Straddling the Line

Cass held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I give.” She flipped on the intercom again.

“Damn it, what?” On the bright side, the man on the other end was no longer distracted. However, he sounded mad. That sense of doom came rushing back in.

“She won’t go.”

“Who the hell are you talking about?” Excellent, Josey thought. Shouting.

Cass looked Josey up and down. There was something sneaky in her eyes as she said, “The nine-thirty. Says she’s not going anywhere until she talks to someone.”

He cursed. Rudely.

Whoa. F-bombs at nine-thirty in the morning. What on earth was she getting herself into?

“What is your problem, Cassie? You suddenly incapable of throwing someone out the door?” The shout was so loud that it briefly drowned out the sounds of the shop.

Cassie grinned like she was up for a round or two. She winked at Josey and said, “Why don’t you come down here and throw her out yourself?”

“I do not have time for this. Get Billy to scare her off.”

“Out on a test drive. With your father. It’s all you today.” She gave Josey a thumbs-up, as if this were a positive development.

The intercom made a God-awful screeching noise before it went dead. “Ben’ll be right down,” Cass said, enjoying being a pain in the backside. She pointed to a door in the wall of glass.

Maybe Josey should bail. Don Two Eagles had been right—Crazy Horse Choppers was a crazy idea. Josey put on her best smile as she thanked Cassie for helping out, hoping the smile would hide the panic hammering at her stomach.

Ben—Benjamin Bolton? Robert was the only member of the Bolton family who had joined the twenty-first century and had an online presence. Aside from a fuzzy group photo of the entire Crazy Horse staff and a generic-sounding history that traced how Bruce Bolton had founded the company forty years ago, she hadn’t found anything usable about any other Bolton. She knew next to nothing about Ben. She thought he was the chief financial officer, and Robert’s older brother. That was all she had to go on.

Before she’d made up her mind to stand her ground or take off, the glass door flew open. Ben Bolton filled the door frame, anger rolling off him in waves so palpable Josey fought to keep her balance. Should have run, she thought as Mr. Bolton roared, “What the hell—”

Then he caught sight of Josey. For a split second, he froze as he stared at her. Then everything about him changed. His jaw—solid enough to have been carved from granite—set as his eyes flashed with something that might have been anger, but Josey chose to interpret as desire.

Maybe that was just wishful thinking—in all likelihood, he was still angry—but without a doubt, Ben Bolton was the most handsome man she’d seen in a long time. Maybe ever. Heat flooded her cheeks, and she couldn’t tell if that was attraction or just nerves.

He straightened up and puffed out his chest. Okay. This situation was salvageable. Brothers often liked the same things—music, games—why should women be any different? She didn’t have enough time left to start over. She batted her eyelashes at him—a move she’d learned a long time ago worked despite being clichéd.

“Mr. Bolton? Josette White Plume,” she said, advancing on him with a hand outstretched. His palm swallowed hers. He could have crushed her hand, but he didn’t. His grip was firm without being dominating. She felt her cheeks get even warmer. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today.” They both knew that he’d taken no such time, but a gentleman wouldn’t contradict a lady. His reaction would tell her exactly what kind of man she was dealing with here. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

Bolton’s nostrils flared as the muscles along his jaw tensed. “How can I help you, Ms. White … Plume?” He said her name like he was afraid of it.

Lovely. Hopefully he wouldn’t start spouting all that PC nonsense about how she was an indigenous American of Native descent. As long as no one called her an Injun, the world could keep turning. She tightened her grip on his hand enough that one of his eyebrows notched up. She couldn’t tell if his hair was black or brown in the dim light of the waiting room, but he’d look plenty good either way. “Perhaps we could discuss the particulars elsewhere?”

Suddenly, Bolton dropped her hand so fast that it bordered on pushing her away. “Why don’t you come up to my office?” he asked, that flash of anger growing a little stronger.

Behind her, Cass snorted. Bolton shot her a look of pure warning, a look so hot Josey might have melted if it had been aimed square at her. But the dangerous look went right over her shoulder. By the time Ben Bolton turned those baby blues back to her, he was back to that no-man’s-land between danger and desire. He stared down at her with an intensity she didn’t normally encounter. He was waiting for her answer, she realized after a silent moment had passed. That was unusual. Most men just expected her to follow.

“That would be fine. I wouldn’t want to keep Cass from her work.”

Bolton narrowed those blue eyes in challenge, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the room. Josey barely had time to grab her briefcase before he’d disappeared out of sight.

“Good luck with that,” Cass called out behind her in a cackling laugh.

In these shoes, Josey had to hurry to keep up with Bolton’s long strides. He took the metal stairs two at a time, putting his bottom somewhere between hand and eye level. She shouldn’t be openly gaping—not in public, anyway—but she couldn’t help it. The whole back end was a sight to behold. Ben Bolton had wide shoulders packing the kind of muscle that a gray button-down shirt couldn’t hide. His torso was long and lean, narrowing into a V-waist that was wrapped in a leather tool belt, which was way more cowboy than biker. His ankles were the safest place to look, Josey decided. Black denim jeans flowed over black cowboy boots with extra thick soles.

One thing was abundantly clear. Ben Bolton wasn’t a normal CFO.

Below her, someone wolf-whistled. Before she could react—cringe, stick out her chin in defiance, anything—Bolton whipped his body to the railing and shouted, “That’s enough!” in a voice powerful enough that Josey swore she could feel the vibrations through the metal stairs.

The sounds of the workshop—the clanging of hammers hitting metal, the whine of air compressors, a stream of words she could only vaguely discern as cursing—instantly died down to a low hum as Bolton bristled. For a moment, Josey thought she saw the railing bend in his grasp.

Josey’s insides went a little gooey. This wasn’t a show of power, this was actual power, so potent that she could nearly taste it. Ben Bolton commanded absolute respect, and he got it. She was an outsider here—she couldn’t think of a time when she’d been more out of her league—but he still defended her without a second thought.

Bolton’s glare swung down to where she stood precariously perched on a step, as if he thought she’d challenge the authority that had silently reined in twelve men armed with power tools. And then he was moving away from her, taking each step slowly and methodically this time.

Josey’s pulse began to flutter at her wrists. She was used to men trying to impress her with their money, their things—all symbols of their power. This was a man who didn’t appear to give a darn about impressing her. Heck, given the way he now stood at the top of the stairs, arms crossed and boot tapping with obvious impatience at her careful pace—Josey was pretty sure he detested her. Somehow, that made him that much more impressive.

When she neared the top, Bolton flung open a steel door and waited for her to get her butt in the office with poorly disguised contempt on his face. The doom ricocheting around her belly grew harder to ignore. She’d missed her chance to bolt, though. She had no choice but to tough this out.

The moment the door shut, the sounds of the shop died away. Blissful silence filled her ears, but her eyes were now taking the brunt of things. Bolton’s office had so much metal in it that Josey was immediately thankful the sun wasn’t shining in through the floor-to-wall windows. A stainless-steel desk was underneath sprawling piles of papers. Filing cabinets that matched the desk perfectly made up a whole wall.

Everything in this gray office—down to the leather executive chair and the walls—said money. The leather-and-chrome seats downstairs had said money, too. But this was different. Downstairs screamed of someone dressing the place to impress. Up here? Mr. Bolton didn’t give a flying rat’s behind about impressing anyone. This was all about control. Or Ben Bolton was color-blind. Either way, the whole place looked depressingly industrial. In a wire mesh trash can, she saw the remains of what had to be the recently departed intercom. Had he ripped it out of the wall? Because of her?

No wonder Bolton was in a bad mood. If Josey had to work in this office, she’d probably curl up into a lump of iron ore and die.

Bolton motioned for her to sit in a shop chair—also metal. He sat down and fixed her with another one of those dangerous/desirous glares. He picked up a pen and began bouncing the tip on the metal desk, which filled the air with a perfectly timed pinging. “What do you want?”

Oh, yeah, he was mad. Being as she had no plan B, Josey decided to stick with plan A. It was still a plan, after all. “Mr. Bolton—”

“Ben.”

That was more like it. Familiarity bred success. “Ben,” she started over. “Where did you go to school?”

Robert had graduated from a suburban high school in a wealthy area of Rapid City about twenty miles from where they sat. Odds were decent Ben had gone there, too.

“What?” Confusion. Also not bad. An opponent off-balance was easier to push in the right direction.

“I’d be willing to bet that you graduated near the top of your class, maybe played on the football team? You look like a former quarterback.” Josey followed this up with one of her award-winning smiles—warm, full, with just a hint of flirting while she checked out those shoulders again. Wow. If Ben Bolton wasn’t so intimidating, he’d be all kinds of hot. What did he look like without all the gray? Boy, she’d love to see what he looked like on a bike. He had to ride. He ran a motorcycle company.

Flattery usually got her everywhere—but not with this man. Ben’s glare moved further away from desire and a heck of a lot closer to dangerous. “Valedictorian. And running back, All-State. So what?”

Josey managed to swallow without breaking her smile. The “All-State” was a good sign—bragging, if only just. But the pinging of the pen on metal got louder—and faster. Besides, she shouldn’t be entertaining any sexual thoughts about another white man, not after the last debacle. She needed to stick to her goals here. Getting the school ready would earn her a place within the tribe—permanently.

“Your school had computers in every classroom, didn’t it?” Before he could demand “So what?” again, she kept going. “New textbooks every few years, top-of-the-line football helmets and teachers who actually understood what they taught, right?”

With a final, resounding clang, the pen stopped bouncing. Ben didn’t stop glaring, though. Josey sat through the silence. She would not let this man know he intimidated her. So, chin up and shoulders back, she met his gaze and waited.

His hair was a deep brown, she realized. She could see the warm tones underneath—much browner than her own chestnut hair. A few streaks of salty white were trying to get a foothold at his temple, but his hair was cropped close in a no-nonsense buzz cut. The scowl he wore looked permanent.

Does he have any fun?