Page 11 of Cannon

Prophet doesn’t help when he smirks at my discomfort and gets up to leave the office. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted, oh, and sort out the business of the dog. Nice to meet you, Barbara, and if Cannon isn’t able to satisfy your needs in any way, please don’t hesitate to come to me. I’m sure I could help you.” Leaving the office, he makes a point of closing the door behind him.

“Barbara, please take a seat and let’s see what we can do for you. I have only been here for a few minutes, and we didn’t get to discuss anything about your pet dog.” I give her my best ‘sorry about that’ smile.

“What exactly did you get to discuss?” She says it with a pout on her lips, and I know she heard what we were saying. I can’t help but blush, and that just confirms my guilt.

“I’m so sorry, Barbara. That’s not how we normally behave or conduct business. Prophet was describing you because he didn’t get a name, that was all. We meant no disrespect.”

Fuck, fuck and more fucks. What a hole to dig yourself into. I can’t think of anything worse than being caught talking about a woman's assets by that woman. Fuck, fuck and another fuck, just for good measure.

“I’m not offended. I’m flattered that you recognized me from his description. I’m pleased that you thought my eyes are my best feature. Most men don’t get as far as my eyes, if you get my meaning. I’m very pleased to hear that I can raise your temperature with just a look. That gives me hope for the future.”

Oh…my…God! She heard everything. How the hell do I get out of this unscathed. I think of Grover Cleveland, Esq. Attorney at Law. I may need his services sooner than I could have imagined.

“I’m so sorry, Barbara. I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m on my lunch break and haven’t eaten. Take me to lunch, and I’ll think about letting you off the hook.” She looks at me with those huge, beautiful eyes, and I hear myself agreeing. I’m still sitting there staring at her when she pulls me out of my trance.

“Come on, then. I only have an hour,” she states.

When we get outside, I realize I have the hog and not the truck. This doesn’t faze her one bit as she casually takes a helmet from Prophet's bike and slips it on. I drop him a quick text to say I’ve borrowed his brain box, and before he can object we straddle my hog and we head into town.

I wasn’t expecting to be riding with a beautiful woman on my hog when I woke up this morning.

“Why thank you, Cannon. That’s a lovely thing to say.”

Oh! I said that out loud. I must be careful of that going forward. Some of my thoughts about Barbara had best be left unheard, I think. Especially how she’s making me feel with her hands around my waist and her assets pressing into my back. Wow!

Chapter 7

*~* Barbara *~*

I’ve been as fidgety as a cat on a hot tin roof all morning. I’m finally going to get some time with Cannon. I must be a bad person because I don’t give a damn that my neighbor's dog died and gave me this opportunity. If he isn’t there when I get there, I’m going to be crushed. I know I may be setting myself up for a fall, but I can’t help it. I’ve been sitting on the sidelines for too long, and it’s time I got in the game.

I know what, or should I say who, I want, and I’m going to have him or die trying. Going into the kitchen to refill my water bottle for what must be the tenth time, I bump into Molly, literally.

“Sorry, Molly. My mind was elsewhere.” I’m glad she wasn’t carrying a mug of coffee, that would have been a disaster. Oh, I would have had to go home and get changed before meeting Cannon.

“Yes, you would. Never mind that we both could have been scalded.” Molly looks at me with raised eyebrows, and I almost burst into tears. “My office, now. Let’s go.” Molly spins me around and pushes me out of the kitchen door and towards her office.

Once inside, she shuts her door, something she rarely does, and points to a chair. “Sit, young lady. It’s time you told me what’s going on. It can be our secret if that’s how you want it, but I need you to tell me why you’re being such a goofball lately.”

“There’s nothing to tell…” That’s as far as I get before she slaps her hand on her desk and almost makes me pee my pants in surprise.

“Enough of the bullshit. You are not being yourself, and I know the signs well enough. There’s a man at the bottom of this, and you need to tell me who he is and what he’s done so I can make him pay.” Her intense look scares the hell out of me, I can tell you.

“It’s not like that, Molly, honestly. No one has done anything. That’s the problem. I’d love it if he did.” There you have it. It’s out before I know it. “You have to swear that you won’t say anything. He genuinely doesn’t know how I feel. I don’t think he even knows I exist, to be honest.” I feel tears welling up, but force them to stop. I can’t be going anywhere with puffy, red eyes. Not today of all days.

“I knew it. I knew there’d be a man behind it all. It’s always a man when a woman behaves like you have been doing. Goddamn men and their stupidity. Why on earth God created them first, I’ll never understand. He should have made woman first, never mind that ‘in his own image’ crap, and then we could have explained things to the man right from the get-go. The world would have been a better place!”

Jesus. What a rant. She’s really on her soapbox now. I thought she was good with her relationship with Breaker, but holy hell.

“I don’t know about better, especially if you’d been first, but I’ll concede that it would have been different.” I look at her and she starts to giggle.

“I do get a little overexcited at times. I admit to liking the sound of my own voice when I’m passionate about a subject, and I do get passionate about the subject of men and their complete inability to think straight when it comes to us women. If we didn’t take the lead sometimes, I think the world would have a very limited population. Left to themselves, men would never get into a stable relationship and have a family.”

“I think you’re doing some men an injustice there, you know.” She’s scary when she gets her serious head on at work, but this is like a whole new level. “I’m good. I can sort my man out. You don’t need to get involved. It’s fine, everything’s fine.”

“Okay. Rant over, and back to normal. Who is it?” Molly looks like she’s back to the Molly we all know and love, so here goes.