Loe raamatut: «One Hot December»

Dedicated to...

Sara and Sara and Flash

Acknowledgments

Writing the Men at Work holiday trilogy for Harlequin Blaze has been the writing highlight of my year. I’ve had so much fun writing these books. I can only hope my readers have half as much fun reading them as I’ve had writing them.

A huge thank you to my editor Kathleen Scheibling for her enthusiasm about the books. Working with you has been a true pleasure, Kathleen. I knew when I saw you collected sock monkeys, too, that we would get along just fine. Thank you to the entire Harlequin Blaze team for all their work on the edits and cover and marketing.

Thank you to my agent, Sara Megibow, for not only encouraging me to write the books, but for helping me get all the Hanukkah stuff right in One Hot December. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Thank you to my beta readers, Jennifer Rosen and Robin Becht, for your great notes.

And thank you, of course, to my husband, author Andrew Shaffer, who makes it very easy for me to write happy-ever-afters.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Extract

Copyright

1

VERONICA “FLASH” REDDING slammed her locker door shut for the last time. She pulled on her leather bomber jacket and popped her collar to hide the red welt on the side of her neck. Trading her steel-toed work boots for bright red Pumas, she put the boots in her backpack, slung her backpack over her shoulder and took a quick steadying breath. She could do this. More importantly, she had to do this. She would have told herself to “man up” but with the way the men in her life were behaving lately, manning up would be a step down. She’d have to woman up instead.

She found her boss, Ian Asher, standing behind his desk, poring over a set of blueprints for their next construction project—a small and desperately needed medical clinic in the rural Mount Hood area. A handsome thirtysomething black man stood next to him—had to be Drew, their recently hired project manager. She listened as he listed off changes they’d have to make to comply with new building regulations that might pass the Oregon legislature next year. Flash stood in the doorway while she waited for them to acknowledge her existence. Considering how good Ian had gotten at ignoring her, this might take a while.

“What if these regs don’t pass?” Drew asked Ian. “You really want to redo the whole plan to comply with building codes that aren’t even on the books yet?”

“They’ll be on the books,” Ian replied.

“You sure?”

“He’s sure,” Flash said from the doorway.

Ian glanced up from the blueprints and glared at her.

“Flash, how can we help you?” Ian asked. He did not look happy to see her.

“Our boss’s dad is a state senator,” Flash said, ignoring Ian to speak to Drew. “That’s how he knows the codes will probably pass.”

“If we don’t build it to the new codes and they go through, then we’ll have to retrofit it next year,” Ian said. “We’re going to do it right the first time. And my father has nothing to do with it.”

“What’s the deal with all the new regs, anyway?” Drew asked. “Four bolts per step? And that’s a lot of steel reinforcements for a one-story medical clinic.”

“You moved here from the East Coast, right?” Flash asked.

“DC,” Drew said. “Why?”

“You know you’re standing on a volcano, right?” Flash asked. “And not a dormant volcano, either.”

“Stop trying to scare the new guy, Flash,” Ian said, his strong jaw set so tight she almost heard his teeth grinding.

“Scare me?” Drew scoffed. “What’s going on?”

“We’re overdue for a massive earthquake in the Pacific Northwest,” she continued. “And not your average massive earthquake. I’m talking the sort of earthquake that they make disaster movies about starring The Rock.”

Drew’s eyes widened hugely, and Flash grinned fiendishly in reply. She knew she was grinning fiendishly because she’d practiced that grin in the mirror.

“Is that true?” Drew asked Ian.

“We’re in a safe zone here,” Ian said. “Safer. It’s the coast that’ll get hit the hardest.”

“Yeah, we’ll be fine on the mountain,” Flash said. “Unless the earthquake triggers the volcano to erupt.”

“I...” Drew gathered up the blueprints. “I’ll just go call the architect. Now. Right now.”

“I can weld your desk to the floor if you want,” she said as Drew pushed past her and walked down the hall at a brisk clip. “My treat!” she called after him.

“You’re a horrible person,” Ian said when they were alone in his office.

“Hazing the newbies is what we do. You want me to remind you how the guys hazed me when I started here?” she asked. “I mean, it was nice of the boys to build me that tampon caddy for my locker in the shape of a tampon, but did they really have to make it five feet tall and carve my name into it?”

“Yeah, they’re lucky they have their jobs after that stunt.” Ian sat down in his desk chair. “You got them back good enough, didn’t you?”

“You mean when I welded their lockers shut with all their stuff inside?”

“Yes,” he said, glaring at her again. Or still. Glaring had been his default expression around her for the past six months. “That’s what I mean.”

Ian was a gorgeous man and when she got on his bad side—which was often—she had to count to ten to keep herself from begging him to throw her down on the desk, rip his tie off, shove it in her mouth and do things to her body that it didn’t know it wanted done to it yet.

“Safe to say we called it even after that,” she said.

“They didn’t do something else to you, did they?” Ian asked, running one hand through his sandy blond hair to pull it off his forehead. He needed a trim. She liked it longer, especially when it fell across his eyes while bending over to look at blueprints. But if Mr. Ian “Bossman” Asher wanted his hair to match the fancy suits he wore, he should probably tidy up. “I thought things—”

“The guys and I are good now,” she said. “I haven’t had to weld anyone’s car door shut in months.”

“Thank God. You are a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

“Because I’m the only woman on your crew?”

“Because you’re a maniac.”

“Do you call all the women who don’t like you ‘maniacs?’ Does it make you feel better about yourself?” She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned casually in the doorway. She felt anything but casual around Ian Asher, but he didn’t need to know that.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he nodded. “You’re right. That wasn’t fair of me,” he said, sitting forward at his desk and clasping his hands. His jaw was set tight like it usually was when she stepped into a room. “I’m sorry I said that.”

She shrugged. “It’s all right. After you fucked me and dumped me, I called you every name in the book and invented a few of my own. You can call me a ‘maniac’ if you want.”

Ian stood up immediately, walked—almost ran—to his office door, pulled her inside and shut the door behind them.

“Can you keep your voice down?” he asked. “I’m trying to run a reputable company here.”

“Then why did you hire me?” she asked.

“I didn’t hire you. My father did.”

“Oh, yeah. Then why haven’t you fired me?”

“Because you’re very good at what you do.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she said with a wink. Since she had nothing to lose anymore, she turned and sat down on the top of his desk.

“I wasn’t talking about that night.”

She crossed her legs, which was hard to do in loose canvas pants but she made it work.

“Oh... ‘That Night.’ It has a name. I’m so good in bed our one night together has a name.”

“That Stupid Night,” he said. “That Drunk Night.”

“We weren’t drunk. You’d had two beers and I had two shots of whiskey and neither one of us is a lightweight. Don’t blame booze for your own bad decisions,” she said, raising her chin. “Or was it a bad decision? You tell me.”

“Yes, it was. That I’m having this conversation with you is proof it was a bad decision. I don’t want to be having this conversation with any of my employees. I’m trying to be a good boss here. You’re not helping.”

“How am I not helping?” she asked.

“Because you don’t want me to be a good boss.”

Flash almost felt bad for him. Almost. He was rich, he was handsome, he had been handed a high-paying job at a multimillion-dollar construction company with a bow tied around it, compliments of Daddy, so it was really hard for her to muster up any sympathy for the man. If he ever had a real problem in his life, it sure as hell wasn’t her.

Then again he was also six-two, broad-shouldered, and annoyingly good in bed. She knew that for a fact thanks to “That Night” six months ago. And that meant she did feel for him a little bit. A little teeny tiny bit. Not that she would tell him that. He didn’t need to know she liked him. In fact, the less he knew about that, the better.

“Poor Ian,” she said, shaking her head. “A victim of desire. You’re a Lifetime movie. Can we get Chris Hemsworth to play you? You two have the same hair. And the same shoulders. I remember because I’ve bitten them.”

“You’ve bitten Chris Hemsworth’s shoulders?”

“A lady never bites and tells. Too bad I’m not a lady.”

“Flash.” He started to cross his arms over his chest but then seemingly thought better of it. Instead he stuffed his hands into his pockets, as if they’d be safer there.

“Ian.”

“You aren’t supposed to call me Ian. When you call me Ian people start to think we are more to each other than boss and employee.”

“Once upon a time I hopped into your shower to wash your semen off my back after you put it there after some very intense doggy-style fucking. Now...tell me again how we’re just boss and employee.”

“You,” he said.

“Me.”

“Why do I put up with this?” he asked. “Some kind of latent masochism, right?”

“It’s the hair, isn’t it?” She ran her fingers up her short scarlet red hair, spiking it even higher. It was a classic punk look according to Suzette, the multi-pierced stylist who had talked Flash into trading in her long traditional locks for a short, wild razor cut two years ago. Long hair and construction sites didn’t go well together, anyway. Plus she liked scaring the old-timers at work, who still thought any woman with hair shorter than her shoulders was a lesbian or a communist. Not that she minded be mistaken for a lesbian. They were half-right, anyway. But a communist? Oh, please. Socialist, maybe, but a communist? Ridiculous.

“What do you want?” he asked. “Please tell me and leave my office so I can, you know, do what I do.”

“Masturbate while thinking about me?”

“Flash, please.” He looked so wildly uncomfortable right now she almost laughed out loud. Not often a man as strong and as handsome and as together as Ian Asher looked self-conscious. It was kind of adorable. Which made it so much fun to torture him like this.

“You know that’s not my real name. My name is Veronica. You can say it. You called me Veronica that night. I mean, ‘That Night,’” she said, putting the words into finger quotes.

“Everyone calls you Flash.”

“You called me Veronica when you were inside me.”

“Flash, dammit...”

“Dammit isn’t my name, either. Say my name and I’ll tell you why I’m here.”

“Flash, I’m not—”

“Say my name and I’ll tell you why I’m here. Then I will leave you in peace. Or in pieces depending on how much I’m annoying you today.”

“Pieces is more accurate,” he said. “I need to be steel-reinforced around you. You are an earthquake.”

“That’s the sexiest thing any man has ever said about me.”

Ian removed his hands from his pockets, stood up to his full height and stepped forward, close enough to her that he could bend and kiss her if he wanted to. He must not have wanted to, unfortunately.

“Veronica...” he said softly, so softly it was almost a whisper, and almost a whisper was exactly how he’d said her name that one stupid night. Her plan to torture him was backfiring. Now she remembered it all...everything she wanted to pretend meant nothing to her. No pretending when he said her name, no pretending when he looked at her like that.

They’d gone out for drinks one night after work, about six of them, her and Ian and four other guys. The others were all family men, had to get home early. She and Ian had lingered at the bar, talking. But not about work, about art. His father had hired her, not him, and he hadn’t known that she’d learned to weld because she was a metal sculptor in her free time, an artist. He’d assumed she’d picked up the trade from her father the same way he’d gotten into the construction business. She’d shown him a picture on her phone of the six-foot-high climbing rosebush she’d welded out of copper and aluminum, and he’d called it a masterpiece. And then he’d called her a masterpiece. And before either of them knew it, they were kissing. They’d kissed all the way back to his place and all night and here she was, six months later, still thinking about it.

“I quit,” she said.

Ian’s eyes went so wide she almost laughed.

“What?”

“I quit. This is my two weeks’ notice.”

Ian stepped back in obvious shock.

“You’re quitting.”

“I think that’s just what I said. Let me rewind the tape.” She feigned listening to a handheld tape recorder and nodded. “Yes, that’s what I said. I quit.”

“Why? Is it because—”

“Because you and I fucked? No. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I didn’t...” He sighed. “I’m not flattering myself. I know you weren’t thrilled with how I handled the situation.”

“You dumped me after one night and said you couldn’t date an inferior.”

“I didn’t say that. I said I was your superior and therefore could not date you. You remember that part about me being your boss?”

“Only for two more weeks.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I got a new job. A better job.”

“Better? Better than here?”

She almost rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Ian, believe it or not, some people, like, oh...women, for example, might not consider working with nothing but men the ideal workplace scenario. I like the guys. We get along okay. But I like women. I would like to have some in my life. I would also like to have a job where I don’t weld all day and then go home and weld some more for my other life. You can’t blame me for that.”

“I don’t, no. You’ve stuck it out here longer than anyone thought you would.”

“I had to fight tooth and nail to earn the respect of the crew. I’m a little tired of fighting to be treated like a human being. You can’t blame me for that, either.”

“No.” Ian nodded. “So...where are you going?”

“You know Clover Greene? Runs the nursery down the highway?”

“Yeah, Clover’s great. I bought my Weedwhacker from her.”

“I’m her new assistant manager. The pay is the same as what I make here but the hours will be better, the work not as backbreaking. I don’t like going home too tired to sculpt. I’ve been putting my art career on the back burner too long. I don’t want to do that anymore. Something had to give,” she said.

“Your art’s important to you,” he said. “I appreciate that. I hate to lose you. We’re not going to find another welder as good as you.”

“You will. But you won’t find one as fun as me.”

“You put truck nuts on my bumper to punish me for telling you we couldn’t keep sleeping together.”

“So? It was just a prank.”

“You didn’t hang them on my bumper. You welded them on my bumper. Giant. Metal. Testicles.”

“Your truck needed a new bumper, anyway, and you know it.”

“Flash...” She could tell he wanted to say something but wouldn’t let himself say it. Well, she knew how he felt. She’d wanted to say something for six months now. If only she could weld her mouth shut.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

“Wait, I didn’t thank you for anything.”

“I assumed you were going to thank me for leaving. I know I’ve been a...” She paused, searched for the right word. “A complicated employee. I know you’ll be more comfortable at work with me gone.”

“I’d rather be uncomfortable and have you here.”

“I’d rather work for a woman I respect.”

“Than work for a man you can’t?” he asked, meeting her eyes. His jaw was clenched again, tight. She’d hurt him.

“I respect you,” she said as softly as he’d said her real name. “I do. What I mean to say is...I’d rather work for a woman I don’t have feelings for than a man I do. I shouldn’t have made it about respect. I do respect you. I don’t like you very much, but I respect you.”

“I came on your back.”

“I wanted you to come on my back. How would us having very good sex make me lose respect for you? I’m not a man. I don’t lose respect for someone just because he has the bad taste to sleep with me. I consider it one of your finer moments actually. I respect you more for fucking me.”

“I think about it sometimes. That night.”

His eyes met hers for a tense moment before glancing away again.

Flash placed her hand on Ian’s chest, over his heart.

“Welcome to the club,” she said. She patted his chest and dropped her hand to her side. “I’m gonna go before I do or say something stupid. I’ve been known to do that. Examples include the truck nuts incident and that time I welded your desk drawers shut.”

“Wait. You what?” He ran around to his desk. Every one of the desk drawers opened.

“Made you look,” she said.

Ian hung his head, slammed the top drawer shut so that all his pens and pencils rattled.

“You’re evil,” he said.

“Just giving you a hard time,” she said. “Gotta go, boss. I mean, ex-boss. Have a nice life.”

She hopped off his desk and headed for his office door.

“What are your plans now?” he asked.

“Dinner at Skyway,” she said. “Clover says they have truffle fries.”

“No, I mean, you know we don’t have any work scheduled until January fifth. Your two weeks’ notice is kind of meaningless considering you didn’t have to work this month, anyway. Are you starting with Clover next week?”

“Clover’s is closed until March, and she doesn’t need me to start until January. I’m going to enjoy the rest of the month off. It’s December, remember? Baking Christmas cookies, decorating Christmas cookies, eating Christmas cookies, lather, rinse, repeat. Basically eat cookies all month is what I’m doing. And sculpting. You?”

“No cookies. Work,” he said. “I bought a new house. A new old house.”

“Cool. Where at?”

“Government Camp. An old ski chalet.”

“Govy? You must like snow.”

“Love snow. We have two feet up there already. Great view from my new kitchen.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It’s a fixer-upper. I’m spending all month fixing and upping.”

“A ‘fixer-upper’ ski chalet is still a chalet, Bossman. It’s like saying you bought a ‘low-end’ Rolex or a ‘used’ private plane.”

“Fine. You win. I’m a spoiled brat, and I always will be. I didn’t earn what I have, but I’m trying to be worthy of it, okay? Which is why I didn’t want to keep sleeping with you, because when someone gives you power over someone else, you don’t abuse it. And whether you like it or not, I had power over you. More than you know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “I’m only saying I have the power to hire and fire. I shouldn’t sleep with someone I can fire. I did it for you.”

“Well, thank you very much for dumping me. It was very chivalrous. Good luck remodeling your chalet this December. You have to weld anything?”

“A couple things.”

“Clean your metal. Acetone’s good. If you don’t have any in the house, you can borrow my fingernail polish remover.”

She gave him one last little look, maybe the last one she’d ever give him, and left his office. She kept her head up and her shoulders straight as she marched down the generic beige hall on generic gray carpets to the parking lot. Everyone was gone. No surprise there. Last day of work before the holidays, and everybody had shipped out the second they could.

The only car left in the parking lot was Ian’s new black Subaru, which she was pretty sure he bought because he couldn’t look at his old car without picturing the truck nuts she’d welded to the bumper. She headed to her red ’98 Ford Ranger, which had seen better days, trying to convince herself she was happy about leaving. And she was. She was excited about her new job. Clover Greene was about the kindest, friendliest woman she’d ever met, and she had a quirky green-haired teenage girl working for her as an office assistant—her kind of people. The nursery itself was like a well-manicured Garden of Eden. Everywhere she looked Flash saw inspiration for her metal foliage sculptures. Great people, safe place for women to work, nice location, good pay, good benefits and fuel for her art. So yeah, she was thrilled about the new job.

But.

But...Ian.

It wasn’t just that he was good in bed. He was. She remembered all too well that he was—passionate, intense, sensual, powerful, dominating, everything she wanted in a man. The first kiss had been electric. The second intoxicating. By the third she would have sold her soul to have him inside her before morning, but he didn’t ask for her soul, only every inch of her body, which she’d given him for hours. When she’d gone to bed with him that night she’d been half in love with him. By the time she left it the next morning she was all the way in.

Then he’d dumped her.

Six months ago. She ought to be over it by now. She wanted to be over it the day it happened but her heart wasn’t nearly as tough as her reputation. The worst part of it all? Ian had been right to dump her. They’d both lost their heads after a couple drinks had loosened their tongues enough to admit they were attracted to each other. But Ian had a company to run and there were rules—good ones—that prohibited the man who signed the paychecks from sleeping with the woman who wielded the torch.

She pulled her keys from her jacket pocket and stuck them in the lock.

“Flash? Wait up.”

She turned and saw Ian walking across the parking lot toward her. He wore his black overcoat, and combined with his black Tom Ford suit, he looked more like a Wall Street trader than the vice president and operations manager of Asher Construction. Ian told her once he’d started out doing cleanup at his dad’s construction sites twenty years ago. Then he’d gone to college, come home, and clawed his way up the ranks the hard way: by working his fingers to the bone while learning every job. If only he was still just a guy on the crew, maybe it could have worked. Now when she looked at him, she saw a man with money, power, and prestige, a man completely out of her league.

“What?” she asked, leaning back against her truck door.

He stood in front of her, face-to-face, but didn’t look her in the eyes. He stared off to the left where the peak of Mount Hood rose over the treetops.

“Ian?” she prompted when it seemed like he was going to keep her standing there in the cold all day.

“I need your help with something,” he said.

“That must have been hard,” she said. “Asking for my help.”

“It wasn’t easy.”

“What do you need my help with?”

“A project at my new place. It’s pretty delicate work. I don’t trust myself to do it.”

“What’s the project?”

“The house has a stone-and-iron fireplace. It’s what sold me on the place. But the fireplace screen is coming apart. It’s nice, original to the house. Would you maybe be willing to come up and take a look at it tonight?”

“Has to be tonight?”

“You busy?”

“Would you be jealous if I was?” she asked.

“You have a hickey on the side of your neck that you’re trying to hide under your collar. Not that I noticed.”

“Except you noticed.”

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I noticed. Who’s the lucky guy? Or girl?”

“Nobody you know. Old friend from high school who moved back to town a month ago. We reconnected. And then disconnected.”

“Didn’t work out?”

“Do you care?”

“Yes,” he said. He said it very simply. Just “yes” as if what he wanted to say was “obviously I care.”

She shook her head, not at Ian but at her own stupidity for thinking she could have had something meaningful with this jerk she’d dated for a week.

“He was cute, he was smart, he was a good kisser, and he thought my art was awesome. But after a couple week he said he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t date a professional welder when he worked as a teller at a bank. His friends would never let him hear the end of it, he said. He just couldn’t date a woman, no matter how hot—his words, not mine—who came off as more of a man than he did. I said that was fine. I didn’t want to date a guy who was less of a man than I was, either. He called me a couple nice words after that and then he was gone. Good riddance to him and his poor little ego.”

“You have to stop dating beneath you.”

“I slept with you.”

“Exactly my point.”

She laughed. “You’re cute,” she said. “I wish you weren’t.”

“It’s a curse.” He grinned at her. “You know, you could have told that guy you weren’t going to be a professional welder anymore.”

“I could have, yeah. But it doesn’t matter. I can’t sleep with a guy I don’t respect. A man who can’t respect a woman doing a supposedly ‘man’s job’ isn’t going to respect a woman who does ‘women’s work,’ either. I’m glad it ended before it got serious.”

“You feel that way about us, too? Glad it ended before it got serious?”

“It was already serious before you kissed me, Ian.”

“I didn’t know. I had no idea you... It never occurred to me you had feelings for me,” he said. “Except attraction. That I’d noticed.”