Chapter 6 #4
“But we don’t have a driver scheduled to come out there. When you changed the quantity, it changed your standard delivery time that isn’t in my paperwork.”
“I can have somebody meet you in Mustang River and pick the batch up, but we’re going to have to sort this out. Today, though, the hotel needs its linens. And it needs the dirty ones picked up for washing. If you can’t come all the way out to the ranch, we can make an exchange. I’ll arrange it.”
“That’s not standard.”
“I don’t care if it’s standard or not. If we can’t get it done, then I’m going to have to find a new company to service the resort. Or hell, I’ll do the laundry myself.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “We can have the delivery brought out by six p.m. But there will be a surcharge.”
“You can bring it out by six, but I’m going to dispute the charge because I have a confirmation in my email saying that you’re going to bring it out today. Make the charge if you have to in order to make the delivery but just know that I’m going to file a claim.”
“We have to make the charge.”
“I hear you. And I don’t want to delay the delivery.
Like I said, just know that I will be disputing that charge later.
So you can do whatever you need to now, but you have to understand that I am going to do that because we had an agreement, written and in my email, that the delivery would be made today.
So it’s only fair that I not be charged extra for your failure to give me the right information. ”
He couldn’t do anything but watch her. She negotiated coolly and calmly, a machete still in her hand, clutching the handle with her knuckles pressed against her hip as she spoke into the phone.
She had dirt on her face, and somehow that only added to the picture.
The tank top she was wearing was skin-tight, and showed off those arm muscles that he had already noticed recently.
Muscles that had developed even more over the course of blazing this trail.
She was strong, she was competent, she was running rings around this person on the phone, and she was...
Lila Grayson was sexy as hell.
Stone cold fucking sober and he couldn’t deny it.
It was like being hit by a freight train.
It had never been the alcohol.
The alcohol just killed all his defenses, all his denial.
Actually putting that feeling, that thought into words was like getting punched straight in the gut. He wanted it to go away. He wanted to never think it again, he wanted to have never thought it in the first place. But alas. He had thought it. He was still thinking it.
How long had he felt this way?
No. He wasn’t doing that. He could feel the thoughts behind the closed door beginning to push against that door, and he was going to keep it shut.
And once everything calmed down, he was going to shove this thought right behind the door too.
Because he didn’t need this. He didn’t want it.
He hadn’t consented to it. She was the one standing there with her guns out and her tank top molded perfectly to her small, firm-looking breasts, her hip cocked out to the side, displaying all the attitude that she was effectively keeping out of her voice.
It was her fault.
Her fault for getting drunk and making him put her to bed. Her fault for taking all those shots and standing too close to him.
Her fault for blushing like she had last night, her fault for shoving him when he had moved between her legs to put that Band-Aid on her forehead.
What had he been doing?
That memory suddenly hit a whole lot clearer. Along with the irritation he felt over her flirting with that other guy.
The way that he had moved in close.
So, I’m your brother. Am I?
He had been pissed about that. And he had been pushing closer to her and...
He wasn’t this unself-aware, was he?
Had he deserved to get shoved against a wall?
This was horrendous. Genuinely horrendous.
And he missed the end of the phone call, only saw Lila’s triumphant expression as she hung up the call.
“Success. If you just stay calm and firm and don’t take no for an answer, eventually, you can get whatever you want.”
Whatever you want.
He hated that thought too. Pushed it to the side.
“Got the fee refunded?”
“I did. And the delivery will be there by six, so there’s no drama.” She laughed. “Linen crisis averted.”
“I don’t know how you do all this,” he said, and in the back of his mind, he was still reeling.
“I like it. It’s so different from being a kid. I couldn’t control anything, I couldn’t get anyone to do what I wanted. And now I’ve figured out how to manage all this stuff, how being professional but firm can get things accomplished. I have control over my life. What’s not to like?”
“Well, nothing I guess.”
“Exactly.”
She turned away from him and started to hack away at brush with the machete.
And all he could do was stand there and stare. He felt like his entire world had just turned on its axis.
And he desperately needed to get it turned back to where it was.
And he was stuck spending the night out here with her. The axis-turner herself.
This was going to go great.