Page 15 of From Grumpy to Forever
His laughter followed me down the hall before he called after me. “Don’t forget you promised to meet Quinn for an ice cream this afternoon.”
“You know I won’t.” I threw up an arm in a wave. “See ya later.”
* * *
It was a short drive to the Tamarack Inn and not nearly long enough to get my brother’s comments about Avery out of my head. I was going to have to pay my twin brother a visit later to make sure he kept his mouth shut about shit he knew nothing about.
And Grayson certainly didn’t know anything about Avery or how I may or may not feel about her.
Did he?
Having an identical twin brother had its advantages, but it also had more than its fair share of disadvantages, too. And this was a perfect example of the latter.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter what I thought about Avery. She was about to be my boss. Even if I couldn’t quite figure out how that had happened either.
I’d replayed the whole scene in the Bean Bag over and over in my mind. If it had been anyone but Avery, I would have been positive that I’d been set up.
But Avery didn’t seem like the devious type. Not even a little. She was far too good.
Far too good for me, that was for sure.
But I wasn’t going to date her, I reminded myself as I pulled up in front of the inn and saw her petite form dressed in jean shorts, a bright-blue T-shirt, and a ball cap with her blonde ponytail sticking out the back.
She was bent over in the garden, tugging on a dead shrub, her perfectly round ass up in the air.
I swallowed hard and scrubbed a hand over my face.
No. I wasn’t going to date her.
I was going to work for her.
That was it.
Chapter Nine
Avery
The garden was completely out of control. Maybe clearing it out wasn’t the highest thing on the very long list of things I needed to handle, but it was something I could do that would make a difference right away.
At least that had been my expectation when I started tugging on the old shrub. It proved more stubborn than I’d expected.
“Come on, you stupid thing.” I gave it one last tug, putting my entire body weight behind it. At the same moment the roots started to give, I realized I was going to go over with it and go down hard on my backside.
“Whoa.” A pair of strong, capable hands—that I’d felt once before—settled on my ass. “Careful.”
I twisted around to see my savior. “Thank you.”
He nodded and waited for a beat before setting me up on my feet and stepping back. “That’s what I’m here for, right?”
“To catch me when I fall?” I tugged the gloves from my hands and dusted them off on my jean shorts. “I hope you’re here for a lot more than that. After all, that’s why I’m paying you the big bucks, right?”
He cocked his head, and I couldn’t help the shot of desire that raced through me when he pinned me with those dark, mysterious eyes of his. “What are you paying me? We never really discussed details.”
It was true. We hadn’t discussed much of anything. Once he agreed to take the job, I was so relieved, I didn’t stop to figure out any of the logistics. I didn’t want to give him any reason to change his mind. “Come have a coffee and we can discuss the details before we get started.”
He nodded, and I led him up the steps to the porch. Reid waited outside while I fetched two cups of coffee from the kitchen along with a pad of paper where I’d jotted down some numbers after a bit of research into the average prices of handyman services.
“Here.” I handed him a mug and pointed to one of the old chairs against the wall. “You can sit there. I just love this swing.”
