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“Don’t you and Joe live together?”
She nodded.
“Huh.” Nina shrugged, then leaned against the doorframe. “Anyway, the point is we should carpool. Then after, we should go get some drinks. Girls’ night at Monty’s Tavern?”
“Ooh, a girls’ night. That sounds perfect. I’msooverdue for one of those.” Roxie smiled. She was beginning to like the sound of this. “How about instead of going out, I can pick up a bunch of wine and snacks? I’ll send Joe over to Quinn’s, and we can have girls’ night at my place. We have extra rooms, so you and Sheila can pass out safely.”
Nina chuckled. “Maybe getting Sheila and Alex drunk together will make them tolerable to be around.”
Roxie rolled her eyes. “I know, right?”
“What about June?”
“I’ll absolutely invite her, but I doubt she’ll come. She and her crazy knitting ladies have a standing ‘craft night’ on Saturdays. With or without June, I’m going to call this a team-building exercise so I can write off the costs of the alcohol and food.”
Nina laughed. “Always the businesswoman, aren’t you?”
“Always. Now get back to work, missy.”
It was eight o’clock by the time Roxie shut her computer down. Closing her eyes, she stretched her arms over her head. She was exhausted, but she could see the light at the end of the tunnel. And it wasn’t a train coming to plow her over.
Her workload was finally stabilizing, and she had Nina to thank for that. While she hated letting things go—okay, fine, she was a bona fide control freak—Nina was more than capable. The little dynamo had been taking over the catering end bit by bit, and Comfort Food’s numbers had never looked better.
Soon Roxie would be able to hire another full-time staff member. That would bring her one step closer to having normal hours. Maybe even taking a full day off every week. However, she wasn’t going to lie to herself. It dented her pride to know that Comfort Food did just fine without her whenever she chose to remove her hands from the wheel.
But Roxie was a businesswoman, and wasn’t the goal of every successful entrepreneur to build something scalable? Something that could grow without requiring her to sacrifice more and more and more of her own blood, sweat, and tears?
Hmm. The idea of carving out some free time was one she could learn to get behind. In fact—
She bolted upright in her chair.
A noise had come from the kitchen.
Silently rising to her feet, she crossed her small office to retrieve the golf club she kept handyjust in case.
A metal dish clattered to the ground, and her heart stopped.
She squeezed herself next to the futon, out of view of the intruder, and tightened her grip on the seven iron she held like a baseball bat. Lying in wait, her pulse drummed a deafening beat in her ears.
Footsteps sounded on the linoleum. Her stomach pitched. As a shadow grew in the doorway, she sucked in a breath and prepared to swing. She was going to clock this bastard.
“Roxanne?”
Holy. Crap.The seven iron clattered to the ground. Her legs gave out, and she collapsed onto the futon with a whoosh.
Joe kneeled before her, running his hands over her arms. “Rox? Talk to me, baby. What’s wrong?”
“Oh my god, Joe,” she said, her voice trembling. She nodded to the golf club. “I almost decapitated you. Again. If you hadn’t said anything, I was ready to swing.”
Effortlessly, he lifted Roxie and settled her on his lap. Nestling her head into the crook of his neck, she took comfort in the warmth of his embrace.
“I’m sorry I scared you. You weren’t home yet, so I figured I’d come by to see if you were still here. I texted you.”
She glanced at her desk and frowned. Her phone was somewhere under the pile of paperwork. She was surprised she’d missed the notification.
“How did you get in?”
“Back door.”
