Chapter 5
The cold airhit Anderson’s face like a slap, which was exactly what he needed to get his mind off Ruth Kennedy. Instantly, he wanted to go back into the office and make her go get lunch. It was her job to get lunch, not his. Well, it actually wasn’t her job; she just usually did it. Besides, if she would have just gone and gotten the food, he would have eaten it happily.
But when she had walked in and asked what he wanted, he lost it. The light from the window was behind her, making her glow like never before, and suddenly he saw the woman in the snowbank, and he wanted to touch her again.
Suddenly, the same old thing wasn’t good enough. He wanted different. He wanted the weekend Ruth, not the Ruth who worked for him, but there was no way he could actually say that.
All morning, he had watched her typing at her desk. What she could possibly spend the entire morning on was beyond him, but if it kept the office running smoothly, he didn’t ask. They were a well-run team after all these years.
When she had been late, he had actually wondered if she had quit without telling him. Would she have quit because he was friends with Rafferty? Because of their run-in during the blizzard? Why else? Then she had breezed in without her coat on, and he was instantly mad. She was late and didn’t even apologize, just blamed it on the weather. The roads were perfect this morning, and the sun was even shining. It was a beautiful day.
Ruth looked the exact same as she did every other Monday morning, except today he looked beyond her prim and proper attire and saw the wispy white hairs that were too short for the bun floating around her head. When she had sat down and kicked off her shoes, he noticed that she pulled her bare feet onto the chair under her butt. And she had slid those ugly black reading glasses on and stared at the screen in front of her. All business, with a touch of adorable that he had never noticed before.
At one point, he looked up, and she was chewing on a pencil as she stared at the screen. She was blushing scarlet from her hairline all the way to where her first two buttons on her blouse were open. And most likely further down. All he could do was picture it.
So, in reality, he had spent the morning thinking of his personal assistant naked. He had never even noticed her before, and then suddenly, he couldn’t get the thought out of his head. Maybe it was Rafferty saying she used to do what teenagers do that brought up the images. But in his imagination, she was not a teenager; she was a very put-together professional with a hidden wild streak.
Warmth enveloped him as he entered the café and walked up to the counter, leaving his coat on since he was not staying. Mia was walking by but instead stopped in front of him, laughing. Over the years, he had struck up a sort of friendship with the woman, though they were not close.
“Anderson, did Angel call in sick? I knew she drank too much yesterday, but I didn’t think it was that much,” Mia continued to laugh as she started writing down the order, not even asking what she wanted.
“No, Ruth is there. Looks just fine, too. She was a little late but mostly on time,” Anderson said to the waitress. Why was he explaining it to her?
“Ruth is a lightweight, and I know she had four shots, maybe more.” Mia tapped her pen on her order pad. “The usuals, then?”
“Yeah,” he replied, not thinking about the fact that he wanted something new. His mind was on whether or not Ruth was hungover. She didn’t seem like it, but he didn’t know what her hungover would be like. She seemed the same as always; it was him who was different. He wondered for a moment if he was hungover himself.
Resting his head in his hands as he waited for the food to be made, he wondered if he had changed the way he was looking at Ruth because he was suddenly single. Not that he and Daphne’s relationship had been all that great for the past few years, but it had been enough for him. Now that it was over, he realized that in the past month, he hadn’t missed her once. So maybe it had been time for it to end.
Within a few minutes, Mia had brought the lunches in white Styrofoam containers and placed them in front of him. “Wake up, Anderson. Did you drink too much yesterday, too?”
“No, not a drop yesterday, but Friday night was a doozy,” he admitted, pulling out money to cover the bill.
“I hope you’re not hanging with Rafferty now. He is not good company,” Mia said as she got his change from the register.
“He’s a nice enough guy. Do you know why he and Ruth do not get along?” Anderson asked since Mia was the pulse of the community. If she didn’t know, nobody did.
“You will have to ask one of them. Neither has ever said, and I have never heard,” Mia explained, which meant something since Mia always knew everything in this town.
“He said that he likes her, but she does not like him,” Anderson informed her.
“Could be more his dad. She really does not get on with him. In fact, I have seen her walk out of rooms he was in on more than one occasion. Something to look into if you are interested enough to want to know,” Mia said as she was called away by a customer.
Grabbing the white boxes, he headed back out into the cold and wondered what Howard Brooks could have done to Ruth. He didn’t actually know the other insurance agent in town because he had not had much opportunity to talk to Rafferty’s father. Howard didn’t do a lot of work that Anderson could tell. Rafferty was carrying the load at the building down the street.
He walked in with the boxed lunches, pushing the door open to the office with his back. He set the warm one on her desk in front of her and took his cold one into the office. Sitting down, he heard Ruth laugh out loud, a sound he had rarely heard from her. It was a pleasant sound in the quiet rooms. Turning in her direction, she slid her reading glasses up on her head as she asked, “Did you tell Mia I was still drunk?”
“No. She thought you had called in sick. I told her you were a little late but not sick,” Anderson defended himself, wondering where she had gotten the information about their conversation.
“She wrote in my box that I must be drunk still to let you get lunch, but she added that you are drunk too.” She turned the styrofoam box her lunch was in so he could see the inside cover. He couldn’t see any writing since they were ten feet apart.
“Funny,” he said back to her, not remembering anything ever written in their boxes before.
“Are you drunk, Anderson?” She took her glasses off her head and put the earpiece in her mouth as she looked at him with those ice-blue eyes.
“Are you drunk, Angel?” He watched her, trying to not look at her mouth, and failing.
Instantly, the smile vanished from her that mouth. Now he had done it; he shouldn’t have called her Angel. He could tell she wasn’t happy with it.