A Bride For The Boss. Maureen Child

one, you don’t decide on Vi’s baby shower. For heaven’s sake, you stick your nose into everything.”

      “Excuse me?”

      “But my main point is,” she said, setting both hands at her hips, “I’m tired of being taken for granted.”

      “Who does that?” he asked, sincerely confused.

      “You do!”

      “Now, that’s just not so,” he argued. “Let’s remember that raise yesterday and—”

      “In the last day or so, you had me arrange for the new horse trailer to be dropped off at the ranch. I called Big Mike at the garage to get him to give your car a tune-up before the weekend, then I saw to it that the new horses you bought will be delivered to the ranch tomorrow afternoon.”

      Scowling now, Mac bit back on what he wanted to say and simply let her get it all out.

      “I drew up the plans for the kitchen garden your cook wants for behind the house and I made sure the new baby furniture you’re giving Vi was delivered on time.” Andi paused only long enough to take a breath. Her eyes flashed, her mouth tightened as she continued. “Then I called Sheriff Battle to make sure he cleared the road for the delivery of the last of the cattle water tanks.”

      “Had to clear the road—”

      “Not finished,” she said, holding up one hand to keep him quiet. “After that, I bought and had delivered the standard half-carat diamond bracelet and the it’s-not-you-it’s-me farewell note to the model who can’t string ten words together without hyperventilating...”

      Mac snorted. All right, she had a point about Jezebel Fontaine. Still, in his defense, Jez was seriously built enough that he’d overlooked her lack of brain cells for the past month. But even he had his limits.

      “You’re my assistant, aren’t you?”

      “I am and a darn good one,” she countered. “I’ve kept your life running on schedule for the last six years, Mac. No matter what you throw at me, I handle it and add it into the mix I’m already juggling.”

      “You’re a damn fine juggler, too,” he said.

      She kept talking as if he hadn’t said a thing.

      “Then when I asked you for this afternoon off so I could go see my nephew’s baseball game, you said you had to think about it. Think about it?”

      “I appreciate a good Little League game as much as the next man,” Mac said slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on hers, “but we’ve still got some details to be ironed out on the Double D deal and—”

      “That’s my point, Mac.” His eyes widened when she interrupted him. “There’s always something that needs to be handled and I’m so busy taking care of those things I haven’t had time to find a life.”

      “You’ve got a pretty good life from where I’m standing,” he argued, pushing up from his desk. “Great job, terrific boss—” He paused, waiting for a smile that didn’t come, then tried to continue, but he couldn’t come up with a third thing.

      “Uh-huh. Job. Boss. No life.” She took a deep breath. “And that stops today.”

      “Okay,” he said flatly. “If it’s that important to you, go. See your nephew’s game. Have some popcorn. Hell, have a beer. We’ll talk more tomorrow morning when you come in.”

      “I won’t be in,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s time for a change, Mac. For both of us. I’ve gotten too comfortable here and so have you.”

      He laughed abruptly. “You call dealing with what all that’s been going on around here comfortable?”

      She nodded. “There’ve been problems, sure, but we handled them and things are slowly getting back to normal. Or, as normal as life gets around here.”

      Mac sure as hell hoped so. It had been a wild time in Royal, Texas, over the past couple of years. A lot of turmoil, more than their share of trouble. There was the tornado, of course, then the drought that held most of Texas in a tight, sweaty fist and then a man he used to think of as one of his oldest friends, Rafiq “Rafe” bin Saleed, had come to town with the express purpose of ruining Mac’s reputation, his business and his family. And he’d come damn close to pulling it off.

      Remembering that was still enough to leave Mac a little shaken. Hell, he’d trusted Rafe and had almost lost everything because of it. Sure, they’d worked everything out, and now Rafe was even his brother-in-law, since he and Mac’s sister, Violet, were married and having a baby.

      But there were still moments when Mac wondered how he could have missed the fact that Rafe was on a misguided quest for revenge.

      Without Andi to help him through and talk him down when he was so damned angry he could hardly see straight, Mac didn’t know if the situation would have resolved itself so quickly.

      So why, when life was settling down again, had she chosen now to talk about quitting? Mac had no idea what had brought this nonsense on, but he’d nip it in the bud, fast. Now that things were calming down in Royal, Mac had plans to spend more time actually working and even expanding the family ranch, which Violet used to handle. With his sister focusing on the place Rafe had bought for them, Mac wanted to get back to his roots: being on a horse, overseeing the day-to-day decisions of ranch life and working out of a home office to keep his wildly divergent business interests growing.

      Life was damn busy and Andi was just going to have to stay right where she was to help him run things—the way she always had.

      “Where’s this coming from, Andi?” he asked, leaning one hip against the corner of his desk.

      “The fact that you can even ask me that is astonishing,” she replied.

      He gave her a slow grin, the very same smile that worked to sway women across Texas into agreeing with anything he said. Of course, Andrea Beaumont had always been a tougher sell, but he’d use whatever weapons he had to hand. “Now, Andi,” he said, “we’ve worked together too long for you to get snippy so easily.”

      “Snippy?” Her eyes fired up again and Mac thought for a second or two that she might reach up and yank at her hair. “That is the most insulting thing...”

      She took another deep breath and Mac idly noticed how those heavy breaths she kept taking made her small, perfect breasts rise and fall rhythmically. For such a tiny woman, she had curves in all the right places. Funny he’d really not taken the time to notice that before.

      Andi was simply there. She kept on top of everything. Nothing ever slipped past her. But apparently this had slipped past him.

      “This is coming out of the blue and I think you owe me some sort of explanation.”

      “It’s not out of the blue, Mac,” she said, throwing both hands high. “That’s the point. I’ve worked for you for six years.”

      “I know that.”

      “Uh-huh. And did you notice I didn’t even take a vacation the last two years?”

      His frown deepened. No, he hadn’t noticed. Probably should have, though, since every damn time she did take some time off, he ended up hunting her down, getting her to solve some damn problem or other. The fact that she’d stayed here, working, had only made his life continue on its smooth, well-planned path, so he hadn’t had to think about it.

      “Is that what this is about?” He pushed off the desk, braced his feet wide apart and folded his arms across his chest. “You want a vacation?”

      Her mouth flattened into a straight, grim line. “No. I want a life. To get that life, I have to quit. So, I’m giving you my two weeks’ notice.”

      “I don’t accept that.”

      “You don’t get a vote, Mac.”

      “See,”