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She squeezed his hand before releasing it, turning and sauntering toward the parking lot, her tantalizing hips swaying with each step. A few feet from the parking lot she stopped and pivoted to look back at him.
“I guess this means our truce is over.” The parking lot’s lights spotlighted her, showing off every curve and the slight quiver of her bottom lip, but before it could grow into a full-blown tremble, she straightened her shoulders and looked him dead in the eye
. “Swords or dueling pistols in the morning?”
She knew it and he knew it. Their roles in the ongoing Salvation drama were set, and they had no choice but to play the parts assigned.
“Swords, of course.” He could fight her, but not reality.
They were enemies.
Chapter Seven
Miranda slammed the phone down on the receiver. Two days. Ten contractors. Six slightly nervous he’s-or-she’s-not-heres and four straight up nos. At least the last guy had the decency to sound embarrassed, but that didn’t change the fact that not a single contractor in Salvation would rebuild the loading dock.
So much for her and Logan’s little moment of Zen last week. He hadn’t been kidding about dueling at dawn. None of the contractors had come right out and said it, but she knew a Martin family bitch slap when the invisible palm smacked her across the cheekbone.
Their families had history. A long one.
The way her MeMaw had told it, Matthew Sweet and Benjamin Martin founded Salvation together. Then they both fell in love with Elizabeth Hamilton, who, according to MeMaw, had enough intelligence to marry Matthew Sweet. But Benjamin Martin had taken it as the first strike in a war his family had to win. It only got worse after that. Bootlegging. Crooked land deals. Cattle rustling. Drought. The Civil War. Lies. Inconvenient truths. With the end result being two families on opposite sides of the track who grew up hearing tales of the other’s treachery and general worthlessness.
She’d been stupid enough to forget that history when she was young, dumb, and barely seventeen.
Logan had been as hot as any completely-off-limits-and-out-of-her-league boy could be, and she’d known there was something more to him than being the crown prince of Salvation. In her demented teenage mind, he was the Prince to her Cinderella. It was like the beginning of a cheesy song by some overly earnest tween pop star. God, she’d been as dumb as a box of rocks to even think he’d ever seen her as more than an easy conquest.
The phone rang, and she grabbed it before the second jangle. “Sweet Salvation Brewery, this is Miranda.”
Please, God, let it be a contractor.
“So how goes it in Podunk, Virginia?”
The sound of Patilla the Hun’s voice tore through her hopeful mood like a hacksaw mutilating a child’s birthday balloon. Hard, vicious, and total overkill. The boss from hell only called when he had last-minute assignments for her or wanted to gloat. She was too far away for his patented dump-and-dash, so he had to be about to rub something awful in her face.
“Everything’s fine, Pat. What can I do for you?” Cool. Calm. Collected. At least on the outside.
“Can’t a boss check in on an underling’s progress on a pipe dream?” Now that sounded more like the weasel she knew and despised. “I hear there was a workplace accident. I hope everyone is okay and that the federal workplace safety folks aren’t on your doorstep.”
Her stomach sank faster than a full keg in wet cement. “Everyone is fine, and the dock is in the process of being repaired.” If she could line up a damn contractor. “How did you find out about the incident?”
“That’s what you’re calling a potential injury lawsuit? Cute. You didn’t think I wouldn’t keep an eye out for you, did you?” She could practically see him twisting an imaginary mustache like a villain in a silent movie. “So, it looks like that corner office you’ve been drooling over will be filled by the time you get back.”
He paused for effect while she screamed NO in her head.
“Mr. DeBoer opened the position to outside candidates,” Patilla the Hun continued, a light lilt to his voice as if he was relating the cutest story about how his adorable pet snake swallowed the neighbor’s baby whole. “It really is too bad that you’re out of the office for the next few months. You know how important it is in this kind of volatile situation to have the big boss see you every day working to build the company.”
Because reaching through the phone and strangling him wasn’t an option, she closed her eyes and exhaled a deep breath all the way from her toes. “Thanks for the update.”
“Oh, any time. Have a great afternoon.” He hung up before she even had a chance to respond.
Staring at the phone in her hand, heat burning her cheeks, she fought the urge to scream.
“You look like you’re about to pop, big sis.”
Her sister Natalie’s familiar voice zapped the annoyance right out of Miranda, and she ran across the recently de-cluttered office. The middle of the Sweet triplets, her hair pulled back into a tight French braid, stood in the door wearing a goofy grin, her ever-present pearl necklace, the latest in a long line of nondescript pastel pink cardigans, and a tan, mid-calf length skirt from some academic-researchers-gone-wild catalog. Miranda hadn’t seen a more beautiful sight since she’d stepped foot in Salvation.
“Seeing you is better than Christmas morning.” Wrapping her arms around one of her two mirror images, Miranda squeezed. “Thank God you’re here.”
“How could I say no after that last text? I’m just sorry I couldn’t get here earlier.” Her sister rolled her eyes. “I swear, you’re almost as big of a drama queen as Olivia.”
