Judy Duarte: The Bachelor's Brighton Valley Bride

Before, he could answer, the beautiful redhead was out the door like a shot. Just like she’d done the first time he’d seen her.

Clay looked at the stairs leading up to the apartment and wished her tour had continued to the intimate living space above.

Maybe her running out was for the best, because he had no business allowing himself to be distracted. His time in Brighton Valley was limited, and he didn’t plan to stay any longer than absolutely necessary.

Hopefully, Don Carpenter would be back soon, because Clay didn’t know how he was going to be able to work with the woman without a chaperone.

At the sound of a pencil tapping, he realized they hadn’t even been alone now. Megan’s son was sitting at the front counter staring at the computers lining the wall instead of writing in his school workbook.

So not only had she left him to look after the store, now she’d left him to babysit her son, too.

Megan Adams might be sexy as hell, but she had to be the most irresponsible employee he’d ever had. And he had a feeling she’d be the first one at the Brighton Valley store that he’d have to let go.

* * *

Peyton Johnson couldn’t have come at a worse time. And he probably couldn’t be any more annoyed at Megan than he was now.

When she’d grabbed her purse a second time and practically run from the shop yet again, he’d merely gaped at her. But she’d had a pretty good idea of what he’d been thinking.

Still, with Don away from the shop, what other option did she have? She couldn’t very well leave her second grader at school.

As she turned into the alley that ran behind the shops lining Main Street, Megan glanced into the rearview mirror and caught her daughter’s eye. “Lisa, change out of your cleats before we go inside and put on your shoes. You know how hard it is to get all that mud and grass out of the shop’s carpet.”

“Aw, Mom.” The seven-year-old insisted upon wearing her soccer uniform everywhere, even to school. “Then can I go barefoot? My coach said lots of athletes practice without shoes to toughen their feet up. And I want my feet to be tough.”

Megan hadn’t had a chance to vacuum the floor yet, and no telling what small screw or piece of wire might end up in her daughter’s foot. All she needed was for Mr. Johnson to think she was violating some safety regulation on top of everything else. “Never mind. Just stomp your shoes before we go inside.”

It was bad enough she had both her kids at work with her this afternoon, but with her mom and Ted on their dream vacation of a yearlong RV trip across America, Megan was left without many childcare options until summer camp started at the Wexler YMCA next week.

She held the door open for her blonde daughter, who’d once again left her backpack in the car—no doubt on purpose. “After you meet Mr. Johnson, the new worker I told you about, you need to go back to the car and get your homework. You have to practice your spelling tonight. It’s the last test of the year.”

Lisa rolled her eyes, transporting Megan back to a time when she used to do the same thing to her own mother. Oh, how she’d hated spelling. And reading. And any other kind of schoolwork that had to do with written words that seemed to jump all over the page.

She really couldn’t blame her daughter, who’d inherited the same learning disabilities she’d struggled with in school.

“Why do I even need to learn how to spell all those boring words anyway? Soccer players only need to know how to run fast and kick the ball.”

As they entered the back door to the shop, Peyton turned from where he stood perusing the ever-increasing number of backlogged computers that lined the shelves. “Even Mia Hamm had to learn how to spell,” Peyton told Lisa.

Megan’s stomach nose-dived, and the dull headache that had begun when Tyler’s school had first called her this afternoon sharpened. Not only had Peyton heard Lisa’s complaint, but he’d actually responded to her.

Great. The man had been in the shop for all of thirty minutes, and he could make a slew of assumptions about her parenting skills. And they hadn’t even talked about the problems facing the store—the computers needing repair and the stacks of old invoices that had yet to be logged.

He probably suspected that Megan’s son was a computer hacker and her whining daughter hated to read.

Would he realize that Megan’s problems with the kids sometimes caused her to be nearly as scattered as Don?

“Who are you?” Lisa asked him.

“Lisa!” Megan really had taught her daughter better manners than that. “This is Mr. Johnson. Remember, I told you about him. He’s the man from Geekon Enterprises who’s going to be working at the shop for a while.”

“Do you know Mia Hamm?” Lisa asked, zeroing in on her all-time favorite women’s soccer player.

“I’ve actually met her. And she’s a good speller. She needed to be in order to read those playbooks.”

Lisa’s eyes widened, and her lips parted. “You know her? Really?”

Megan had to admit that she was a bit surprised, too. And when she stole a glance at Peyton, she saw a blush creep onto his cheeks.

Why was that? Was he embarrassed to be caught in a lie? Surely he didn’t actually know the woman. Or did he?

He glanced away from her and Lisa, as though he wished he could be anywhere but here in the store with them.

“We’re not actually friends,” he admitted. “I met her at...a charity event. And the spelling thing. I...uh...read that in a magazine somewhere.”

“Mom,” Lisa said, “is the car unlocked? I have to go get my backpack.”

“It’s open,” Megan said. Then she watched in amused surprise as her daughter raced outside to get her bag.

Megan glanced at Peyton. She’d found it odd that he’d said anything to Lisa in the first place, but if it caused the girl to voluntarily want to do her schoolwork, well, then she wasn’t about to complain.

Her gaze focused in on the accountant who’d probably already taken inventory of the way she ran the back office, as well as the way she handled her children.

“Thank you,” she said. “That was brilliant.”

“Yeah, well, even geeks can relate to sports fanatics sometimes.”

A geek? That might be true of some accountants, but there was nothing geeky about Peyton Johnson. He looked as though he’d be more comfortable running track or fielding line drives than adding up columns and running spreadsheets behind some sedentary computer. But Megan wasn’t about to say as much.

“It’s not always Bring Your Kids to Work Day around here,” she said.

Okay, that wasn’t exactly true, but Don had left Megan with no other choice if she wanted to keep her health insurance and the extra pay. This was supposed to be a part-time job, but given how often she had to cover for the poor man, she had to come into the shop much more frequently than either of them had planned.

When she realized that Peyton wasn’t going to comment, she continued, “But I’m a single mother, and with Tyler having trouble at school today...” She trailed off, cringing as she heard herself play the deserted-mom card. She didn’t want anyone cutting her any breaks just because she’d been too stupid to resist Todd Redding’s charms.

When she realized Peyton still had yet to respond to anything she’d said, her head began to throb. So she removed the rubber band, releasing her long hair from its high ponytail, and massaged her scalp, trying to ease the ache.

She shook her hair back. All the while, Peyton continued to stare at her.

What was wrong? Had she made another workplace error?

Should she have kept her hair pulled back into the tight elastic? Maybe so, but if she hadn’t let the reddish-blond mass out of its tight confines, she wouldn’t have gotten any relief from the unbearable throbbing above her right ear.