Page 9 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House
She wasn’t looking for another panty-stealer situation.
‘Sorry about that. My class overran.’ She’d barely had time to get out of her swimsuit and get over here. Her hair still dripped down her back in a wet braid and the early spring breeze raised goosebumps on her bare arms. She’d forgotten her sweatshirt at the gym. Again.
She pulled her braid over her shoulder and squeezed it out on the front step. When she looked up, Archer was still glaring. Maybe he was still mad about the whole smoothie thing?
‘Olive needs to be picked up from school at two-thirty.’
Iris met his glare with a glare of her own. ‘Well,ifI take the job, I will move my class time to accommodate Olive’s schedule.’ She tipped up her chin and waited. Was he going to let her in the house or was the entire interview going to take place on his front step?
His eyes lingered on hers a moment longer before flicking down to the wet spot her hair was leaving on her shirt, directly over her left boob. She would have thought he was being a pervert until the stern line of his mouth tightened in disapproval. Apparently, her uniform of a tank top and leggings and perpetually damp hair wasn’t meeting his standards. The same thing had happened at the café. She’d thought he was checking her out and then she’d offered to buy his drink and he couldn’t have run away fast enough.
Well, good thing nothing had happened since he was about to become her boss. Maybe.
His gaze returned to her face, hard and assessing. God, she could just imagine him in a kitchen shouting at his poor sous chefs like every chef she’d seen in the movies. Demanding perfection. Demanding precision. A small shiver ran over her skin at the thought of what it might feel like to please a man like that.
She shook that entirely unhelpful thought away. If he wanted perfection from her, he was going to be highly disappointed. Iris was curlicues, not straight lines. She was always late, except when she was teaching (she wouldn’t do that to her students). She had a trail of half-finished hobbies and partially read books long enough that she couldn’t see the end of it. She was good enough, but never perfect. And if her usual pattern held, she wouldn’t be at this job for longer than six months. Maybe she should just go now and save them both the trouble.
But he finally relented in his perusal of her appearance and stepped aside. She reluctantly followed him into a narrow entryway that led directly into a cozy living room where a small girl was perched on the couch watching what appeared to be a cake-baking show. Iris kicked her flip-flops off by the door with the other shoes. A pair of particularly tiny sneakers made nerves flutter in her belly. How could she be responsible for someone so small?
This was clearly a bad idea.
The dad was an asshole. The kid was too tiny. And Iris was way too unqualified.
She’d just have to take her chances with Bex.
She opened her mouth to say so when she caught a glimpse of Archer watching his daughter. He looked completely … perplexed. Like a man caught in a maze with absolutely no idea how to get out. He looked sad and a little panicked. He looked like he needed help.
He caught her looking and quickly schooled his features back into scary-boss-man mode.
‘Let’s talk in the kitchen first and then you can meet Olive.’
‘Okay, sure.’
Olive didn’t even look up from her show as they walked past her. The kitchen and living room were essentially one room with a small island separating them. Iris sat at the island and Archer stood facing her, his hands on the counter. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing bare forearms.
‘Shouldn’t you have a spatula or something tattooed on your arms?’ she asked.
His eyebrows rose. ‘Shouldn’t I have what? Why would I?’
Iris shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Isn’t that like a chef thing? To have a lot of tattoos of kitchen tools and meat and stuff?’
‘Meat and stuff?’ His mouth twitched, as though he was almost amused but refused to show it.
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. The whole bad-boy chef thing? Unless your tattoos are somewhere else…’ She gestured toward his body and her hand froze in mid-air at the horrified look on his face.
Good lord, what was she even saying right now?
‘Uh … sorry. Never mind.’
‘How about we discuss the job?’ There was that just barely amused quirk of his mouth again.
Iris nodded, relieved to think about something other than if Archer was in fact a bad-boy chef type and if his broad chest was covered in ink, or maybe his back…
‘Iris?’
‘Huh?’ She blinked back into reality. The reality in which Archer was asking her questions about nannying his daughter. The one that had nothing to do with his body. Not that she cared about his body. Not that she was still thinking about the feel of his firm chest under her hands as she had cleaned up the smoothie. His body was completely irrelevant. As was his face. And his large hands that were still spread flat on the countertop in front of her. Gosh, those were long fingers. Fingers that were probably capable of all sorts of tricks…
Iris cleared her throat. ‘Sorry, I missed that.’
