“I can’t go back to work for at least two weeks,” Kurt said cryptically.

“Oh. That’s too bad.” Jodie had visions of working without him around to distract her. Her spirits brightened. Maybe things were looking up after all.

“I’m going to have to work at home—and that’s where you will come in,” he said.

She blinked. “I will?”

“Sure. You can work with me here.”

The nerve of that man.

“No way!” she exclaimed.

He laughed softly. “Jodie, calm down. This is the way I want it. You’re going to have to comply.”

His gaze was dark and fathomless, and his jaw was set. He was all boss right now. He was giving orders.

The problem was, she wasn’t all that good at taking them.

The Boss, the Baby and Me
Raye Morgan

RAYE MORGAN

has spent almost two decades, while writing over fifty novels, searching for the answer to that elusive question: Just what is that special magic that happens when a man and a woman fall in love? Every time she thinks she has the answer, a new wrinkle pops up, necessitating another book! Meanwhile, after living in Holland, Guam, Japan and Washington, D.C., she currently makes her home in Southern California with her husband and two of her four boys.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

The man had to go.

Jodie Allman glared at Kurt McLaughlin, head of the marketing department of Allman Industries, as he went on talking earnestly to Mabel Norton. Office hours were long over and Mabel was on her way home, her handbag slung over her shoulder. Kurt didn’t glance Jodie’s way as he conversed with the director of Hospitality Services, but she knew that he knew she was standing there across the office floor, waiting for further instructions.

“One…two…three…” she whispered to herself, tapping her foot as she counted. Counting to ten was a primitive but well-honored way of keeping control of her temper. It was probably time she moved on to more sophisticated methods—such as finding a way to get the man out of her life.

“It’s such a simple thing,” she told herself for the hundredth time that week, pushing her thick, blond hair back behind her ear in a gesture of impatience. “My father owns this company. Why the heck can’t I get him to announce one particular layoff?”

Of course, she hadn’t actually tried. Thinking about having Kurt thrown out on his ear was infinitely satisfying. But actually watching him pack up his meager belongings in a cardboard box and carry them sadly to his truck while the female support staff sobbed helplessly and shot daggers at Jodie would be another thing entirely. She wasn’t nearly the tough-as-nails independent woman she would like to pretend.

The frustrating thing was, it really seemed that no one else could see through Kurt McLaughlin the way she could. Even the others in her family didn’t seem to take the threat he posed seriously. And all her coworkers around here adored him. The fact that he was over six feet tall with a build right out of a woman’s fantasy and a face handsome enough to turn heads in the cafeteria didn’t hurt. The auburn hair that always looked a little wind-ruffled, and the green eyes that seemed to scan a woman right down to her heart and soul, were added attractions that muddied the waters for most females. They were so busy being bowled over by his admitted charms that they didn’t notice what he was up to.

She’d only been back in town and working for him for a few weeks, but she’d gotten his number right away. Once you realized what his game was, it was just so obvious.

Suddenly she noticed he was looking up at her, though he was still talking to Mabel. And to her astonishment, he was crooking his finger in her direction. Crooking his finger!

Well, that did it. There was no way she was dashing up, like a little, woolly dog, to a man who crooked his finger at her. She wasn’t going to wait around any longer, either. It was way past time to go home. The three of them were probably the only people left in this ancient building, as it was. With one last baleful look in his direction, she turned on her heel and strode for the elevator, heading back up to her office to get her things.

“Hey.”

It took her a moment to realize he was coming after her. Quickly, she jabbed at the Close Door button, and the doors began to move. But he was too fast for her, stepping into the elevator, and reaching across her to jab at the “stop” button. She hit the Close Door button again, just for emphasis, and he turned to grin at her as the doors opened, closed and opened again, before finally grounding together with a screeching of gears.

His grin faded fast.

“Uh-oh,” he said, turning to look at the control panel.

The elevator shot up a dozen feet or so, then shuddered to a stop, complaining loudly.

“Uh-oh,” Jodie echoed, agreeing with him for the first time in recent memory.

An eerie silence reigned while they both stared at the control panel, hoping for a sign of life. Then Kurt sprang forward and tried one button after another, getting absolutely no response. Alarmed, Jodie stepped forward, as well, and did the same, pushing every button twice. There was absolutely no indication that the buttons were connected to anything.

“Look what you did,” Kurt muttered darkly. “We’re stuck.”

“What I did?” she responded, throwing him a smoldering glare. “You’re the one who forced your way onto my elevator ride.”

“I had to do that. You were trying to escape.”

“Escape!” she choked, as she fought back the retort she was tempted to make. She took a deep breath.

Calm. We must remain calm. This is, after all, your current boss. Such as he may be.

“I was standing there waiting for you, trying to catch your attention for ages, but you were talking away to Mabel Norton as though it was the most important thing you’d done all day.”

“It was. The most important thing in my world, at any rate.” His face softened. “I was getting some advice on finding child care for Katy.”

“Oh.” She winced, knowing only too well how he felt about his young daughter.

“I’ve been having some trouble finding someone to care for her during the day.” His look sharpened. “You wouldn’t happen to know anyone who might like a baby-sitting job, would you?”

She backed away, hands out. “Sorry. I don’t know much about babies. Or about those who like to care for them, for that matter.”

“Yes, I realized you weren’t big on babies from the first,” he said dryly.

That startled her a bit. She didn’t know what she’d done to give him that impression, and something about the unemotional way he’d put it made her uncomfortable. But let’s face it, babies made her uncomfortable.

Still, that was hardly the point. They had larger problems at the moment. Here they were, caught together in an old elevator in a building that should have been torn down years ago. But it was considered a historic landmark by the mavens of this Texas cow-country town of Chivaree. Things like this just didn’t happen. Did they?

It seemed they did. But everything had been a little out of whack ever since she’d returned to her hometown after an absence of almost ten years and found a McLaughlin in a position at Allman Industries that she never would have expected a McLaughlin to have. And then she’d been told she’d be working for him. That had certainly gone against the grain.

She’d grown up thinking of all McLaughlins as the elitist enemy, the rich people up on the hill, looking down their noses at the Allmans and their ilk. Yes, “ilk” had been a word she’d heard used about her family. She’d never been too clear on what it meant, but she did know it was a way of being condescending toward her kind. And she knew enough about some pretty unsavory incidents in the far past that had poisoned relations between the two clans—and probably always would.

Throughout her childhood, the Allmans had always been scrambling for pennies while the McLaughlins were happily buying up the entire town. There had been times when her family might even have skimmed the edges of the law just a bit here and there. But knowing that had only hardened the resentment she’d felt when others in this town whispered that the Allmans were a shiftless rabble always out for a fast buck.

And now, miraculously, the tables had turned. Her father, Jesse Allman, had somehow managed to make a go of a business, to the surprise of even his own children. In fact, his winery had grown so quickly, it was now the major employer in town. Not many people insulted him to his face these days but prejudices weren’t easy to overcome. She had a good idea what the folks of Chivaree really thought about her family.

And she thought she knew what Kurt McLaughlin’s true agenda was, since she’d found him happily ensconced in the management of her father’s company when she had returned. Of all people—why did it have to be him? She turned back to look at the man and found him on the intercom, trying to find help.

“Hello. Hello! We’re stuck in the elevator.”

They both listened for a long moment, but there was no answer. He turned and looked at her. “There’s no one in the utility room,” he said, frowning.

“Obviously,” she agreed, trying not to think about the fact that there was probably no one at all left in the building but the two of them. Mabel Norton would have headed for the parking lot the moment Kurt dashed off toward the elevator. And everyone else had gone long ago. Their only hope was to find a way to communicate to the outside world. “Isn’t there an alarm?”

“An alarm. Of course.” He reached for it, pulling the lever out. Nothing happened.

“Maybe you pulled it too slowly,” she said, starting to feel real apprehension seeping in. “Try it again. Give it a good jerk.”

He tried again then turned to her, the lever dangling from his fingers. “Oops,” he said.

She bit her lip and forced back the comment that would have been only natural at a time like this. “Well then,” she said carefully, avoiding his gaze. “Since neither of us seems to have a cell phone handy, I guess we’ll just have to wait.”

“Wait?” He ran a hand through his thick, auburn hair, staring at her as though he thought she might really know the answer. “Wait for what?”

“For someone to realize we’re missing.”

He turned away impatiently, then turned back and met her dark gaze with his own brilliant one. “Everyone’s gone home,” he said gruffly, as though he’d just realized that fact.

She gulped. He was right. They could be here for a long time. This was not good.

“We’re stuck here until someone tries to use the elevator and it doesn’t arrive,” he said, making the obvious deduction. “It’s just you and me, kid.”

In her wildest dreams, she’d never imagined a more unexpected scenario. She reached out to steady herself against the side railing. Suddenly the air seemed too thick, and his shoulders seemed too wide, looming in her way as they filled the elevator car. And in his well-tooled cowboy boots, he seemed even taller than his normally imposing height.

“This is your worst nightmare, isn’t it?” He appeared to be a mind reader among his other annoying talents, though he’d said it with a hint of amusement in his voice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said primly, concentrating on the inspection certificate on the wall. The official-looking document claimed all was well with this horrible machine. The document was lying.

“Don’t you?” He laughed softly.

She risked a look at him and immediately regretted it. “Are you trying to tell me that you enjoy being stuck in an elevator?” she demanded.

He considered her question for a moment, one eyebrow raised. “That’s not as easy to answer as you might think,” he told her. “Circumstances could be the deciding factor. After all, if I was stuck with Willy from the mailroom, he’d whip out a deck of cards, and we’d be playing gin so hard we would forget about the time. Or if it was Bob from Accounting, he’d be telling me fascinating stories about his time in the Special Forces during Desert Storm. And Tiana from the art department might give me a demonstration of the new belly dancing classes she’s been taking.”

Jodie made a sound of impatience, hoping to keep him from going on with this. “Yes, but you’re not stuck with all those wonderful, interesting people. You’re stuck with me.”

“Yes, you.” His white teeth flashed in an impudent grin, and his gaze ran up and down the length of her, making her wish she hadn’t worn the snug, blue sweater and tight, denim skirt that showed off her figure with maybe just a bit too much flare. Then he challenged her teasingly. “So what are you good for?”

She wanted to turn and flounce off, but that was impossible under the circumstances. A flounce like that would land her smack up against the opposite wall. So she settled for trying to look bored with it all.

“Nothing, I guess,” she said, letting a tiny hint of sarcasm curdle her tone.

When he leaned his long, muscular body against the wall, her gaze was magnetically drawn to the sleek slacks molded tightly across his thighs.

“Come on, Jodie,” he said. “Don’t sell yourself short. The way I see it, you’re certainly good for a laugh.”

That startled her, and she looked at him quickly, ready to resent whatever he had to say. “What are you talking about?”

He shrugged. “Your stock in trade, of course. The McLaughlin-Allman feud. You carry it around on your shoulders as though it were still 1904, and I just stole your father’s favorite broodmare.”

She drew herself up. Now he was really treading on her territory. “It’s the Allman-McLaughlin feud,” she said, correcting him icily. “And I have no idea why you think it’s a factor in my life.”

“Oh, yes, you do.” His gaze hardened and he moved restlessly. “You’re one of the few, you know. Most around here have given up on it.”

“That’s what you think.” She wished she could recall the words the moment they left her lips. Because the trouble was, she was afraid what he’d said might be true. She did seem to be one of the few who remembered the feud. What had happened to it, anyway? When she’d lived here growing up, it pervaded life in this town like nothing else had.

“So that’s it, isn’t it?” he said. “That’s what’s had you treating me like someone you need to watch around the silverware. You just can’t get past the whole feud.”

She gave up all pretense. “Neither can any of us,” she said stoutly.

“That’s not true. Look at me.”

She didn’t want to look at him. Looking at him was likely to get her into a lot of trouble. But she did it anyway.

And for the first time, she really saw him as the others did—not as an underhanded opponent in a quarrel that had its roots in her ancestral background, but as a man who had a really engaging grin and a dynamic presence crackling with potent masculinity. And her body reacted so intensely that her heart started to race and a quiver snaked its way down her spine. When their eyes met for a beat too long, she had the unsettling feeling he really could see inside her heart and soul.

“So you think you’ve changed everything?” she said, hoping he didn’t notice the breathlessness in her voice.

“No.” He shook his head. “No, I didn’t change everything. When you come right down to it, your father was the one who changed everything.”

“By hiring you, you mean?”

“Sure. I guess you know they weren’t exactly cheering him in the street at the time.”

He said it as though he admired Jesse Allman for crossing the line. Jodie looked up at him in consternation. Did he really think her father had done that out of the goodness of his crusty ole heart? Was he really that clueless?

No, that wasn’t it; he wasn’t stupid. But neither was she. She’d known from the first that Kurt had an agenda of his own. Why else would he be here, working at Allman Industries, charming the heck out of everyone in sight? He could pretend all he wanted that the past was the furthest thing from his mind. She knew better. She knew McLaughlins. It had been a McLaughlin who had almost ruined her life. But that was another story.

Still, knowing what McLaughlin men were like meant she knew she had to get away from Kurt’s influence. Taking a step into the center of the elevator, she put her hands on her hips and looked around her.

“Enough of this. I think we ought to concentrate on how we’re going to get the heck out of here.”

He watched her lazily. “Get out of here, eh? Great idea. What exactly do you suggest?”

“Well…” She scanned the walls and the ceiling, then saw something interesting. “Look up there. Isn’t that a trapdoor to the top of the elevator unit? Maybe we could open it. Shouldn’t you climb up there and see?”

She looked at him expectantly. He gave her a quizzical look, still lounging against the wall, giving every indication of being perfectly content to stay right where he was. “Me?”

“Why not you?” she asked a bit impatiently. “Don’t men always do that in movies?”

He looked up at the supposed opening, which was more than two feet over his head, and nodded. “Sure. In movies.” Looking back down, he favored her with a caustic look. “Just exactly how do you picture me getting up there? Am I supposed to sprout wings, or pull out my suction shoes for wall-walking?” He cocked an eyebrow when she didn’t answer. “Pole-vault, maybe?”

She licked her lips and frowned. “I don’t know. How do those men in the movies usually do it?”

He shrugged. “I could try climbing on your shoulders,” he suggested mildly. “Other than that, I don’t see a way up.”

She didn’t bother to roll her eyes, though she certainly felt like doing so. “There must be some way,” she muttered, frowning as she gazed about for inspiration.

He went back to looking at the small trapdoor. “And once I got up there,” he mused, “who knows what sort of electrical wiring is lurking on the other side of the door, just waiting to fry the unsuspecting adventurer.” He turned to look at her with amusement. “Tell you what. I could probably lift you up to the opening. How about you climbing up there and seeing what can be done?”

“Are you crazy?”

He shrugged as though he were disappointed in her response. “Give the woman a chance to be a hero, and what does she do?” he murmured.

“We don’t need a hero,” she retorted. “What we need is some competence.”

“Ouch. I suppose you consider that a direct hit.”

“No. A glancing blow, maybe.” She sighed, shoulders sagging. Verbal jousting with the man was all very well, but it wasn’t going to get her out of the situation. “Look, I know climbing up out of this thing is probably not doable. But it’s just so frustrating being stuck here. Can’t you think of anything?”

His green eyes flickered with something she couldn’t quite identify, but he spoke calmly. “I believe in trying to make the best of any given predicament,” he said. “So I look at this as worthwhile. It’s a good opportunity for us to get better acquainted.”

“Better acquainted!” She gaped at him. “I don’t need to be better acquainted with you. I’ve known you all my life.”

He shook his head. “Not true.”

She threw out her hands, palms up. “What do you call knowing you from birth?”

“You’ve known of me. You haven’t really known me. And I haven’t known you.” He gave her a slow smile. “We’ve been like ships passing in the night, existing side by side, but hardly paying any attention to one another. We need to get to know each other a little more intimately.”

There was something in the way he said that which caused her to take a quick step backward. From her new position of security in the corner of the elevator car, she gazed at him levelly. Was this all part of his plan? Was he trying to subvert her the way he’d done with the rest of the people around here?

“I don’t think we need to know each other better at all. We’ve got a nice, cool working relationship. Professional and businesslike. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Is that really what you think we have?” he asked innocently. “I thought we had a thing going where I was the boss and you were the recalcitrant, embittered employee who was always second-guessing her management.”

That about nailed it, she had to admit. She lifted her chin defiantly. “Is that a problem for you?”

He laughed. “No, it’s not a problem. A diversion, perhaps, but not a problem.” His expression changed. “And I guess it gives you the illusion of keeping the flame going on our families’ blasted feud, doesn’t it?”

She wasn’t going to answer that, and he knew it. Instead of prodding her, he opened a new topic.

“So tell me, Jodie. Why did you come back?”

She knew what he was asking. It was a question everyone who moved back to Chivaree got at one time or another. Most people were astonished that someone would come back to this dusty town after having made good their getaway. She decided to be frank about it.

“I came back because Matt showed up on my doorstep one day and told me that I had to.”

Matt was her brother, the oldest in her family. He was even a few years older than Kurt.

“Had to?” he echoed back to her in disbelief. “And you did what someone else told you to do without a qualm?” He shook his head in wonder. “I’ll have to ask him what his secret is.”

She lifted her chin. “He made a compelling case.”

He nodded slowly. “I see. And then you showed up in Chivaree, arrived at the office to go to work and found out you were going to have to work for me, at least for the short run.”

“Yes.”

“That must have been one of your darker days.”

She turned and glared at him, stung by the way he was continually making fun of her. “Will you stop? It’s not permanent. I’ll be moving on to some other department in a month or so.” It was her father’s brilliant plan that she should sample each area of the business to get a solid foundation in the company. “In the meantime, I can handle it.”

“Can you?” An expression of wary skepticism crossed his handsome face. “You give every indication of hating every minute of our precious time together.”

“I do not.” She bit her tongue. If she wasn’t careful, this could turn into a silly shouting match. A new tack was called for. She took a deep breath and started on one. “But you left town before I did. Why did you come back?”

She’d heard the cover story, that his wife had died and left him with their baby, so he’d returned to where his extended family could help him take care of the child. But she had her doubts. And wasn’t he hunting around for someone to baby-sit his daughter? That pretty much gave the lie to that excuse.

No, Kurt McLaughlin had an agenda. She was pretty sure she had a clue what it might be, too. And she could bet it had something to do with ruining things for the Allmans. After all, that was the pattern set over a hundred years ago by their great-grandfathers. The McLaughlins were always supposed to win, and the Allmans were always supposed to end up with their faces in the dirt.

“Okay, I’ll tell you why I came back,” he said slowly, turning his face and staring at the wall. “Believe it or not, I came back because I love this old town.”

“What?” She gaped at him.

Chivaree was not one of those adorable little towns people wrote songs about. Things had improved lately, but it was still a windswept, dusty place that the interstate bypassed years ago. People didn’t flock to Chivaree. People cashed in their chips and headed out for brighter lights as soon as they could scrape together the carfare.

From what she’d heard, he’d spent a good number of years in New York City. She’d noticed that his voice still had a nice Texas drawl, but it was subtle. So he hadn’t gone completely citified.

“It’s true,” he went on, his voice low and gravelly. “And when things seemed to fall apart for me out there in the big world, the only thing I could think of was coming back to Chivaree. Coming home.”

Coming home to heal was the feeling implicit in his voice.

For just a moment, she believed him. He sounded so sincere, and there was some sort of emotion in his face, a hint of pain, deep down. For just a flash, she bought it.

But she stopped herself quickly. He was smart, all right. He was giving her exactly the story that was most likely to touch her heart and make her believe. He was playing with her heartstrings in a very disturbing way. She had to get out of here before she fell for this stuff.

He’d turned back, and was pulling off his tie and loosening the neck of his shirt, pulling open buttons as though they were snaps. Darkly tanned skin with just a hint of chest hair appeared before her horrified gaze.

“Is it just me,” he said huskily, his eyelids drooping, “or is it getting hot in here?”

Her pulse was racing. One moment, he set out the emotional trap. Now, the physical one was laid out in front of her, just waiting for her to step into it. And darn it all if her own traitorous body wasn’t swooning like a lovesick puppy, even as she disdained the obvious way he was approaching her.

Turning away abruptly, she quickly changed the subject. “I’m not hot at all,” she said with an emphasis he surely couldn’t miss. “But I am hungry. For food,” she added quickly. Glancing back, she was chagrined to see that his eyes were gleaming wickedly.

“Are you?” he responded.

She turned back to face him, chin-high. “Desperately. I skipped lunch to get those preliminary sketches out to the art department.” She grimaced. “I wish I had my purse.”

“Why?” He pretended to look about the car. “Is there a food machine here I missed?”

“No, I’ve got a candy bar in it.”

“Hmm.” He plunged a hand down into the pocket of his crisply tailored slacks. “Look what I found. A roll of peppermints.”

“Oh.” She looked at them longingly. She really was hungry, and her mouth was so dry.

“Here.” He offered the roll to her after he’d popped one into his own mouth. She hesitated, but hunger overcame her inhibitions.

“Thanks,” she said shortly, taking a mint and sighing as the sparkling sugar did its work.

“You see?” he said softly, as he watched her. “I’m even willing to share my last meal with you.”

She started to say something. It was surely going to be a scathing retort, something that would knock him back on his heels for good. Unfortunately, the words themselves were lost to history, because the breath she took in to help facilitate her clever words shot what was left of the peppermint right down her throat. Now, instead of putting him in his place, she was choking.

“Here.” A man of action, he took matters in hand immediately, giving her a couple of sharp thumps on the back. When that didn’t seem to dislodge the little intruder, he turned her quickly and wrapped his arms around her from behind for the Heimlich maneuver.

“Hey,” she protested with a cough, before he got in a good thrust. “Stop! I’m okay.”

He relaxed, but for some reason his arms didn’t remove themselves from around her waist. “Are you sure?” he said, his voice just a bit husky, and his face so close to hers, she could feel his warm breath on her neck.

“Yes, I’m sure.” She pushed against him, but he didn’t release her. “Kurt, let go!”

Turning her head, she met his gaze. And then something magical happened. It wasn’t just that she suddenly noticed the golden flecks in his green eyes. It wasn’t even the electric sizzle that began to spread everywhere his body was touching hers. But suddenly she was filled with a longing so deep, so overwhelming, it took her breath away. She wanted to be kissed. She wanted to be kissed by Kurt McLaughlin.

“Oh,” she said softly, like a woman in a trance, her gaze fixed on his generous mouth. She tilted her head, her own lips parted, a yearning coursing through her. And for just a moment, she was sure it was going to happen.

And then he was pulling away, leaving her tottering off balance and feeling as though he’d thrown cold water on her. Feeling like a fool.

At least he didn’t laugh at her. Shooting back his cuff, he looked at his wristwatch, suddenly all business.

“Oh, dammit, it is getting late. I’m way overdue for picking Katy up. We’d better get some help so we can get out of here.”

Reaching behind her, she steadied herself with a hand on the railing. What was he saying? “Get some help?” she asked him, still breathless and embarrassed. “What are you talking about?”

Flipping back the tail of his suit coat, he pulled out something that had been attached to his belt. Staring openmouthed, Jodie saw a cell phone in his hand.

“I’ll just make a call,” he said innocently. “Hope the battery is still good. If so, we’ll get out of here in no time.”

She shook her head and blinked to clear her mind, then gave a sound of outrage. “You mean you’ve had that with you this whole time?” she cried. “Why didn’t you say so when I asked?”

“You never actually asked if I had one—you just assumed I didn’t,” he murmured. He opened the phone and began punching in a number. “Hi, Jasper? Sorry to bother you, but we’ve got a problem here at the office. I’m going to have to ask you to come back in and help me get out of the elevator.”

Murder. That was what was called for here. Something quick and painless, when he wasn’t looking. No jury in the world would convict her. Groaning, she closed her eyes and clenched her fists at her side. If she hadn’t despised him before, she now had plenty of reason to start.

But that was his plan, wasn’t it? Abruptly, she opened her eyes again and glared at his pleased smile. Something had to be done about this man!

Chapter Two

Jodie sat back and looked at her family, gathered around the big, antique kitchen table where they had come together for generations. Funny how it felt so familiar and yet so strange. The main thing missing was her mother, who had died of cancer when Jodie was sixteen. Her little brother Jed was also absent, the only family member Matt and Rita hadn’t managed to find and hog-tie to bring back home.

Rita had cooked an excellent meal—as she always did—of chicken and dumplings in the old style. Jodie glanced down the table at where her sister sat. She watched affectionately as the older woman blew a strand of hair back out of her eyes and looked expectantly from one person to another at the table, obviously trying to gauge how they liked what they were eating. When her gaze met her sister’s, she favored her with a warm smile. At least one good thing had come out of all this. Rita was happy to have most of the family together again.

Rita took care of the house and the family the way their mother would have if she hadn’t died twelve years before. She was a wonderful homemaker, and she deserved to have a loving man in her life and a family of her own. Unfortunately, you didn’t meet many great, un-attached men at the meat counter at the Chivaree supermarket these days. And Rita didn’t often veer much farther from home than that.

Matt had been her partner in reuniting the family. But Matt didn’t look happy, the way Rita did. Matt was the oldest male child in the family. He was the one who had shown up on Jodie’s doorstep, in Dallas, a month before and talked her into coming back home, giving her a long spiel about how they all needed to pull together now that their father was ill. These days, he seemed to care about that almost as much as Rita did.

In many ways, Matt had been Jodie’s original role model. After all, he’d been the first to defy their father and leave town, heading for medical school in Atlanta. He’d worked for years in a large urban hospital, and now he was back in his dumpy little hometown. She noted the brooding look on his handsome face and wondered what had put it there. Something was bothering him. She had no idea what it was.

But she didn’t have to worry about things like that with her sunny brother David, the one she looked the most like. They both had blond hair and brown eyes and a sprinkling of freckles over short noses.

Sitting next to Matt and eating everything he could get on his plate with youthful enthusiasm, David was the one who had never really left. Someone had asked her just the other day why such a handsome, happy-go-lucky young man who looked like he should be on a surfboard in Malibu would stay in Chivaree when there was a whole world out there for him. She’d laughed and said he was too lazy to leave. But that wasn’t true. She supposed she might be the only one who knew the real reason why he stayed. Love made people do strange things sometimes.

And then there was dark-eyed Rafe, the brother who was the same age as Kurt McLaughlin, the one now looking at her with a penetrating gaze that said, Hey, Jodie, don’t try to con me. I can see right through this polite little act you’re putting on. I can read your mind.

She stared right back at him with a half smile, hoping he got the message. Mind your own business!

“Hey, Pop,” David said, greeting their father as he entered the room. “You going to try to eat something?”

Leaning on his cane, the gray-haired man shook his head as Rita jumped up to pull out a chair for him. “No. I can’t eat anything. I just wanted to come out and sit with you all and look at your faces.” He sat down heavily, then made a scan of the table. “My pride and joy,” he muttered in a tone that could have been loving, but sounded a little sarcastic.

Glancing at him and then away, Jodie felt a stew of conflicting emotion—love, resentment, anger, pity. What could you do when you disliked your own parent almost as much as you loved him?

“So you all came back to save the farm for the old man, eh?” He laughed softly. “I guess I raised myself a bunch of good ones after all.”

“Hey, Pop,” Rafe said, leaning forward. “I was talking to our Dallas distributor today. Looks like we might have a shot at getting a contract with the whole Wintergreen Store chain. That could be huge for us.”

Jesse Allman nodded, but he wasn’t looking at Rafe. His gaze was trained on his oldest son. He’d been trying to get Matt to fulfill the role of heir apparent in the business for years, without a lot of success. Though Matt had often helped out in the old days when all they had was the tiny, struggling Allman Winery, he’d been away at college when Jesse had developed the plan to become the distributor for all the little wineries of this part of Texas hill country. That had launched all the success, and it was no secret Jesse thought Matt ought to be involved. “You got a dog in this fight, Matt?” he asked.

Matt looked surprised. “What about?”

“This Wintergreen thing.”

Matt shrugged. “It’s up to you, Pop. You know I’m not into the business side of things.”

Jesse’s eyes narrowed. “You oughta be,” he said shortly.

Matt and Rafe exchanged glances. “Talk to Rafe,” Matt said calmly. “He’s the one who knows what’s going on.”

Jodie sighed. It was the same old story. Did nothing ever change? The Allman family business had grown larger, morphing into Allman Industries, and the Allman family had gotten richer, changing from the old scruffy bunch who seemed to skim along just this side of lawbreaking into this vaguely respectable family that provided a good chunk of the local jobs. But the old emotions still simmered just below the surface. She was beginning to wonder if it hadn’t been a big mistake for her to come back.

“What’s eatin’ you, missy?” her father said, looking at her accusingly. “You still trying to get me to get rid of that McLaughlin boy?”

Jodie winced and put a napkin to her lips. “I never said I wanted you to get rid of him,” she protested. “I just want you to be aware of the danger he poses.”

“Danger?’” David looked up with a grin. “Ole Kurt McLaughlin? He’s a pussycat.”

“I don’t trust the McLaughlins any more than you do,” Matt chimed in. “But I’ve got to admit, Kurt is doing a fine job with marketing. We’re lucky to have him.”

She glanced quickly around the table, realizing with a sense of astonishment that she didn’t have anyone on her side at all. Not one of them understood how dangerous it was to let a man like Kurt into the power structure of their family business.

“I know your game, missy.” Jesse grinned at his daughter. “You’re like me. You can’t forget or forgive.” He slapped the flat of his hand down on the table. “But I’m not getting rid of him. Hell, no. He’s good at what he does. I don’t care if he is a McLaughlin. In fact, I love that he’s a McLaughlin. I love the looks on their pompous faces when I’m in town, or at the chamber of commerce meetings. I can smile at them and say, ‘Your fair-haired boy is workin’ for me now. Because I’m the one who’s making it in this town. You McLaughlins are done for.’”

She was reminded of all the reasons why she’d run away from this man in the first place, when she was a rebellious eighteen-year-old. She’d planned never to come back. And she might have stuck to that plan if Matt hadn’t found her and talked her into coming home again.

“He’s old, Jodie,” Matt had told her earnestly. “Old and sick. He needs us. All of us.”

She noticed with a start that her father’s hands were shaking, and her gaze flew to his face, searching for evidence. To her surprise, her heart began to race with something close to fear. Matt was right. He was old and sick. She might still be angry with him for things he’d done in the past, but he was still her father and, deep down, she cared for him. Okay, it was good that she’d come home. And despite everything, she had to stay, at least for a while.

And that meant she had to deal with Kurt McLaughlin.

A memory sailed into her head of how it had felt with his arms around her in the elevator car, and she almost gasped aloud. She definitely had to harden herself to his lethal charm. She was stuck working for him, and maybe that was for the best. After all, somebody had to look out for the good of the family.

An hour later, she escaped from the tensions in the house and took a brisk walk toward the newly renovated downtown. The sky was velvet-blue, with a full moon rising. The air was warm and dry. She could smell newly cut hay somewhere nearby.

She’d paced these same streets when she was eighteen and trying to figure out what she was going to do. And just around the corner was the little park where she and Jeremy used to meet secretly to plot how they were going to escape from Chivaree together. That seemed so long ago.

Jeremy. Had she ever really loved him? When she looked back now, she saw more excitement than love. They had needed each other for support at the time. But that wasn’t really true. She’d needed him. It turned out he hadn’t needed her at all. But that was always the way with the McLaughlins, wasn’t it?

Her steps slowed as she reached Cabrillo, the main street. The area was less familiar now, with new store-fronts on some of the buildings, and a few new structures housing a boutique and a crafts store. It was good to see the town looking prosperous, she supposed, though it did give her a twinge to see how things had changed.

Millie’s Café was just ahead, and that looked exactly the same. Maybe she would go in and have a cup of coffee and say hello to Millie, the mother of Shelley, her best friend in high school. Lights from the café spilled out onto the sidewalk, and Jodie began to anticipate how warm it was going to be once she’d gone in and snuggled into her old favorite booth.

But as she neared the corner, she got a glimpse of the people inside. It startled her to discover the place was packed. There were people crowding the entryway, waiting for seats, while others filled the booths, and still more sat at the counter. For a fraction of a moment, she got a flashing glimpse of a man who looked enough like Kurt to make her heart jump in dismay. Not wanting another possible run-in with that infuriating man, she just kept walking.

Darn! Was she really going to spend all her time reacting to Kurt? She couldn’t live this way. Looking back over her shoulder, trying to see if that really was him inside the café, she stepped off the curb and started across the street.

The thing was, there had never been a stoplight on that corner when she’d lived in Chivaree before. There had never been enough traffic to warrant one. Somehow, it hadn’t registered with her that there was one there now.

Brakes screeched. Fear flashed through her and she looked up, frozen for a few seconds. Then, she jumped, her whole body moving in a twitch reflex that somehow got her out of the way. But at the same time, her mind processed the fact that Kurt couldn’t be in Millie’s Café because that was Kurt’s face behind the wheel.

Kurt! After veering to miss her, he tried to regain control of his vehicle. And she watched in horror as his truck swerved just enough to get caught by a car coming in the other direction. There was a smash, a crunch, the horrifying shriek of metal in distress.

It wasn’t much more than a fender bender, but Jodie ran forward, apprehension flashing through her system, her heart in her throat. The driver of the car jumped out, swearing. But Kurt didn’t move. Dread building, Jodie yanked at the handle on the truck door. It came open, and she stared at the contorted way Kurt’s body lay in the cab. She gasped, and his green eyes opened.

“Hi,” he said, his wide mouth twisted, obviously in pain. “Uh, Jodie? Think you could call the paramedics? Something’s wrong with my leg.”

She was doomed, that was all there was to it. Every time she turned around, there was Kurt McLaughlin, interfering with her peace of mind. It was enough to make her want to scream.

Or at least complain a bit. But how could you complain about a man when you’d just crippled him?

Looking at him lying in his bed in the cozy house he shared with his baby daughter, Katy, she swallowed hard and wished she were anywhere else. Her brother Matt was using an automatic sander gizmo to smooth out a rough spot in the fiberglass cast he’d applied at the town clinic an hour or so before. Her brother David, who had helped get Kurt home, was standing around with his hands shoved down in the pockets of his jeans, looking very amused with it all. And she was standing in the shadows, between the bookcase and the closet, wishing the earth would open and swallow her whole.

“I knew Jodie had it in for me,” Kurt drawled, his voice half teasing, but with just enough of an edge to set her nerves twitching. “I just didn’t realize how far she was prepared to go.”

She moaned softly, but David couldn’t resist expanding on the joke.

“You know, sis, if you really want to take a guy out, you’re supposed to be the one in the car. He should be the one in the street, running for his life.”

She ignored him. She’d spent too many years fending off the pestering of big brothers—she knew better than to rise to the bait. Besides, she did feel terrible for what had happened, and she wanted to make sure Kurt knew it.

“I just don’t know how I could have been so stupid,” she began, and not for the first time.

Kurt looked up at her and groaned. “Jodie, if you try to tell me how sorry you are one more time, I’m going to have your brother use that surgical tape on your mouth.”

“We’d have to tape up her hands, too, or she’d be using them to give you apologies in sign language,” Matt said with a smirk.

“Do that, and she’ll have to resort to tapping out her pleas for forgiveness in Morse code with the toes of her shoes,” David threw in teasingly. “Let me tell you something. This sister of ours doesn’t give up easily.”

Jodie flushed as they all laughed. It was obvious her brothers both liked Kurt. She didn’t know how they could be so blind.

But another thing that stumped her was how well Kurt had taken the whole thing. She would have expected a little snarling, a few insults about watching where she was going, and a whole lot of swearing. But there had been very little of that. Maybe if he’d been grouchier about it all, she would feel better. At least then she could get mad instead of feeling so wretched.

Kurt had wanted paramedics. She only wished she could have obliged. But there were no paramedics in Chivaree. There was Old Man Cooper, who answered the phone at the fire department and then called around to the volunteers if there was a fire. He supposedly had a little first-aid training. But he certainly wasn’t competent to deal with a broken leg. So she’d called Matt. After all, he was the best physician in town as far as she was concerned. He’d come right away, bringing David with him, and between them they had carried Kurt to the clinic so that Matt could X-ray the leg.

No major bone was broken, but the patella was cracked, a situation that could be very painful and required a cast that held the knee immobile.

“We’ll have to keep you in the cast for a couple of weeks,” Matt had told him. “Then we’ll take it off and do some X-rays to see if you can transfer to a knee brace. That will give you a lot more freedom of movement.”

It had all gone pretty smoothly. They’d brought Kurt back to his house and installed him in his bedroom, where he was right now. Matt had given Kurt some sort of painkiller when he’d worked on him. Maybe that was why Kurt seemed to be taking it so calmly. Maybe he was just groggy from the medicine.

She wanted to go home. She ached to leave this behind. But she couldn’t really leave. After all, the accident had been her fault.

“Jodie is a licensed physical therapist,” Matt was saying. “That will be handy. She can help in your rehabilitation.”

“I’d forgotten that,” Kurt said. He grinned at her, knowing it would bug her. “That will be useful.”

Jodie felt numb. Everything that happened seemed to tie her more firmly to this man in one way or another. As she’d said before, she was doomed.

Matt rose to get something from his bag and, to Jodie’s surprise, he stopped in front of a framed picture of a cute baby girl, that was set on the top of an antique dresser.

“This your daughter?” he asked gruffly.

Kurt looked up and nodded proudly. “Yes, that’s Katy. She’s at my mother’s for the night.”

Matt was still staring at the picture in a way Jodie found a little odd. She couldn’t imagine when her big brother had become a child person. Considering that none of the six siblings in her family, including herself, were married or had children, she’d assumed they all felt pretty much the way she did. She didn’t dislike children, but she felt a lot more comfortable keeping them at a distance, avoiding too much up-close-and-personal interaction. Maybe she’d been wrong about Matt.

“It’s a good thing the baby wasn’t with you when you had the accident,” Matt said with feeling.

“Yes,” Kurt agreed. “That’s one blessing, at least.”

Jodie agreed, though she didn’t say it aloud. Just imagine if she’d been responsible for hurting Kurt’s baby. She shuddered, not wanting to think about it.

Still, Matt lingered, staring at the portrait. “She’s a beautiful baby,” he said. “About how old?”

“Sixteen months.”

“A little over one year.”

“Yes.”

Jodie frowned, wondering what was eating her brother. This just didn’t fit with the image she had of him. Then she turned to look at Kurt lying back against the pillows, and immediately wished she hadn’t. All thoughts of Matt flew out the window, and unwelcome reactions to Kurt took their place.

Since he’d put on cutoff jeans, to leave his damaged leg bare for the cast, she’d wisely been avoiding looking at his beautifully sculpted good leg, which was covered with a sleek pelt of reddish-brown hair. But while she wasn’t paying attention, somehow his shirt had been removed, as well, and now he was displaying a set of sexy muscles and a washboard stomach, all wrapped up in the most deliciously smooth and bronzed skin she’d ever seen.

The man was a damn Greek god! Gazing at him made her feel dangerously warm and fuzzy inside.

Realizing with a start that she’d been staring at his powerfully built chest too long, she glanced up into his bright green eyes and saw that he’d been watching her all along. Turning ten shades of red, she spun on her heel and pretended a sudden fascination with the collection of old first editions in his bookcase.

Matt and Kurt went on talking, but she didn’t hear a word they were saying. Her head was buzzing with a strange vibration, and all she could think of was that his gaze had been so full of awareness of her, it was downright scary. Awareness not only of what she was feeling, but of just what she might be thinking, as well.

Had he understood just how drawn to him she was physically? Had he known she’d ached for him to kiss her in the elevator? It was all so humiliating!

She tried some even breathing, determined to get this silly blushing under control, and to avoid meeting Kurt’s eyes again. And then she took a chance and escaped into the rest of the house, taking a deep breath as she did so. The cool air in the living room was a welcome relief.

She looked around the room. It was nicely furnished in a simple style, but there were toys everywhere. She winced, looking away. Funny. It had been almost ten years, but looking at baby things still brought on a wave of nausea every time. She knew it was silly and self-destructive to let that reaction rule her life, but she hadn’t found a way to fight it yet. Losing a baby was hard, even if that baby hadn’t been born yet at the time.

She turned toward the bookcase, refocusing her attention with a soft sigh. She couldn’t help but wonder why Kurt didn’t live in the old Victorian mansion up on the hill, where the other McLaughlins congregated. If he’d really come back to get help with his daughter, you would think he would have stayed there. It was supposed to be a wonderful house.

She’d never been inside the place herself, never been invited to the parties the other girls in town had attended on Sunday afternoons. In those days, Allmans weren’t welcome at anything put on by a McLaughlin.

“Hey, Jodie.” David came around the corner.

She jumped, startled out of her reverie. “What is it?”

“Matt’s finished.”

“Oh. Good.”

“But Kurt wants to talk to you alone for a few minutes before we go.”

“Alone?” Her hand went instinctively to her throat. “Why? What does he want to talk to me about?”

David gave her a quizzical look. “I don’t know. Work, I guess.” He shrugged and turned back toward the door. “Anyway, we’ll be waiting in the car.”

She swallowed hard. “Okay.”

She made her way back into the bedroom, cringing when she saw Kurt again, looking so helpless on the bed. “Oh, gosh, I’m really…”

“Don’t say it,” he ordered shortly. “I know you wish it hadn’t happened. So do I. But it’s done now. So forget about it.”

Her eyebrows rose as she noted a change in his tone. He’d put on more clothes and abandoned the easygoing attitude. What had happened to the friendly guy who’d traded jokes with her brothers just a few moments before? But the man had just broken his patella. He had to be tired, and probably the pain was coming back. She really ought to cut him a little slack.

“What we have to do now is figure out how to deal with the aftermath,” he was saying.

“The aftermath?” What was there to figure out? He had an injury. Obviously, that was going to put him at a disadvantage for awhile. It might put a crimp in his plans, but it also meant she would be able to keep tabs on him more easily, when you came right down to it.

He was nodding. “Matt says I can’t go back in to work for at least two weeks.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.” She had visions of working without him around to distract her. Her spirits brightened. Maybe things were looking up after all.

“But I’m in the middle of a couple of projects that can’t wait. So I’m going to have to work at home.”

“At home?” she echoed, emotions switching as she began to get a very bad feeling about what was coming next.

“Yes. I’ve got a computer and a fax machine right here. I won’t be able to move around a lot, though. And that’s where you will come in.”

“I will?”

“Sure. You can come work with me here. I’ll probably get twice as much done that way. It will all be for the best.”

“Oh, but…”

“I’ve been thinking it over. You can go in to work at your regular time, clear up anything you have to do there, then bring me anything I need to deal with and work here until lunchtime. You won’t have any problem with that, will you?”

What could she say? This was her fault and she had to help him any way she could. Jodie felt her head begin to ache and she bit her lip. She foresaw long mornings working with Kurt, the two of them alone, their heads together over some sticky problem, intimacy growing…. No! Impossible!

“You know,” she said quickly, “I think it would be better if I got Paula to come over here instead.” Oh, good thinking. Paula was the typist/file clerk they used. “I’m in the middle of a few things, too, you know. I’ll just stay at the office to make sure everything is covered, and Paula can run back and forth, kind of a liaison between us and…”

“That won’t work.”

She blinked. “Why not?”

“Because I want you here.”

Exactly what she was afraid of.

His gaze was dark and fathomless, and his jaw was set. He was all boss right now. He was giving orders. The problem was, she wasn’t all that good at taking orders.

She stared right back at him. “Why me?” she asked.

He frowned. “Are you, or are you not, my assistant?”

“That’s temporary.”

“As far as work goes, let’s live in the moment. Answer the question.”

She wanted to say something sassy and insubordinate but she realized it was going to seem very childish if she did that. But she was having a very hard time bending to his will too easily.

Their gazes locked and held. Jodie felt a surge of anger, but she managed to keep it reined in for the moment. Still, he could tell she was unhappy. To her surprise, that brought the amusement back into his expression.

“Do all your apologies mean nothing?” he asked her softly.

The nerve!

“And I guess you casting aside all my apologies means even less?”

He laughed softly. “Jodie, calm down. This is the way I want it. You’re going to have to comply.”

“Or what? You’ll fire me?”

“Fire you from your father’s company? Never.” His grin was lopsided in a particularly infuriating way. “I could, however, begin giving the better assignments to Paula in order to leave you time for document-copying and coffee-brewing duties.”

She turned away from him, furious, and tempted to head for the door. His tone said it all. Look at this, Jodie. You laid me low, but I’m still in control. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of saying she would do as he wished, though she knew she was probably going to have to. But at the same time, a small part of her glowed with satisfaction. She only wished her brothers had been there to see Kurt get autocratic with her.

You see? He is underhanded. He is out to sabotage us in some way. You just wait! I’m not wrong about that.

Come to think of it, maybe it was just as well that she would be hanging around wherever Kurt was working. After all, she was the only one who was clued in to what he was up to. Someone had to keep an eye on him.

She turned back and looked at him. “All right,” she said grudgingly. “I’ll be here.”

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