Barbara Boswell - Who's The Boss?

“Oh, are you?”

She nodded. “Look at the way you misinterpreted this coffee incident. How you overreacted. I prefer tea, but you never bothered to ask, you ordered coffee for me and expected me to drink it. Naturally, I was annoyed by such high-handedness. Furthermore, I’m not used to being waited on. In the PD’s office, everybody served themselves. But did you give me a chance to explain anything? No! You instantly assumed that I’m a conniving, greedy witch looking for a reason to fire you and sell this company. Didn’t you?”

She advanced toward him in full cross-examination mode, her gaze piercing and intense. “Didn’t you?” The sound of her own voice startled her. She’d used this tone in challenging murder suspects. It occurred to her that perhaps she was also overreacting.

“You drink tea.” Cade stared at her. “You’re in a snit because I didn’t offer you a choice between coffee or tea?” His tone was as incredulous as his expression. “No doubt about it, you’ve taken the Brennan family irritability to new heights.”

“I’m not in a snit. I’m trying to make a point that you don’t seem to be getting. Whether it’s intentional or not, I’m not quite sure. Is it?”

“Is it what? Is what it?” Cade ran his hand through his hair, tousling it. His head was spinning. “This is crazy.” Or maybe he was headed that way.

He felt frazzled, completely befuddled. The Brennans had always driven Gene nuts. His late boss had long ago delegated dealing with them to Cade, who merely found them annoying, not insanity-inducing. But this Brennan...Kylie Brennan...

The two of them were practically standing toe-to-toe. Her aggressive advance had fallen into the category of physical intimidation—which she’d accused him of using!—and brought them very close. Not that Cade was feeling the least bit intimidated. He was feeling...aroused.

Everytime he inhaled, the scent of her perfume filled his nostrils. It was a subtle, spicy, sexy aroma, just like her, and it further clouded his thoughts. The urge to touch her was so overpowering that he would’ve given in to it had he not beaten a purposeful retreat to the window. A tactical victory for her, but at this point he was too disconcerted to care.

“I can’t stress how strongly I disapprove of you treating Donna like a servant,” Kylie scolded his back, which he’d turned toward her. “It’s pure classism. I am also opposed to sexism, racism and ageism,” she felt compelled to add, just for the record.

“Well, so am I!” Cade exclaimed. She was the defense attorney, but she had him on the defensive for sure. “BrenCo is an equal opportunity employer. We’ve won citations for our fair hiring practices.”

“I’m very glad to hear that.” Kylie was genuinely relieved. “It would be awkward to have to report BrenCo to the EEOC, although I wouldn’t hesitate to do so if the situation warranted.”

Cade turned to gape at her. “How did we get from you preferring tea to the EEOC?”

“Actually, I’m not sure.” Kylie’s blue eyes were troubled. She’d always prided herself on her talent for presenting her points in a coherent and lucid form in the courtroom. “My clients would’ve been toast if I made the sort of irrational leaps I seem to be making today. You—confuse me,” she admitted, averting her gaze from him to Lake Erie on the horizon.

“Glad to hear it. The feeling happens to be mutual.” Cade began to pace the office, back and forth, on edge and ready for action.

Kylie remembered a National Geographic special on TV featuring a leopard pacing his territory in a remarkably similar prowl. Keeping in mind the unlucky mammal who’d wandered into the leopard’s line of vision, she took a few prudent steps out of Cade’s path, just to be on the safe side.

“You confound me in a way I never thought a Brennan could,” he growled. “Or anybody else, for that matter.” The admission did not please him.

They stared uneasily at each other for a few long moments.

“We’ve gotten off to a bad start.” Kylie was the first to speak.

“A perceptive observation,” muttered Cade. He grabbed his coffee and took a large gulp. And nearly choked. The brew was so ghastly it made airline coffee taste like a gourmet specialty brand.

Kylie was watching him. “I think I’ll definitely stick to tea,” she murmured.

Their eyes met. Kylie caught her lower lip between her teeth in a nervous gesture she rarely resorted to anymore. But Cade Austin made her nervous, and in a way that was exciting, not threatening. Which made him all the more dangerous.

She drew a sharp breath. “Do you think we could start over?”

“We can do whatever you want, Kylie.”

His sudden suggestive smile made her heart jump. She knew instinctively that he was quite aware of his own masculine appeal and wielded it when necessary. He’d decided to use it now, as an alternative maneuver.

Kylie realized just how susceptible she could be when he chose to disarm her with his charm. “I’m speaking professionally,” she said quickly. “As a public defender, I’m accustomed to seeking common ground in my clients’ best interests and in this case—”

“You’re not a public defender anymore, Kylie. Thanks to the terms of Gene’s will, you’re a businesswoman and an important figure in this community. I don’t know if you’re fully aware of how dependent Port McClain is on BrenCo or the economic impact the company has on this town.”

“You mean like in ‘if BrenCo sneezes, Port McClain catches a cold’?” She paraphrased the old General Motors maxim.

His smile widened, and this time it was reflected in his eyes. “Exactly like that.”

Kylie reminded herself to breathe. Maybe starting over on friendly terms wasn’t such a good idea, after all. It was easier to keep her composure and her imagination in check if she was feeling hostile toward him. When he smiled at her in that particular way, she could feel herself melting inside. She wanted to please him, to do whatever it took to keep him smiling... A dangerous notion, indeed.

Get a grip, Kylie, she ordered herself. She was not here to please Cade Austin, and she was on a lot safer ground when he was scowling at her.

“I know it’s my responsibility to learn everything about the company and its impact on the town. I was stunned when I heard that Uncle Gene had left controlling interest in BrenCo to me. No more than you were, probably,” she added with a wry grimace.

“The contents of Gene’s will turned out to be a surprise to a lot of people.”

“The understatement of the year, no doubt. Well, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but owning any part of a toxic waste plant wasn’t exactly my idea of a dream come true.”

“BrenCo isn’t simply a toxic waste plant, Kylie. We take environmental waste from all over the state—and other states, too—and properly dispose of it in a way that is not only safe but beneficial to the environment.” Cade’s hazel eyes gleamed. “I expect all your liberal cohorts in the Public Defender’s office would deny such technology even exists. That crowd believes no waste is the only safe waste, a ridiculous, hopeless point of view. Even the fires of our cave ancestors released waste products into the air.”

“I know. I—haven’t mentioned my inheritance to anyone,” she confessed, a little sheepishly.

“Afraid of being dubbed the Princess of Toxic Waste by all your green friends?”

Kylie tilted her head and gazed at him from under her lashes, the feminine signals elemental and unconscious. “Why do you assume that my cohorts and friends are all wild-eyed liberals?”

“It’s a natural assumption. If there is such a thing as a conservative public defender, I’d bet my shares in BrenCo that he has a multiple personality disorder with each alter unaware .of what the others are doing. You can imagine the mayhem that will ensue when the conflicting personalities finally collide in the poor sap’s conscious mind.”

Kylie laughed. “You surprise me,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t have thought you were capable of appreciating the absurd.”

“I wouldn’t have lasted eight minutes, let alone eight years, in this town filled with Brennans if I didn’t have a healthy appreciation of the absurd.”

“Brennans. You talk about them as if they’re a separate species.”

“Now you’re catching on. Brennans fall somewhere between vampires and parasites, though precise classification has yet to be established.”

He was kidding, displaying an even greater, healthier appreciation of the absurd. Wasn’t he? “Gene excepted, of course,” she interjected his usual disclaimer.

“Gene excepted, of course. And according to Gene, your dad would have to be excepted, too. Gene admired your father, he was very proud of him. He often boasted about his brother Wayne, the navy captain who commanded a battleship and lived all over the world. He was a fan of your big brother, too. Gene always referred to him as ‘my-favorite-nephew-Devlin-the-doctor.’”

“Devlin is finishing his orthopedic surgical residency at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor,” Kylie lapsed naturally into her role of proud sister and daughter. “Dad is retired now. He and Mom are living in Florida and still aren’t sure how they’ll adjust to staying in the same place for more than a few years.”

“If they’re like my folks, who are retired army, they’ll end up buying an RV and trolling the interstates on endless trips. Occasionally, they swing by Port McClain to see me.”

“In March, no doubt. After all, it’s the perfect time to visit here. The lake-effect wind and all that snow are big draws.”

“Touché.” Cade raised his brows again in that particular way of his.

Kylie raised her eyebrows right back. “Maybe Bridget’s antiski lodge will be packing in crowds on their next visit.”

“You’re really on a roll here, aren’t you?” Cade’s voice was deceptively mild as he studied her.

She was flirting with him. Or was she? Given their volatile interaction since she’d set foot in his office, there was always the chance she was expressing her antipathy to him. What a blunder it would be to mistake aversion for flirtation!

But Cade was a risk-taker by nature. He took one now and moved closer to her. Close enough to cup her chin in one hand and tilt her head a little.

Kylie felt the world careen. He was going to kiss her; she could read the hot sensual intent in his eyes. And she was going to let him. She wanted him to kiss her, she wanted it very much.

The realization stunned her. This kind of behavior was completely unlike her. She’d never been driven by sexual urges. She was too cerebral, governed by her head, not her body’s impulses.

Yet here she was, melting against Cade Austin as he pulled her into his arms. Closing her eyes as his mouth lowered to hers. Parting her lips for the breathlessly anticipated impact of his...

Two

“Cade, I’m sorry to interrupt but Bobbie Brennan is on the phone,” Donna’s voice, loud and clear, sounded over the intercom.

Startled, Kylie and Cade jumped away from each other as if they’d been blasted apart by a bomb.

Kylie’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. She’d come so close to kissing Cade Austin that she had felt the warmth of his breath on her face. She’d been in his arms, his body pressing into hers, the formidable length of him, hard and strong, revealing the force of his own desire. The intimate recall made her shake. Heat scorched her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.