FrankenDom (40 page)
Unbelievably, his bright green gaze remained firmly focused on her face. She’d totally
psyched herself up to ignore a subtle but insulting inspection of her figure and hide
her distaste for the man behind a plastic smile. The fact that he seemed more interested
in deciphering her expression threw her off big-time, and she lowered her gaze to
his square chin in self-defense.
It was stubbly. Either he hadn’t shaved today or he was one of those guys who had
to do it twice a day. The masculine shadow went halfway down his thick neck, and below,
a smattering of dark hair sprouted in the open collar of his shirt. The way the hunter-green
cotton hugged his wide shoulders and round biceps left no doubt that he was in very
good—
Her eyes widened as they jerked back up to his. Oh hell. She’d been checking him out,
and the amusement sparkling in his eyes said he’d definitely noticed.
Talking while she ground her teeth wasn’t easy, but she pulled it off. “Nice to meet
you, sir.”
“Call me Barrett.”
I don’t think so.
Jillian straightened her spine and pulled her fingers free of his, reaching immediately
for the bulky ring of keys on the table.
“Tag—you’re it.” She dropped them into his hand and headed for the rear of the conference
room. She could feel his gaze boring into her back, and though she’d been walking
successfully for nearly thirty years, she became excruciatingly aware of her gait.
Trying to minimize the sway of her hips, she slipped into a glide step, only to realize
it didn’t work nearly as well in pumps as it had in her marching shoes.
Crap! This was just one more reason why she’d never even considered entering a pageant.
The minute she was the center of attention, things that she usually did by rote—things
like walking and breathing—suddenly took intense concentration.
Just walk, for God’s sake—it’s not that hard!
Since most of the aisle seats were occupied, it took an eternity to reach a vacant
row. She slipped into a chair at the back and put her hands together in her lap to
still their trembling while she tried to get her breathing under control. What in
the world was wrong with her? He was just a man. A
womanizer
. She had no business letting him affect her this way. After all, she had another
date tomorrow night with Paul Danner, the doctor of her dreams. She should be concentrating
on letting
him
affect her this way.
“Pretty quiet around here today,” Mr. George commented. He stood right where she left
him, both hands in his pockets once more.
Mike held up a hand. “Michael Greeley, sales. We’ve got two large groups checking
in after six.”
“Guess I’d better make this quick, then—thanks, Michael.”
He flashed a toothpaste-commercial smile and Jillian’s heart skipped a beat. She tried
to fix Paul’s kind, patient face in her mind’s eye and was dismayed to realize she
couldn’t quite recall it.
“Hi, I’m Barrett George,” he continued. “I’m a Scorpio, I’ve got a degree from Notre
Dame, and my turn-ons are contact sports, horror novels, and imported beer. My pet
peeves are square pizza, round ice cubes, and telemarketers who think my name is George
Barrett. I’ve been with MGB for almost five years now and I look forward to getting
to know all of you. Any questions?”
There were a few muted giggles and snorts, but no one said anything.
“Moving on. Has anyone heard anything from Arlen Alderton?”
Jillian didn’t expect any affirmative responses but glanced around anyway. Everyone
looked studiously ignorant.
“All right, then is anyone having any problems that I need to address immediately?”
After all the crap Darwin had given her, she’d expected him to jump right in with
a list of grievances, but he just sat there trying to look cagey.
“In that case, I’ll just make a few comments and turn all of you except the department
heads loose.” He jingled whatever was in his pockets and then strolled across the
front of the room, scanning the crowd as he talked. “First, I looked around on my
way in and the hotel seems to be in great shape. Corporate will appreciate hearing
that the mice kept right on working while the cat was away, and I mean
appreciate
in a way you can spend, come next payday.”
“I can live with that.” Phil’s comment provoked a chorus of laughing agreements.
“Second, in order to make the transition as smooth as possible, I’m going to try and
get things squared away here before the new management team arrives. To that end,
I’ll be making inspections and doing spot audits and interviews, in addition to the
day-to-day stuff.”
“So what kind of time frame are we looking at, Mr. George?” At the raised brow, Phil
hurried to add, “Sorry, Phil Breton, F&B manager. I guess what I’m really asking is
if any of us should be…considering other employment options.”
“Definitely not, Phil—and I’d like everyone to call me Barrett. The Tower was already
understaffed before Alderton jumped ship, so you really need the three managers they’re
sending down.”
He held up a hand and the relieved hum of chatter ceased instantly.
“Last, at least for now, I’m going to put a brainstorm box in each of the employee
locker rooms and ask you to stuff them full of ideas and concerns—if there’s something
you’d like me to know but don’t feel comfortable talking about, put it there. Don’t
worry about how far-out an idea is or that I’ll try to compare handwriting or use
some new-fangled CSI gadget to track you down—I just want a little good old-fashioned
honesty and ingenuity to spark some positive changes around here.”
Jillian blinked. For an investigator posing as interim GM, the man was awfully proactive.
And he certainly knew how to project an air of authority. Project, hell—he radiated
authority. She’d seen his type before—he was a man who’d accomplish his goals, no
matter what the cost, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
There was absolutely no reason why the idea should make her bones vibrate. He didn’t
appear to have set his amorous sights on her, and even if he did, she she’d never
had any trouble saying no and making it stick.
“If no one else has any questions,” he concluded, “everyone but department heads can
take off.”
Their gazes collided across the crowded meeting room and she sucked in a breath.
So why did she suddenly feel like taking every bit of her vacation time?
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
Copyright 2009
Chapter One
Dude, how would you like to fuck my wife?
Hake Stivers grimaced as he pushed open the storm door and stepped onto the porch.
Nah, that was a little too in-your-face. Besides, at thirty-eight, he wasn’t young
enough, blond enough, or cool enough to be calling his cousin
dude
.
Maybe,
So Brent, do you think Mandy’s sexy?
He rolled his eyes. What was Brent supposed to say to that? The guy was damned if
he thought she was and damned if he didn’t.
Yanking the bill of his seed cap down to shield his eyes against the late morning
sun, Hake looked out over the yard. The winds had already stripped most of the pale
yellow leaves from the towering maples his dad had planted before he was born, and
if the forecast was to be believed, the rest probably wouldn’t make it through the
weekend. Come tomorrow afternoon, a big chunk of South Dakota would be under a high-wind
warning.
The drone of the air compressor told him Brent was in the machine shed, powering the
dirt and chaff off the combine. He could also hear Joe coming up the gravel drive
with the semi. The line at the co-op must not have been too long, for a change. There
were only a dozen or so rounds of corn left to harvest last night when the guys packed
it in, and if the co-op had been open later, they could have finished up then instead
of this morning.
God damn it, this all felt so wrong. Here it was, the last day of harvest, and he
hadn’t even set foot in the combine, much less done any harvesting. It was a first
for Hake, and one he wasn’t happy about. His dad had taken him for his first ride
in the combine when he was barely a year old, and he’d never missed a harvest since.
And he hadn’t missed a year of actually working during harvest since he was ten.
This year, thanks to his own stupidity, he’d been about as useful as tits on a boar.
Why couldn’t he have rolled the four-wheeler
after
harvest? The broken pelvis and shattered femur would still have hurt like a son-of-a-bitch,
as would the medical bills, and Mandy would still have had to help out with chores,
but at least Hake would have gotten to reap what he’d sown instead of paying his cousin’s
custom farming outfit to do it.
His sigh sent a cloud of steam into the air. Why this year, when grain prices had
finally surged high enough that he might have made a decent profit for once? Instead
of getting ahead a little, they were probably going to show a loss again, and it was
all he could do not to scream his frustration at the heavens.
Of course, Mandy would tell him—
had
told him, more than once—to be thankful that the accident had happened this year,
when they had the extra money to handle it. She’d also pointed out he should be grateful
it wasn’t his reckless, idiotic neck that got broken.
Knowing she was right didn’t make his situation suck any less.
A gust of wind made him shiver. Damn, he should have worn a heavier coat. When had
it gotten so cold?
He zipped his jacket up to the collar, then gripped the icy handrail and thumped down
the concrete steps. At the bottom, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and set out
across the yard at a slow limp. Mandy would bitch at him if she caught him coming
out without the cane, but he was sick of it. He was sick of being laid up and sick
of doctors who didn’t know their asses from their elbows, and he was really damn sick
of hospitals that charged five dollars for a goddamn Tylenol.
Most of all, he was sick of not being able to fuck his wife like he wanted to. Like
she
needed
him to.
The roar of the semi coming around the side of the house brought Jess tearing out
of the shed. The yellow lab veered off course when he saw Hake, bounding over to lick
his hand. His excited whimpers laid another load of guilt on Hake’s heart. Poor dog
spent too much time alone lately. Well, as alone as he could be with a barn full of
cats to chase.
“Yeah, I’ve missed you too, boy,” Hake murmured as the semi and empty trailer rattled
by and headed around to the back of the machine shed. Tomorrow the only sounds he’d
hear out here would be the cattle bellowing at each other and the occasional train
rumbling in the distance.
Picking his way carefully over the uneven gravel, he opened the side door and stepped
into the machine shed. Joe was just finessing the truck between the wagons and the
bean drill, and Brent was blowing out the feeder house with the compressor hose.
Sticking his thumb and middle finger between his lips, Hake let out a piercing whistle.
When Brent looked up, Hake waved him over and then stepped outside so they didn’t
have to talk over the compressor’s roar.
Brent followed him through the door, brushing corn chaff off the front of his jacket.
Squatting, he scratched Jess behind the ears with both hands.
“Mateo’s yielded one-sixty,” he reported, turning his head just enough to avoid a
French kiss from the dog.
“Huh. That’s better than I thought it’d be. Half of that field was underwater for
most of July.”
“Well, it dried out just fine, I guess.”
Hake nodded. “So, Royce on his way to Winner?”
“Yeah, he loaded up and headed out before dawn. May even be combining already. The
rest of the crew got down there last night.”
When Jess darted after a tabby cat slinking through the weeds along the fence, Brent
rose and stepped over by the hydrant. Flipping the red handle, he picked up the hose,
reminding Hake it was time to take in the sprinkler and all the hoses for the season.
Brent waited until the water ran clean before taking a long drink from the flow. Watching
his sun-browned throat work as he swallowed, Hake frowned. It was disconcerting to
be checking out his own cousin, but Mandy had checked him out a few times and Hake
wanted to know just what it was she found so fascinating about him. She claimed they
looked a lot alike, but Hake didn’t see it.
“So what’s on your mind?” Brent asked between gulps.
Hake shifted more weight to his good leg. Mandy’d really kill him if he fell over
out here. “How do you know anything’s on my mind?”
“Well, you’re lookin’ me over like a prime bull on the block,” Brent said with a grin
as he shut off the hydrant and wiped his chin on his sleeve. “Figured something had
to be on your mind.”