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“I just wanted to see if you had any fire in you. Seems you do. Nice work.”
“I just remembered when I was tough.”
“Shoot.”
“I told Mrs. Howard she couldn’t have her scones for free at the women’s league meeting. I told her she has to pay now like everyone else.”
“Yeah? Nice work, that woman was born mean.”
“Thanks.”
“Now let’s get through those exercises. I have work to do before those idiots get back from their adventures and the bachelor party fun begins again.”
“Those Howling guys seem kinda nice,” Mandy said.
“Sure. But they’re like the Ryker boys, and you get a whole bunch of guys together that are identical in most ways, it’s gotta beg trouble for someone like me.”
He was messing with a long bar and loading weights on the ends.
“Someone like you? Aren’t you like them?”
“Not really, but they’re fun. Now you come and stand here and do this.” He took the bar and showed her what he wanted.
“What does ‘not really’ mean? You’re a guy, you like to mess about and eat and drink. Isn’t that the guy 101 handbook?”
“When you stand, push your shoulders back. Stop slumping.”
Mandy felt the muscles in her shoulder twinge.
“There’s a guy 101 handbook? Damn, you don’t have a copy, do you?”
He was funnier than she’d realized. In fact, she was seeing a side to Ted Hosking that wasn’t corporate raider or intimidating.
“I sold the last one to Dylan when he arrived back in Ryker.”
“Funny girl.”
He grabbed some hand weights and showed her more exercises.
“What did you mean by ‘not really’ like them?” Mandy wasn’t looking at him, so it was easier to ask the question.
“Don’t be nosey.”
“I’ve never been called that before.”
“Nosey?”
She nodded.
“Here’s the deal, Mandy. If you ask me a question, I get to ask one too.”
She looked at him standing there in his shorts and shirt, one large hunk of handsome, and shut her mouth.
“I didn’t think so.”
That he thought she was chicken annoyed her enough to ask a question.
“Where were you born?”
