Page 15 of Homecoming Heartbreaker

“Fine with me.” Mack swiftly replied.

“And me,” Molly chirped.

Traitors. “Not fine with me,” he growled.

“I want to talk to his doctors and get proper instructions on his care,” Giada insisted, her pretty lips pursed.

“I’ll make that happen,” Mack told her.

“I am sitting right here,” Jameson told them, raising his voice. “Do I not get a say in all of this?”

Three sets of inquiring eyes rested on his face. Mack lifted his hands. “Sure, go ahead, Pops.”

“I’m not comfortable with this. I’d prefer to have a stranger nursing me.”

“Then you shouldn’t have fired the past three intensely professional nurses the agency sent you,” Mack told him.

“And Giada doesn’t take any crap,” Molly said. She darted a look at Mack. “Do you remember her losing her temper when she found us in her linen cupboard?”

“That was because you ate chocolate in that cupboard and put your sticky fingers on my fresh white towels,” Giada shot back.

Molly grimaced. “I forgot that part.”

Giada’s grin was a little smug. “I didn’t.” Her eyes slammed into Jameson’s and within them, he saw the silent challenge...

Can you handle me, Holloway?

At full strength, with one hand behind his back. And any way she wanted him to. Right now? He wasn’t so sure...

If she came to work for him, they’d fight but at least he wouldn’t be bored. The nurses he’d banished had either been too insipid or too bossy but Giada, at least, was interesting. She wouldn’t take his crap.

And he wouldn’t take hers.

Yeah, he wouldn’t be bored.

“Is that a yes?” Giada asked, her voice soft.

“Suppose so,” Jameson replied, less than graciously. He looked down at his mangled cigar and grimaced. “Just don’t mess with my cigars.”

Giada sent him an evil smile. “I won’t need to because, from this moment on, you are not going to be smoking anymore.”

Right, gloves on. She would need to learn that she couldn’t push him around. “Not happening.”

Giada stood up, placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Want to bet?”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Watch me!”

As they squared off, neither of them noticed Molly and Mack tiptoeing out of the room.

Four

“How long do you think it’ll take for blood to spill?” Mack asked her, his voice low as his broad hand on her back guided her through the wrought iron gate and onto the path that would take them, if they went south, to the main lodge, and north, to their respective houses.

Annoyed that his light touch could send tingles along her skin, Molly stepped away from him and pushed her hand into her hair, holding a bunch of curls off her face. “An hour, two if we are lucky.”

“Well, my money is on Giada. That lady is tough.”

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