Page 7 of Shane

Chapter Three

Everlee tapped her fingertips on the keyboard, not hard enough to enter anything into Mr. Stewart’s calendar for the day, just needing to do something. She’d been stuck on boring desk duty for five weeks now, and it was killing her. Killing, with a capital K. Guess one too many near misses wasn’t looked upon kindly here at TEAM HQ. First near miss: spraining her ankle by falling up three measly steps on her way into TEAM HQ on her first day of work. Second: the ruckus she’d unintentionally caused when she’d taken down Webster Finch, the jerk. Alex ended up paying that farmer for damages she’d ‘allegedly’ caused his dusty, old field. Yeah, right. Lastly, and this was the most embarrassing, she’d recently tripped up those same damned steps and sprained her other ankle!

Alex said she was an accident waiting to happen. His sidekick, the handsome, debonair, and, okay, so he was married, too, Mark Houston, called her a gorgeous klutz. Of course, he’d chuckled with that deep baritone of his, which all by itself was enough to melt a girl’s panties.

Well, duh. Newsflash! Accidents were what happened when people lived fast and hard. They took risks, and because they did, sometimes they messed up.Get over it, guys!

A person had to actually ‘do something’ to make mistakes. It sure as hell wasn’t the know-it-all, big-mouthed do-nothings quarter-backing from their comfy, padded, Laz-Z-Boy recliners in the middle of their safe living rooms. No, it was the bloodied, wounded players on the actual field, the guys and gals being criticized and called names for fumbling the ball those arm-chair quarterbacks couldn’t catch on a good day. Everlee was that man in the ring from President Theodore Roosevelt’s speech, damn it. She was the guy in the arena. The one whose face was marred with dirt and blood and plenty of sweat, damn it. Of course she fell down a lot. She was the person actually running the race, wasn’t she?

Everlee had long ago committed Roosevelt’s comments to memory. Okay, so she was a bit of a klutz. No one ever said that man in the ring had to be an athlete. But honestly, therewassomethingwrong with those three steps leading into TEAM HQ’s entrance. Too bad no one believed her.

Her ride-or-die race-car driving father had always said life wouldn’t be easy. But the only way to live it washead-on, straight into traffic, and without apology. And as much as she hated him now for what he’d done, the little girl inside of her still followed that sage advice. It was people like her who weren’t afraid to stand up and take risks. They were the ones who made a difference in the world. Not some mama’s boy who still lived in his parent’s basement. Of course, there was another reason she was a klutz, a good reason, one she’d kept hidden for years and would never reveal until she was forced to. Ha, like anyone could make her do something she didn’t want to do. But one of these days she’d have to tell Alex about her ADHD. Just not today.

“Jiminy Christmas, grow the hell up, why don’tcha,” she grouched at all the big-mouthed, do-nothing idiots in the world.

It was crazy weird that she and her teammates who’d moved from Seattle—the bustling, enterprising, and beautiful Emerald City of the great Pacific Northwest—had ended up in the middle of Hicksville, Nowhere, Virginia. The change of pace, or total lack of pace, was stifling to the city girl she’d become. Utterly boring. And driving Everlee crazy bonkers. For a woman of her intense drive to be all she could be—not to mention her penchant for getting things done in too big of a hurry—country life in western Virginia was as slow as molasses in the dead of an arctic winter. Worse, there was no Starbucks within driving distance in any direction! WTF?

That had to change. She would’ve written to whoever the pretentious CEO of Starbucks was—she still had to look him or her up—but Alex, in his all-wise and all-knowing way, had already installed the most divine little gourmet coffee kiosk right in TEAM headquarters lobby. That by itself proved he was a genius. Who wasn’t enamored by the scent of coffee? Or the scent of him?

Everlee rolled her eyes at the thought of possibly encountering her dream man again today. No wonder he’d recently been voted most successful entrepreneur on the Eastern Seaboard for the year. Again. Everlee would’ve voted for him herself if she could have, just based on the fragrance of whatever body wash he showered with or men’s cologne he wore.

Yum!

Speaking of Alex… Unbeknownst to him or anyone else, he’d become Everlee’s major crush. Yes, she’d liked a few of her Air Force buddies in the past, and she adored Mark Houston. But none compared to the man she would eagerly give her heart, body, and soul to—if he would only ask. And if he weren’t already married to his pretty wife Kelsey, who Everlee also adored, just not in the same way.Sigh.

Her heart skipped a silly beat at her foolish infatuation with her boss. She loved Ed Sheeran, too, more so when she imagined herself dancing with Alex. They’d make such a good couple, him with his older way of leading a younger woman onto the dance floor. Her with her eyes aglow on him and nobody else. He had to have dance moves, didn’t he? A man as tall, debonair, and sexy as Alex Stewart? She’d bet her last dollar on it, err, him.

But Everlee knew damned well better. The man might be a total knock-out, true. But he’d never, not even once, semi-flirted with any of the women he worked with, strayed from his marriage vows, or hinted he was anything more than just everyone’s boss. She’d honestly tried not to gawk at him whenever he showed up, which wasn’t very often now that construction was finally done on this complex of TEAM HQ buildings. But gah! That man was a rockstar. He was so handsome that he turned women’s heads, all of them, not just hers. And he didn’t even know it.

Of course he was happily married, and it showed. But that was part of the allure of the guy. He truly loved his wife, and Kelsey might as well work here, as often as she brought breakfast treats or other homemade goodies into TEAM HQ. It was the fact that he was an honest, loving, and faithful husband that made Alex all the more attractive. It was his rock-solid personality, his drive to succeed, and his written-in-stone moral compass that made him desirable.

Too bad it also made him off-limits. Everlee wasn’t that kind of dumb. She would never do anything to come between Alex and Kelsey. But a girl could dream, and when Everlee dreamed, it was always Alex she dreamed of.

She took a quick sip of her first piping hot Caffè Vanilla Frappuccino for the day and—

“Excuse me, ma’am—”

Everlee spat a volcanic stream of liquid at the silent intruder who’d effectively destroyed her idyllic, if imaginary, moment with her unattainable boss. “Who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?” she spewed along with her coffee.

The moment those unkind words flew out of her mouth, it registered where her Caffè Vanilla Frappuccino had landed. All over the shirt and tie of the very tall but unfortunate man standing on the other side of the TEAM’s customer service counter.

Hurriedly, she followed that snarky question up with a sincere, “Oh, shit! I spit my coffee on you! I’m sorry! Stay right here. I’ll grab some napkins.”

Did he just glare at me?She wasn’t sure. The big guy had yet to say anything else.

Shit, shit, shit!Jumping into action, she hobbled her ass around the customer service desk as fast as her big, black orthopedic boot allowed. Damned thing made her sound like a peg-legged pirate all the way across the lobby to the coffee kiosk. Jerking a handful of napkins out of the holder, she whirled on her rubber-soled, plastic boot heel and—Whoa there, big guy—ran smack into a solid, manly chest that—oh, my gosh—had to be made of pure granite. Or marble. It was that hard and solid—and warm. So warm. Quite lovely in fact.

Even as he gripped her biceps to keep her from falling backward, which was also really nice, Everlee couldn’t help but sigh as the fingers on her napkin-less hand flattened over the eye-popping pecs beneath this guy’s damp shirt. They enjoyed every bit of what they were feeling. Oh, did they ever. At the same time, they assessed the perfect rib structure and sturdy musculature beneath what had once been a crisply ironed, white business shirt. She’d spit coffee on his black silk tie, too. Damn, damn, damn. What a lousy first impression. For him and for her.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she said again, contritely, as if repeating herself could make time rewind and let her start over again. Suck back that scalding Frappuccino. Take back those bitchy words. And let this nice man make the impression he’d obviously dressed for.

But those muscles. That chest. Everlee could barely breathe as her eyes traced the placard of this stranger’s shirt all the way to his square-as-a-brick chin, which was already sporting the beginning of a heavy five o’clock shadow. This guy was no boy, uh-uh. He was all man. Every last bit of him, from the way he now controlled her body to the dark piercing glare that came along with his brooding personality. His current close proximity set her girly parts buzzing.

Oh, my hell.Her fingertips itched to fondle that stern chin, just to feel the roughness of it abrading her skin. Just to make this magnificent male specimen smile.

His dark hair, she couldn’t decide if it was dark brown or black, was too long for military, but perfect for the brooding attitude he had going. The ends of it curled at his neckline, just above his collar, while the rest was combed neatly over his skull. His sideburns were precisely trimmed. Judging by his stiff, proper stance, his posture, and his obvious athletic condition, this man was most certainly former military.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he glowered down at her. Everlee didn’t mind—or take the hint that he might not appreciate her scrutiny. Man, those midnight eyes of his were positively dangerous, like the dark blue shade under the curl of a killer wave off Hanauma Bay. Everlee was standing so close she could see tiny glints of green that reminded her of sea-glass flaring out from pupils so black that a girl could fall into them.

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