up a chair and sit here next to me,” he said.
Lynn dragged a chair closer and peered at the screen, trying not to notice the heat radiating from his body or the solid masculine strength suggested by all that muscle. She gave herself a mental shake. She hadn’t spent this much time noticing a man’s body in a long time. Now surely wasn’t the time to start.
“You paying attention?” Mitch asked, amusement suddenly threading through his voice.
She blinked over at him. “Of course. Why?”
“You seemed a little distracted, that’s all.”
She waved a little notebook and pen in his direction. “See. Ready to take notes.”
“Written anything yet?”
“So far you haven’t even opened the program.”
He grinned. “Fair enough. It’s password-protected, okay?” He told her the password, which she wrote down. Then he walked her step by step through the billing system and the payroll program. “Make sense so far?”
Lynn nodded. “So far, but then I haven’t actually had to use it yet.”
He pulled several pieces of paper from his back pocket. “Notes for the billing,” he explained. “You’ll find the customers, their addresses and their account numbers in the system. Mostly people pay about fifty percent upfront, the remainder when the job’s completed. If there’s an interim bill for fixtures, that’s sent out when the expense is incurred. My fee is usually paid once everybody has signed off on the punch list that indicates all the details are done to the customer’s satisfaction.”
“So those notes of yours indicate exactly what sort of bill I’m sending out, right?”
He winced. “Well, in theory they should. Since I usually know what they’re for, I might not have written it down on these pages. Why don’t I do that before you get home this afternoon, make sure you have everything you need?”
“Then I’ll just fiddle around with the system until I leave for Raylene’s this morning, see if I understand how it works.”
“Sounds good to me. Any questions?”
“None so far, but I imagine I’ll have plenty for you by this afternoon.”
“Okay, then. I’ll get out of your hair. See you later, Lynn.”
Suddenly he seemed anxious to leave, which suited her since she didn’t understand why being close to him got to her the way it did.
“See you,” she said, determinedly focusing on the computer screen and not on Mitch.
She knew he hesitated before leaving, but eventually he walked away, closing the back door securely behind him. Locking it, too, if she wasn’t mistaken. Even though the gesture exasperated her just a little, she couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
* * *
The woman was going to be trouble, Mitch thought as he walked back to Raylene’s. Oh, not when it came to the work. He had every confidence she would pick up on that with ease. No, it was this attraction simmering between them. It had always been there, for him, anyway, but thanks to Grace’s interference, he was forced to acknowledge that on some level it had never died the way he’d thought it surely had.
As for Lynn, well, he couldn’t say with certainty what she was feeling beyond gratitude, but there’d been a moment there when he’d had the feeling she was as attuned to him as he was to her.
His cell phone rang just before he headed into the back door at Raylene’s. Caller ID told him it was his older son.
“Hey, Nate. What’s up?”
“Just checking in, Dad. What’s up with you?”
“Working, the same as always.”
“You still building that addition for the police chief and his wife? How’s it going?”
“It’s coming along. Did you really call just to check on my job progress, or do you need money?”
“Dad, you give me and Luke plenty of money. Can’t I just call to see what you’re up to?”
“Always glad to hear from you,” Mitch confirmed. “But you’ll pardon me if experience has just taught me that it’s usually a financial shortfall that earns me a call at this hour of the morning.”
“Well, I’m solvent,” Nate assured him. He hesitated, then said, “Actually, I was thinking of coming home for the weekend. Is that okay?”
“You know it is,” Mitch said eagerly. “You don’t even have to ask.”
“Um,” Nate began, suddenly sounding nervous, “would it be okay if I brought someone with me?”
Mitch stopped in his tracks. “Since you’ve hauled half a dozen friends home with no notice, I’m guessing this is a female sort of someone.”
“Yeah. Her name’s Jo, short for Josephine, if you can believe it. Does anyone name their girls that anymore?”
“Obviously, some parents do,” Mitch said. “I’ll look forward to meeting her.”
“Okay, so here’s the deal. I need to know if you’re gonna freak out if she stays in my room.”
Mitch sucked in a deep breath and lifted his eyes heavenward. “How about a little help here, Amy?” he murmured, trying to think how she would handle this. He knew as well as anyone that a twenty-one-year-old was likely to be sleeping with anyone he was dating seriously. And he had to assume this was serious if Nate wanted to bring the girl home. And yet he wasn’t sure he was quite ready to sanction such behavior under his roof.
“Sorry, pal. Not acceptable.”
“But, Dad,” Nate began.
“Your mom always had firm rules about this sort of thing,” Mitch reminded him. “You knew them when you went away to college. What you do at school is up to you, but in our house guests stay in the guest rooms.”
“It’s not like she’s a guest exactly,” Nate said. “I wanted to tell you this when we got there, but I guess I’d better do it now. We’re engaged.”
Mitch felt the sudden, unexpected sting of tears in his eyes. More than ever, he wished Amy were alive for this moment. She’d know what to say, how to react. He, however, had to force his enthusiasm. Nate was so darn young. His life hadn’t even started yet.
“Engaged, huh?” he said, trying to inject an upbeat note into his voice. “Congratulations, son. I mean that. I wish your mom were here. She’d be so excited for you.”
“I know,” Nate said quietly. “It’s kinda hard knowing she’ll never get to meet Jo, give her a stamp of approval, if you know what I mean.”
Mitch smiled. “I know exactly what you mean.” Amy had always been careful about sharing her opinion of the girls their sons had dated, but they’d known anyway. She’d been terrible about hiding her feelings. And those feelings had clearly influenced both Nate and Luke. The lousy choices had never lasted long, even though she’d kept her mouth clamped firmly shut.
“So, now that you know about the engagement, can she stay in my room?” Nate asked.
Mitch was still struggling with the idea of his son being ready to make such a huge commitment. The sleeping arrangements seemed minor all of a sudden.
“How about we talk about that when you get here?” He wanted to see for himself just how committed the two of them seemed to be. Or maybe he was just trying to postpone the inevitable—admitting that his son had grown up on him.
“Okay, Dad,” Nate said, conceding the point. “See you tomorrow night.”
“Drive carefully.”
“Always,”