Her cheeks flamed hot and red. She gripped the screwdriver harder in some bizarre effort to force the magic Jax-Away-A-Nator juice into oozing from its metal tip. Had he inquired about her personal status? Things like that didn’t come up in general conversation unless you made it a point to bring them up.
“I am. Two boys. Clifton Junior, and Gareth. Eight and five.”
“We have a lot in common then. Bet your boys don’t call phone-sex lines, do they?”
Her laughter tinkled from her throat without consulting her. It slipped with ease from her loose lips. “I’m sorry I was so harsh and judgmental with you. It’s not easy to parent with two people, let alone one. Especially if they’re precocious and as smart as your little girl, but I’m about as overprotective about Call Girls as I am about my boys. I work hard to maintain our integrity—so you caught me off guard, and I got a little high on my horse.” And tipsy—he’d caught her very tipsy.
He held up a hand with a wrinkled Band-Aid across the broad back of it. “No. You were right. Maizy, that’s my daughter’s name, shouldn’t have had access to a number like that. My brother took a message from Caine for me. He just didn’t take the entire message, and he left it right on my desk where she could find it. She’s pretty smart, and very curious. She’s a handful to keep track of—but when she gets an idea in her little head, there’s no telling her otherwise.”
Em nodded with a grin of single-parent solidarity. “Oh, I know all about stubborn little mules, dead set in their ways. I have one of my own.” A picture of Clifton Junior found its way to the surface of her mind’s eye.
A picture of him happy and giggling—the picture of him before his father had left without warning, and before he thought it was his responsibility to be the man in the Amos household. Her heart tightened in her chest. She’d give anything to have that little boy back again.
“You’re such a dirty, dirty boy, Lionel!” the new dayshift operator, Simone, squealed in exaggerated delight from the office across from Jax’s. “If you keep this kind of behavior up, you know what’s gonna happen to me, don’t you, mama’s nasty little boy? You’ll make me scream for you to—”
Em coughed loudly, reacting without thinking before Jax had the chance to hear another word of Simone’s phone call. She forgot that touching the chest she’d dreamed of for two months would be the end of her. She forgot that her palms would ache to touch more of him. She just wanted to drown out listening to a phone call like Simone’s while standing right next to him.
Since she’d begun working at Call Girls, most of the naughty rolled right off her back, became background noise she heard it so much. But listening to it with Jax was akin to acting out the Kama Sutra page by page.
Placing her palms on his chest, she fought the swift rush of heat all those muscles created, battled the weakness in her knees, and gave him a shove into his office. “Let’s talk in your office,” she all but shouted to cover Simone’s next request of her client.
Their limbs tangled up, tripping and stuttering until they ended up pushed against the wall, Jax holding her firmly to keep them from falling.
But he didn’t let her go. He kept his hands sprawled over her hips, letting them rest along the rounded swells like they belonged there. He laughed, his minty breath washing over her face, his eyes amused. “The girls told me you could be pushy. Who knew?”
Somewhere. Her next breath was somewhere in her diaphragm, afraid to come out for fear her exhalation would press her tighter to Jax’s length. She took a step back, still clinging to the screwdriver for all she was worth. “I am not pushy. Don’t you listen to those women. They tell tales out of school. Next they’ll have you thinkin’ I’m some sort of ogre.”
“Ogres have warts.” He tilted her chin up with his Band-Aid–wrapped forefinger, examining her face. His eyes went smoky when he grinned. “No warts.”
Em’s breathing hitched in her throat when he placed a thumb just beneath her lower lip. “Not a one.”
“Definitely not,” he agreed, still keeping his hands loosely on her hips, still wreaking havoc with her forbidden bits. “So things get a little racy around here, huh?”
Em hid her gulp and shrugged her shoulders to fake nonchalance. Like she was a sexpert. “That? I’m so used to it, it’s like hearin’ someone report the morning news.”
Jax laughed, sort of low, which did squishy, unidentifiable things to her belly. “Can’t say I ever remember hearing Katie Couric use those words to describe the war in Iraq,” he quipped.
“That was probably Bryant’s fault, always tryin’ to keep a good woman down.” She giggled a little then silently reprimanded herself for behaving like an inexperienced schoolgirl.
While not off the mark, that wasn’t the impression she wanted to give. She was Emmaline Amos, general manager of Call Girls Inc. In charge of a multimillion-dollar corporation. In. Charge.
Jax cleared his throat, still staring down at her. “Anyway, that question...” he muttered.
She snorted when she remembered there’d been a reason Jax had asked her into his office. And it’s probably a sexless question, Nympho Nancy. Then she covered her mouth when she realized she’d snorted, flustered and red all over again.
This was a perfect example of why she and small talk with devastatingly gorgeous men were twains that would never comfortably meet. “Oh, my apologies! I forgot all about the reason you asked me in here. What can I do for you?” Or do to you?
“I forget the reason I asked you in here, too. But I have a better reason for you to be in my office that’s just as compelling.”
She totally backed away from the heat of his big body and the intoxicating scent of man, finally finding her footing. Em placed a hand at her throat in a familiar, soothing gesture. “Yes?”
“First, Maizy and I had a talk about her using the phone without permission—a long one.”
Instantly, her concern was with that sweet voice that had struck a chord in Em’s heart. “I hope you weren’t angry with her. I don’t know if she told you the nature of her call, but it was out of concern for you.”
Jax’s expression went from soft to softer at the mention of his daughter, his granite jaw relaxing, his eyes flashing pride. “She did, and we talked it all out. But you made quite an impression on my girl. She said you were so nice to her and your voice was pretty in her ear. In fact, she wondered about you again today.”
Em’s heart sped up, pushing against her chest. She lost track of how many times she’d tried to form a picture in her mind of what Jax’s little girl would look like—what precious face the voice was attached to. “She was really very sweet, and exceptionally polite. You should be very proud of her manners.”
“I am, and she’s a great kid—which is why I wondered if I could ask you a favor.”
Em didn’t hesitate. “Oh, of course.”
“I know we don’t know each other, but you struck such a chord with her, and she’s feeling a little displaced since we left Atlanta. I don’t know many women here in Plum Orchard, and I really need a woman’s touch.”
Love slave. He was going to ask her to be his love slave. Yippee!
Wait. That had zip to do with Maizy.
He leaned back against the wall, letting his long legs stretch out in front of him. “Seeing as you’re admittedly handy with power tools, I’m betting you’re just as good at picking out colors for a little girls’ room. We’re almost done with the renovation in Maizy’s room, and I want to surprise her with something that will make her happy.” He held up his hands in a sort of helpless gesture, his smile lopsided.
This smile, different from his