of a couple things, tie up some loose ends and then I’m all yours.”

“Mine?”

His smile deepened. Maybe it was small of Mac, but he enjoyed seeing her confused and just a little flustered. That almost never happened. Andi was too controlled. Too organized. Too on top of every damn thing that entered her universe. Being able to throw her for a loop, he decided, was fun.

“Yeah,” he said, hooking his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans. “Like I said, I’ll be here, helping you. So for the next two weeks, you’re the boss and I’m the employee.”

“I’m the boss?”

He winked. “Like the sound of that, don’t you?”

While she stared at him, he shifted his gaze around the room, checking out the freshly painted walls. “You did a nice job in here—”

“Gee, thanks.”

“—but,” he added as if she hadn’t spoken, “the ceiling could use another coat. Hard for you to reach it I guess, since you’re not all that tall.”

“I used a ladder—”

“I won’t need one to go over it tomorrow. Then we’ll do the trim.”

“I don’t want your help.”

His gaze immediately locked on hers. “Maybe not. But you need it.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it again and took a breath before speaking. “Mac, I appreciate the offer...”

“No, you don’t.” In fact, her storm-gray eyes were smoldering. Typical Andi—she’d never admit there was something she couldn’t do on her own.

Her lips twitched. “Okay, no, I don’t. But then, you don’t really want to take time away from the office to paint my house, either.”

Mac thought about it for a minute. Ordinarily no, he wouldn’t. His company had been his life for so many years now, he couldn’t really imagine taking two weeks away from it. But if he wanted to keep Andi working for him—and he did—then he’d have to invest the time to convince her to stay. So he shrugged off her comment as if it meant nothing. “When I was a kid, my dad had me out on the ranch painting the barn, the stables, the fence around my mother’s garden. I’m damn good with a paintbrush. And at woodworking. The ranch carpenter taught me a lot back then. I’ve got a fair hand at plumbing, too, though that can be iffy.”

“Why would you want to use your no doubt impressive skills on my house?”

Here he gave her a grin and a wink. “What kind of Texan would I be if I didn’t ride to the rescue?”

Her head snapped back. “Rescue? I don’t need to be rescued, Mac. And now’s a good time to remind you that for the last six years, I’m the one who’s done most of the rescuing.”

He laughed. Her outrage put fire in her eyes and a rush of color in her cheeks. Her breath was coming fast and furious and her breasts hitched even higher beneath that skimpy tank top. He’d have to remember to make her furious more often.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll give you that. You’ve been riding herd on the business and keeping things moving for six years. So now it’s time I paid that back.”

She shook her head. “I don’t need you to pay me back for doing my job.”

“Maybe it’s not about what you need,” he said, and felt tension crawl through him as he stared into her gray eyes, where the fire was now banked, simmering low. This woman had been a central part of his life for years and he wasn’t ready for that to end yet. Now that he was here, with her, in this nearly empty house with the dark settling around them, he wanted that even less than when he’d first come here.

“We’ll work together and at the end of two weeks, if you still want to walk away, so be it.” Sounded reasonable, though Mac had no intention of letting her go. “This is my decision, Andi. And you should know better than anyone else, once I make a call, I stick to it.”