But none of that changed the fact he was her boss. And had a candy station in his office.

“Hey, where are you going? Don’t we have work to do?” Dax called.

“We do. And I’m late. So I need to get going.”

“Don’t you work here?”

She turned around but kept walking backward. “I work for Hot Cakes. But not in this area. You want to get to know how the factory works and really see the place in action, then you need to see how all the areas work. There are several. We figured we’d take you through the process from mixing and baking”—she gestured toward Max—“to decorating and packaging to shipping.”

“Where do you work?”

“At the end of the line. In the distribution and shipping center.”

“So I’ll be there…”

“Not for several days.” She grinned at his narrowed eyes. He’d just realized she was going to be able to avoid him all week.

“She drives a forklift,” Max offered.

That made Dax perk up though. He looked impressed. “No way.”

“Yep,” Max confirmed.

“That’s awesome.”

She laughed, in spite of herself. “I don’t know about that. And I don’t drive one all day or anything.”

“But you do drive one.”

“Yes.”

“So you kind of fork around at work.”

“Yeah, I gotta go.” She pivoted and started in the opposite direction from Dax Marshall. A direction she needed to keep going even figuratively. But once her back was to them, she didn’t have to fight her smile.

“Don’t worry, Dax, this is the best area to be in. Lots of sugar and cream,” she heard Max say.

Dax actually cough-choked at that.

Jane’s grin grew. Actually, this might be fine. It was possible Dax had just met his match.

3

“What the…”

Dax looked up, the Ping-Pong ball sailing past his left shoulder.

“Yes!” Bryan pumped his fist in the air. It was the first point he’d gotten off of Dax in three rounds.

Dax was very good at Ping-Pong. Practice made perfect after all.

But Jane had just walked into the break room, so he didn’t care a bit about Ping-Pong.

She was standing just inside the break room doorway, staring.

He grinned and set his paddle down. “Forfeit,” he told Bryan.

“I actually won one?” Bryan asked.

“Well…” Dax shrugged. “I mean, if winning ’cause the other guy quit makes you happy…”

Bryan chuckled. “Twenty bucks is twenty bucks, man.” He swiped the twenty-dollar bill off the table where their cups of cappuccino sat and sauntered across the room to join his other coworkers for the rest of their break.

Jane made a beeline for Dax. Just as he’d expected she would. Two days ago.

All the work had been finished Tuesday night, but she’d been avoiding him, and the break room, so this was probably all a huge shock to her today.

“You did this, right?”

He looked around with a big smile. “This has me written all over it.”

“There’s a coffee bar.”

He’d thought about going for just a cappuccino machine but in the end decided to go all out and cover all bases. It was crazy to him, but not everyone liked cappuccino. So their machine did everything from plain hot water to hot chocolate—three flavors—to Americanos to white mochas. Of course, a machine alone did not a coffee bar make. There were syrups and toppings too. So as not to be wasteful with paper cups, everyone had been encouraged to bring their own cups in from home and keep them on the hooks he’d also had installed. It was very cool.

“Want a cappuccino?” he asked, moving for a refill himself. He wasn’t sure he could date a woman who didn’t like cappuccino.

“Um…”

He glanced back at her to find her studying the rest of the room.

“Jane?”

She looked at him.

“Cappuccino?”

“No. Thanks.”

He hit the button to fill his cup. “Because you just don’t want one or because you don’t like them?” he asked.

“A Ping-Pong table and a Foosball table?” she asked instead of answering.

“Not everyone likes Ping-Pong.” Also crazy. Ping-Pong was the best. It took great reflexes and hand-eye coordination, but you didn’t have to strategize or concentrate fully, so you could think about other things while you played. It was the best way through a creative block.

“You… knocked a wall down.”

He grabbed his cup from under the dispenser and headed for a table on the far side of the room from the others that were occupied. He’d spent the last few days talking to as many people as he could and encouraging everyone else, by example, to gather together. But right now he wanted Jane to himself.

Not just right now. He’d really like to get this woman alone. But right now for a particular reason.

“Needed more space,” he said of the missing wall.

It had simply been a dividing piece of drywall between this room and a storeroom next door. He’d asked the maintenance guys about the storeroom and its contents, helped them relocate everything, and then helped them demolish the wall after hours. It had really been that simple.

“We needed to have three couches and a seventy-inch TV in here?” she asked.

She seemed a little dazed.

“Seventy-five,” he said, nudging her into the chair he’d pulled out at the table.

She sat. “Right. Sorry. We needed a seventy-five-inch TV?”

“Well, it makes Family Feud at three a lot easier,” he said, taking the chair beside her and sliding in close.

Jane blinked at him. “Family Feud at three?”

“We gather in here to watch Family Feud at three. Everyone picks a team, and we have a pool about who will win. People also get bonuses for answering before contestants do.”

She just stared at him.

“And a few people have asked if they can use their breaks to watch some old soap opera. Some of the older girls who watched religiously are enjoying introducing the younger people—some of the guys too—to the show. And then Maria and Adelina have a Spanish soap they want to watch and Lexi and Morgan are watching with them.” Lexi and Morgan were two young moms in their twenties. “They took a bunch of Spanish in high school and say it’s fun to practice what they learned that way. And then a couple of the high school girls have introduced a whole group to The Bachelor. Which is awful, of course, but Linda and Kevin and Terrell think it’s hilarious.” He paused. “It’s amazing what you can find on the streaming services.”

She said nothing.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you about something I’ve been thinking about.”

“I know nothing about The Bachelor.”

He gave her a smile. “If anyone asks, just say Amber. She’s the one.”

“So you’re buying Ping-Pong tables and TVs and cappuccino machines to get out of doing actual work?” she asked. “I thought you wanted to know how the factory worked?”

“I’ve been working,” he told her, mildly offended. “You haven’t heard everyone gushing about me?”