Heather Macallister - Undressed

Oops. Lia had heard him.

“I’ll let Ms. Gray know what happened and we’ll re-create the orders. I’ll e-mail you when I’m up and running again.”

Should he say something?

He flinched as Lia’s voice sounded right next to his ear. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself.” She walked away.

Moments later, he heard the front of the salon door open and close.

He couldn’t help himself. Jordan leaped up and hurried outside to follow her.

He didn’t have to run far.

A furious Lia stood outside the shop, cell phone pressed to her ear. “Do you mind? This call is going to be bad enough without you listen—Elizabeth? Sorry to bother you.” Lia angrily waved him back inside the shop before pressing her finger to her ear.

Jordan shook his head and made a cutting motion over his throat. There was nothing that had happened that couldn’t wait until morning. She didn’t have to go and spoil William’s night out.

He’d seen the way the man had looked at Beth Ann and the expensive suit he’d worn this evening. When a man wore a suit like that on an outing with a woman, he had serious intentions toward that woman. Men noticed the effect. Women noticed the details.

And Jordan noticed the effect details had on women.

“Don’t say anything,” he mouthed at Lia.

After glaring at him, she turned around.

“THERE’S NOTHING MORE to do tonight.”

Lia stared at Elizabeth. The poor woman must be in shock. After Lia had described the disaster, Elizabeth had seemed distracted, remarking that she remembered the orders and proving it by rattling off the brides who’d come in today and their selections and sizes, waving off Lia when she’d scrambled to write them down.

“Do it tomorrow,” she’d said. And then, Elizabeth had looked off into space before clearing her throat and announcing that there was nothing more to do. “Just finish up here and go on home.” And then she left.

Left. As in left the shop without the orders placed, without the orders even recorded. Left. Left Lia with the drowned computer.

Okay. Okay, think. Calm. Think calming thoughts. But things were already calm. There had been no yelling, although Elizabeth didn’t ever yell per se. When she was angry, her words became very distinct and clipped. But Elizabeth had just spoken normally, if somewhat preoccupied.

Lia didn’t know what to do. Either her boss was having a breakdown or…

Or nothing. Her boss was having a breakdown. And Lia had let her walk out in that condition.

She ran out the door in time to watch Elizabeth get into her car. Wait a minute. That was William’s truck. And William wasn’t driving. William wasn’t even in the truck. And Holy Merry Mother of Christmas, Elizabeth peeled out of the parking space with an audible screech of the tires.

Lia stared after her as Elizabeth approached a yellow light and gunned the engine, zooming through the intersection.

“Well, now, that looks promising.” J.C. stood in the Tuxedo Park entrance. He glanced over at her. “How’d it go?”

“Didn’t you hear?”

“Didn’t hear much. Couldn’t see anything.”

She gave him a withering look. “I’m surprised you haven’t drilled a peephole.”

“Y’all would notice.”

Lia turned to go back inside.

“Hey.”

She sighed pointedly, but waited.

“You look like the kind of gal who has a tool kit or knows where one is.”

She hated being called a “gal.” “Yes. Do you need to borrow something?”

“Screwdriver, for starters. I’ve got an idea. Hang on and I’ll be back.”

“Oh, joy.” But he didn’t hear her.

Leaving the door unlocked, Lia returned to the office and began to close up the store. Minutes later, J.C. appeared with a laptop.

“Where did you get that?”

“It’s mine. Thought I’d see if I could help you out.”

“I appreciate the thought, but all my files are on the hard drive.”

JC moved the fan aside and set his laptop next to hers. “Seems like Ms. Gray ought to look into having more than one computer.”

“So noted.”

J.C. sat in the desk chair—the only chair—and smiled up at her.

What an evil, rotten thing to do. The man had long eyelashes tipped in gold, innocent (ha) blue eyes and an indecent mouth.

“Tools?”

Yeah, he had tools. And knew how to use them. “Um, are you, like, a computer geek?”

“Do I look like a computer geek?”

“Are you trying to?”

“Not very hard.”

“Good job.”

His dimple appeared. “I know a little bit about computers.”

“I’m thinking I should wait for someone who knows a lot about computers.”

“And I’m thinking you better get me that screwdriver.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m trying to make amends here. You’ve got a dead computer—what harm can I do?”

Lia knew enough about computers to know that a lot of harm could be done, even on a dead computer. “I’d like to try to recover the data.”

“So would I. You gonna get me that screwdriver?”

She got the tool kit.

J.C. unscrewed his laptop and carefully removed the hard drive. “Do not jounce this. Do not sneeze or otherwise breathe heavily in the vicinity. Do not spill your drink on it.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“No, but you’re excitable.”

“Only when there’s a reason to get excited.”

He gave her a look. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Lia gave him a look right back. “Please don’t.”

J.C. began opening up the salon’s laptop. “Why? Have you already got somebody giving you reasons to get excited?”

“No, and I’m not looking. Believe me, work is exciting enough.”

He shook his head. “It’s worse than I thought.”

“The computer?” She stared into it over his shoulder, expecting to see a blackened mass of fried computer guts.

J.C. set down the screwdriver. “No, you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“‘Work is exciting enough’?” He looked pained. “Selling wedding dresses is so exciting you’ve sworn off men? Do you not see the irony?”

“I could be seriously disillusioned by the fact that forty percent of those happy brides will end up divorced.”

“But you’re not.”

“No,” she admitted.

“So, to be clear, you’re really saying you aren’t attracted to me.”

That was blunt. “Bingo.” Technically, it was more accurate to say that she wasn’t going to act on her attraction. A transient who fancied himself a singer and was sleeping in a dressing room? Yeah, no.

J.C. grinned. “Fair warning—I’m going to change your mind.”

The face…the eyes…the smile…the voice…She was doomed. Doomed. “Don’t bother. Really.”

“It’s no bother. Really.”

Ignoring the little quivers his voice caused, Lia waved at the computer. “Will you please finish with whatever you’re doing?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He lifted her hard drive and set it in his computer.

She saw where he was going. Good idea. Lia hoped it worked. “Have you switched hard drives like that before?”

“Nope.”

She couldn’t watch. But she did. “How do you know about computers?”

“Since I spend a lot of time on the road, I’ve had to learn because there isn’t time to leave my laptop at a repair place.”

“Are you some sort of salesman?” she asked.

He stopped working with the tiny screws as he considered the question. “I suppose I am.”

If he had to sleep in dressing rooms, he must not be a very good salesman, she thought.

After J.C. finished installing the hard drive, he said, “Cross your fingers,” and booted up his computer.

Lia waited, hardly daring to breathe. And there it was—the soul and brains of her computer in J.C.’s body. Computer body—case. Whatever.