"Zoe?"

"Yeah?"

He looked around his clean room, noting the freshly made bed, laundry basket full of folded clean clothes and felt like he should say something. "Thank you for everything you did today," he said awkwardly, feeling pretty damn stupid.

She chuckled. "You're welcome and don't worry I'm keeping track of my hours, although I was tempted to charge you hazard pay after I saw your bathroom."

He actually cringed at that. It had been pretty bad and if she was anything more than a tenant and now an employee he'd be pretty embarrassed, but she wasn't. So it didn't really matter, he decided with a careless shrug.

"Let me know how many hours you got and I'll pay you on Friday," he said, already dismissing her and heading for the bedroom door.

"Okay," she said, laughing, making him pause at the door.

"What's so funny?" he asked out of curiosity. In the past two months that she lived here he couldn't remember ever seeing her smile or hearing her laugh.

"Huh? Oh, just something in this book I'm reading," she said, sounding relaxed, which he guessed was nice and of course because of him since he'd improved her life with his generosity.

"What are you reading?"

"Twilight."

Why did that sound familiar? It took him a minute before it came to him. "Is that the vampire series they made into a movie?" he asked. He'd heard a few good things about the books and kept meaning to buy the mp3 file so he could listen to it, but he never found the time.

"Yes, I'm reading it for the fifth time."

Fifth time? Now he was intrigued. That meant it had to be good. "Read some for me," he said, walking over to his bed and laying back, resting his arms behind his head, waiting expectantly for her to read to him.

She sighed heavily. "You can borrow it after I'm done."

He snorted at that suggestion. It would take him years to read a book and he just didn't have the time or patience for that.

"I won't have time and you're reading it now so it just makes more sense to save time and read it out loud, don't you think?" he said, slipping into old habits. He'd never had a problem convincing anyone that doing something for him was actually to their benefit.

So he wasn't too surprised when she said, "Fine," sounding totally put out, but that really didn't bother him as long as she did what he wanted.

"You'll start from the beginning, right?" he said, grinning when she let out a surprisingly cute little growl.

"Fine," she snapped.

"There's lots of sex in this book, right?"

"Oh yeah, there's lots of sex in this book," she said brightly.

"Excellent."

Chapter 7

"Um, are you going to move?" Zoe asked when he hadn't moved in over two minutes. "I kind of have to get in there," she said, tentatively pointing past him towards the office trailer. If he didn't move soon she was going to be late and she really didn't want to start her first day on the job by getting yelled at.

A muscle ticked beneath Jason's eye as he continued to glare down at her. It was really rather unnerving and she had to wonder how such a sweet woman married him. Zoe considered trying to walk around him, but knew it would be pointless. He'd just move to block her yet again.

"Look," he finally said, "just tell me he lied and we can pretend that none of this ever happened and I won't have to upset my wife with the news."

She looked over her shoulder, hoping someone would come give her hand or at least give him the medication that he obviously needed. When it didn't look like any help was forthcoming she reluctantly looked back at Jason.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she admitted, taking a nervous step back when he started mumbling to himself.

"Please tell me that my cousin lied to screw with me and that you're really not a Red Sox fan," Jason said, staring at her intently as he waited for the answer.

"I-I'm not a baseball fan," she stammered nervously, hoping that was the right answer. "I really don't know much about sports in general."

His eyes narrowed on her. "Then why did he tell me that you were a Red Sox fan?"

"Because I have a Red Sox tee shirt," she explained, discretely taking a step to the side so she could walk past him only to be cut off as he stepped in front of her.

"Why do you-"

With an exasperated roll of her eyes she snapped, "Because the tee shirt is cute. Now can I please go to work?"

"Cute?" he repeated as if he couldn't believe what he heard. "There's nothing cute about those bastards."

"Except their shirts," she pointed out, biting back a smile at his horrified expression.

He looked like he was about to say something else, but then threw his hands up in the air and finally walked off in disgust.

So nice to make friends on the first day, she thought dryly as she hurried inside the trailer. Just as she placed her purse on the desk Jared stepped out of his office. Zoe's eyes automatically sought out the clock. Her stomach churned when she realized that she was a minute late.

She'd always hated being yelled at by her bosses, but she had a feeling that being yelled at by a Bradford was going to be ten times worse. This really was not the best way to start her first day.

"Good morning, Zoe," Jared said, smiling, making her even more nervous.

"Good morning, Mr. Bradford," she said, trying not to shift nervously.

"It's Jared," he reminded her, still smiling as he headed for the kitchen counter and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Would you like some?" he asked, holding up the coffee pot.

"No thank you, sir," she mumbled.

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head good naturedly as he walked back towards his office. "It's Jared, not Mr. Bradford and certainly not 'sir'. Just relax, Zoe. You'll do fine," he promised with a wink.

"Okay, thank you," she said, forcing a small, albeit, nervous smile.

"Yell if you have any problems," he called out from his office.

Zoe slowly exhaled the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and walked towards the fridge to put her lunch away.

"You can't put that in there."

Great. Not even five minutes into her first day and she was already screwing up. She felt her cheeks burn as she turned around. "I'm sorry. I thought it was the employee refrigerator," she explained to Haley, who was walking, well more like wobbling, towards her.

"Oh, it is," Haley said, smiling. "But if you put it in there it will be gone within ten minutes." Zoe watched as she pulled several ice packs from the freezer. "I have a system for this," she said.

Curious, Zoe followed her to the desk and watched as Haley sat in the chair and unlocked one of the large bottom desk drawers, revealing a really large box of tampons. Zoe felt her lips twitch as Haley shot her a mischievous smile.

"I've tried other things, but in my experience tampons are the best deterrent for the food thieves, although cleaning supplies have been known to work in a pinch," Haley explained as she handed Zoe an ice pack. In an unspoken agreement they both hurried to place the ice packs in their bags and placed them in the large drawer, shutting and locking it seconds before Jason came storming into the office.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, eyeing them suspiciously as they huddled behind the desk.

"I was just about to show Zoe the computer system," Haley said, smiling sweetly up at her husband as she turned the computer on.

"Look," Jason said, running his fingers through his short mussed hair, "I didn't want to do this, but she," he pointed an accusing finger towards Zoe, "has a Red Sox tee shirt and thinks it's cute."

Haley blinked. "They are."

"They...what....what the hell?" Jason sputtered, pressing a hand to his chest in what Zoe was quickly beginning to recognize as a typical Bradford overreaction, even if it was cute to watch. It was funny how she never really thought of large muscular men as cute before, but after meeting the Bradford men there really was no other way to describe them, well other than studly and hot that is.