Janet Lee Nye - Boss On Notice

He can’t trust himself...

Josh Sanders just wanted to help. After all, Mickie Phillips is a struggling single mom who needs a job...and a friend. Fortunately, her administrative skills are perfect for the new branch he’s running of the Cleaning Crew—a company of guys who clean houses. The downside? Mickie’s a petite, blue-eyed temptation he definitely needs to resist.

Their arrangement was not supposed to include simmering attraction—or deeper, decidedly unprofessional feelings. But Josh’s traumatic past has convinced him he can never be the man Mickie needs. Trust will only expose them to the most dangerous thing of all...love.

Her fingers closed lightly around his biceps and traced down his arm to his hand.

“We haven’t known each other very long, but I think of you as a friend, Josh. You’ve helped me so much. I just want you to know that if there’s anything I can do to help you, I’m here.”

Josh pulled her close so she wouldn’t see the sudden flood of emotion he felt. She had no idea. If he told her the truth, she would go—should go—running far away. “Thank you,” he managed to say.

“I mean it.” Mickie’s words vibrated against his chest. The feel of a warm body against his. The scent of her hair. The touch of her hands as they skimmed around his waist to link together, holding him in place. For a moment, all the confusion and regret and pain faded away. Being with her felt like stepping out of a shrieking wind and into a quiet moment of peace.

“I know,” he whispered in her ear. “Thank you.”

She leaned back to look up at him. He couldn’t meet her gaze. Instead he focused on her lips. Pink. The lower lip fuller than the top. Pretty. He wondered what it would be like to kiss them.

“Josh,” she said.

He kissed her.

Whatever she wanted to say, he didn’t want to hear.

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to The Cleaning Crew! We’ll be leaving beautiful Charleston to follow Josh to Columbia, SC, where he is setting up a new Crew. DeShawn is there to help him get the new branch up and running.

I was eager to write Josh’s story because he is, in many ways, much more damaged than Sadie. He’s just better at hiding it. In spite of everything, he’s a nice guy and deserves his happily-ever-after.

Mickie is the young single mother next door. She has secrets of her own. She and I also have one big thing in common: nursing school. She is clinging to the hope that once she becomes a nurse, she can stop running from her past and provide a good life for her son. Attending nursing school is extremely stressful and I was able to share some of my insane study/coping mechanisms with her. Hint: index cards.

It was a tall assignment to get Josh, who is terrified of family and commitment, and Mickie, who has serious trust issues and comes with a toddler, together. They are both rather mule-headed but also people with a lot of love to give. They just need to learn to accept love.

I hope you enjoy their journey.

Janet Lee Nye

Boss on Notice

Janet Lee Nye

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JANET LEE NYEis a writer by day and a neonatal nurse by night. She lives in Charleston, SC, with her fella and her felines. She spends too much time on Twitter and too little time on housework and has no plans to remedy this.

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In dedication to all the romance writers who helped me, cheered me on, gave me critiques. I’m not going to name names because every person I talked to, every workshop I attended, every book I read, gave me a little bit of knowledge and insight. Thank you all.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Extract

Copyright

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.