The Family Plan. GINA WILKINS

her that he was the senior partner here. He had run this firm by himself for two years before he’d impulsively taken on a fresh-out-of-law-school partner just over nine months ago because his workload had gotten heavy enough to interfere with his leisure time.

      Caitlin had been the first lawyer he’d interviewed, and he had hired her because she had the most beautiful smoky-gray eyes he’d ever seen—in addition to a thick, shoulder-length curtain of glossy brown hair, an intriguingly dimpled chin, and a petite yet nicely curved figure. Add those attributes to a more than respectable résumé, and he could find no reason at all to send her on her way after that first meeting.

      He didn’t know then that he had hired the Attila the Hun of ambitious young lawyers.

      She had swept into his lazy little practice with a gung-ho, conquer-the-legal-world attitude that exhausted him. Apparently, she had added him to her list of things about this office that needed to be changed.

      But he still thought she had beautiful eyes, he mused, losing himself in their depths for a moment.

      She drummed her fingers on his desk. “You really aren’t paying attention to any of this, are you?”

      “Did you know you get little sparks in your eyes when you’re annoyed? They just sort of glitter, all silvery in the gray.”

      “They must be glittering like crazy right now, then.”

      He propped his chin on his fist and gazed at her. “Actually, yes. And a very enticing sight they are, too.”

      Her invariable reaction when he flirted with her was to speak gruffly and busy her hands. She did so again this time, shuffling noisily through the applications she was suddenly studying with renewed interest. “I suppose I could narrow these down to two or three and call them in for interviews. I would, of course, expect you to sit in on those interviews with me and help me make the final decision.”

      “Why? You know what you’re looking for in an office manager. Hire whoever you like. I have no doubt that whoever you choose will be perfect for the job.”

      She was the one who pointed out, “You’re the senior partner. You should have the final say in major decisions like this.”

      He shrugged. “My decision is that you should make the decision.”

      “A lot of help you are,” she muttered.

      He grinned. “Glad to be of assistance. Can I go now?”

      She leaned back in her chair with an expression of surrender. “Go. Enjoy your golf game. And if you really are playing with a client, try to talk a little business while you’re out there.”

      “If he beats me, I’ll bill him for my time,” Nathan promised, already out of his chair and headed for the door before she could change her mind.

      There had been plenty of times during the past nine months when Caitlin had wondered if she’d done the right thing joining Nathan McCloud’s firm in Honesty, a city of 30,000 people in southern Mississippi. At the beginning the offer had seemed almost too good to be true. A partnership right out of law school? In a one-man office that was already making money and was doing so well that Nathan had been turning down cases?

      After looking over the books and the day-to-day operations—Nathan had given her unrestricted access to his business records—she had seen the potential for turning this small office into a thriving law firm. At the very least, a few years of practice here would be a great springboard to the partnership track in an established, big-city firm.

      Caitlin had lofty career ambitions. Unfortunately, her partner was what she termed “motivationally challenged.”

      A month after their confrontation, on the first Thursday afternoon in October, Caitlin was sitting in her office leafing through a thick file and admiring the practical color-coding system the new office manager had instituted when Nathan burst into the room without knocking. “You have to do something about that woman.”

      She took a moment to study the frown that creased his attractive face and darkened his blue eyes to near navy. “Which woman is that?”

      “That…that dictator you hired as an office manager. She’s out of control.”

      “I hired her because you were conveniently unavailable the day of the interviews,” she reminded him. “And you promised not to criticize my choice.”

      “How could I have known you were going to hire Irene the Terrible?”

      “You might want to shut the door to continue this conversation,” she suggested mildly. Waiting only until he’d kicked the door closed, she added, “Irene is a very nice woman and an extremely efficient office manager. I don’t know what you have against her.”

      “She’s a tyrant. She has my files so organized I can’t find anything. When I mess them up, she gives me a look over those little glasses of hers that makes chills go down my spine. I feel like she’s taking mental notes of all my shortcomings and she’s going to bring them up when she gives me my annual employer evaluation.”

      “She works for you.”

      “Right. Has anyone mentioned that to her?”

      Shaking her head, Caitlin closed the file and watched as Nathan plopped into a chair, lanky limbs sprawled, sandy hair tousled. He looked like a sulky teenager, she thought ruefully. An extremely attractive teenager, but a handful, none the less. She was almost five years younger than Nathan, so why did she feel like the older one at that moment?

      “Irene has only worked for us for three weeks and already she has our office running like clockwork,” she said. “She’s gotten the clerical staff—all three of them—into shape, so that stacks of overdue filing have been cleared away. Our bills have all been paid. On time, I might add. She’s switched to a new phone service that’s saving us 20 percent a month. Our appointment process has been streamlined so that we’ve significantly cut down on the number of clients sitting impatiently in the waiting room.”

      “Exactly.” Nathan nodded forcefully. “She’s scary. It isn’t normal to get that much accomplished in such a short time.”

      Caitlin couldn’t help laughing. “You’re being ridiculous.”

      A sharp tap on the door interrupted their conversation. It was followed almost immediately by the entrance of the woman they had been discussing. The brown and beige jacket Irene Mitchell wore over a straight brown dress did little to enhance her tall, angular figure. Plastic-framed reading glasses dangled from a gold chain around her neck, neat pearl stud earrings completely hid her almost nonexistent earlobes, and a functional watch was strapped around her bony left wrist. Her long, narrow feet were encased in sensible brown pumps. The only signs of frivolity in the woman’s appearance were the color of her heavily sprayed, meticulously curled, red hair and the crimson lipstick that coated her thin lips.

      Caitlin noted that Nathan automatically straightened in his chair when Irene entered. He reminded her of a student who had been goofing off while the teacher was out of the room and hoped to hide that fact upon her return. Smothering a smile, she turned her attention back to the office manager. “What can I do for you, Irene?”

      The older woman set a stack of correspondence in front of her. “I need your signature on these. The mail runs in an hour, so you’ll need to sign them promptly. Mr. McCloud, your letters are on your desk awaiting your attention. Would you prefer that I bring them in here?”

      “No, that’s okay. I’ll get to them in a few minutes.”

      Irene glanced at her watch. “Your next appointment should be arriving in fifteen minutes. You’ll want to sign your letters before then, of course.”

      Nathan cleared his throat. “Of course.”

      Irene continued to look at him.

      “I’ll sign them,” he repeated, holding up his right hand as a pledge. “As soon as Caitlin and I are finished here.”

      Seemingly