Read Online Outside The Lines by Kimberly Kincaid - Free Book Online Page B

It turns out she’s the manager at Mac’s Diner. She wrote the catering proposal for the Carnival For A Cure.” 
    Both women flinched, but his mother recovered first , her eyes tapering over the weary shadows lining her cheekbones. “Well, this is a surprise. I can’t say I expected to see you again, Ms. Shaw.”
    Blake’s brow s shot upward. It wasn’t like his mother to tip her hand so openly, and it damn sure wasn’t like her to show emotion. Not outwardly, anyway. Then again, she was probably just as shocked as he had been when Jules told him the proposal was her handiwork. After all, his mother had no way of knowing Jules managed the diner since Serenity put in the bid, and owner-based proposals were standard fare for contracts like this.
    “I can’t say I expected to be seen,” Jules said, earning both his and his mother’s attention as she turned around. “I didn’t know Blake was organizing the carnival for the hospital until after Mac’s won the bid.”
    “ Yes. Well, perhaps it would be best if we rectified that. We wouldn’t want any past discomforts getting in the way of planning a successful event.”
    Understanding slung through Blake like a delayed reaction as his mother’s words rattled into place in his brain. “You can’t be serious.”
    His mother’s arctic expression proved him dead wrong.
    Blake scraped in a breath, scrambling for thought. Okay, so Jules had left him abruptly eight years ago, and yeah. Even though he’d tried to hide it, his mother had seen the emotional fallout. But even though her snap-judgment intentions might have a shred of honorability, Blake wasn’t about to let her pull the plug on this project, or his contact with Jules.
    He needed to fix this. Fast.
    “Let’s not get carried away.” Blake stepped out from behind the desk, gesturing to the papers that scattered the far end. “Look, I know Jules and I have…a past history together. But we’ve come up with some great plans for the carnival, and most of them have been her idea.”
    “ I see you’re clearly still compatible in some regards.” His mother’s tight smile loosened something territorial in Blake’s gut, and he opened his mouth to protest, but Jules beat him to it.
    “I don’t w ant my placement on the contract to be a problem.” Her hands blurred into motion as she gathered her notebook and her purse with lightning-fast speed. “I’ll just give Serenity my notes, or she can probably come up with better ones, and she can take my place. It’s okay if you want to fire me, just don’t pull the contract from Mac’s.”
    “ What? No.” Realization slapped him in the gut, and damn it, he couldn’t let her run away again. “The proposal has been approved, and we’ve already done the groundwork. It would be a major setback to start over, with a new caterer or a new contact.”
    Blake winged a glance at his mother, who after an interminably long moment, nodded her agreement.
    “Unfortunately, replacing Mac’s as our vendor would present problems that would be difficult to overcome at this stage in the planning. But this…” She paused, her lips pressing into a thin line. “Behavior is unacceptable. If you’re going to work together, you’ll need to maintain a certain level of decorum, especially here at the hospital.”
    His mother poi nted a glance at the far end of the desktop where Blake had swung Jules into place just a few minutes earlier, and okay, so maybe he’d gotten a little carried away with the whole now-right-now thing. While he hadn’t expected to get walked-in on, the fact of the matter remained that he did still work here. And Jules was technically a contractor with the hospital, at least until the carnival.
    “Understood,” Blake said. “ But for the record, it—”
    “It was totally my fault , Mrs. Fisher,” Jules interrupted, her impenetrable demeanor locked over her like a streetwise suit of armor. “I was out of line, and I apologize. Believe me