The Littlest Boss. Janet Lee Nye

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       CHAPTER ONE

      THE GUY IN the produce section of Publix was about to make an amateur mistake with the avocados. He had two of them in his hands, ripe and ready to eat by the look of them. The way to do it, Tiana Nelson knew, was to buy one for now and one for later. Swap one of those for one a bit more green, she thought. You’ll be glad you did a few days from now. What to do? Approach and tell him? She was tempted. That arm. He wasn’t even flexing it, just had it angled enough so he could give the lush fruit a little squeeze, and Wow. Okay. That’s a well-built fella. The jacket he was wearing didn’t conceal his muscles at all, did it? Hard curves moved beneath the fabric.

      She maneuvered her shopping cart, trying to get closer without being conspicuous, dodging a flustered mom who was trying to snag a singing child in an Adventure Time sweatshirt pirouetting between the apples and the bananas. There was something about the guy with the avocados—besides the fact that he was exceptionally easy on the eyes—but it wasn’t until he glanced over at her and she caught a spark of recognition in his expression that she understood.

      I know him. He knows me.

      She was running all the possibilities through her mind—work, school, gym, here—when he grinned at her and it clicked. That grin. She knew that smug, snarky grin. Sugar sticks! That smart-alecky maid. What was his name?

      “Nurse Ratched!” he said, setting the avocados in his basket and looking entirely too pleased with himself. “I’d recognize that scowl anywhere.”

      And then she did actually scowl, and frowned at the realization that she’d done so, and immediately tried to cool her expression into a kind of bemused grin. Oh, that guy. One of Josh’s guys from the Cleaning Crew. She waved a hand toward the juice aisle and said, “Did they call for a cleanup in aisle two, Man Maid?” She felt a flush of heat in her neck and cheeks as she said it.

      He laughed and strolled closer to her with a purely casual confidence that irked her. All at once she was acutely aware of how she must look, straight off the end of a long, crazy shift in the ER, in wrinkled blue scrubs and beat-up Asics that probably should have been swapped out six months ago. Wait, there isn’t vomit on my pants or anything, is there? Random bodily fluid stains were always a possibility on her shift. Tiana pulled her coat closed and tried to keep her expression casual, amused but disinterested. But darn if he wasn’t a fine-looking man.

      “They actually let you take care of people now?” he said. His grin had reappeared—big, wide and goofy, making everything feel like it was all in fun.

      “Take care,” she said, reverting to Stern Nurse Mode. “More like save lives, Mr. Maid. Why are you here? I thought you were joining the army or something.”

      “Or something,” he repeated, putting a hand over his heart. The grin faded a bit—just a bit—as if those words had hit him a little too hard.

      Uh-oh. There’s a story there, she thought.

      But he bounced back right away. “You do remember me,” he said. “I’m touched.”

      “Tetched maybe,” Tiana said with a laugh.

      The grin may have faded but the mischievous gleam in his eyes had not. “Life. You know. You have a plan and sometimes it falls through.” He paused, just for a beat or two, then added, “I went with Army National Guard instead of active duty. Got a great job as a civilian here at the Corps of Engineers.”

      “Oh. Okay,” she said. “Well. That’s good.” She put her hands back on the shopping cart handle and felt something brush by her at hip level. The whirling child had reappeared, the pirouettes now alternating with mini jetés, and his flustered mom gave Tiana a glance of apology as she scooped her budding ballet dancer up into her arms. She needed to get home. Wednesday night was some prime Netflix watching.

      “Sorry,” the boy’s mother said as he thrust a sticky handful of Gummi Bears toward Tiana. “Caleb, I swear...”

      Tiana laughed. “Not a problem,” she said. She smiled in solidarity as she watched the mom plop her squirming child into the shopping cart and buckle him in. The struggle is real—don’t I know it. That reminded her. She needed to get herself moving so she could be back home before Lily went to bed. She winced as she watched Caleb rub the handful of candy against the cart handle and then stuff the entire wad into his mouth. Ah, well, it’ll give his immune system something to do.

      As Caleb and his mom disappeared around the corner, Tiana remembered Mr. Hottie Maid’s name. DeShawn Adams! He was still watching her, his mouth twisted up into that grin, suggesting he was barely holding back on a snarky comment. Mmm-hmm. He may have lost the little goatee he’d had when she last saw him, but he was still the perfect picture of tall, dark and handsome. His hair was short and once again she considered how not even the light jacket he was wearing against Charleston’s February chill could hide that body. Tall and strong and muscled and probably even a really good guy once you got past his Mr. Smarty Pants facade. Ugh. Stop.

      “Yeah,” she said, tapping her fingers on her cart. “Well, hey, DeShawn, nice to see you, but I do need to get going.” She gave him a little wave, then remembered. “Oh, wait. The avocados.” She gestured toward his basket. “I was going to say. Get one that’s ripe now and one that’s going to be ripe soon. That’s how my mom always told me to do it.”

      He nodded, that twisted-up smirk still concealing a zinger, and then he reached into the pile, plucked out not one but two green avocados and placed them in his basket beside the pair of ripe ones.

      One СКАЧАТЬ