Kitabı oku: «Boss On Notice»

CHAPTER ONE

THERE WAS A kid in his kitchen. Not a regular kid but a baby-size kid. Josh stopped in the doorway and stared at him. The kid, in blue shorts and a white shirt with a sailboat on the front, stood a few feet from the sliding glass door that led to the patio. He was rubbing the bottom of his nose with the back of a fat little hand, staring at his own reflection in the glass and scratching his bottom with the other hand.

“Uh...um, hey? Who are you?”

The kid’s eyes opened wide as he turned to look at Josh. He pulled the hand away from his nose and a string of snot followed, stretching long and low, before dripping down onto the floor. The kid stood there, mouth moving, looking too startled to speak. Josh put his hands up like, “okay, okay, it’s good, we’ll figure this out,” but it was too late. The kid’s face crumpled into something that resembled a boiled troll’s seconds before an ungodly screeching wail began.

What the hell? This kid could give an ambulance siren some competition. Tears began to run down his face and he shuffled his feet in a kind of awkward dance.

“Hey. Hey. It’s okay,” Josh said, taking a step forward and extending a hand, not knowing if he was supposed to extend the hand. “Sorry. You scared the sh—You scared me.” He gave his best shot at a friendly smile.

How it was possible for the screech to get louder, Josh did not know, but, yep, the volume shot straight from ambulance siren to aircraft-taking-off territory. Josh glanced around the small apartment. He’d left the sliding glass door to the back patio open to air out the kitchen after he’d accidentally set fire to a bag of microwave popcorn. The screen had been pushed open. The kid had wandered in. Which meant that whoever the kid belonged to was out there, somewhere. Okay, this was a problem with a solution.

“Hey, come on,” he said. “Let’s find your mom.”

Josh took a few steps in the direction of the door but the kid didn’t follow. Nope. Not that easy. What the kid did was fall over on his butt and...get louder? Was that even possible? Yes, it was.

Josh started to cover his ears, then forced himself to let his hands fall back to his sides. How did parents deal with this? He tried a smile. Made what he hoped was a comical shrug. What did they do on Sesame Street? There had to be some kind of kid code, a universal sign for “all is cool,” but hell if he knew it. “Where’s your momma, little guy?”

The shriek seemed to have maxed out, but now there was a bubble of snot expanding, expanding...from one of the kid’s nostrils. At the point Josh thought surely it was going to pop, the snot bubble shrank back down when the kid remembered to breathe. Then, it began to grow again. Okay, really? The thing about snot bubbles was—How do you look away? Josh felt his own face going red. A train wreck of a house he could handle. That was all in a day’s work. Nasty grout that needed scouring, a floor that hadn’t been mopped in months, greasy kitchen grime—all that he could put right with or without the rest of the Crew. But a wailing kid? There were people for that. Parents. Again, he gave it a try. “Hey, little guy, your mom? Where?” Nope, not going to be that easy apparently.

He crossed the kitchen, put his hands under the kid’s armpits and lifted. He turned his face to the side so he wouldn’t get puked on and could at least spare one eardrum. That snot bubble was an issue, too, now about a big as a bubble in a Hubba Bubba gum ad. He slid the screen door to the side and walked outside holding the kid as far from himself as possible. Wasn’t there a character in an X-Men movie that could knock down brick walls with his superpowered scream? This kid could be that guy.

He crossed the small concrete patio and stepped out into the grass, already feeling the weight of the kid in his shoulders. He looked both ways. There were four apartments lined up. Two duplexes and a parched strip of St. Augustine grass between the two buildings. What he did not see was anyone that could help.

“Hello?” he said.

Now the kid was kicking his legs and wiggling in Josh’s grip. He caught a couple of baby-shoe kicks in the ribs. Geez, put this kid in martial arts, he’d be dangerous.

“Ian?”

Josh turned toward the sound of the voice. Frantic. Female. Mom? Could this be Mom? Ian screamed and wiggled and blew more snot bubbles. Please, God, let that be his mother. A woman snatched the baby from his hands. She sank down into the grass, clutching the baby. Petite, young, blonde. When she looked up at him, as if still wondering what to think, he saw the panic in her eyes. Blue eyes, pupils wide, shining with tears.

“Oh, my God, Ian. Ian, baby. Don’t ever scare Mommy like that ever again.”

She hugged him and kissed his face. Josh wanted to look away when the snot bubble popped right on Mom’s cheek, but if she even noticed, there was no sign of it. Okay, yeah, maybe moms don’t care, but gross! Josh shifted his feet in the grass and stuffed his hands in his back pockets. “Uh. Sorry. The sliding glass door, on my patio, it was open, he wandered in. I think I scared him.”

She stood, keeping the boy clutched tight against her. “He... Wait, what? Oh, God.” She looked at the boy, shook her head and then looked back at Josh. Tears welled at the bottom of her eyes. She ran a hand through her hair, brushing it back, and let out a great big breath. “Thank you. Oh, Ian. Don’t do... Don’t scare me like...” She cleared her throat, turned her head, seemed to compose herself. “I didn’t realize our back door was unlocked,” she said. “I went in the other room for one second and...” Her face went pale and Josh could see in her eyes all of the nightmare scenarios that were playing out in her head. She hugged Ian to her. “Thank you. He’s not getting out of my sight again.” She looked at Ian. “No, sir, you are not.”

“At least now I know where to return him. I’m Josh, by the way. Josh Sanders.”

She jiggled the baby to her hip and held out a free hand. “Mickie Phillips. Nice to meet you.”

“Moving in?” He tried to look her over with being too obvious about it. Her laser focus on the child in her arms helped in this regard. She was busy finger-brushing his messy hair and cleaning the snot off his cheek—finally!—with a tissue that seemed to have materialized out of thin air. Was that some kind of secret mom power? She looked like she might be halfway through her twenties. Slim, but he could see the strength in her, in the way she held that boy. Good cheekbones, cute nose. Blond hair and ice-blue eyes. Dang. She looked like she could have some Viking shieldmaiden in her gene pool. There was a slight trace of an accent he couldn’t place, but it wasn’t Southern.

“Yeah.”

“Welcome to the neighborhood. Let me know if you ever need anything.”

He said it as he was already turning around and starting to walk back to his place. The spot on his arm where her hand had brushed him tingled with a little rush of heat. Cute little blonde? Maybe. Cute little blonde with a baby? Oh, hell no. He and babies did not mix. Would not.

Once he got back to his place, he slid the glass door shut and made sure to lock it behind him. He washed his hands at the kitchen sink in case there were any lingering baby germs.

Well, that had sure been something. He snagged a paper towel, wiped his hands dry. Ice-blue eyes... He glanced toward the patio. Nope. Popped open the fridge but surprisingly, nothing had magically appeared there that could be properly considered food. Jars of mustard, mayo. Some bologna maybe a smidge past sketchy. Bottles of water. Why was he hungry all of a sudden? Blonde. Blue eyes. He scooped up his motorcycle helmet and made a beeline for the door.

The thing about it was that Columbia didn’t feel like home yet. He felt like a visitor. Still felt like it was all temporary. He missed Charleston more than he’d thought he would. He missed Sadie and the guys. He pulled the cover off his restored ’68 Harley Sportster. So, he’d kill a couple of hours exploring the town, see if he could work this out. Maybe pick up a few groceries—or, let’s be real here, take-out—and come back to get ready for the next day.

As the bike rumbled out of the small parking lot to the street, he caught a glimpse of blond hair turning the corner. He turned in that direction. Mickie. She was walking briskly down the street, pushing the baby in a stroller. He lifted a hand as he rode by, but she didn’t see him. Maybe that was okay. Maybe that was better. He gunned the accelerator, hit the road, twisted and turned through the maze that was this strange new place.

Blond hair, blue eyes, hey, come on. Geez. Look around you. USC. The statehouse. Liberty Tap Room and UFO, like he’d ever get up and sing karaoke. At least having a bike meant he could find parking somewhere, maybe. That was different from downtown Charleston. And even this was only the tight little downtown area. Never mind all the outlying areas he hadn’t ventured out into yet.

This was a much bigger city, sprawling out into a confusing jumble of suburbs. The move had come sooner than expected. Josh was running the expansion of Sadie’s all-male cleaning company, the Cleaning Crew. The plan had been to run it out of Charleston for several months before committing to a move. But the client list had grown more quickly than expected. He was gaining more respect for what Sadie had built. Between hiring employees and making sure clients understood that house cleaning was the only service provided, he was currently only one of two guys doing the cleaning. Add in all the paperwork and he was pretty sure Sadie was a freaking genius and a saint for never having throttled anyone, at least not anyone that Josh knew of.

He rode until he remembered that he was hungry. That popcorn was supposed to have been breakfast. Hey, the Five Points shopping district was straight ahead. Starbucks to satisfy the immediate urge for caffeine and something solid, maybe a bagel, with a follow-up at the Food Lion for some grown-up shopping. He did exactly that. After he finished, the grocery store was right there.

He grabbed as much as he could fit in the saddlebags on the bike and headed home. The ride home put his head straight. That was a lot easier now that there was food in his stomach. When he turned into the duplex, he saw her again.

Mickie. She was pushing the stroller. A bulging backpack was strung across her shoulders, while shopping bags dangled from the stroller handles and a cardboard box balanced on top of the handles. Wait, why? Moving in like that? From where?

He shook his head as he pulled around back, parking the bike on his patio. None of your business, man. You need to get into those applications. Find some guys.

A couple of hours later, there she was again, pushing the baby stroller, loaded down with shopping bags. What was she going back and forth for? Didn’t she have a car? Could she only carry small bits at a time? Kind of like him and his saddlebags when he wasn’t driving the SUV? He stepped out on the front porch.

“Do you need some help?” he asked.

Her cheeks were pink and there was a faint sheen of perspiration on her forehead. It was well over 90 degrees. Hello, South Carolina summer. The baby...boy—wasn’t there another word? Toddler!—looked toasty, also.

“No. I’m fine.” There was slight emphasis on the fine. A back off emphasis.

He hesitated. Because she clearly wasn’t fine. She was hauling stuff with a baby in this heat. That didn’t seem to be fine to him. He shrugged. Not his problem. “Okay. But if you need help, I’m right here. Ask.”

She nodded as she pushed the stroller over her doorstep and closed the door. Whatever. I offered. A minute later, he heard her door open and close again. He frowned at the sight out his front window. She was heading off again, empty backpack and empty stroller. Well, the kid was still in there. He stood there for a long minute. She doesn’t want your help, dude. Let it go. He let it go.

Until she repeated the process. He opened his front door again. “Hey. Wait up.”

She stopped on the sidewalk and turned back to him. “I’ve got this.”

“I’m sure you do. But I’ve got an SUV. Might cut down on the number of trips you have to make.”

She let go of the stroller to lift her hair off her neck as she contemplated him. He hated that his offer of help had to be considered with such a concern for safety, but that was the world today. “I told you my name. I’m Josh Sanders. I can call references for you right now. I want to help. I can’t stand watching you run back and forth in this heat with the little guy.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone. “See, I’ll call my boss. Sadie Martin.” He tapped through, hoping Sadie would answer. She did. He put the call on speaker and moved closer to Mickie.

“Hey, Josh, what’s up?” Sadie asked. He couldn’t get over how happy and relaxed she sounded. Love was agreeing with her.

“Hey. Listen, I’ve got my new neighbor Mickie here and she needs some help moving her stuff. Tell her I’m a good guy.”

“He’s a great guy, Mickie. Let him help. Don’t let him cook for you, but let him help you move heavy things.”

Mickie smiled but was still shaking her head. “You could be anyone,” she said.

“But I’m not,” Sadie said through the speaker. “I’m Sadie Martin. I own the Cleaning Crew down in Charleston. Josh is my number-one guy. He’s up there getting our second location started. You can look us up online. He was the only person I trusted on this planet to do that for me. Let him help you move some boxes.”

“I really do have an SUV,” Josh said. “If you have a car seat, we can put it in there and be done in, what? One or two trips?”

She looked down at Ian and then up at the sun. It was well past noon. She pressed her lips together. A sigh flowed out of her. “Okay,” she said.

He would have been relieved if not for the tone of her voice. The way she said it, it sounded as if she’d failed at something.