Chapter 7
***RYAN***
It had been three days since Ryan started his stakeout at the end of the kitchen table, and he wasn’t looking forward to the fourth.
Sitting around watching Hattie and Paula bake wasn’t exactly entertaining.
He’d already been through chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and snickerdoodles, and he was actually dreading the moment he’d have to taste what came out of the oven that day, but he couldn’t back down. He’d just have to grin and bear it.
Not that Paula had done anything suspicious, in fact, she’d been perfectly polite, too polite, and that was driving him crazy, especially since the urge to kiss her had grown to almost unbearable proportions.
It hadn’t happened all at once; instead, it had crept up on him so slowly that he’d almost let the desire overrule his common sense, nearly turned a completely innocent trip to the coffee pot into something entirely different.
The whole situation was making him increasingly frustrated and he’d been taking it out on everyone around him, but he didn’t trust Paula enough to leave her alone.
Looking around his room, which was a total disaster, he made a mental list of all the other things he could be doing instead of babysitting a reporter, then grabbed a book he’d been meaning to read.
He took the front stairs instead of the back and paused in the entryway to watch the snow falling for a moment, then turned and headed down the hallway toward the kitchen.
The sound of someone in the study caught his attention, and thinking it was one of his friends, he popped his head inside, his mouth open to call out a greeting.
He clamped it shut again when he saw Paula sitting at the computer, tapping away and humming quietly, then crept into the room so quietly she didn’t hear him.
“What are you doing in here?” he demanded, making her jump and let out a little scream.
“I knew that if I waited long enough, I’d catch you!
Get away from that computer, you’ve done all the snooping you’re going to do for one day. ”
“You scared the hell out of me,” she said to him, putting her hand over her chest. “What the hell were you thinking? You don’t just sneak up on people like that. I could have…”
“I wouldn’t have scared you if you hadn’t been in here snooping.
You don’t belong in here; the kitchen is on the other side of the house,” he sneered, stomping over to her.
“Did you lose your way? Maybe you need an escort back to where you belong. Maybe Hattie should hear about what you’re doing in here. ”
“Wow, I thought you were just paranoid, but now I can see that you’re a bit dramatic too,” she said, leaning back in the chair, clearly not planning to move. “Why don’t you go see Hattie while I finish what I’m doing? Maybe she can calm you down. I don’t get paid enough for this nonsense.”
He could feel his face turning red as anger slowly built inside him. “If you think I’m just going to walk off and leave you in here digging through all our personal information, you’re wrong,” he growled. “Now get up out of that chair, you’re coming with me.”
“And if I refuse?” Paula asked, her voice sweet but her eyes flashing with anger. “Lay one hand on me and you’ll be sorry. I know how to defend myself.”
He should have been even angrier and he was, but underneath that anger was a burning desire that threatened to spill over any second.
His dragon was awake and sending messages to his body that were diametrically opposite of what his brain wanted to do, leaving him standing there staring at her, frozen in place.
Being simultaneously angry and turned on was something new for him and he was just about to act on one or the other of the emotions when Hattie came strolling through the door.
“How’s it going with those lists?” she asked, then saw him standing there. “Oh, Ryan, I hope we’re not in your way. My computer died, I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but Malcolm said he’d look at it later.”
“Almost finished,” Paula said, smiling sweetly at Hattie. “I’m sorry, I would have been done sooner but Ryan and I got to chatting.”
“Well, isn’t that nice, you two have been spending a lot of time together,” Hattie said, a pleased smile on her face. “It’s so nice when everyone gets along.”
The printer started up and Paula got to her feet. “Alright, I’m all set, I’ll just grab the lists off the printer when they’re done and I’ll be out of your way, Ryan,” she said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“I don’t need the computer that bad, I just…” his words died away.
“Nonsense, come sit down, I left the seat nice and warm for you,” Paula said, crossing the room toward the door. “I’d better get back to work.”
“I’ll be right there,” Hattie said. “I just need to grab the contract and then we can get to work.”
“Sounds good,” Paula said, then stuck her tongue out at him. “Have a good evening, Ryan. It sure was a pleasure to see you again.”
He wanted to go after her, wanted to shake her until the smile disappeared from her face, but more than anything, he wanted to kiss her.
With a groan, he stomped over to the window and stared out at the street, taking deep breaths to get himself under control.
Hattie had no idea who she’d brought into the house, but he wasn’t about to let his guard down.
He was a grown man; he could control these ridiculous urges and keep the dragon inside him reined in until he could expose Paula for what she really was.
***Paula***
Paula was feeling smug as she walked back to the kitchen.
Not only had she gotten the better of Ryan, even if it was a juvenile gesture, she’d had a few minutes to do a little snooping.
There hadn’t been much in the desk, just a few bills in the fraternity’s name, some stationery with their letterhead, and some office supplies, but she’d found a couple of files on the computer that looked promising.
They’d be waiting for her in her inbox when she got home and she could hardly wait, but first it was cookie basket day and she had a lot of work to do.
It was probably too much to hope that Ryan would stay away after their little confrontation in the study; in fact, he’d probably feel the need to harass her even more now.
The man was a mess for sure, a hot mess, but a mess nonetheless, and she shouldn’t have gotten so much satisfaction from seeing him shut down, but he deserved it, even if he was right.
If he’d just tell her what she’d seen that night she could walk away, live the rest of her life secure in the knowledge that she hadn’t lost her mind for a few minutes in the cold and darkness.
Since that wasn’t going to happen, she’d have to find out for herself.
It had become a quest now, a need to best Ryan, to show him that she was smarter than he was, or at least that’s what she was telling herself.
If she’d begun to look forward to seeing him when she came to work, it wasn’t because of the warm feeling that spread through her, it wasn’t because of the tingles that filled her body whenever he was around.
No, it was the challenge he presented, the battle they fought every day as he tried to keep secrets and she tried to expose them.
Reminding herself that she had a job to do, she pushed Ryan out of her mind and got to work setting out everything they would need to make the gift baskets that would be delivered the next day.
After multiple trips to both the freezer and the supply room, she had an assembly line set up and started by packing cookies into colorful holiday bags, then tying them closed with a ribbon.
She was just finishing the chocolate chip when Hattie came rushing into the kitchen, a harried look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, setting her task aside. “Come sit down and I’ll get you some water.”
“Opening a business is so much harder than I thought it would be,” Hattie said, plopping down in a chair. “I just got an email from Dean Proctor. He added ten more cookie baskets to his order, and on top of that, the man I hired to deliver the baskets just cancelled on me.”
She filled a glass with ice, then water, brought it over to Hattie, and then sat down next to her. “Okay, let’s take this one thing at a time,” she said. “But first I want you to drink half that glass of water.”
Hattie complied without complaining, then flashed her a little smile. “I’m sorry, I just got overwhelmed,” she said, then sighed. “But it does feel like something is constantly going wrong.”
“We can handle ten more baskets, we were prepared for that,” she said, pushing the glass over to Hattie again. “And I can do the deliveries. I know this campus as well as anyone, it’ll be easy.”
“I don’t know, that’s a lot to ask, Paula,” Hattie said, then finished the rest of the water. “I would pay you extra of course, but I don’t…”
“Then it’s settled,” she said, not wanting to see the older woman upset. “I’ll make the deliveries and no one will even know we had a little hiccup.”
Hattie took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. If this business succeeds, I’m going to owe you big time, but you’re beginning to convince me we can do this,” she said, her voice full of conviction. “Do you have a plan in mind?”
“You bet,” she said, grinning. “Let’s take a look at that list and come up with a delivery schedule. They should all be within a few miles of each other. The campus isn’t that big.”
She grabbed the list, then pulled up a map on her phone, “Okay, let’s break it down into ten deliveries at a time, that’s probably all the baskets I can fit in my car at one time,” she said. “That means about ten trips…”
“I bet I can get permission to use the fraternity van; you could load a lot more into that,” Hattie said, grabbing her phone. “Just let me send a quick text to Mar… my boss.”
While Hattie tapped away on her phone, she started divvying up the deliveries into four groups, figuring she could divide them further from there. “Okay, we’ve got permission,” Hattie said, a triumphant smile on her face. “But we’re going to need one more basket.”
“That’s a small price to pay,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “That’s going to make everything so much easier.”
By the time she left, they had a plan for the next day and she was seriously considering wearing a Santa suit to work, but decided she’d settle for an obnoxious Christmas sweater she had stuffed on a shelf in the back of her closet.
She sang along to the carols on the radio as she drove home that night.
It had been a good day, and if she was lucky, the files waiting for her in her inbox would make it an even better one.
It was easy to ignore the underlying guilt that never quite went away.
She was helping Hattie, not hurting her.
If she did a little spying along the way, no one could blame her.