Page 5 of His Off-Limits Christmas Gift

“Maybe she wasn’t paying attention.”

She glared at me. “My five-year-old neighbor knows how to use those things. They’re teaching it in kindergarten.”

I shrugged. “Maybe Jessica wasn’t paying attention then, either. And it stuck.”

“And the breaks. Don’t get me started on her need for mental breaks.” She held up a finger. “Needing five minutes to shift back into her ‘work’ mode after getting coffee or going to the bathroom.” Another finger was stuck into the air. “Needing ten minutes of ‘decompression’ time to reflect after receiving instructions. Simple instructions! Like ‘take this file and hand it to this person.’ Oh, then the real kicker.” She stuck a third finger into the air, thrusting her hand upward so forcefully it was a punch. “Stating that she needed three times as long of a lunch hour because her ‘chi was off and she needed to recalibrate.’” She slapped her hand back down on her thigh.

Julie had been my office manager for twelve years, and I feared the day she wouldn’t be such a theatrical speaker.

“Recalibrate, Nate.” She shook her head as I laughed. “Recalibratewhat?” She knocked the side of her head. “There was nothing up there to calibrate or recalibrate.”

“Be nice,” I scolded playfully. She wasn’t a ball buster. And she—we—had seen the bottom of the barrel where assistants were concerned. While I sometimes saw them as fodder for amusement, I understood how much more challenging her job was when she couldn’t locate simple hired help for the most basic tasks of the office.

She growled. “And this close to the holidays, we’ll never find someone.”

“Not true.” I jiggled my mouse to wake up the screen. “Didn’t I forward the email to you? The staffing agency said they had someone to start ASAP.”

“Yeah, yeah. I saw. But that isn’t promising. Who knows how much worse this one will be?”

“Well, this one is vetted.”Sort of.“Someone I know texted me that they’d sent someone to apply for the position.”

Brandon Brown was one of my oldest friends, a staple since our boyhood days in Rockton. This wasn’t the first time he’d suggested someone to apply for the assistant position. His job as a bartender often had him playing therapist or just listening to customers, and he was aware of how the assistant position on my floor was a revolving door of too many quitters and fired, incompetent individuals.

“Don’t blame me if I’m skeptical,” Julie groused as she stood. “Security said they’d be up in a couple of minutes to escort Jessica out of the office. Again.”

“Just in time for the new assistant to show up,” I said cheerily. “Maybe this one will be different and stick.”

“Not counting on it,” she muttered dryly as she left.

I dragged my phone over and opened up the Notes app to type.

Add extra to Julie’s Christmas bonus.

I was a generous man to begin with, but she really deserved it all for what she had to put up with.

An hour later, when Julie returned, I got my first glimpse of this last-minute hire and knew she, without a doubt, would be different.

“Knock, knock,” Julie said as she entered with a short blonde at her side. A short, petite blonde I recognized despite the years between us. “Mr. McIntosh, this is?—”

“Rachel?” All the astonishment I felt came out with my blurted question. I stood, too stunned to see someone from my past here. “Rachel Brown?”

It can’t be.But it was. Those blue eyes were still as shrewd as ever. Sharp and smart. Calculating, even, but never in a scary way.

My best friend told his baby sister to apply for my assistant position?

My lips curled up at the sight of someone I knew. Or, I supposed, I used to know. Rachel was nobabynow. Quite a few years stood between us in an age gap, but the mere feet between us in my office felt like a short bridge. She damn well wasn’t a kid here, the inquisitive and smart-ass little sibling who tagged along with me and my best friend back in the old days in the small town we all grew up in.

No. This was a woman, sexy, gorgeous, and mature. A flicker of surprise showed on her face when she spotted me, but she masked it quickly.

“Correct,” Julie said, not missing a beat but likely feeling like she’d lost the plot. “And this is?—”

“Nate?” Rachel replied, her brows shooting up high. She was speedy in covering up her shock, but she had a good grip on maintaining a sense of being professional.

Just one look at her, my best friend’s little sister all grown up, and I had a hard time remembering this was a professional setting at all. I hadn’t been immediately attracted to a woman like this in years. This instant awareness that kicked in and claimed me was an odd sensation to get used to, but in the back of my mind, as I stared at her, I knew that there would be nothing to get used to.

Sure, it threw me off to see her, of all people, showing up to work as the new assistant. But to think about getting involved with her in any other way?

No. No way.

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