The Texan's Twins

She jerked her chair out from beneath her desk, although if she were honest with herself, she was almost relieved to have exchanged her twins for the overgrown child sitting across from her. He was much easier to handle. Despite having Brock Baron as a father, Jet was probably just playing at working until he could get back to his carefree life. Oh, yeah, Lizzie Baron had filled her in on the gritty details yesterday before their meeting. It seemed her brother had been ordered back to work. With Lizzie pregnant, the family hoped Jet would take over her duties. As if that would happen. She would stake her favorite pair of pj’s that he wouldn’t last two weeks. “Late night putting together that report I promised you, which I see you received in your email this morning.” She tried to pull together the ends of her frazzled nerves. First Brock, now Jet. The bitch of it was, the report she’d put together probably wouldn’t even be read by Jet for all that he appeared to be thumbing through it.

“Yeah, thanks.” He glanced up and finally let loose the wink she’d seen in his eyes. “Appreciate the hard work. Looks like we’re ready to break ground.”

Something about that wink made her want to grind her teeth. It was as if he knew how good-looking he was. As if he thought he could cram pencils up his nose and still charm the pants off her, or the panty hose as the case may be. This morning he wore a white polo shirt with the Baron Energies logo across the left breast. It made his skin, already bronzed by the sun, appear even darker. His green eyes were framed by dark lashes. He looked like his father, she realized, although the eyes were completely different.

“Not until we find a better price on the aggregate.” She flipped open her laptop. “I was told the supplier is a friend of your father, but he doesn’t seem like a friend to me.”

Maybe she should mention her concerns to Mr. Baron himself now that he was in the office. Then again, maybe she should leave well enough alone. More than likely her presence in his office had come as a shock. Well, her female presence. He probably wouldn’t welcome hearing her ideas on one of his projects. Not yet, at least. Not until she proved she was every bit as good at her job as a man.

“Yeah, I saw that. Five hundred a load seemed exorbitant.”

Her fingers froze on the keys, and she had to work to keep her mouth from dropping open. “I was going to send out an RFP.”

“No reason to do that. Let me make a few calls. Pretty sure I can get a better deal.”

Clearly, he had read the report. “I’m also not very happy with the cost of the drilling crew.”

“That I can explain.” He set the sheaf of papers down on her desk. Jasmine tried hard to keep from gawking at the new and more serious Jet. “McCoy Drilling is owned by one of my dad’s oldest friends. We all know he pads the numbers, but Dad doesn’t mind. When my dad was younger, Oscar helped him through some tough times and my dad’s been supporting him ever since.”

Not only had he read it, he’d absorbed it, too. And he knew something about costing a project if he’d noted where they could cut corners. She leaned back in surprise.

It was like discovering the high heels you’d been wearing all day were dark blue instead of black, and you’d been traipsing around town in a black dress and blue shoes. She couldn’t quite reconcile the image of Jet the dilettante with Jet the diligent.

“Yes, well, family friend or no, I would still like to send out a few RFPs to other drilling companies.”

“Sure.” His smile grew. “Never hurts to try, but my dad can be pretty stubborn.”

Based on her initial impression of the man, she wouldn’t be surprised. “Duly noted.”

His gaze slid past her to the photos on her bookcase, and Jasmine immediately tensed. She tried to move sideways to block his view. Too late.

“Are those your nieces?”

No, no, no. She didn’t want to answer questions about Gwen and Brooke. Not today. Not when she was so tired she felt as if she needed to keep her eyes open with Scotch tape and when she was completely off-kilter because of the man sitting across from her.

“Was there anything else you wanted to talk about, Mr. Baron?”

“Are they twins?”

She resisted the urge to rest her head on her arms and groan. Where was a restart button when you needed one?

“I’d like to meet again in a couple days, if you don’t mind. I was hoping to forward our final numbers to your sister by the end of the week.”

“Good Lord, are they yours?”

“If there’s nothing else—”

“They are yours, aren’t they?”

He appeared genuinely filled with consternation, and yet also interested in the photo of the girls on Santa’s lap. And not the least bit repulsed, which surprised the heck out of her for some reason. She didn’t figure him for a family guy.

“Yes, they’re twins.”

His gaze dropped to her left hand and Jasmine resisted the urge to tuck it in her lap. Too late. He’d spotted the ringless finger, too.

“Divorced?”

“Mr. Baron, as much as I’d like to sit here and chat about my personal life, I have a million things to do today, so if we’re through here...”

She stood.

He leaned back and put his boots on her desk again. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

Her knickers in a what? “Get your feet off my desk.”

“Actually, I think the desk is owned by my family, and I’m just curious. You don’t want to talk about your personal life, that’s fine, but you may want to sit back down because we have some more things to go over.”

What in heaven’s name could he have to discuss with her? Plus, she just plain didn’t want to sit back down. She wanted to order him from her office, but she couldn’t do that. Technically, he was her boss and, technically, as project manager, he might have something to contribute. Goodness, he might actually be doing his job.

“What do you need?”

She thought he might insist on her answering him, but he seemed to take the hint. “You have an error on page twenty.”

She had a— “What?”

“You have 20K on your cost analysis to dig and line the pits, but you put 10K in the projected budget.”

She flipped to the page in question, certain he was wrong, but—nope—there it was in black-and-white. She’d grabbed a bad number.

“And then I don’t see the costs for cement. You did a cost analysis for the pad, but you didn’t pick up that cost in the final budget.”

She scanned the page, her cheeks suddenly as flaming hot as a natural-gas flare. She scanned a column and discovered he was right. She’d failed to include the cost for cement. It wasn’t a huge expense. Compared to the others, it was a drop in the bucket, but the fact that she’d forgotten...

“Mr. Baron—”

“Jet,” he corrected.

“Jet, I don’t know what to say. I went over those numbers three times. I was certain I’d grabbed everything, but clearly I didn’t.”

“Relax. These things happen. That’s my job, to look over the engineering costs, combine them with labor and materials and other expenses, and to make sure everyone is on the same page. We’ll just change them before we submit the proposal to my sister for final approval and we’re good to go.”

She shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to get him the numbers. She should have just taken her time, sent them to him later, but she was so tired, she honestly didn’t know if she’d have caught them later on, either.

“You look exhausted.”

Her head snapped up. She tried to control her expression so that he didn’t see how close to the mark his words had hit. Didn’t work. He tipped his head to the side, and all Jasmine could think was what a waste of a good-looking man. Too bad he couldn’t seem to concentrate on any one thing at a time—including his private life based on what she’d heard. Still, someone out there would likely try to snatch him up, if for no other reason than his last name. She, however, would steer clear.

As if he would ever find a single mother of two attractive, she thought. Just the fact that he’d noticed how tired she was said it all.