Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The large windows gave Colton an unimpeded view of Paisley walking into the building from the parking lot the next day. Sunlight highlighted the red in soft brown hair that swung over her shoulders and in the messy fringe of bangs on her forehead.
She had smiled at the orange cat that sometimes hung out at the brewery. She had smiled at Ona, Belle’s manager, as she worked the grinder. Even smiled as she stopped and inhaled the scent of sugar in the air.
Did she smile at him? No.
He rubbed the muscles in his neck, hoping to relieve the sudden tension. Working with her to find the missing records would set back his own schedule. It wasn’t Paisley’s fault. She needed to do this for the betterment of Belle’s, but the interruptions drove him out of his zone.
And her smile drove him out of his mind.
She entered the crowded office space, the single room that housed him, Ona, and Brandi. Brandi crammed in Paisley desk too close for comfort, where a spark flared when she was near, and he could feel her even without looking.
He knew her routine. Put her cell phone in her butterflies-and-flowers purse, check.
Lean over her desk, showing off her shapely backside, and shove her purse in her desk drawer, check.
Grab a stack of sticky notes, probably the lavender ones, then head to the galley kitchen with her deliciously curvy body for a cup of coffee. Check, check, and check.
She stopped at his desk on the way back to her own, watching him with her expressive velvet-brown eyes. “Do you need to do anything before we begin searching for the records?”
Warmth lingered, and his pulse ratcheted up as he reveled in the eye contact. Her energy picked away at his hard-won solitude, but he couldn’t stop the attraction he felt toward her embrace-life attitude.
Yup, she’d chosen the lavender pad. “I’m good,” he said. “Do you need more sticky notes? I don’t think that one pad is enough.”
She held up the small pad. “This is nothing. You should see my curated calculator collection.”
A laugh escaped him, startling them both. She looked at him then, something more than humor sizzling behind her brown gaze. “So, you can smile,” she murmured.
“I can do a lot of things.” That sounded a lot flirtier than he wanted.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his fingers coming in contact with his trusted Leatherman tool like it could help him hold his sanity.
The business software he’d convinced Brandi to adopt when bringing Belle’s into the electronic age was already running on his computer, and he released the Leatherman to bring up the calendar.
“Like keeping track of archaic records.”
“I guess we’ll see about that.” Paisley tore off a note and stuck it to his monitor, showing him three consecutive years. “I did some research last night. The records we need are sometime between these dates.”
He forced his tone to be more neutral. “Let’s see if I can track down those liquid assets.”
“Heh. Liquid assets. Nice one.” Paisley glanced around the office. “Are there paper records you might have missed when you were inputting data into the new system? Like, stored in boxes in any of the outbuildings? Or behind the grinder?”
Colton bristled at her obvious question before he let himself recognize its validity for someone who hadn’t been around. “I checked all the buildings. Multiple times.”
“Maybe they got mixed in with older files.”
“Then I would have found them when going through those older files.”
“True.” She tapped her pen against her perfectly pink and pouty lips. “Perhaps there was a different filing system before Brandi took charge? Or maybe she emailed something to you?”
The ideas were good ones, but he’d already thought of them and came up with nothing. “I did that yesterday, and also looked at the data backups.”
“Then maybe—”
“I promise I already thought of it.”
“Okay, then, Mr. Smartypants.” She folded her arms across her chest and arched an eyebrow. “What’s your strategy for finding the missing files?”
She was pretty, he decided, if you were into smooth skin and sparking eyes. She always had a fresh look, whether she’d pulled her long brown hair in a ponytail or left it framing her high cheekbones. Lush curves filled out her jeans or added extra sway when she wore a skirt.
He could stare at her all day and not get tired. Which was part of the problem. He kept his life free of romantic entanglements. Been there, done that, got the divorce papers and the t-shirt.
“Isn’t that your job?” he asked.
The sparkle left her eyes and she frowned at him. “And part of that investigation is interviewing those who might have knowledge of the situation.”
“Fine.” He folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t tell me how to do my job, and I won’t tell you how to do yours.”
“Fine.” She paused for a moment, her face softening. “Everything you’ve done so far has made my job easier, Colton. I wasn’t trying to imply you do anything other than excellent work.”
She turned away before he could comment, leaving him feeling like an ass. But giving him a view of her backside that filled out her jeans in the most spectacular way.
He should apologize, because her suggestions for organizing Belle’s records that would make his job easier, too.
When she bantered with him or tested his patience or, hell, even wrote something on her sticky notes, all his resolutions went out the door.
He teased her about them because she was cute even when annoyed.
Kept himself emotionally distant because he didn’t need her special sort of complication in his life.
But what an amazing complication she would be.
* * *
Paisley twirled in her chair, staring at the ceiling while she spun in circles. Eight hours gone, and they were no closer to finding the missing records of the bottles. Nothing on the computer, or the backup database, or mixed in with other files.
Just like Colton said. But she’d still checked, because he wasn’t infallible.
A sexy pain in her butt, but not infallible.
He hadn’t been as uptight that afternoon after working beside her all day. His way of apologizing, maybe, without actually saying the words. Sometimes she thought he watched her work, but she never caught him with direct eye contact.
The many sticky notes with her many ideas scattered like confetti all over her desk. And the floor. And some had found their way onto Colton’s desk, too. She started cleaning them up, but got distracted by the view from the large windows.
Colton, Brandi, and Ona were outside with Belle’s other employees, helping offload a water delivery.
Brandi’s aunt Eulalee joined them, holding a clipboard and marking off inventory.
Paisley had offered her assistance, but Brandi declined due to insurance and liability stuff.
That was fine. This way she could stare, watching Colton use his pocket knife to help open a box or cut some tape.
Sometimes he raised his arms to grab supplies and bare his deliciously muscled abs, and then flexed his biceps as he lowered the crate and handed it off to someone else.
Who knew those t-shirts hid all that? All in all, not a bad way to spend a coffee break.
After she made sure she brewed a new pot.
And prepared a cup for him when they finished unloading and he went back to his desk.
“What’s this for?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “For you.”
“I mean why, Paisley?”
“I want to start at the beginning to find the missing files. Look at them in a more creative way. And having someone to brainstorm with will be more helpful than me going at it alone.”
“So this is bribery.”
“You’re the best choice.”
“I’m not averse to taking bribes.” He graced her with one of his rare smiles as he took a sip of the coffee. “Perfection. Thank you.”
A quick pulse surged through her at his smile that crinkled his eyes and removed his permanent scowl. Why did he have to be so damn attractive? At least she’d guessed right, no cream or sugar. Unless he was humoring her.
But he wasn’t that type.
Colton put the mug on his desk and sat down. He frowned and stood up again, then tore a sticky note off of his jeans. “Seriously?”
“How do you keep track of your thoughts?” she huffed, holding out her hand.
“I keep track of my work through organizational software.” He gave the notes back to her. “Let’s start at the beginning. Methodically check every document in every file and examine every transaction. I must have missed something.”
“Ewww, no.” Paisley wrinkled her nose and heaved a banker box onto her desk from her chair, hoping the exertion would calm the raging fantasies of Colton doing more than just smiling at her. More sticky notes fluttered to the floor. “That would take forever.”
“You have a better idea?” Colton finished stacking the square pieces of paper on his desk.
She brought her thumbs together in front of her chest, then spread her hands wide as she spoke, her fingers fully extended. She turned her voice into a dramatic whisper. “Storytelling.”
She fully expected Colton’s groan. “As in, once upon a time, there were three bottles of wine?”
“Ooh, and a side of poetry. Nice.” She grinned at him. To her shock, he gave her a begrudging lift of his lips. “Chances are greater that the missing bottles were part of something larger, not just a one-off thing.”
He nodded and pulled out his guest chair. Paisley pulled a few manila folders from the box on her desk before she sat.
“We should focus on events and large purchases, recreating the days when the orders went out.” She opened the first file. “A wedding. So those bottles of wine all did live happily ever after.”
She read the details of the event out loud. A May wedding, with one hundred guests, where they’d ordered six bottles of Belle’s famous peach whiskey.
“The first event was a wedding in May? Nothing earlier?” Colton asked.
“There were lots of earlier events.”
She could almost feel his brain exploding with her absolutely, non-logical answer.
To his credit, his voice came out even, but she heard the tight control behind it. “Why don’t we start at the beginning of the year?”
“You know how you never find what you’re looking for right off?”
Colton nodded, a slow, wary dip of his chin.
“If we start in the middle, we’re cutting down on all that time looking for something that’s not there.”
“That…” He shook his head. “Makes sense in a weird Paisley sort of way.”
“The best way there is.” She put a hand on his arm. “Trust me on this.”
His muscles flinched under her touch and she let him go.
“Let’s do it.” Colton brought up the corresponding directory from the network, then opened each subdirectory with Paisley over his shoulder, looking for something that didn’t belong. Nothing stood out, so they moved on to the next event.
They hit the mini-jackpot on the fifth event, a vow-renewal anniversary party. Four missing bottles of whiskey were recorded on a misfiled spreadsheet hidden in a subfile of the main directory.
Colton leaned back in his chair with a huff of laughter. “It worked. Your storytelling worked.”
“Of course it did.” Confidence rang through her voice, but the raised eyebrow Colton gave her told her that maybe she overdid it.
“Don’t you have to follow generally accepted auditor principles, or something like that?”
“For reporting, of course.” She leaned in to look at the screen. Or maybe to get a little bit closer to him and revel in the heat. Her squishy insides liked the way he made her feel.
“I went over these record files fifty times,” she said. “You, Brandi, and Ms. Eulalee combined probably went over those files a hundred times. Sticking to conventional methods would have doomed us.”
“You’ve convinced me.” Colton laced his fingers together and extended his arms to crack his knuckles. “What’s next?”
“On to the next event.”
She scribbled the new dates on a sticky note and stuck it on his monitor.
“I don’t need a reminder.” He reached to remove it, but she put a hand on his wrist to stop him. And he jerked his hand away.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Your fingers were cold.”
They so were not. “It’s not for you. It’s for me so I can keep track.”
Paisley rubbed her hands together anyway. So much for progress.