Flirting With the Boss

“What other things?”

She felt the heat crawl up her neck. The question made her uncomfortable in spite of the fact she didn’t feel the slightest inclination to spare this man’s feelings or impress him. Unfortunately, she couldn’t seem to stop the blush. She blew out a breath. “To everyone over thirty-five in this town you’re the ingrate.”

He glanced at Bernice who was barely concealing the fact that she thought he was hot. “And to everyone under thirty-five I’m the rebel?”

“You gotta love small towns.” Ashley decided the opinion poll regarding Max Caine was skewed because she’d pitched her tent in the over thirty-five camp. “Bernice, it’s come to my attention that Mr. Bentley Caine is unaccounted for. I’ll just take a peek in his office in case he slipped past you.”

“Be my guest,” she said.

Ashley, with Max beside her, walked to the closed door and opened it. The oak-panelled, hunter green carpeted room was empty.

“Darn.” She glanced up at Max who had easily looked over her head and came to the same conclusion she had. His grandfather wasn’t there. “Now what?” she said to no one in particular.

A muscle in Max’s jaw contracted. “Now we go look for him.”

“What’s this ‘we’ stuff?” she asked.

“Do you know his routine? His hangouts? His habits?”

“Yes, some, but—”

“Then I need you,” he said, encircling her upper arm in his firm grip. “We is you and me.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“To join the search party.” Max frowned as he studied her, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

“That’s presumptuous. You don’t know me from a rock—”

“Sure I do. You’re the one who called and got me into this. Besides, I recognized you right away.”

She knew better than to be pleased by that piece of information. But pleased she was. She reminded herself it didn’t mean anything. “I didn’t mean my looks. Besides, I haven’t changed all that much.”

“Sure you have. You’ve grown up since that summer we were friends.”

She’d thought they were friends, but she’d found out differently. Her stomach clenched, and she pushed the feelings away. “The past isn’t important.”

“You won’t get any argument from me about that. And now I’m asking for your help to find him.”

“How come you’re so concerned all of a sudden?” she demanded.

“How do you know it’s sudden?”

She shrugged. “Logical conclusion based on your actions.”

“My actions? Like coming back?”

“Your actions—as in you left and haven’t been back in ten years. Why show up now? And I don’t buy it’s because you care that he’s sick.”

Lines creased his forehead, and he seemed lost in thought. “That’s a very good question.”

“And I’m waiting for a very good answer.”

“I don’t really have one. But when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Actually your grandfather deserves the answer, not me. But if we don’t find him—”

“We will.”

Ashley thought there was an edge to Max’s voice. In anyone else, she might think it was caused by worry. But this was the guy who had turned his back a decade ago.

“I need to get my purse,” she said, as they stopped outside her office. She was choosing to go with Max Caine because it was almost quitting time and she wouldn’t get any work done now anyway. Not until her boss was located. “And my organizer.”

“Does he use a cell phone?”

He? What did Max call Bentley Caine? Grandpa? Grampy? She looked at the tension in his square jaw and decided that would be a negative on Grampy. Grandfather?

She thought back to their conversations in the employee lunch room. At fourteen, she’d vented feelings of frustration about being grounded and having to go to work with her mother when she wasn’t in summer school. Max had called her Mona the Moaner. He’d done his share of moaning. His grandfather was the source of major frustration. He’d talked about—Bentley.

He’d called the older man by his given name, and she’d thought it very cool—sophisticated. She’d had stars in her eyes because the larger-than-life rebel and hunk, Max Caine, had actually spent time with her. Then his actions had said loud and clear that she wasn’t worth the spit it would take to let her know he was leaving town.

Now he had to ask her if his grandfather had a cell phone. Max should have come back. Then he would know the answer to that question.

“Ashley? It’s not that difficult a question.”

“No, your grandfather doesn’t have a cell phone,” she finally answered.

Max’s mouth thinned to a grim line. “I had a feeling.”

“A feeling?” The man was his family. He shouldn’t have to rely on feelings. He should have been around all these years to know the facts. Then he wouldn’t need her to steer him to his grandfather’s hangouts. And just maybe if Max hadn’t left, his grandfather wouldn’t have worked himself into a heart attack. “You haven’t seen him for ten years. How can you have feelings?”

“A figure of speech. It’s more like informed intuition. Ten years ago he was stubborn, opinionated and dictatorial. And those were his good qualities.” Max politely opened and held for her one of the double glass doors in the lobby. “I have no reason to believe he’s changed.”

“Is that so?” She walked past him and wasn’t certain if the heat she felt was from him or the June air that made Sweet Spring, Texas, feel as hot as the face of the sun.

Ashley met his gaze. “Hmm. Stubborn, opinionated and dictatorial. Has anyone ever told you the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree?”

Chapter Two

Scrappy. Max looked down at Ashley Gallagher and that was the first word that came to mind. She was scrappy, all right, and if not for her phone call, he wouldn’t be here.

Studying her he said, “Did you just insult me?”

“If you have to ask, I was too subtle.”

He took her elbow and steered her toward his car parked in Caine Chocolate Company’s lot. Heat was radiating in waves, and he couldn’t decide if it was only from the blacktop or if some of it was coming from his companion.

“I’ll drive,” he said, stopping beside the silver BMW he’d rented at the airport. He opened the passenger door and Ashley slid inside. “You tell me where to go.”