Oh, shit. He’d fucked up and the stern teacher’s voice Emmaline Amos had lambasted him with hadn’t been without warrant.
“Yeah. Call Girls’ is the phone-sex company Dixie and I own. Someday, I’ll tell you how that crazy shit went down. Until then, that’s what this is about. I need someone to write some encryption software for security purposes. We want to tighten things up and branch out while we do. You’re the biggest tech geek I know. When I heard you were moving to Plum Orchard, you were the first person I thought of.”
“Maybe I’m not connecting the dots. Call Girls is a phone-sex company you own? Here in Plum Orchard? How the hell did you make that happen? I only visited during the summers, but people aren’t exactly progressive here. Not progressive enough to have a phone-sex company.”
Caine grinned. “Money talks in the PO. Landon made a lot of money. The town, and all he offered it with all that money, made up for their disapproval. He made sure of that before he left this place. So whaddya say? I’ll hook you up with your own office over at Call Girls, which is in the guesthouse, by the way—this way you can get out from under Tag’s and Gage’s feet while they fix that beast up, and it’ll give you something to do while Maizy’s in school.”
“I don’t need a job.” He needed his sister—alive. Since she’d been killed almost two years ago, he couldn’t keep his head in the software development game. Every time he thought he might go back to work, the memory of Harper, the other half of his geeky brain, kept his fingers as far away from a computer as he could get.
She’d been his sounding board, his right-hand man, or woman, as she’d often reminded him, and he couldn’t seem to focus on the intense kind of details government security contracts required.
Caine clapped him on the back. “Well, this job needs you. If you can create software for the Defense Department, you damn well can do it for something as rinky-dink as a phone-sex company. It won’t use up a lot of your brainpower, and you won’t be moping around, ruining perfectly good pieces of two-by-fours by measuring them wrong. I’ll give you your own office and everything. C’mon... You can even eavesdrop on the girls’ phone calls,” he joked with a wink.
“I don’t need an office to develop software. I can do it from home.” That he was even considering Caine’s offer shocked him.
“Nope. You don’t need an office, but I’m gonna give you one anyway because you need to get the hell out from under Gage’s and Tag’s feet before they hack off your fingers. And then you won’t be developing anything, will you?”
Jax sat silently.
“Look, bro, if not for yourself, do it for Maizy. I bet she’d really like a playroom that has a roof,” Caine said, ribbing the state of his aunt’s dilapidated house.
“Caine? Honey?” a familiar voice called from the large entryway, echoing off the marble tiles. “Know where Sanjeev is? I need him to mix up one of his hangover specialties.”
Caine held out a hand to the woman who’d been with Emmaline in Lucky’s, a woman who looked at him like his old college buddy had invented high-heel shoes. Pulling her to him, he gave her a long kiss that almost made Jax uncomfortable.
So he chose to take that moment to think. Caine was only trying to do what everyone had been trying to do since Harper died. Get him back out into the world—where crazy assholes roamed free and killed your sister.
He wasn’t sure he was ready for that. He had no motivation in him to do anything that was productive or useful, and everyone knew it.
It was at that undecided moment—while he searched for this motivation everyone seemed so eager to instill in him, when Emmaline Amos walked into the big kitchen, her hand squeezing her temples while she looked down at her feet—that he forgot everything.
Caine let go of Dixie, circling her waist with a loose grip. “Dixie, Em? I want you to meet my old college roommate, Jax Hawthorne. His aunt Jessalyn owned that big Victorian over by the creek. He used to spend his summers here. You remember her, right?”
Em’s steps stuttered then stopped altogether.
And there it was again—their stare. The one that connected them in a way Jax tasted on his tongue, felt in his freakin’ marrow.
A weird shift of his gut, his emotions all tangled up in it, happened again. This time stronger than the last.
Jax caught Caine and Dixie sending each other some secret signal only lovers shared. Dixie was probably trying to warn Caine that he and Emmaline had already been introduced, but like the man he was—the man they both were, Caine totally missed the signal.
When Em didn’t respond, Caine said, “Em, this is Jax. Jax, Em’s our GM at Call Girls.”
Yep. She sure was.
Enough said. He was in before he even understood why.
Oh, and hello there, motivation.