Janet Lee Nye - Boss On Notice

She and Josh didn’t talk at all on the ride back to the apartment. That was actually something Mickie was very grateful for. She was exhausted and worried and seemed to be constantly on the edge of tears. She needed to get settled and get some sleep and regroup. She’d be fine. She needed a moment.

“Hey,” he said.

She jumped at the soft whisper and the gentle touch on her arm. The seat belt tightened against her. Damn. She’d fallen asleep? In a strange car? With a strange man? And her baby in the back? She twisted to look over her shoulder. Ian was still asleep. Josh had driven across the grass and had backed the SUV up to her front door.

“Wow,” she said. “Oh, my God. Sorry. Must be my naptime, too.”

She blew out a breath, got herself together. Wow.

Then she climbed out and got the car seat unhooked, not even bothering to take out Ian. She manhandled the entire thing out of the SUV with him in it. Josh was there and he took it in one hand. “I’ve got it. Open the door and you can get him settled. I’ll bring all the stuff in for you.”

“You don’t have to. I can get it. I’ll let you know when I’m done and you can move the car back.”

He stayed on the front porch, leaning in to put the car seat inside the front door. “Now, that isn’t going to happen. But if you don’t want me inside, I’ll move things to the porch and you can take them from there.”

She opened to her mouth to protest. Stop it. Stop it, Mickie. He’s being a normal nice guy. Stop treating everyone like the enemy. “I’m sorry to be so...” So what? She didn’t know. Scared? Bitchy? Suspicious?

“Cautious? Don’t worry about it. I understand.”

He walked off and opened the hatch. Mickie watched for a moment the way that the muscles of his back shifted against the fabric of his T-shirt, how his biceps flexed as he lifted boxes. A flutter of warm appreciation for a gorgeous male body tried to come to life deep in her belly. She turned to Ian, snorting out a hard laugh at her stupidity. Because a man would make all this better. Right. That’s what got you into this mess, Mickie. A good-looking, sweet-talking, nice-acting man.

JOSH MOVED THE boxes to the porch and let Mickie carry them deeper into the apartment. Most of the boxes looked old, like they’d been used and reused and kept together with duct tape. She was cagey about letting him in and he could understand that. She was a young mother. Living alone, it seemed. Well, alone except for Ian. Which had to make it even more difficult. There was nothing he could do or say to put her more at ease other than try not to make it worse.

As he set the last of the boxes down inside the door, she came over and pushed it out of the way with her foot. He glanced inside. She’d moved them all into the empty living room. His eyes went back to her. She leaned against the door frame with one hand on the doorknob. Her khaki shorts and black T-shirt were streaked with dust. She pushed a hand through blond hair that looked like a fall of silk and looked up at him with ice-blue eyes. She was very pretty. And very young. And had a kid.

“Thank you for letting me help you,” he said. “This means I’m all caught up on my good deeds for at least a week.”

She smiled and he felt something within him warm at the sight. “Thank you for insisting. I’m sorry if I was treating you like you were a creep or something.”

“Understandable.” He stuck his hands in his back pockets as he searched for something else to say. He wanted to keep looking into those eyes, wanted to ask about those distant shield maiden genes. Where was she from, where was she going? Then, he noticed the dark smudges beneath those eyes. She’d fallen asleep on the short ride home. Tired, right. She was exhausted, and he could respect that. “Let me know if you need anything else,” he said.

Back in his own place, Josh powered up the laptop. He could still hear her moving around. Strange that he’d never noticed the sounds of the previous tenant. She was clinking glassware, opening and closing cabinets and making other assorted unpacking thumps and bumps. She seemed to be alone, not only living alone with the little guy, but also alone in the city. She’s not alone, dude, she has a baby. You know, those miniature humans that you don’t have any contact with? He shook his head. Get it together, man.

He had a lot to do tomorrow. There were three interviews for new Crew members, two client interviews and four actual cleanings to do. He skimmed through the calendar. Good. All regular cleanings, all in apartments, so that should be easy. It was a straightforward business model: hot guys cleaning house. It had worked for Sadie down in Charleston and he was here to make it happen a second time, in the state capital. He loaded the addresses into his phone and Googled them to look at the map and get a sense of the locations. His phone rang and Sadie’s name popped up on the screen.

“Did you save your damsel in distress?” she asked.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“How you doing up there?”

“Good.” He gave her a brief rundown of Crew business.

“I meant with you, Josh,” she said when he finished. “How are you doing?”

“Good. Starting to not feel lost every place I go. I found a yoga studio that seems like it isn’t just a place to go look pretty. Still looking for a dojo.”

He sat back and rubbed a hand through his curly hair. And a barbershop. He needed to find one of those. Yoga and meditation were akin to breathing. He couldn’t go without, not for long. Not if he wanted to stay himself, the self he could stand. And while he was perfectly able to practice at home, there was something about being in a class, about being pushed past his limits, that he needed. The dojo? Well, he’d been studying martial arts since he was twenty. Yoga for peace of mind and karate for discipline—the two things that kept him sane. That kept him functional.

“Is she pretty?”

“Huh?”

“Your new neighbor. Is she pretty?”

He laughed. “Now that you’re disgustingly happy in love, you want to hook up everyone you know?”

“You should try it. It’s awesomely fun.”

“She has a kid. A little kid. A baby-size kid.”

Sadie didn’t say anything but he could hear her breathe. She let out a slow sigh. “I wish I could hug you.”

“I don’t need a hug. I need some pointers on the behavior contract.”

Yeah, that. The behavior contract. The Cleaning Crew, as a business model, provided a superior cleaning service and nothing else. But Sadie had found that some clients’ understanding of this simple fact was at times fuzzy. Hot guys, right? It wasn’t surprising where some people’s minds went. A false allegation in the company’s early days had frightened her. Now she required clients and employees to sign a contract that essentially said “keep your hands to yourself.”

“What’s the problem? It’s pretty straightforward.”

“Some clients are taking it as condescending. Like we’re saying they won’t be able to control themselves around a good-looking guy or something.”

“Huh,” Sadie said. She paused for a moment. “There may be something to that. It’s not everyone, is it? Just a few here and there?”

“Yeah. I started being way more careful in how I explained it after that. It’s helped some.”

“All right. Keep me posted. If it gets to be a problem, I guess I could drive up and get them signed.”

“I guess.” But he didn’t want her to do that. If this was going to be his branch, his company to grow, then he had to find a way around this. He figured that it was the newness of the idea here in Columbia. In Charleston, the company had been established long enough that new clients knew about the contract, knew about the expectations Sadie had for them and the guys. It was still in the titillation phase here. A hot guy vacuuming your rugs? Giggle and drool. He heard Jules, Sadie’s fiancé’s niece, in the background, yelling for Sadie to come look at this right now. “I’ll figure it out. Go. Give Jules a hug from me.”