On a sigh, Snow said, “Why don’t you draw me up some sort of Christmas marketing plan and we can talk about it.”
Pausing in brushing crumbs from her cleavage, Piper looked up. “Are you serious?”
With a nod, Snow said, “I am. I’m not promising I’ll spend a lot, but you’re right. I need to advertise more, especially this time of year.”
“Brilliant!” Piper exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air. “I’ll have a full plan drawn up for our meeting next week.”
Snow had half expected the saleswoman to demand they sit down and work something up right then. “Oh,” she said. “Okay. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”
“You’re going to love it. Now I have to get back to the office.” The flamboyant woman shifted her abundant hips through a narrow opening between two large displays. “A new guy started at the paper this morning, and he is delicious.” She glanced at her phone. “He’s following Gerald around, and that means they’ll do a midday check-in within fifteen minutes. Bless that old man’s heart, you could set your watch by his schedule.”
This sounded like good news to Snow. Another new arrival might take the gossip heat off of her and Caleb.
“A new guy as in a new hire, or new to town?” she asked, hoping it was the latter.
Piper tapped her chin. “I’ve never seen him before, so I’m thinking new to town, but I didn’t get as much time with him as I wanted. He’s young, tall, and hot as all get-out,” she said. Piper wiggled her brows. “And no wedding ring. That means he’s fair game.”
A trickle of concern danced along Snow’s spine. That description matched her husband to a tee, but then young, tall, and hot weren’t exactly specifics.
“How was he dressed?” Snow asked, hoping against hope the answer would not be jeans and a red button-up shirt.
Warming to her topic, Piper said, “Oh, honey, let me tell you. The boy fills out a pair of jeans like he was born to wear them. I made sure I got a good look, and I’d bet my best push-up bra that you could bounce a quarter off those cheeks, and I don’t mean the ones above his neck. The red button-down was simple enough, but accentuated those broad shoulders to the point that I nearly wept.” With a wink, she added, “If I have my way, that boy will be the present under my tree, and wearing nothing but a red bow I plan to untie real slow.”
Snow was too stunned to say any of the million things running through her mind. A wave of jealousy smacked her like a bucket of ice water, while anger bubbled up over Caleb not telling her he was taking a job with the local paper. He hadn’t even mentioned the newspaper.
Was he planning to surprise her? “Hi, honey, I’m home. Guess what I did today? I got a job!”
And was Snow supposed to be happy? Relieved? Proud of her ultra-rich husband sinking low enough to take a salesman position with a paper that would be a joke in his father’s media conglomerate world?
She was torn between ripping Piper’s eyes out for fantasizing about her man, and the urge to follow Piper back to the paper and order her husband to go home.
As Snow stewed, Piper stepped through the front door into the November sunshine, yelling, “See you next week!” She was off to see her client’s tall and hunky husband, who had apparently failed to mention he had a wife. Or a fiancée, rather, since they were keeping the wife thing a secret. For now.
In that moment, Snow wanted nothing more than to claim Caleb as her own. To make sure every woman within a hundred miles knew the gorgeous man with the tight jeans and blazing blue eyes was very much off-limits.
Instead, she went back to straightening her suitcases and simmered, grinding her jaw tight enough to rub her teeth to dust. Mr. McGraw would have some serious explaining to do to Mrs. McGraw this evening.
Chapter 13
By three in the afternoon, Caleb was in dire need of a shower, and he never wanted to see a cup of coffee again in his life. He’d witnessed Gerald Nichols drink from some of the nastiest cups on the planet. At one tire joint in town, the sales manager pulled a used paper cup from the bottom drawer of an old metal desk and proceeded to fill it with what could best be described as black sludge. Then he drank the concoction without so much as an eye twitch.
Of course, a man who smoked as much as Gerald probably didn’t have any taste buds left. Hence, Caleb’s need for a shower. He smelled as if he’d been stuck in a chimney for a week.
They’d been on the road all day, with one brief stop at the office for lunch. A meal that consisted of Gerald putting down his cigarette long enough to chow down a roast beef sandwich he’d brought from home, and Caleb attempting to keep at least three feet between himself and Piper Griffin. He’d swear the woman had four hands. When he couldn’t scoot his chair over any more without putting himself into the hallway, Caleb mentioned that he couldn’t wait to get home and tell his fiancée all about his new job.