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Aside from homeschooling and tending to her fluffy fur babies, Taryn spends every spare moment dreaming up awkward situations or swoony moments to entertain her readers.
Read More from Taryn Daniels
Driving the Boss Crazy
Teddy Cat Hester
Chapter One
Ash
“You’re supposed to be relaxin’, boss.”
Reclining in the back seat of my Mercedes Maybach, phone plastered to my ear, I stare at the vast emptiness crawling by outside my window, then glare at the reflection of my business partner, Taylor, in the rearview mirror. He lifts his dark aviator shades with one of his ham fists and winks at me before refocusing on his driving. We’ll never get to Denver on time at this pace.
I sigh into the phone. “Dex, Taylor’s giving me grief. Call Pete, and he’ll get Amy’s delivery van fixed up while I’m gone. Talk to ya later, buddy.” I end the call and drop the phone onto the car’s built-in wireless charger. “Okay, I’m off. Happy?”
“That’s your third call in the past hour. This is your vacation. Miss Myrtle told me to tell you to turn off the phone or hand it up here to me.”
“Not happening. You already confiscated my Bluetooth. And what’s with calling me ‘boss’?”
“I’m on the job.”
“I didn’t ask you to chauffeur me. You called dibs on driving.”
In point of fact, I’d like to be driving my sleek black luxury sedan myself. Since it’s too pretentious to drive a quarter-of-a-million-dollar car around the tiny town of Sycamore Hill, Missouri, I don’t get much chance. Shoot, the bank president drives a beat-up ’64 Mustang to work. Four cylinder, three-speed, no air conditioning. It’s even got clover growing in the rear carpeting, from driving it across fields he assesses for farm customers. If I had two days with it, I’d whip that vintage beauty back into mint condition.
“I promised Miss Myrtle that you’d get some rest on this road trip,” Taylor says, breaking my reverie.
Our road trip is to the car show in Denver. I’m a sponsor, so the annual trip is part business, part enjoyment. It’s the closest I ever come to a vacation, with all the demands on my schedule. “Is that why you’re taking a back road rather than the interstate?”
Adjusting the seat to sit upright and tucking away the calf rest, I peer out the side window at the flat landscape, just beginning to green for spring. It’s amazing how different the neighboring state of Kansas is compared to the lushness of Missouri, once you get past Kansas City and Topeka. The Great Plains. The very name conjures up images of noisy buffalo herds spread out over these empty fields, grazing on tender shoots of prairie grass. I power down the window to catch a whiff of the grasses rippling in waves from the chill breeze. It’s dryer than Missouri, dusty rather than musty.
“That’s right,” Taylor continues. “‘Stop and make him smell the roses,’ she said to me, right before we left town. I’m not risking her triple-fudge brownies for your addiction to business. If I spot roses, you’re smelling ‘em.”
A bug splats on my sunglasses’ lens, causing me to jerk my head back into the car. “As long as you get us to Denver on time, I don’t care what we sniff. But if you make me miss the sponsors’ meeting, I’ll be looking for a new chauffeur.”
“You can’t fire me. I’m your business partner.”
“Not as long as you’re accepting bribes from my housekeeper.” I smirk with an extra side of eye roll. “It’s a wonder you don’t weigh five hundred pounds, the way you inhale Miss Myrtle’s baked goods.”
The little whirlwind who runs my household fostered me after I was rescued by CPS from a bad situation in St. Louis. From kindergarten she molded me to be a God-fearin’ productive member of society. Translation: she worked me to the bone, 24/7. It helped that she worked as hard and as many hours as I did, and still made time to support me in various money-making endeavors. We celebrated my first million by moving two hours away, into a little house in Sycamore Hill. I tricked it out for her with a kitchen that professionals wish they had. And we’ve been working every minute of every day since. My only regret is that she’s never let me call her Mother.
“It’s a wonder you haven’t keeled over from a heart attack, the way you’re always working,” Taylor retorts as he gives a honk and a wave to the first vehicle we’ve passed in the last hour or two.
I snort and shut down the tablet I’d been working on, then park it in the seat next to me. “I stay away from the baked goods.”
“Ha!”
“Besides, I don’t work all the time. I have outside interests—” An incoming phone call interrupts. “Speak of the devil,” I murmur, picking up the phone and holding it against my chest while I taunt Taylor. “Here’s my Friday night poker connection.” The big guy in the driver’s seat shakes his head with a grunt, and I put the phone to my ear. “Zander. How’s the banking business today?”
“Outside interests, my eye,” Taylor mutters.
“Do I hear Taylor grumbling? Why?” my banker and good friend, Zander Wolfe, asks.
“’Cause he’s about to be fired. What’s up?”
Zander laughs. “Good ol’ Taylor. Hey, I know you’re on your way to Denver, so I won’t keep you. I heard a rumor today, though, that you’re gonna want to hear.”
