AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Wait. What?” Jed tipped his head and frowned. “She’ll—? Sloane?” Rena’s nod, the thought of Sloane Garrison wielding a gun, was lightning through his heart. He huffed out a harsh breath, so intrigued at the mental image he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to breathe again. “Sloane has a gun?”
“She does.” Rena nodded. “She’s licensed to carry, but no, she doesn’t pack. It’s locked up in a safe in her house. But don’t mess with her. The jazz is her thing.”
Jed took another sip of his iced coffee and sighed as he put his cup down on his desk.
“Well, now I’m disappointed,” he mumbled. He scooted past her to get to his chair, wondering when the torture would start. He didn’t know how to do bookkeeping. No. clue. When he realized Rena was still standing there, he dropped into his seat and tipped his head up to look at her. “What?”
She studied his face silently for a second and finally shook her head.
“I’m going to get all of Cheri’s files. I’ll email you the digital—”
“I don’t have an office email,” he reminded her.
“Okay, well, I’ll take care of that first, and then get those digital files.”
“And you’re gonna go over them with me.” He arched his eyebrows. “Right?”
Rena snorted. “You don’t have a clue.”
“I have no clue,” he agreed.
“How did you get this job?”
“Let me remind you that I took a job answering phones,” he said with a shrug. “And yes, I did lie about my experience with that, but come on. It’s a phone. I do have basic communication skills.”
“Okay. I get that.” Rena shrugged. “But you just stood in Sloane’s office last night and offered your help with bookkeeping.”
“Um.” Jed climbed to his feet again. “Hello? Have you seen Sloane Garrison? I would offer her my kidney or my right arm if she was in need.”
Rena’s only response was a low rumble of laughter as she turned away and headed out of the reception area. “Dream on, Jedediah Green.”
“Shhh!” He stepped into the hallway to holler at her back.
“She’s not here yet,” Rena called. “She’s down at the gym. Probably doing email on the treadmill.”
Email on a treadmill? Jed shivered with delight. Sloane Garrison was the sexiest, most intriguing woman he’d ever seen, including Miss Magee, his first-grade teacher he had hoped to marry some day.
The phone rang, so he dropped back into his chair and reached for the handset.
“Garrison Accounting, this is Jed speaking. How may I help you?”
“Wow, not bad, Temp.”
The voice, cool like moonlight on the ocean, squeezed around his lungs. Had she called just to check up on him?
“Hi, Ms. Garrison. What can I do for you?”
“Don’t call me Ms. Garrison.” In the background, he could hear the whir of exercise machines, the pounding of her footsteps on the treadmill. “Good grief, I’m not that old.”
“Sorry, ma—”
“Stop talking. I need you to get me all the Patterson tax prep files together. Have them on my desk when I come in—”
Tax prep files? Patterson?
“And I need you to call Duane Helmke and remind him we need his tax forms. He was late last year, and he’s flirting with that again.”
Jed gave himself a mental shake when his brain latched on to that word. Flirting. This woman, in her pencil skirt and killer heels, with that long, dark hair had just about been his undoing yesterday. When she opened her mouth and let that buttery voice read him the riot act, he’d been halfway to falling in love.
