Chapter 8
H arper shoved her hands through her hair, hastily pulling it up in a messy knot. Luke’s files were a disaster. Nothing had been updated in the system for the past eight weeks. There were piles of disorganized paperwork everywhere. And the database was a joke. But she loved a project.
The office was on the second floor of one of the brick buildings in downtown Benevolence. It had high ceilings and huge half-circle windows that filtered sunlight onto the scarred, wide-plank hardwood floors.
She huddled over an old drawing table she had repurposed as a desk.
She set it up in a corner and angled it to have a line of sight into Luke’s office.
Not that he was in there now. And from the looks of the stacks of paperwork covering every flat surface including the floor, he probably didn’t spend much time there.
Harper moved the now neatly organized stack of files to the edge of the desk and reached for a new pile. She liked being here. Liked being surrounded by Luke’s work. When he said he was in construction, he left out that he ran a ridiculously successful contracting and building firm.
Digging through the files, she discovered that both the bank on Second Street and the sprawling farmhouse on the outskirts of town that she had admired were Garrison projects.
Where some men couldn’t shut up about every minor accomplishment of their day, Luke was a vault. He could thwart a bank robbery and deliver a baby on his lunch break and the only thing he’d volunteer was that he had a BLT.
It only made her want to pry information out of him.
Harper jumped as a brown paper bag landed on the keyboard in front of her .
“Mom sends her best,” Luke said from behind her.
Harper pounced on the bag. “What. Are. These. Never mind, don’t tell me.” She unwrapped a brownie and took a bite. “Mmm. Heaven!”
“She said you could share if you want to,” he hinted.
She eyed him over her brownie. “Let’s see if you’ve earned it. Did you save any old ladies from harm’s way?”
“No, but I didn’t put any in harm’s way either.”
“Good enough for me.” She handed him a brownie.
She watched him unwrap it and take a manly bite. “How’s your day so far, boss?”
“Not too bad. Just checking up on a new employee, making sure she’s not painting her nails and napping on the company’s dime.”
Harper wrinkled her nose at him. “Speaking of work, you should meet my boss. What a whip-cracker.”
Hmm, Luke with a whip. That was pretty hot. Hotter if he was shirtless.
Oblivious to her fantasy, Luke eyed her desk setup. “Have everything you need here?”
She kicked back in her chair and took another bite of brownie. “I think I can get by for the next month. And when I leave, you’re going to miss me.”
“We’ll see.” He said it with a smile.
A shrill jingle interrupted them. Harper snatched her cell phone off the desk and groaned.
She answered it with a vicious swipe. “Stop calling me,” she shouted into the phone and hung up.
“Problem?”
Harper rolled her eyes. “It’s ‘Can’t Keep His Dick in His Pants.’”
Luke frowned. “How many times has he called you?”
She scrolled to her call history. “Only twenty-three since Friday night.”
“Is he leaving voicemails?”
Harper adapted a slightly slurred baritone. “Oh baby, I want you back. Tiffany means nothing to me. Do you know where my Batman shirt is?”
Her phone shrilled again, and Luke snatched it out of her hands. “Do you want him to stop calling you?”
“Uh, yeah! How are you going to make that happen?”
“I’m your fake boyfriend. I have many powers.” Luke straightened away from the desk and answered the phone.
He walked a few paces away, and Harper strained to listen. He stood with a wide stance, hand on hip, staring out the window. There was always such an intensity about him. Power and control were the driving forces behind everything he did.
Luke rarely divided his attention, making it seem like he was always fully focused on the task at hand. It was that focus that Harper felt every time he looked at her. She felt important. Worthy. Interesting.
And now the man who made her feel important, worthy, and interesting was in a conversation with the man who treated her as replaceable.
Luke hung up and walked back to Harper. He tossed her the phone.
“Well?” she asked.
“He won’t be calling you anymore, and he’s sending your last paycheck here to the office.”
Harper jumped out of her chair and whooped. She tossed her arms around his neck and planted a smacking kiss on his cheek, savoring the feel of his stubble under her lips. “I’m taking you out to dinner with that paycheck.”
His hands settled on her waist and held. “Don’t you think I should pay for our first date?”
“An unconventional relationship calls for unconventional etiquette. Besides, we’ve already slept together, and you brought me brownies. That your mother made for me. We’re practically engaged.”
He looked nervous again. She could tell he wanted to back up and get some space between them. Harper liked that she could make him a little uncomfortable. It partially made up for the pointy butterflies that went careening around her stomach when he looked at her with those soulful eyes.
“We’ll see,” he said, stepping back. “I’m going to get some paperwork done and head out again. Need anything?”
“Nope. I’m good.” And she meant it. She watched Luke head into his office and smiled. This was her life now, at least for the next month. A good job in a great office with a boss and roommate so good-looking she couldn’t stop staring at him.
She tried to focus on her work but felt her attention pulled to the office in the corner.
She had a direct line of sight to Luke at his desk, frowning at his computer screen, kicking back in his chair to make a call.
Every glance or two, she found him already looking at her.
Maybe he was as disconcerted around her as she was around him?
Every time one of them caught the other looking, Luke’s frown deepened.
After nearly half an hour of mutual sneaked peeks, Luke pushed back from his desk and grabbed a stack of paperwork and his tablet.
“I’m heading out to a meeting. I probably won’t be back in after it.”
“Okay, boss, have a good day,” Harper smiled. She tried to keep her eyes on her monitor instead of his ass as he walked out. It wasn’t easy.
Harper got in almost another hour of work before she was interrupted again.
A short, slim man in blue flannel sauntered in, suspenders holding up his carpenter pants. Weathered blue eyes stared at her above a frizzy beard that was more gray than red.
“So, you’re the girl who’s got the whole town riled up,” he said, crossing his arms.
Harper raised her eyebrows. “It’s a small town. I have a feeling it doesn’t take much to rile it.”
He squinted at her. “The way I heard it, you’re supposed to be six-foot-one. And a redhead.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“I do like redheads.” He shook his head, clearly disappointed.
Harper didn’t know how to respond to that.
“I can’t decide if you’re stupid or crazy,” he said, leaning against the cabinets on the wall.
“Is there an HR department here that I should complain to about you?”
He snorted. “Don’t be so sensitive.”
“Wait a minute. Do you even work here?”
He snorted again. “Do I work here? I’ve been with this company since Luke started it, and before that, I worked for Charlie.”
“Got a name?”
“Frank.”
“Frank, I’m Harper.”
“The boss moved you in awful fast, don’t you think?”
“To his house or the office?” Crap. Three days with Luke, and he already had her answering questions with questions.
“What I’m saying is the boss had his reasons for taking you in, giving you a job.
I’m not here to question his judgment—questionable though it may be.
I’m here to warn you that if you mess with this company or that family, you’ll answer to me.
They’ve all been through enough these past years and don’t need some crazy hot head coming in and messing things up for them. ”
“You think I’m a crazy hot head?”
“You tackled a man twice your size screaming like a banshee, didn’t you? You’ve got that fist-sized black eye. Rolled into town homeless.”
“Maybe I just had a bad day.”
“Yeah, well, maybe so. Just don’t go taking that bad day out on everyone else around here. This is a nice town, nice people. So if you’re not in it for the long haul, move along. ”
“You must care about the Garrisons a lot to feel like you have to defend them from a potential threat like me.”
“They’re okay. Maybe you’re okay, too. But I don’t know you. I do know Luke and the rest of them. So if you’re good to them and stay out of my way on the job, we’ll be just fine.”
“Fair enough, Frank. I’ll keep that in mind. And just so you know, if you’re good at your job, not pissing off customers, or coming in here and yelling at me every day, we’ll be fine.”
He nodded briskly. “Fair enough. Be seeing you.” He threw a little salute and walked out the door.
This town was way too small.