Joke’s on You by Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,41

I allowed my eyes to linger on Booth.

He walked into the living room and laid Asa out on the couch.

When he stood up, his pants had sagged slightly, and that was when I realized that he wasn’t wearing a belt.

The gap in his jeans allowed me to see the white band of his underwear.

The large bold lettering read ‘Fruit of the Loom.’

I grinned and allowed my eyes to linger on the way I could see a flash of skin.

Skin that I would love to run my mouth along.

“…Dillan, are you even listening to me?” Delanie asked, sounding amused.

I blinked. “I wasn’t. Why?”

She rolled her eyes. “Your phone is ringing.”

I sighed and stood up, walking over to the phone that was ringing on the counter.

Technically, I wasn’t on the clock anymore, so I didn’t have to answer what I assumed was another special order.

But, with me changing hours, I was taking everything that I could get.

Special orders were huge because they made me a pretty penny.

I lifted the phone to my ear and said, “Hello?”

“Hello,” a man said into the phone. “This is Green Stephens with Rusk County’s health department. We’ve had an anonymous complaint of rats in your kitchen by an employee. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to launch an investigation. Since it’s only three in the afternoon, we would like to go ahead and do an emergency check of your facility now. That way, if you pass, you can still open tomorrow.”

I swallowed hard and stared at the wood table.

I’d stained it myself.

Honestly, it needed some work, but I adored it because it was one of the first things that I’d done after Delanie and I had moved out.

“Umm,” I hesitated. “I can meet you there in about fifteen minutes, is that okay?”

There was a short pause. “You don’t want to give yourself any more time?”

The way he asked made me feel like maybe I should have asked for more time.

Yet, I didn’t see any reason to delay it.

Which I told him in the next moment.

“As much as I’d like a few minutes to tidy up, it’s not necessary. I keep a clean kitchen,” I said with a matter-of-fact tone that relayed how confident I was in that fact.

“Okay,” Green said. “Fifteen minutes then.”

I hung up the phone and turned to the room. All of them, even Asa now, was staring at me.

“Apparently one of my employees called the health department on me due to their working conditions.” I paused. “And I’m meeting the health inspector there in fifteen minutes.”

Delanie stood up with a squawk. “That’s insane!”

I shrugged and went for my shoes, slipping them on to my feet before looking for my purse that I’d set down after arriving home today.

I found it on the couch.

Before I could make it out the door, though, Booth had me by the hand. “We’re probably going to be late for dinner tonight, bro. We have what, an hour? Let’s push it back to six-thirty. That way we can hopefully get whatever this is figured out.”

Bourne nodded once, and we walked out of the house, my stomach tied in knots.

“Tell me again what the guy said,” Booth ordered as we drove to my shop.

I did, telling him everything, all the way down to what kind of accent he had.

Booth glanced at me with delight, as if he found it amusing that I would think that sounding Southern changed who he was and how he would be dealt with.

He pulled into the parking lot of my business, and I started to pull up the app on my phone that I would use to unlock it as well as disarm the alarm.

Before I could disarm it, though, Booth swung the door open with a frown.

“You usually leave this open?” he asked.

I shook my head. “When I left this morning, Ken, the man that does the cleaning for me in the afternoon after I leave, was still here. He was well on his way to finishing the kitchen, though.”

Which was why I hadn’t thought twice about Ken.

Ken did an amazing job cleaning up and prepping the dough for the next morning.

If I didn’t trust him, I wouldn’t have given him a key that allowed him to get in and out of my place of business any time he wanted to.

Booth nodded and walked right into my shop, his eyes taking everything in.

“It’s unlocked. And the alarm is disarmed,” he said as he looked around.

“The alarm company turned it off for me,” I said.