“All right,” she said, nose-to-nose with him, toe-to-toe. “I want to date you, you big, stubborn lug. But you don’t want to date me back. You have all these. . .” She waved a hand. “Stupid rules.”

“No, just the one,” he said. “And it’s not stupid. It’s to protect you.”

“From what?” she demanded, then blew out a breath when he just looked at her. “Whatever,” she said, unimpressed as she tossed up her hands. Then she drew in a deep breath, like she was searching for patience, which was a new one for him. Normally he was the one searching for patience. And here she was looking at him like he drove her crazy. Which made no sense since he was being perfectly reasonable and she was not.

“I’m new to town,” she finally said. “You know this.”

“Yeah,” he said. “So?”

“So maybe I’m lonely.”

He stared at her, and he could admit, that hadn’t occurred to him. He liked to be alone.

But this sweet, tough, beautiful woman in front of him wasn’t wired the same as he was, and he should have gotten that. “Becca.”

“Oh, no.” She waggled a finger in his face. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I’m a big girl, and I take care of myself. You don’t want to be with me that way, I get it. We did it once, and maybe it was so awful for you that you can’t bear to repeat it, maybe—”

“You know that’s not the case.”

“Fine. But it doesn’t matter. You won’t let yourself be with me, for whatever secret reason—”

“It’s not a secret, Becca.”

“Yes, it is. I mean, you say it’s because I work for you, and also because you think I’m not ready, but you know what I think? I think that’s just an excuse. Which leaves me to believe you’re afraid of me and what we had during our one night together.”

He let out a low laugh. “I’m not afraid of shit.”

“No?” she challenged, hands on hips. “Then prove it.”

He stared at her and then drew in a deep breath and tried again. “I don’t feel sorry for you.”

“Great. But if you could not put on your scary alpha-man face and shoo away the next person who might want to be my friend, that would be great, too.”

She couldn’t be that naive. Could she? “Becca, Anderson didn’t want to be your friend. He wanted to be in your pants.”

She lost some of her bluster at that. “Well . . . that was for me to decide.”

“So you do want to go out with him.”

“Nooooo,” she said slowly and clearly, as if he was a huge idiot. “As already established, I want to go out with you. But you’re turning out to be an ass, and I try very hard not to date asses anymore.”

“Anymore?” he asked.

And just like that, her expression closed. This got to him, in a bad way. “I think it’s time we talk about you,” he said quietly.

She turned away.

Reaching out, he gently snagged her hand and pulled her back around.

“I’m on the clock,” she said. “We’re not talking about this now.”

“Becca—”

“Or ever.”

He disagreed, vehemently, and began to reel her in, but her cell phone rang. It was sitting on the counter, which is how he saw it was a FaceTime call from Jase.

Becca stared at the thing as if it were a snake poised to strike.

“You going to answer?” he asked.

“Yeah. Sure.” Taking a deep breath, she slid her thumb across the screen to answer. “Hey, Jase,” she said, back to her friendly smile. It was the one she gave out to his clients, Sam realized, which was different from the smiles she gave him. The smiles for him were . . . real.

“Becca.” A guy’s face filled the screen. He looked like Becca, with the same big, soulful brown eyes and easy smile. He also looked incredibly relieved. “You’re hard to get ahold of.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

“Too busy to call me back?”

Becca didn’t look at Sam. “I’m sorry.” Her cheeks were red. Her ears were red, too. Her eyes weren’t. They were just plain unhappy.

Jase’s smile faded as he took in this fact as well. “Bex,” he said, until he caught sight of Sam. “Who’s that?”

“He’s my boss,” Becca said before Sam could answer. “I. . .got a job.”

Jase’s gaze came back to Becca. “A job?”

“Yes.”

“But you have a job in New Orleans, close to home.”

“I lied when I told you I’d taken a leave of absence,” she said. “The truth is, I quit. And now I. . .answer phones.”

“I’d have given you money,” Jase said. “Bex, you should be playing, going for your dream of music. Not . . . answering someone’s phones. Jesus.”

“It’s more than phones,” Sam said. “She’s running a charter company.”

Jase didn’t look impressed, nor did he take his eyes off Becca. “Let me help you—”

“No. No,” she repeated, more gently, reaching behind her to give Sam a shove. “I told you when I left. I’ll worry about me. You worry about you.”

“There was a time when we worried about each other,” he said sadly.