Cinderella And The Ceo

Now all he had to do was think of one.

As plates of food were being passed, Laurel surreptitiously studied the stranger she’d allowed into her home. She’d had her suspicions about him from the moment she’d read his thin personnel file and discovered he was older than the typical trainee the corporate office sent to Graham Metals. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Because Deke’s records didn’t give her a clue about his personality or his lifestyle, except that he had attended Harvard and he got his late start in business because of playing professional baseball, Laurel wasn’t going to offer him the opportunity to stay in her home. But Tom Baxter had insisted, assuring her that Deke Bertrim could be trusted. She’d reminded Tom that when she brought one of his trainees into her home, she literally was trusting him with her life and the lives of her daughters, but Tom stood fast. Deke Bertrim was not to be treated differently from the other trainees. Just because he was a little older—thirty-three—and a little better educated, that didn’t make him better than the other executive candidates or change Tom’s orders for putting him through his paces. Deke Bertrim needed this training the same as everybody else.

And he most definitely would not hurt her and her daughters, Tom assured her. Since Tom was a personal friend of Deke’s family, he could state with unequivocal certainty that Deke Bertrim was harmless.

Peeking across the dinner table at her boarder’s thick black hair, big blue eyes, broad shoulders, well-structured chest and beautiful biceps clearly outlined by his polo shirt, Laurel sincerely doubted the man was harmless. At least not to any red-blooded American female over the age of sixteen. But her daughters were four and eight, and she and her mother were clearly out of the market for romance, so she supposed the whole group of women was safe. Besides, she trusted Tom’s judgment. In the three years and six management trainees since she and Tom had started this procedure for indoctrinating his junior executives into the real world of manufacturing, he’d never steered her wrong. She and her family were thriving because of it.

“More soup, Mr. Bertrim?” Laurel’s mother asked, bringing Laurel back to the present and into the conversation around their dinner table.

“Thank you, Mrs. Russell, but I’m stuffed. That was wonderful.”

As usual, her mother beamed with pride. “My beef-barley soup and homemade bread always win raves at church functions.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Deke agreed, smiling.

The guy hadn’t wasted any time winning over her mother, Laurel thought, then glanced at her two little girls, Audra and Sophie. Staring at the new boarder with sparkles in her blue eyes, four-year-old Sophie was definitely enamored, which was okay since she was well below the age of trouble.

But eight-year-old Audra was not even slightly smitten. She appeared to be too caught up in anger to have any feelings at all about the man at their table. Laurel’s beautiful brunette with the saucy smile and expressive brown eyes looked about ready to kill someone. Laurel supposed it was lucky Deke didn’t have anything to do with that.

“Audra, why don’t you help me get dessert?” Laurel said, hoping to get some private time with her daughter.

But Deke Bertrim almost jumped out of his seat.

“I’ll help.”

“We’re fine,” Laurel said politely, but firmly.

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I still want to help.”

“Actually I’d like a minute alone with Audra,” Laurel explained, knowing that if they were all going to live together for the next few months, they might as well start being honest now.

“Okay,” Judy said, rising from her seat. “Then Sophie, Deke and I will get the carrot cake. And you can have the dining room to yourselves while we’re gone.”

Sophie immediately hopped off her chair, not about to miss this golden opportunity to be nearly alone with Deke, as Deke snapped to Judy’s aid, assisting her from her seat. Again, Laurel was struck by the fact that he was too nice, too helpful. But with angry Audra at her right, she didn’t have time to puzzle it out.

“You okay?” Laurel asked the second the swinging door closed behind the merry band on its way to get cake.

“Mr. Marshall can’t coach softball this year,” Audra announced glumly.

Laurel bit her lower lip. “Honey, I know you really liked him,” she said, smoothing the silky sable hair at Audra’s temple. “But Mr. Marshall is getting old. If he retired it’s because it’s time,” she said, trying to subtly convey the message to her little girl that he hadn’t left because of something she had done.

“I know,” Audra said with a sigh, then folded her arms on the table and laid her head atop them. “But he was the best coach.”

“And I’ll bet he thought you were the best player,”

Laurel agreed. “But I’m also sure somebody every bit as nice will take his place.”

“That’s just it,” Audra said as the three amigos pushed through the swinging door carrying plates of carrot cake. “There’s nobody who wants to take his place. Without a coach, we don’t have a team.”

“I see,” Laurel said, hiding her concern. After Audra’s father left, Audra had been quiet and reclusive until she discovered softball. Suddenly, with the introduction of team sports into her life, she’d become chipper and happy again. Laurel knew it was because Artie Marshall had taken a liking to Audra and treated her very well, filling her need for a father figure. But Laurel also recognized that Audra got her exercise, her connection to the community and her relief from summer boredom from that one little game. If Audra couldn’t keep playing, there would be a big hole in her life.

“A coach for what?” Deke asked as he handed a piece of cake to Laurel at the same time that smiling Sophie handed a piece to Audra.

“Softball,” Audra mumbled, obviously not as impressed with their new boarder as Sophie was, because she didn’t even raise her head to look at him.

At Audra’s lackluster response, Deke peered at Laurel.

Laurel shrugged. “This is a small town. Everybody works. Some people have two jobs. The former coach retired, but he’s getting on in years. It must have become too much for him.”

“Oh, Artie Marshall’s just an old fuddy-duddy,” Laurel’s mother said, then slid a bite of cake into her mouth. “He’s angry because he didn’t win the championship last year and he’s taking it out on the new kids this year.”

“That’s not true!” Audra immediately protested.

“I’m sure it’s not true,” Laurel quickly agreed, not wanting this to turn into any kind of negative commentary about Audra’s hero. “And I’m also sure somebody else will come along.”

“Like who?” Audra demanded.

“I don’t know, honey,” Laurel began, but Deke interrupted her.

“I could do it.”

Judy’s face bloomed with surprise, Sophie grinned cheerily, and even Audra lifted her head from her arms. But Laurel said, “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Deke said. “What else am I going to do? As a trainee, I only work eight hours a day. And I’m stuck in a town where I don’t know anybody. I have plenty of time to do this.”

Audra’s big brown eyes grew even bigger. “You do?”

Deke smiled warmly. “Of course, I do.” Even as Laurel’s suspicions about this very friendly, helpful man compounded, she couldn’t deny that only a truly good person would volunteer to coach a bunch of eight-year-old girls. But more than that, his coaching the team would be a big favor to Laurel. Audra would always have a ride to and from her games and practices, which to a single mother was like manna from heaven.

Maybe she was wrong to be so suspicious of this guy? Maybe instead of questioning her good fortune with her handsome boarder, she should just thank her lucky stars?

Her brain immediately issued a firm warning that letting down her guard would be foolish, but Laurel ignored it. For once in her life it felt good to trust someone so easily. It felt good to get some help with her kids.

She couldn’t think of a reason or a way in the world that his coaching a softball team could backfire. Still, she knew something would go wrong. That was just the way her life was.

Chapter Two

Since Deke was unfamiliar with the town, he accepted a ride to the plant with Laurel the next morning, but they hardly spoke. He spent most of the drive trying to get accustomed to seeing her in tight jeans, a loose ragged T-shirt and steel-toed boots. It didn’t seem fair that a woman could look that good dressed that badly, and Deke convinced himself that was why he couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away from her.

Forcing his eyes in the direction of the passenger-door window of her Toyota, he reminded himself that he was at this plant to find out how an audit could be off by over three hundred thousand dollars. At this point, he didn’t know if someone had made an honest mistake, if someone had embezzled money or if someone was stealing inventory. He only knew regular procedures kept confirming the mistake without giving any clue as to a reason for it. Because he could very well be dealing with a thief, he couldn’t be too cavalier about this problem or preoccupied with a pretty woman.

But he try as he might, he couldn’t stop sneaking peeks at Laurel, and he knew he had been blessed that her daughter’s softball team needed a coach. Since the season started in less than two weeks, he had been forced to call an emergency practice. Tonight he would be busy with a gaggle of eight-year-old girls, not six feet away from Laurel watching TV, smelling that wonderful scent she wore.

When they arrived at the factory, Laurel immediately showed him to the Human Resources Department. She introduced him to the director who would monitor his progress during his training, and Deke forgot all about his gorgeous landlady. He had passed the first hurdle in his charade, when Laurel accepted him as a trainee, but upper management might not be so easy to fool. As far as he was concerned, this was his real moment of truth.

Because Bertrim was the name of his mother’s first husband and Deke’s deceased father, and not the name of the stepfather who actually ran the corporation for his mother’s family, Deke didn’t give a second thought to anyone recognizing his name. And since he had played minor-league baseball for more than a decade, the Human Resources director didn’t question his late start in business.