Show Time (Juniper Ridge Romantic Comedies #1) - Tawna Fenske Page 0,14
wonder how much he told his family about what happened. How thoroughly I humiliated myself in the parking lot. “Um, yeah. About that—”
“Hey, Lana.” Dean ambles out the side door of the lodge and does a double-take when he sees me. “Vanessa. I didn’t realize you’d be here today.”
“Yep. Yeah, I copied you on the email.”
“Huh. Sorry, but I’m glad Mari got you taken care of.”
Lana gives him an exasperated shove. “Hello? I have a role here too, you know.”
“Of course you do.” He throws an arm around her, yanking her close so he can ruffle her hair. “You’re the only Judson universally liked by everyone. The rest of us are assholes.”
“Get away from me, asshole.” She’s laughing as she shoves at him.
Dean lets go and nods at me. “Are you getting all your questions answered?”
“Absolutely.” Except the one about whether I’ll ever live down what happened in my backseat. “The grounds are amazing. I don’t know what it looked like before, but you guys must have done a lot of work.”
“Not as much as you’d think,” Lana says. “It’s amazing how much of the infrastructure was already in place.”
“Even the grocery store,” Dean adds. “We had to replace a bunch of the coolers and upgrade the flooring, but the basics were already there.”
“Lana gave me the tour,” I say. “It’ll be great once it’s up and running.”
“Same with the rest of the shops.” He drags his fingers through his hair, drawing my attention to those damn hands again. “Speaking of which, are you free to go over some figures?”
“Right now?”’
“Yeah, sorry. I know you’re still deciding if you’ll even take the job—”
“Actually, I decided.” I rifle through my bag and find the folder containing the contract. “Here. All signed and everything.”
Dean takes it from me and whistles low under his breath. “Wow, you’re fast.” His hazel eyes scan the first page, landing on my signature at the bottom. “I’m surprised you didn’t have any questions. There’s some weird stuff in here.”
Lana rolls her eyes. “‘Weird’ meaning you’re pretty much a normal CFO, except you live with us and agree to let us tape your whole life?”
I shrug and offer an easy smile. “Nothing weird about that at all.” I turn back to Dean. “My cousin’s an attorney. Well, he’s also the CEO at Ponderosa resort, but he was a lawyer before that. He looked it over for me.”
“You had James Bracelyn look at this?”
“Yeah, is that okay?” Crap, I hope I didn’t screw this up already. I mean besides dry-humping my boss in my backseat.
“No, it’s great,” Dean says. “I met James a few times. Great guy. Gave me some tips for getting this place up and running.”
“That sounds like James. He seems like a hard-ass control-freak, but he’s a marshmallow inside.”
Lana gives a knowing smirk and pats her brother’s chest. “Now why does that sound familiar?” She jumps out of the way before he can grab her again, laughing as she dances back down the red cinder path. “I’ll see you at dinner, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Dean mutters. “Are we at Gabe’s place tonight?”
“No, Cooper’s. Don’t you read the schedule?”
“I have a lot on my plate right now.”
“You won’t tonight,” she says. “Coop’s making some vegetarian dish.”
“Ugh. Remind me to grab a Big Mac beforehand.”
As Lana saunters off, Dean watches her go. The second she’s out of earshot, he turns back to me. “Everything go okay with the tour?”
“Yeah, perfect.” I shove my hands in my pockets. “You told her about me pouncing on you yesterday?”
He cocks his head. “Of course not. Why? What did she say?”
“She said you ordered snake-proofing for all the yards.”
“It’s a safety issue.” The smile he gives me shoots straight to my lady bits. “I don’t just mean my safety. Pretty sure you cracked one of my ribs.”
“God, I’m so s—”
“Nope.” He throws out a hand up to stop me, an easy smile gracing his handsome face. “I’m kidding. My ribs are fine. And I promise I didn’t tell Lana about being in your backseat. Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Thank you.” I take a few deep breaths to wash away any lingering humiliation. “You said you had some numbers to go over?”
“Right, that was just to get Lana out of here.” His smile dims just a little. “We heard from our troublemaker again.”
“Troublemaker?” I frown. “Oh, you mean the hacker? The guy who’s been sending flowers and weird notes and stuff.”
“That’s the one. Only there’s something different this time.”