His One and Only(29)

At least she wanted to blame the shower for the state of her body. But her mind kept flashing back to Beau Prescott in the shower, chiseled like a freaking Greek statue, and his manhood, hard as a…

Josie shook her head. It had been too long since she’d seen a man naked. Yes, that was it, she assured herself. She had grown desperate, so much so, she couldn’t stop thinking dirty thoughts about a man who was most likely about to fire her for pelting him with pasta. That was all it was. Nothing more.

She pulled out her phone and wiped a layer of steam off the screen to check the time. It was now ten minutes past when she was supposed to be at Ruth’s House.

She stepped out of the bathroom and called Sam.

“Please tell me your boss isn’t keeping you tonight,” Sam said in lieu of a hello.

Josie grimaced. “Believe me, I wish I could tell you that.”

Sam made a strangled noise. “Ugh, and that’s the cherry on top of this terrible, terrible day.”

“What else happened?”

“Mr. Benson decided he didn’t want Ruth’s House to be great.”

“Oh, not the water heater!” The Benson water heater at Ruth’s house was ancient, seriously ancient. Even the company that made them had gone defunct more than ten years ago. But Sam had been doing her best to keep it alive for years now. “What did the plumber say?”

“That Mr. Benson needs a funeral service and we need to replace him with Mr. Smith.”

The plumber had been after them to replace the Benson with an A.O. Smith from his stock. He’d even offered them a discount on the labor to put it in. But the cost still came to more than two months worth of mortgage payments and they only had enough in the coffers to keep the shelter running for three months if absolutely nothing went wrong.

“We’ll figure something out,” Josie said encouragingly.

But then Sam started crying.

Which just about broke Josie’s heart. “Don’t cry, girl. You’re going to make me cry, too.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling. “It’s just that I put my life and soul into this place!”

“Foreclosures take a while. If they kick us out of that building, we can find a new place and rent it.”

“You have no idea how long it took me to find a place with enough room to house people on our budget, and that was before a lot of these funding organizations started making cuts.” Sam snuffled. “With this water heater problem, I can barely make payroll next month. And there’s no way I’m going to be able to pay first and last month’s rent on a new place.”

“We’ll figure out something out.” Josie promised her. “I don’t know how, but I promise you, we’re not going to let your dream die.”

Suddenly the shower shut off in the bathroom. Josie sighed. “I have to go deal with my insane boss again. Sorry.”

Sam rallied with a sniff. “No problem. Call me later if you want to talk.”

Josie’s heart swelled with love for Sam, who was always putting others first, even when her own hopes and dreams were on the line. “Will do. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Then she went back into the hot bathroom.

Part of her wanted to leave, just walk out. There was zero chance Beau would let her keep her job after what she just pulled anyway, so he was obviously keeping her here to make her sweat literally and figuratively.

But the other more practical part of her knew she needed to stick around at least long enough to get her first two days’ pay. She couldn’t go back to a cold mobile home in the dead of winter without at least knowing she’d be able to get the heat, water, and power turned back on. And even then, Lord only knew what she’d do next month. After paying the back charges on her most pertinent bills, she had no idea how long she’d be able to survive on what she had left.

“I’m done,” Beau called out.

Josie reluctantly made her way to the shower, this time reminding herself not to look, not to even glance at Beau Prescott’s ridiculously amazing body.

Back in high school, the one time they’d had sex, she’d been too busy making the biggest mistake of her teenage life to really take a good look at it. However, there was no denying what she’d seen in the shower. Beau Prescott had it going on in the body department with thick muscles that rippled down his arms, across his abdomen, and over his tree trunk legs. As if designed to match all over, what lay between his legs was also larger than usual and ridged from the massive mushroom on top, all the way down its long, thick shaft.