That Boss Of Mine

Purely out of habit he replied, “No problem.”

He turned his gaze to the design on which he’d spent the last thirty minutes and sighed heavily. He could salvage it—it was only a rough draft, after all, and the coffee had merely turned it brown, not obliterated it. That, however, wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Miss Audrey Finnegan, with her clumsiness and gracelessness and appalling bad luck—even if she did have luscious lips and beautiful eyes and legs that wouldn’t quit—was going to drive home what few nails were left in Wheeler’s professional coffin. And she was going to do it in half the time it would take him to botch things himself.

He ought to let her go, he thought, strangely saddened by the realization. There really was no other way. He could call One-Day-at-a-Timers and make up some story about his and Miss Finnegan’s incompatibility—he didn’t want to get her into trouble, after all—and ask the temp agency to send someone else in her wake. At this point, anyone they sent would be an improvement.

But when he looked at her face and saw the abject apology and need for atonement in her expression, he couldn’t quite form the words necessary to tell her she was fired. For all her awkwardness and misfortune, she really was very nice. And in spite of her having wrecked most of his office equipment—not to mention the first good idea he’d had in months—she had rather brightened up the place over the past week. Literally, he thought, when he recalled some of her outfits.

And then, of course, there was the small matter of her aforementioned luscious lips and beautiful eyes and legs that wouldn’t quit, which he assured himself only marginally influenced his ultimate decision.

Wheeler sighed. He supposed it wouldn’t kill him to give her a second chance. Surely they’d hit rock bottom by now. Things could only improve from here.

He ignored the little voice in the back of his brain that reminded him how this was a conversation he’d had with himself pretty much daily since taking on Miss Finnegan. So, technically, she had already exhausted her second chances—more than once, in fact—and he had already watched things go from bad to worse—again, more than once.

Still, he did kind of like her. He didn’t know why, but he did. Maybe because both of them seemed to be in the same boat—one that was fast sinking—where misfortune was concerned. Perhaps if he gave her just one more chance....

“Go ahead and take the extra half hour for lunch today,” he said halfheartedly. “You can make it up tomorrow if you want.”

Her eyes widened, making them appear even larger and greener than before—which was saying something. “O-okay,” she replied, obviously confused by his reaction, but evidently unwilling to draw any more attention to her latest debacle than was absolutely necessary. “Um, thanks, Mr. Rush. For everything. I appreciate it.”

He told himself he should ask her to call him Wheeler. Rush Designs, Inc. had never been a particularly formal business. Even when it was a successful one. He and his former secretary had been on a first-name basis from day one. Of course, Rosalie had been a fifty-six-year-old grandmother of three, but that was beside the point. Still, there was no reason for him and Miss Finnegan to stand on ceremony.

Nevertheless, something prevented him from extending the invitation to call him by his first name, and he forced himself not to ask if he could call her by hers. He wasn’t sure why. It just seemed best to keep their relationship as professional as possible. And even an insignificant, invisible barrier like the use of surnames would remind Wheeler that she was, first and foremost, his employee. He told himself it was essential that he keep that reminder planted firmly in his brain.

In spite of that, when she smiled back at him, somewhere deep inside him, in a place he’d never explored before, a little bubble of heat went fizz. It was the oddest sensation he’d ever felt. Before he had a chance to think about it, though, Miss Finnegan spoke again.

“I am so sorry about the coffee,” she repeated her earlier apology. He had noted that first day her propensity for apologizing more than once. “I should have watched where I was putting it. It was an accident, I swear. I really didn’t mean to—”

“Please, Miss Finnegan, don’t worry about it,” he said, interrupting her. “Let’s just both make a pact to be more careful from here on out, all right? And then let’s just forget it ever happened.”

She nodded vigorously. “Okay. I will if you will. And I promise you that nothing like that will happen again. Ever. I won’t let you down, Mr. Rush. I can assure you of that From here on out, with you and me working together, Rush Commercial Designs, Inc., is headed for great, great things.”

Three

Audrey approached her second Tuesday on the job with an air of caution, which was perfectly understandable, all things considered. She told herself that the previous week had been her warm-up, that anything that had gone wrong during those first five days could be excused as new-job jitters or getting a feel for things or just not being familiar with her new surroundings. But by week two, she thought, things really should start to level off. So, naturally she was very much looking forward to surviving, er, rather, enjoying it.

And in some ways, by that second day of week two, things were already starting to level off—hey, that coffee-spilling incident of the day before could have happened to anybody. In spite of her lack of skills where machinery was concerned—and she worked on those by simply avoiding what office machinery she could—Audrey had people capabilities that were way above average.

So she had focused on those talents instead, had spent much of her time last week contacting what was left of Mr. Rush’s client base to update their files and put a few feelers out as to what they were looking for in a design company. She told herself that was probably something her employer would want to do himself, but he had so many other things on his mind, the last thing Audrey wanted to do was make him rehash everything for her.

So she had spoken to his clients herself, to find out what kind of people and businesses they were and what they were looking for in a commercial design company, had chatted amiably about life in general, and had reassured them that Rush Commercial Designs, Inc., was well into recovery and going like gangbusters. As a result, she’d started feeling a little bit like she was a part of the company herself.

And she’d discovered pretty quickly what a nice feeling that was. None of her other jobs had ever made her feel like she was contributing much of anything. None of them had made her feel as if she were necessary. But Mr. Rush was a man in obvious need of help, and Audrey was, by nature, a very helpful person. Plus, when it came to being down on your luck, she knew all the right moves. She was confident, if of nothing else, that she could make a difference here.

And even after only one week of trying, she was already feeling as if she had.

“Good morning, Miss Finnegan.”

She glanced up from her desk to see Mr. Rush striding through the door, carrying, as he was every morning, a huge cup of coffee, which she just couldn’t understand, because she always had a fresh pot waiting for him when he came in.

“Good morning, Mr. Rush,” she replied cheerily. “Good to see you made it in before the rain.”

He arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Is it supposed to rain today?”

She gaped at him. “Didn’t you notice the black clouds? The Weather Channel says it’s going to be a real doozy. There’s even a tornado watch.”

He arched his eyebrows in obvious surprise. “No kidding?”

Boy, did he need looking after, Audrey thought with a slow shake of her head. How on earth had he made it this far in life all by himself?

“Fortunately,” she told him, “you don’t have anything scheduled outside the office, so you can stay nice and dry inside.”

He looked crestfallen at the news. “Yes, well, that scarcely comes as a surprise, does it?”

“I don’t know, does it?”

He expelled a soft sound of distress. “Miss Finnegan, please. You don’t have to pretend. I know the business is on its last legs, and it’s only a matter of time before the last of my clients has pulled out on me. So you don’t—”

“Actually, you picked up a couple of new clients last week,” she reminded him.

“I know,” he conceded, “but they’re not exactly huge corporations bulging with expendable income, are they? The projects they’ve commissioned will barely cover the month’s utility bills.”

“They’re brand-new businesses,” she pointed out, “starting on the ground floor. You have the opportunity to send them sky-high. And just think how grateful they’ll be to you when you do. Someday they’ll be huge, prosperous companies, and they’ll be indebted to you.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, as if he hadn’t thought about it like that. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “In any event, they’ve paid me money to do work for them, haven’t they? So I’ll do my best by them.”

He started toward his office, then hesitated, slowing his pace until he had stopped completely in his tracks. For one long moment he only stood there, gazing blindly at a blank spot on the wall. Audrey didn’t say anything to disturb him, as he seemed to have his mind fixed intently on something very important that had nothing to do with the nice shade of mauve there. When he turned to look at her, he was smiling, a tentative, secretive little smile that she found very becoming.

“Hold my calls this morning, will you, Miss Finnegan?” he asked quietly, in a voice that told her he was still quite preoccupied. “I think I have an idea for the new Windsor Deli account.” He nodded slowly, then began to walk toward his office again. “Yeah, I do,” he muttered triumphantly. But he didn’t seem to be talking to Audrey. “I have a really, really good idea.”

When he disappeared into his office and closed the door behind him, she smiled with much satisfaction. See? He really did need her. Even if it was just to be a reassuring presence in his life.

She turned in her chair and eyed the computer terminal on her desk with as much confidence as she could muster. Then, after pushing up the sleeves of her fuchsia sweater, she doubled her fists and held them aloft like a prizefighter.

“Okay,” she said to the machine. “You and me, we’re going to have a little session. I’m going to type some letters, and you’re going to let me do it without beeping or booping or going blank on me. Got it?”

The cursor blinked at her benignly, but the computer uttered not a sound. She nodded victoriously. “Good,” she said.

And, humming “You Were Meant for Me” under her breath, Audrey went to work.

It was amazing, really, Wheeler thought some hours later, what you could do with the germ of an idea. As he gazed at the project on his work table, he smiled with much satisfaction. Damn, he was good. He’d forgotten just how good, over the past few months. He remembered now why he’d gone into this line of work to begin with. Because it was interesting. Because it was fun. Because it was what he did best.

He was coming out of his slump now—he could feel it. He didn’t know why or how it had come about, but Rush Commercial Designs, Inc. was about to undergo an upswing. A major upswing. He could feel it. Somehow, he just knew he was on the road to recovery. The two new accounts that had come about last week, even if they were meager, were just the beginning. Best of all, his creativity was back. His brain was functioning again. His talent and skills hadn’t packed up and abandoned him, after all. And now he was ready to recoup the losses he’d suffered.

As if inspired by his optimism, there was a soft rap at Wheeler’s office door that sounded remarkably like opportunity knocking. He smiled at the very idea.

“Yes, Miss Finnegan?” he called out.

The door opened slowly, as if she were being extra careful not to create some debacle that would blow it off its hinges. Thankfully all that happened was that the door got stuck on a bump in the carpet, so she had to shove it a few times—real hard—to get it to open. Unfortunately she wound up putting a bit more effort into her final push than was actually necessary, because the door gave just as her shoulder made contact, an action that resulted in her barreling over the threshold at an alarming speed.