Deeper Than Need (16 page)

If he ran his business like this, it was a wonder he
stayed
in business. But that wasn’t her concern. Well, as long as she managed to keep a
job
it wasn’t her concern. Maybe if things went well she could approach it later down the road.

Blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes, she made herself focus on the filing cabinets.

If he had any sort of organization going on here, she couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He had receipts from 2012 filed in with receipts from 2014. He had invoices from 2008 shoved in here, for crying out loud. It was like he opened a drawer and just shoved things in wherever they’d fit.

“Good grief,” she muttered, frustrated and getting more frustrated as she pulled out what looked like a bunch of
unpaid
invoices from 2007. “Man, what are you doing—”

“Admiring the view.”

The low, unfamiliar voice caught her off-guard and she shrieked, spinning around and slapping a hand against her chest.

A man stood in the doorway.

Long, lean, gorgeous as the day was long and staring at her with a look of blatant male appreciation. It was a look that automatically sent an alarm through her. It was too practiced, with just the right amount of interest and heat in his eyes, and damn it if she didn’t feel her heartbeat kick up a few beats.

She’d
fallen
for his type and she’d been screwed over by his type. Oh, Anton hadn’t been the rough, sexy tattoed type like this guy was, but he’d been the same, under it all. A player.

A faint smile curved the man’s lips. Stubble darkened his face and his sleepy-lidded look all but screamed sex. Before Anton, that smile might have elicited a smile in return. Might have made her think about … something.

But Anton, and all the trouble he’d brought into her life, had made her reshift her priorities.
Micah
had then redefined her priorities.

That look, though, was still enough to make any red-blooded woman very aware of the fact that she
was
a woman.

A glint darkened his eyes and that smile widened just a fraction before he turned away, hooking his thumbs in his pockets as he focused on the desk. “Sorry, ma’am. I was looking for Noah. It looks like he finally got around to hiring somebody … Miss…?”

He smiled at a woman like he expected her to just slip her panties off. She lifted a brow, gave him her best blank smile, the one she’d used to greet banks, cops and strangers alike. “Ewing. Trinity Ewing. You are?”

“Adam.” The smile he had shifted, ever so slightly, as he rocked back on his heels and tucked his hands in his pockets, his eyes narrowing on her face. “Ewing … you’re the one who bought the Frampton house. Out where they found the body.”

“That small-town grapevine is in working order, I see,” she said levelly.

“Hard to miss it.” He lifted one shoulder, the black T-shirt he wore hugging tight against some seriously toned muscles. “Rough business, there. Sorry it happened.”

“Thank you. If you can give me your name, I’ll tell Noah you were here.”

“Just tell him Adam dropped by.”

“Last name?”

“Oh, he’ll know.” Adam gave a nod, polite and simple, some of that intense sexuality toned down. “I’ll see you around, Ms. Ewing.”

He was gone in the next moment, slipping through the door with eerie, soundless grace. Trinity slumped against the filing cabinet and groaned. She was too jumpy. Had been ever since …

She closed her eyes and tried not to think about it, but it was so hard not to.

She’d been jumpy ever since they found that damn body.

Granted, it hadn’t been all that long, but what was it going to take before her heart didn’t race at every sound, at every new voice, at every creak of the floorboards?

*   *   *

An hour later, Micah emerged from his playroom, sleepy eyed from the nap he’d insisted he hadn’t needed. He looked at the desk, at the stacks of invoices and the boxes on the floor; then he looked at her.

“Is there a dent?”

Trinity smiled. “No. No dents. He didn’t actually expect me to make a dent in his desk or anything, big guy. He just meant get this place straightened up a little.”

“Oh.” Micah swiped at his nose. “He doesn’t clean his room good, does he?”

She winced as Micah swiped at the snot under his nose again. “No, baby. He definitely doesn’t.” With a sigh she pulled some tissues from the box she’d put on the desk and passed them over. The dust in here was another thing she had to deal with. Tomorrow, though. She wanted these boxes dealt with because every time she
moved
a box a new herd of dust bunnies appeared. “Please don’t wipe your nose on your shirt. That’s gross, kid, and you know it.”

Micah took the tissue and made a halfhearted attempt to wipe his nose. “That one is still messy.” He pointed to the desk tucked up against the wall.

“I know.” She glanced at it. “I think that’s where Noah does his work, so I’d rather he clean up
that
mess by himself.”

“He should clean it all up. He made it. You make me clean up my messes.”

Biting the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning, she stared at him solemnly. “I’ll tell you what. You pay me as much money as Noah is going to pay me to clean up his mess and I’ll start cleaning your messes, too.”

He wrinkled his nose and turned back to the playroom. “When are we going to be done working? I’m hungry. I’m bored.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m probably close to done. I’ll be sure to pack more for you to do tomorrow, okay?” She hadn’t exactly expected today to happen like this. The plan had been
drop off résumé
followed by
hope for the best.
Not
drop off résumé, get hired
and
work her tail off.

The door opened and she shifted her attention to it, automatically straightening in the chair. She continued to smile, but it felt a little strained, frayed around the edges as nerves started to pulse inside. As Noah came inside, she pushed herself upright, her back screaming at her from all the bending and lifting she’d done over the past few hours. Linking her fingers to keep from fidgeting, she moved out from behind the desk as he stopped in the middle of the floor and looked around.

His gaze lingered on the desk that was still cluttered.

“I left that one alone … it looks like plans or whatever you call them. I didn’t want to mess anything up.”

He nodded and bent down over one of the massive sheets of paper, jotting down a note along the side. “Plans for what we’re doing over at the coffee shop,” he said.

He hung his tool belt on a hook on the wall and then turned to stare at the bigger desk, eying the stack of files there.

“There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done,” she said defensively. “It looks like you haven’t done any paperwork in months.”

His only response was a shrug. “I get by doing as little as I can—I use the last week of the month to catch up on what I can, but that’s about it. There hasn’t been any regular office work done around here since I took over. I’ve hired people in—they last a few weeks and that’s it. One lady lasted six months and that was bliss. But a month in she found out she was pregnant. Didn’t want to come back after the baby was born.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he studied the piles a little closer. “What are these for?”

“Invoices. Some are paid.” She moved around him and tapped the pile that was the largest by far. “The majority, however, aren’t. You might want to look through them and make sure they aren’t a mistake. You’ve got an awful lot of money floating around out there if all of these are unpaid, you know.”

He sighed and circled the desk, flopping behind it and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I
mostly
kept up with them. My accountant kind of hates me.”

“I can’t imagine why.” Trinity tried hard not to let anything show in her voice as he shot her a glance. She just smiled politely.

Noah quirked a brow at her but shifted his attention back to the desk, muttering under his breath as he flipped through the stacks of paper.

“Some of those invoices are several years old,” she said. “I’m hoping it’s an error, but there are a few dating back to 2007. I have the oldest ones on top.”

He grunted. “Maggie Robbins lost her husband not long after the remodeling was done on her house. I was giving her time to get back on her feet.”

How much longer are you going to wait?
The question burned in the back of Trinity’s throat, but she kept her mouth shut. It was his business. He was the one swallowing the three-thousand-dollar expense, not her.

A sheepish expression settled on his face. “You probably think I’m a pushover.”

“No.” Her response surprised her a little. He actually didn’t strike her as a pushover at all. He was nice. Maybe a bit
too
nice, but that didn’t make him a pushover. “I think you’re probably one of the kindest men I’ve ever met.”

A grin tugged at his lips. “Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a compliment.”

Trinity laughed. “Trust me, it is. Hey, I can’t complain about it. It helped me get a job and I’m saving a bundle on the house, right?” She grinned at him as she moved over to the empty chair in front of his desk. A few hours ago, nobody would have been able to sit in it. “It’s not a bad thing to be a nice guy, Noah. I wish I knew a few more
nice
people in my life.” Then she looked down, staring at a smudge on her skirt. “Actually … well. He doesn’t run the kind of business you do, but some of this is the sort of thing my dad would do. Maybe not
quite
on this scale.”

Noah flicked a look at her.

Self-conscious, she shrugged. “He’s the kind of man who’d give you the shirt off his back. Usually, he ends up okay in spite of himself, but he’s been burned a few times.”

“Sounds like my dad.”

She laughed. “Considering how his son is, that doesn’t surprise me. Is he proud of you?”

Noah looked away. “I think he was, mostly. He died a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Trinity looked down.

“It’s okay. You didn’t know. I inherited this business from him. Fortunately for me, my mother had a better head for business than both of us and it’s in good enough shape, for the most part, that I can occasionally let things slide, like Maggie.” He reached for the invoice lying on top and sighed. “But I need to go ahead and send this out. I might take it out personally, talk to her. She’s got a job teaching over at the high school and she’s seeing somebody. She’s on steady ground now. I’ll set up payment arrangements.”

He flipped through a few more, made a note on one. “We can get all of these sent out.” He paused over one, sighed. Then he looked up at her. “Have you called the police department, talked to Jeb?”

“Jeb?”

“Detective Sims. The detective you talked to yesterday.” He glanced over at the little room off to the side and then looked back at her. “He said he’d be releasing the house today. He’s handling the … ah … situation.”

“The situation,” she echoed. Such a mild word. It didn’t seem to exactly describe what had happened—they’d found a
body
hidden under her house. That was a little more than a
situation.
“Yes, I spoke with him. Yes, they did release the scene, or that’s how he phrased it. But he also told me there was no way I could move back in yet.” Her neck felt hot as she recalled the
way
he’d told her. He’d been a bit of an ass about it, really. Did he honestly think she’d do anything to jeopardize her son? “Until the floor is repaired, the place is something of a hazard. He didn’t outright say it, but he was sort of dancing around the edges that if I tried to go home before the damages were reassessed, repaired…”

She stopped, looking away. “Never mind. But I need to have the floor taken care of before I can go back. It needs to be safe for Micah.”

Noah nodded. “I’ve already got everything needed to get it fixed,” he said softly. “It’s all lined up. It won’t take much time.”

“Thank you.” She fixed a smile on her face, determined not to think about the house, or the jerk-off detective, or the body or anything that didn’t have to do with the job. Nodding toward the desk, she lifted a brow at Noah. “So did I pass the test?”

“Oh, you passed the test. You got the job. I’m buying you and the kid dinner. I might even spring for dessert,” he murmured, pausing over another invoice. “I’m writing that one off. Leslie Mayer—her husband ran off with the babysitter and she ended up declaring bankruptcy. There’s no way I’m going to be collecting the eight hundred and seventy-three dollars she owes me. Not worth the hassle at this point. But she called earlier this week wanting me to come out and do some more work. I’ll make it clear I won’t be doing any more work unless she puts down a deposit and sets up payment arrangements for the rest.”

He looked up at Trinity. “She’ll probably call while I’m out of the office, and if she gets you on the phone she might try to work you. Don’t let her.”

“Another test?”

“Just saying it how it is.” He shrugged. “Leslie usually doesn’t mean any harm, but life keeps kicking her and her only way to kick back is to try and work people the only way she knows how. Unfortunately, that often means playing those around her, whether it’s the men she comes in contact with or any female she thinks might be a sympathetic ear.” A sad look crossed his face and he reached for another invoice. “Don’t worry. You can handle her.”

He studied the next invoice. “Elsie Darby. Eh, I’ll talk to her. I shouldn’t have let her slide so long, but it would be better if I handled that one.”

Darby. Trinity was glad he wasn’t going to write
that
one off. She owed him nearly fifteen thousand dollars. “Exactly what did you do on that one?”

“She owns a B and B a few miles outside of town. I helped remodel some of the rooms. My dad did a major overhaul a couple of years before he died and I helped with that—she likes sticking to people she knows. The first time around was a major job. She put down a big deposit and did a loan through the bank, but this time around she didn’t want to go through the bank so she paid me the deposit, asked me to do most of the work instead of contracting it out.” He shrugged. “Doing business with her is good business for me because it sends people my way. But she gets behind on the accounts and she was a friend of my dad’s—”