Chapter 7 Rhett
SEVEN
RHETT
A strange scraping sound made me lift my head from my computer. Frowning, I listened for a few moments, then shook my head when the noise stopped. That was annoying.
Then the drilling started.
Spinning around to glare at the back wall of my office, I listened to a drill whine, clatter, and stop. Then a hammer started up, banging so hard I swore I could see the artwork behind my desk trembling.
That woman.
I’d thought I’d gotten the upper hand on Monday, especially because I’d hardly seen her yesterday, but apparently that was as long as she’d give me to work in peace. It was Wednesday, and she was back to make my life a living hell.
Baring my teeth, I pushed away from my desk and stomped out of the office and around the corner. A cloud of dust puffed out of an open door, and I crossed the distance to stand in the opening, waving my hands to clear the haze.
Piper stood next to the wall, a big yellow drill in her hands, safety glasses on her face.
An ancient, scarred, and tiny desk had been shoved into the corner, with a hammer and a very bent wall anchor resting on its top, but she ignored it as she pondered the wall in front of her.
A large gilded frame sat on the floor by her feet.
When my shadow darkened the section of wall that she was studying, she looked over. A flash of annoyance went across her face, and then she slapped that stupid smile on again. “Oh, hiya, boss.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Just moving into the office,” she replied, a dangerous spark in her eyes. “Oliver let me borrow his drill. I’ve never drilled through concrete before. It’s messy!”
“Give me that thing.”
“Oh-ho! No way! Ollie said to keep it safe, and I’m not sure I like the look on your face right now.”
“Ollie works for me, Piper. And so, might I remind you, do you.”
She tilted her head slightly, blinking insipidly. “And does working for you mean we forfeit all our property to you?”
“Just give me the drill before you knock down the entire wall. What do you need? Why are you drilling anyway?”
She held the tool across her chest, one finger on the trigger. Her jaw hardened. I suddenly never wanted to see her with a gun. “I am perfectly capable of drilling a hole in a wall, Mr. Baldwin, sir. Thank you very much.”
Insolent woman. Annoyance warred with amusement inside me—but she was still holding the drill, so I had bigger things to worry about than my own feelings for her.
“I’ll do it for you.”
“I’m sure you have more important things to do.
” She turned back to the wall and gave the drill a little practice whirr.
The bit spun in the air, glinting in the light of the hanging bulb above our heads.
She set the bit against the small indent she’d already made, lined it up, and started drilling.
The bit spun and spun and spun, and a bead of sweat dribbled down the side of Piper’s face. Breathless, she pulled back and stopped the drill. Her chest puffed, and she frowned. “What the heck is going on!”
It didn’t sound like she wanted an answer, but I gave her one anyway. “Is that a masonry bit?”
“Of course it’s a masonry bit!”
“Are you using the hammer action?” I leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, enjoying the sight of her coming slightly unraveled.
Her eyes went squinty, the hostility in them clear, and then she glanced at the drill. “Hammer action,” she mused, tilting the tool this way and that. “What does that do?”
“Did Ollie explain anything to you before handing you that thing?”
“Keep Ollie out of this,” she said, still studying the drill. “He’s nice to me. Unlike other people I’ve met in this town.”
Hearing her defend my cousin made discomfort slither through me. I hid it with a frustrated huff and took the two steps required to close the distance between us. “Here,” I said, and flicked the hammer action on with the turn of a knob.
“Fabulous,” Piper said, and lifted the drill again.
“You sure you don’t want me to do this?”
“Thank you, no,” she said. “I’m the one wearing the safety glasses.
” This time, when she started drilling, a thumping sound came along, and big pieces of concrete began flaking away.
Piper screamed through bared teeth, pushing the drill until it jerked forward.
She’d made it through the front wall of the concrete block.
But she’d been pushing too hard—or hadn’t expected to make it through so fast—because when the resistance on the drill bit suddenly ended, Piper wasn’t expecting it. She fell forward, her finger still pressing the trigger on the drill, her scream of determination turning to panic.
I jumped forward, grabbed the drill, reversed it out of the hole in a second, and set it aside. Then I turned and grabbed Piper’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were wide. I could see the pulse fluttering in her neck. She could have hurt herself, and I didn’t like how much that scared me.
“Hammer action for the win,” she said, blowing a piece of hair out of her face.
I growled in frustration. My own heart was thumping a little harder than I liked. If she’d tripped, or if the drill had jumped, or if she’d dropped it on herself…
Why was I even thinking these things? Why did I care, other than the fact that she worked for me and I’d hate to have to pay workers’ compensation on an already tight budget? But the anxiety that had spiked inside me in that moment wasn’t about company finance projections.
I turned to the hole and blew out the concrete dust that had settled inside it. “Usually I just get it started with the hammer action, then once I’m partway through I flick it back to normal drilling.”
She straightened, scowling at me. “You could have mentioned that!”
“You seemed very intent on doing things your way.” I kicked a piece of concrete block that had flaked away from around her brand-new hole in the wall.
“Yes, well,” she said, then trailed off. With a huff, she opened the box of wall anchors and grabbed a new one, along with the hammer she’d set aside earlier. With gentle little taps, she fitted the anchor into the hole, then grabbed the drill again.
It only took one warning glare for me to understand she didn’t want my help, but I hovered nearby anyway.
The woman was a danger to herself at least—and to society at worst. Crossing my arms, I leaned against the wall beside the door and watched her swap the masonry bit for a Phillips-head bit, and then she carefully screwed a screw partway into the anchor.
With the drill still firmly clutched in one hand, Piper tugged on the screw with the other.
When it didn’t budge, she turned toward me and flashed me the biggest, most genuine smile I’d ever seen on her face so far.
It only lasted a second, quickly replaced with a suspicious glare, but I saw it, and it was glorious.
For just a moment, I wondered how Piper treated people she trusted. I wondered if being afraid of her seeing through my mask so easily was stopping me from getting to know a truly amazing woman.
Then she announced, “You can leave now.”
“That’s all the thanks I get for helping you?”
She considered me for a moment then gave me the sharp smile that I liked almost as much as the big, bright, genuine one. “Yep!”
Huffing, I turned on my heel and went back to the office.
The drilling continued for some time, then was replaced by the scraping sounds of furniture moving, and finally a flickering of the lights in the office followed by a “Whoops! Sorry, folks!”
I was halfway out of my chair, determined to tell Piper to stop messing around and get to work, when my laptop chimed with a new email.
It was habit that made me glance at the screen, and confusion that made me sit back down.
The email was from the procurement and finance department’s head, Nora, and the subject line read: “Expense report for office fit-out, Piper Darling.”
I clicked the email, which, in Nora’s typical efficient fashion, only said, “FYI, see attached,” and then clicked the attachment.
“That little—”
I stood up so fast my chair hit the back wall and was out of my office in seconds.
Finding Nora at her desk, studying a multi-color, multi-page spreadsheet, I paused only long enough to say, “Come with me,” before stalking back across the office to where the noise of Piper Darling’s audacity had banged and scraped and drilled all day.
“Is everything okay?” Nora asked.
“I never approved the expenses required to renovate Darling’s office,” I shot back, and my tone was way too harsh.
I couldn’t get ahold of myself when Piper was concerned.
“I know she needed stuff in there,” I amended, softening my voice slightly, “but we spent a fortune buying office supplies when we moved into this building. Couldn’t she scavenge things from around the office? ”
“Well, none of it fit. The room is really small, Rhett, so we needed to buy things that would.”
Of course. But why did this feel like a very pointed message from Piper? Why did it feel like she suddenly had the upper hand?
I crashed to a stop in front of Piper’s door, lifted my hand to knock—and changed my mind. Instead, I turned the handle and stepped through—