Read Online Where Azaleas Bloom by Sherryl Woods - Free Book Online

to me,” he said.
    Lynn dragged a chair closer and peered at the screen, trying
not to notice the heat radiating from his body or the solid masculine strength
suggested by all that muscle. She gave herself a mental shake. She hadn’t spent
this much time noticing a man’s body in a long time. Now surely wasn’t the time
to start.
    “You paying attention?” Mitch asked, amusement suddenly
threading through his voice.
    She blinked over at him. “Of course. Why?”
    “You seemed a little distracted, that’s all.”
    She waved a little notebook and pen in his direction. “See.
Ready to take notes.”
    “Written anything yet?”
    “So far you haven’t even opened the program.”
    He grinned. “Fair enough. It’s password-protected, okay?” He
told her the password, which she wrote down. Then he walked her step by step
through the billing system and the payroll program. “Make sense so far?”
    Lynn nodded. “So far, but then I haven’t actually had to use it
yet.”
    He pulled several pieces of paper from his back pocket. “Notes
for the billing,” he explained. “You’ll find the customers, their addresses and
their account numbers in the system. Mostly people pay about fifty percent
upfront, the remainder when the job’s completed. If there’s an interim bill for
fixtures, that’s sent out when the expense is incurred. My fee is usually paid
once everybody has signed off on the punch list that indicates all the details
are done to the customer’s satisfaction.”
    “So those notes of yours indicate exactly what sort of bill I’m
sending out, right?”
    He winced. “Well, in theory they should. Since I usually know
what they’re for, I might not have written it down on these pages. Why don’t I
do that before you get home this afternoon, make sure you have everything you
need?”
    “Then I’ll just fiddle around with the system until I leave for
Raylene’s this morning, see if I understand how it works.”
    “Sounds good to me. Any questions?”
    “None so far, but I imagine I’ll have plenty for you by this
afternoon.”
    “Okay, then. I’ll get out of your hair. See you later,
Lynn.”
    Suddenly he seemed anxious to leave, which suited her since she
didn’t understand why being close to him got to her the way it did.
    “See you,” she said, determinedly focusing on the computer
screen and not on Mitch.
    She knew he hesitated before leaving, but eventually he walked
away, closing the back door securely behind him. Locking it, too, if she wasn’t
mistaken. Even though the gesture exasperated her just a little, she couldn’t
seem to stop smiling.
    * * *
    The woman was going to be trouble, Mitch thought as he
walked back to Raylene’s. Oh, not when it came to the work. He had every
confidence she would pick up on that with ease. No, it was this attraction
simmering between them. It had always been there, for him, anyway, but thanks to
Grace’s interference, he was forced to acknowledge that on some level it had
never died the way he’d thought it surely had.
    As for Lynn, well, he couldn’t say with certainty what she was
feeling beyond gratitude, but there’d been a moment there when he’d had the
feeling she was as attuned to him as he was to her.
    His cell phone rang just before he headed into the back door at
Raylene’s. Caller ID told him it was his older son.
    “Hey, Nate. What’s up?”
    “Just checking in, Dad. What’s up with you?”
    “Working, the same as always.”
    “You still building that addition for the police chief and his
wife? How’s it going?”
    “It’s coming along. Did you really call just to check on my job
progress, or do you need money?”
    “Dad, you give me and Luke plenty of money. Can’t I just call
to see what you’re up to?”
    “Always glad to hear from you,” Mitch confirmed. “But you’ll
pardon me if experience has just taught me that it’s usually a financial
shortfall that earns me a call at this hour of the