NFH 02 Perfection (8 page)

A muscle ticked beneath Jason's eye as
he continued to glare down at her. It was really rather unnerving
and she had to wonder how such a sweet woman married him. Zoe
considered trying to walk around him, but knew it would be
pointless. He'd just move to block her yet again.

"Look," he finally said, "just tell me
he lied and we can pretend that none of this ever happened and I
won't have to upset my wife with the news."

She looked over her shoulder, hoping
someone would come give her hand or at least give him the
medication that he obviously needed. When it didn't look like any
help was forthcoming she reluctantly looked back at
Jason.

"I don't know what you're talking
about," she admitted, taking a nervous step back when he started
mumbling to himself.

"Please tell me that my cousin lied to
screw with me and that you're really not a Red Sox fan," Jason
said, staring at her intently as he waited for the
answer.

"I-I'm not a baseball fan," she
stammered nervously, hoping that was the right answer. "I really
don't know much about sports in general."

His eyes narrowed on her. "Then why
did he tell me that you were a Red Sox fan?"

"Because I have a Red Sox tee shirt,"
she explained, discretely taking a step to the side so she could
walk past him only to be cut off as he stepped in front of
her.

"Why do you-"

With an exasperated roll of her eyes
she snapped, "Because the tee shirt is cute. Now can I please go to
work?"

"Cute?"
he repeated as if he couldn't believe what he
heard. "There's nothing cute about those bastards."

"Except their shirts," she pointed
out, biting back a smile at his horrified expression.

He looked like he was about to say
something else, but then threw his hands up in the air and finally
walked off in disgust.

So nice to make friends on the first
day, she thought dryly as she hurried inside the trailer. Just as
she placed her purse on the desk Jared stepped out of his office.
Zoe's eyes automatically sought out the clock. Her stomach churned
when she realized that she was a minute late.

She'd always hated being yelled at by
her bosses, but she had a feeling that being yelled at by a
Bradford was going to be ten times worse. This really was not the
best way to start her first day.

"Good morning, Zoe," Jared said,
smiling, making her even more nervous.

"Good morning, Mr. Bradford," she
said, trying not to shift nervously.

"It's Jared," he reminded her, still
smiling as he headed for the kitchen counter and poured himself a
cup of coffee. "Would you like some?" he asked, holding up the
coffee pot.

"No thank you, sir," she
mumbled.

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head
good naturedly as he walked back towards his office. "It's Jared,
not Mr. Bradford and certainly not 'sir'. Just relax, Zoe. You'll
do fine," he promised with a wink.

"Okay, thank you," she said, forcing a
small, albeit, nervous smile.

"Yell if you have any problems," he
called out from his office.

Zoe slowly exhaled the breath she
hadn't realized she'd been holding and walked towards the fridge to
put her lunch away.

"You can't put that in
there."

Great. Not even five minutes into her
first day and she was already screwing up. She felt her cheeks burn
as she turned around. "I'm sorry. I thought it was the employee
refrigerator," she explained to Haley, who was walking, well more
like wobbling, towards her.

"Oh, it is," Haley said, smiling. "But
if you put it in there it will be gone within ten minutes." Zoe
watched as she pulled several ice packs from the freezer. "I have a
system for this," she said.

Curious, Zoe followed her to the desk
and watched as Haley sat in the chair and unlocked one of the large
bottom desk drawers, revealing a really large box of tampons. Zoe
felt her lips twitch as Haley shot her a mischievous
smile.

"I've tried other things, but in my
experience tampons are the best deterrent for the food thieves,
although cleaning supplies have been known to work in a pinch,"
Haley explained as she handed Zoe an ice pack. In an unspoken
agreement they both hurried to place the ice packs in their bags
and placed them in the large drawer, shutting and locking it
seconds before Jason came storming into the office.

"What are you doing?" he demanded,
eyeing them suspiciously as they huddled behind the
desk.

"I was just about to show Zoe the
computer system," Haley said, smiling sweetly up at her husband as
she turned the computer on.

"Look," Jason said, running
his fingers through his short mussed hair, "I didn't want to do
this, but she," he pointed an accusing finger towards Zoe, "has a
Red Sox tee shirt and thinks it's
cute
."

Haley blinked. "They are."

"They...what....what the hell?" Jason
sputtered, pressing a hand to his chest in what Zoe was quickly
beginning to recognize as a typical Bradford overreaction, even if
it was cute to watch. It was funny how she never really thought of
large muscular men as cute before, but after meeting the Bradford
men there really was no other way to describe them, well other than
studly and hot that is.

"Can we get back to work now?" Haley
asked, sounding innocent, but Zoe didn't miss the woman's lips
twitching or the humor sparkling in her eyes. Something told her
that this woman truly enjoyed torturing her husband.

"For god sake's, my little
grasshopper, you love the Yankees more than I do! What the hell is
going on?" He turned accusing eyes on Zoe. "How dare you brainwash
my wife?" he hissed.

"Are you going to leave so that we can
get some work done?" Haley demanded, turning her attention to the
computer.

"No," he said stubbornly, folding his
arms over his chest, glaring at them.

"Buttercream frosting," Haley said
softly, never taking her eyes away from her computer
screen.

Jason licked his lips as he looked his
pregnant wife over hungrily. "Tonight?" he croaked out.

"If you're good," Haley said, with a
small shrug. "But you have to leave-"

"Bye," Jason said quickly, cutting her
off and rushing out of the trailer just as fast as he
came.

"I'm really sorry about him," Haley
said, looking at her over her shoulder, giving Zoe a sheepish
smile.

"I thought you weren't going to
apologize for him," Zoe reminded her, smiling. There was just
something about Haley that made her relax, which was a little
discomforting since she couldn't remember the last time she felt
relaxed at work.

"You're absolutely right, but he does
entertain me so," she said on a dreamy sigh.

"A sign of a good husband," Zoe
agreed.

"Exactly," Haley said,
beaming.

As much as she was enjoying talking
with Haley she couldn't help the nagging feeling that she should
get back to work. At her old job idle chit chat was not tolerated
and since Zoe had been there for three years the concept of solely
focusing on work was well ingrained.

"What should we go over first?" Zoe
asked, hoping the abrupt change didn't dampen the easy going
comradely they seemed to be sharing. She hadn't had many friends in
her life over the past couple of years and talking with someone as
kind as Haley was a nice treat for her.

"Sure, I'll show you everything, but
it will of course be up to you how you want to handle everything,"
Haley said, still smiling warmly, Zoe noted with relief. "I've only
been filling in over the summer so that Dad had some help. I really
haven't been able to get a system going so however you want to do
this is totally up to you."

"Okay, that sounds good," Zoe said,
practically jumping to the side as Haley stood up and waddled past
her.

"Have a seat."

"Are you sure?" Zoe asked, a little
uncomfortable with the idea of taking a pregnant woman's
seat.

"Definitely," Haley said, placing a
hand on her stomach as she made her way around the desk. She walked
over to the sitting area and proceeded to grab a chair and drag
it.

"Wait!" Zoe said, practically running
around the desk to stop her. "Let me do that for you."

"Thank you," Haley said, smiling
sweetly as she followed Zoe back around the desk. She switched her
comfortable office chair out for the sturdy waiting room chair.
Haley looked like she was going to argue, but Zoe wasn't having it.
She gestured for the woman to sit down in the comfortable
chair.

With a muttered, "slave driver" that
startled a surprised laugh out of Zoe, Haley sat down. She couldn't
remember the last time that she laughed at work. Zoe had to admit
it felt nice and she hoped it was a sign that things were going to
improve.

**********

"Haley, could you take a look at this
printout. Something isn't adding up. I just got off the phone with
Robinson and that jerk is giving me the runaround again. Could you
look this over and see......," Jared's words trailed off as he
looked up from the large pile of ledgers and folders he was
carrying when he spotted Haley curled up on the couch,
sleeping.

Zoe cringed as she stood up, ready to
defend the poor woman who struggled until ten minutes ago to keep
her eyes open. Normally she would have woken Haley back up, but the
poor woman was pregnant and obviously exhausted and Zoe hadn't had
the heart to wake her. Instead she'd been keeping an ear out so
that she could wake the poor woman before she got caught sleeping
on the job.

Unfortunately by the time she heard
Jared's approach he was already in the room speaking a mile a
minute and she couldn't wake Haley without drawing attention to the
fact that Haley was sleeping. She knew the man had an obvious soft
spot for his daughter-in-law, but that didn't mean he'd appreciate
her wasting company time and money.

Her stomach coiled with dread as Jared
placed the stack of books on the corner of her desk and approached
Haley. She shifted nervously as she tried to decide what she should
do. In her old job she would have just kept working and minded her
own business, but Haley had been really nice to her, not that Jared
hadn't, but she just couldn't stand by and let the woman get in
trouble for this.

She opened her mouth to make an excuse
for Haley when Jared shocked the hell out of her by leaning over
and pressing a kiss to the top of Haley's head. Zoe watched in
shock as the large man gently removed Haley's glasses and pushed an
errant strand of hair out of her face.

"Poor thing is exhausting herself," he
mumbled, sighing before he stood up and walked quietly away from
Haley. He ran his hand through his hair as he exhaled slowly,
looking deep in thought.

After a moment he looked up at her and
gave her a small smile. "I hate to say this, Zoe, but I'm not sure
that Haley is going to be able to train you and I'm afraid my
wife's been out of the office for so long that I don't think she'd
be much of a help."

Zoe nodded, wondering what the plan
was going to be. She hoped she wasn't about to get
canned.

"She has a photographic memory," Haley
muttered drowsily, slightly startling her since she thought the
woman was asleep. "And she catches on very quickly. She was able to
fully take over the job two hours ago." She yawned loudly before
adding, "And she caught us up on everything."

Jared's eyebrows arched in surprise.
"Seriously?"

"Mmmhmmm," Haley grumbled seconds
before soft snoring filled the room once again.

Worrying her bottom lip, Zoe nodded.
She still remembered the moment her last boss realized how fast and
efficiently she worked. He smiled just before he added his daily
workload to hers. After that he shoved anything and everything on
her that he didn't want to do and took the praise for her
work.

At first she went along with it
because she foolishly thought that he'd at least mention her role
in all the work. She also thought by helping her boss out that
she'd be on the fast track to a management position. Six months
into her job she realized she wasn't going anywhere and all the
raises that her boss was getting should have been hers. When she'd
confronted Ted, her ex soul sucking boss, about it he merely
shrugged it off and added more work to her load and a few dozen
write ups to her file.

After that she learned to keep her
mouth shut and do her work and his without complaint. Actually, now
that she thought about it she wondered how he was managing his work
now that she wasn't there to do it. With a small sigh she realized
that he probably just pushed it off onto someone else.

"Do you think you could look this over
and call the bank to have them fax over another copy?" Jared asked,
sounding hopeful.

"Of course," Zoe said, not only
because it was her job, but because for the first time in three
years she had a boss who asked her to do something instead of
slamming more work on her desk as he gave her a dirty look. It was
a rather nice change, she thought as she picked up the thin
packet.