Page 47 of Gentle Fox

“At his house. Unlike the rest of us, he lives a little farther out where there’s more land than shops. He keeps them there in a garage.”

“You learn something new every day.”

“You’ve been too bogged down in paperwork to see the full scale of everything Mav has for the company. You’ll see it soon though. He prefers we’re all kept in the loop. As great of a boss as he is, Mav doesn’t like all the responsibility that comes with it.”

Don’t I know it.

I walked back over to the bed. The initial anger was simmered down and now the fact that it wasn’t morning yet wassmacking me in the face. I doubted I would be able to fall back asleep but that didn’t mean I wanted to start my day just yet.

Owen opened his arms and I crawled onto his lap. With my own arms wrapped around his middle, I rested my ear over his heart and just listened to the beat of it.

The longer we sat there in silence, the more I calmed down. It didn’t take long for my heartbeat to match his rhythm. Owen’s strong fingers ran along the length of my spine and lulled me into a peaceful existence. I could spend hours wrapped up in his arms just like this without a single complaint.

It dawned on me what I had been missing in my life.

This kind of connection. The one I could only have with a man who would be my friend and my lover.

Life was great.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Owen

Lex was at the airport and checking in periodically. There wasn’t much to report considering the plane had yet to land, but it didn’t stop me from tapping my foot impatiently under the desk. The wait was killing me. The fact that there was a possible threat to Annalee was killing me. I wanted to snatch her up and hide her away but she refused to allow me to do it.

Instead, I had to watch through the one-way glass as she answered the phone and typed away at her computer. Kati stopped in after dropping Lucien off at school and hung out for a few minutes. I forced myself to give them privacy and turned down the volume even farther on the speaker hooked up to the reception area. I needed to have a conversation with Mav about that. It was all fine and great to have the system before we had a receptionist, but I could see how Annalee would find it an invasion of privacy. She deserved to feel comfortable in her place of employment even if she didn’t plan to stay for a long period of time.

I was trying to focus on the search I was doing on my computer when movement from the front caught my attention. My body went on high alert until I realized walking through the door was just another innocent female stopping by to see Annalee. If one could call Maisie innocent with her chunky black boots, chained cargo pants, and oversized t-shirt. I couldn’t get a good look at what today’s shirt said but something told me it would be just as hilarious as the ones she wore every other day of her life.

Maisie wasn’t the quintessential baker most people pictured. There was nothing girly or cute about the woman whose nose was pierced and earrings lined the outer shell of her ears. You couldn’t tell today, but I knew for a fact that tattoos covered parts of her body. Her everyday outfits hid them well, but on the rare occasion she wore shorts or even smaller shirts, they could be seen. I couldn’t understand why she would hide such beautiful artwork but it wasn’t for me to judge what another person did. Besides, Maisie wasn’t the kind of person who allowed people to get close to her. Not from the little I’ve seen since coming to Willow Creek. It was a shock that she stepped outside the bakery during working hours to bring Annalee some food. From what I knew, she was normally there from open to close.

“Wait, is that Maisie?” Hendrix crowded up behind me and asked before coming around the desk to drop a hip on the edge. “I thought she never left the bakery during light hours. I was starting to think she was a vampire.”

I snickered at the thought and just how right my friend was. “Looks like she has a soft spot for our new receptionist.”

“She’s not the only one.”

I gave Hendrix, and his wiggling eyebrows, the middle finger.

“There’s nothing soft about me when it comes to Annalee.”

I wanted to kick myself for letting my friend get into my head and admit what was going on between Annalee and me. It wasn’t a secret but I doubted Annalee wanted the entire office to know what was happening between us. And they would because Hendrix had the biggest mouth. He took blabbering to a whole new level.

“I knew it.” Hendrix smirked. “You can’t keep your eyes off her.”

I rolled those same eyes but didn’t bother answering. I wasn’t giving my friend any more ammunition than he already had. Before Hendrix could say anything else, my phone beeped with an incoming message.

I snagged it off the desk, eager to see if Lex had any updates.

It would appear he did.

“Dennis has landed and he’s not alone.”

I handed the phone to Hendrix so he could get a good look at the two men exiting the private jet. “Any ideas who the other guy is?”

“Nope, but I think we know someone who might.”

We both looked through the glass at where Annalee sat at her desk and Maisie with one hip on the edge similar to how Hendrix was sitting on mine. The two of them were laughing and it sucked that I was about to ruin the good time she was having.

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