Fortune Finds Florist

“I took the liberty of having papers drawn up, so if you’ll just sign, we can get on with planning our new venture.” As she spoke, she pushed two sets of stapled papers toward him, placed an ink pen on the desk between them and sat back, aware of his deepening frown.

He began thumbing through one set of papers. “You had papers drawn up? No discussion? No negotiation?”

Her confident smile faltered. “What’s to discuss? You spelled out the particulars yourself, fifty-fifty on the profits. You provide expertise, equipment and labor. I provide land and financing.”

He looked up, nailing her with a direct look launched from beneath the jut of his brows. “Says here that you get final approval on all expenditures.”

“I am providing the funds.”

“What about unexpected expenses—fuel, tools, research material, mechanical failures? They happen, you know, even with new machinery.”

She shrugged. “We’ll work out some sort of system.”

“Over which you get final approval.”

“Someone has to.”

He got to his feet. “Right, and since you’re the older one, that’s naturally you.” He shook his head bitterly. “No matter how hard I work, how much I know, how many times I’m proven right, I can’t change the date of my birth.” He pointed a finger at her, adding, “And don’t you dare tell me time will take care of it.”

He was right, of course, but this was business, and she would be foolish in the extreme not to try to take the upper hand. Wouldn’t she? “Sam, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just trying to protect my investment.”

“Well, that goes for both of us,” he said, swiping one set of papers off the desk and rolling them into a tube in his hands. “I’ll just let my attorney look these over and get back to you.”

“Yes, of course,” she said softly, feeling slightly ashamed and uncertain.

He turned and walked out without another word, the rigid lines of his back making his anger obvious.

Evidently she had miscalculated. She’d assumed that his youth would naturally compel him to follow her lead. Instead, she’d let him know that she considered his age a tool to use against him. Brilliant.

Sierra dropped her head into her hands. She had just insulted her best hope of proving herself as a businesswoman. So much for her future as a flower producer. Biting her lip, she considered running after him, but in the end she didn’t bother. If she let him walk out, chances were he’d just phone in his refusal and that would be that. On the other hand, if she ran after him, he’d demand more than she could give. Either way, the partnership seemed doomed. And, as usual, she had no one to thank but herself.

Sam yanked open the shop door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, executing a sharp right turn. As he stalked down the street he slapped the rolled papers against his thigh. So she was gorgeous, stylish, self-assured, wealthy and older than him—did that give her any right to treat him like a stupid, wet-behind-the-ears kid? He’d been beating himself up for days because he was sure he’d blown the best opportunity ever to come his way, and all along she’d just been waiting to cut him down to size.

Well, it was probably for the best. Hooking up in any way with Sierra Carlton would undoubtedly be a very bad mistake; an uneven partnership always was. Besides, she was too good-looking for comfort. The last thing he needed was a business partner who could distract him just with the blouse she chose to wear.

Hadn’t she realized that little wrap thing wasn’t conducive to a business meeting? Or was that the point? He could’ve stripped her with just the pull of that string tied at her waist. Didn’t she realize that? Maybe she’d intended to distract him, or maybe she wasn’t as smart as she looked. Just because she was older didn’t mean she knew everything. If she did, she’d know that anything personal between them was never going to happen. Not in his business. Who needed her anyway?

Unfortunately, he did.

The sad truth was that Sierra Carlton and her flower farm were still the best opportunity that he had found to get out from under his equipment payment and make some sort of stable future for himself and the girls.

Mouth thinning into a compressed line, Sam slowed his asphalt-eating strides and blew out an agitated breath. Dismay rose up and threatened to choke him, but his pride still stung so sharply that for a moment he couldn’t let himself feel the other. Then, gradually, the cold air began to clear his head.

Surely there was room for compromise. She had to know that he’d expect some leeway. She wasn’t an airhead, despite evidence to the contrary from that slinky, formfitting, crisscrossed little top.

He briefly squeezed his eyes shut. Why couldn’t she have just approached him as an equal? They could’ve hammered out an agreement in no time. It probably wouldn’t have looked a lot different than the one in his hand, but at least it would have been a mutually made agreement. He’d handled negotiations before, after all. He knew how they worked. Mentally reviewing past negotiations, he tried to enumerate the ways in which Sierra had screwed up this one and, therefore, deserved his scorn.

By the time he reached his heavy-duty truck, he’d worked his way around to a distasteful but honest conclusion. If a man had presented him with that contract he wouldn’t have been nearly as offended. Men always tried to one-up each other in a negotiation. It was expected. Moreover, if it had been grandmotherly Bette Grouper who had presented him with such a proposal, he probably would have signed without a quibble as a matter of respect. But it had been Sierra Carlton who’d drawn up that contract without input from him. Sexy, delicious Sierra Carlton.

He didn’t like where that conclusion inevitably led him. He wasn’t upset because Sierra hadn’t shown the proper and expected respect for him as a business partner, but because she’d treated him “man to man,” not as a man, and an attractive one to boot.

Disgusted with himself, he unlocked the door and got into the truck. Unrolling the paper against the steering wheel, he carefully read every word. It wasn’t a bad deal, all told, with one or two exceptions that could be easily fixed. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days to have his attorney look this over and offer a few suggestions. It would mean swallowing his pride, but he’d choked down worse. That’s what a real man would do, and nobody—but nobody—would ever be able to say that Samuel Ray Jayce wasn’t the real deal. Meanwhile, he’d make sure that he got his business sense out of his pants.

Sierra looked up from her desk a couple days later to find Sam Jayce hanging his elbows in her doorway. The sides of his cattleman’s coat were pulled wide, highlighting the powerful depth of his chest and the slimness of his hips. The cold, breezy weather had reddened his face and brought a sharp clarity to those unusual sage-green eyes. For a moment he said nothing, merely stood there, hipshot, regarding her implacably. Then abruptly he dropped his arms and strolled toward her desk, one hand reaching around behind him.

Time slowed to a crawl, affording her fanciful mind space to conjure impossible scenarios. He would walk to her desk, skirting it to reach her side, reach down, pull her up out of her chair and slam his mouth down over hers. No. He would skirt her desk, circle behind her chair, tilt it backward with his big hands and slowly lean in for a melting kiss. Or perhaps it would be a combination of the two. He would pull her to her feet, cup her face in his hands and deliver that melting kiss erect.

Her heart was pounding by the time he slapped a folded packet of papers onto her desk. She jumped, and the spell was broken. Color flamed in her cheeks.

“S-Sam.”

“Page three,” he said, pointing at the papers.

With trembling fingers, she unfolded the papers and peeled back the top two. An addendum had been typewritten in the space between the paragraphs indicating that a special account for expenses would be set up, the sum of which would be determined by an accountant furnished with estimates by Sam himself. Sierra could name the accountant. Scrupulously fair. Relief swam through Sierra as she reached for a pen and scribbled her initials in the space provided.

“Is this it?”

“Page four.”

She lifted the page and scanned the words. He had added four hundred dollars a month to the modest salary she had proposed, the sum of which would be taken from his year-end profits. She had expected him to double it but realized that she couldn’t very well make that proposal herself. He’d think she was patronizing him. She would have to make certain that the expense budget was generous.

She inscribed her initials again and, without comment, flipped over to the final page to sign her name in the space provided. He produced a second set of papers, and she memorialized those while he made good on the first set. When the second set was fully formalized, he folded the first and slid them into a coat pocket before sinking down onto the corner of her desk.

“Okay. Now that that’s out of the way, I need some idea from you about what you’re hoping to plant.”

She leaned back in her chair and tried not to look at those hard thighs on her desk. Inches from her hand. “Annuals tend to provide the showiest single-stem blossoms for flower arranging, but there are a number of perennials useful in arrangements, as well. I’ve put together a list of about a dozen plants.” She opened a drawer and extracted the paper she’d been working on. “I hope you can read my writing.”

He glanced at the sheet, nodded and said, “I’ll manage.” Folding the paper, he stowed it with the partnership agreement. “I’ll need to do some more research and get back to you.”

“When would you like to meet next?”

“Saturday work for you?”

“I don’t usually work on Saturdays, but the shop is open, so it’s no problem.”

He shook his head. “Not here. Out at the farm. I need to get a close look at the fields.”

“Of course. All right. Just come on up to the house whenever you like.”

“It’ll be early,” Sam warned. “There’s lots to do.”

“Really? At this time of year? I thought the real work wouldn’t begin until early spring.”

He stood. “You thought wrong. It’ll take pretty much every daylight minute between now and planting time to get the planning done and those fields ready.”

Surprised, Sierra nodded. “I see. Um, how early?”

“Daylight,” Sam said cheerily. She didn’t quite manage to keep the dismay off her face, and he chuckled. “Okay, eight.”