As irritation snaked its way up his spine, Owen glanced at his watch for the millionth time and let out a loud curse. Maddie was forty-five minutes late. No, make that forty-six minutes late. The coffee he’d picked up for her at the diner was getting cold, and as he looked at the no-longer-steaming cup, he finally reached a decision—he was done making amends. If she wanted to be pissed off at him, she could go right ahead. He’d been bending over backwards the past three days, trying to fix whatever had gone wrong with them, but he was done trying.
He wasn’t even sure why it bugged him so much. So what if Maddie was angry? So what if she hadn’t looked him in the eye since the day they’d gone to Ann Hastings’ place to do that estimate? So what if she hadn’t picked a lighthearted argument with him in days?
Okay, well, maybe he knew why it bugged him. It was because he still had no idea what he’d done to make her so mad. He suspected it had to do with the wedding, but what had he done wrong? He’d just asked if she was going with one of her brothers. Was that really a reason to start a cold war?
Releasing a troubled breath, he picked up his coffee cup and took a long swig. All right, maybe he wasn’t done making amends yet. Truth was, he hated it when he and Maddie were on the outs. She was his best friend, not to mention a damn good assistant. All the clients loved her, probably because she was so quick to make people laugh. And she was so damn organized—she ran the office like a well-oiled machine.
His ears perked as the little bell over the front door chimed. He heard the door creak open, the sound of footsteps in the main room, and then Maddie’s apologetic voice drifted in.
“I’m sorry I’m late, boss. We got home late last night from Denver, and I slept right through my alarm this morning.”
She sounded so sincere that his anger quickly evaporated. Owen got to his feet. “It’s fine,” he said as he stepped out of his office. “Just don’t do it aga—” His vocal chords stopped working.
With a little smile, Maddie searched his face. “Everything okay?”
He gulped. Twice. Then blinked. Three times. But no, he wasn’t imagining it. Maddie was wearing a skirt. A skirt. It wasn’t short by any means, just filmy black material that swirled around her bare knees. Her arms were bare too, thanks to her sleeveless T-shirt, which was red and snug and clung to a pair of firm, high breasts. Oh sweet Jesus, he could see her nipples jutting against the thin bra she wore—and what had happened to her face? Why did her eyes look so enormous and why were her lips suddenly red and pouty?
His brain went on sensory overload. For a moment he felt disoriented, as if he were looking at a completely different woman, but no, this was Maddie. He recognized her brown eyes and the freckles and the amused expression she always wore.
“What have you done?” he choked out.
One slender brown eyebrow rose gracefully. “What are you talking about?”
He blinked again. “Why are you all dressed up?”
Nonchalantly, she gestured to her outfit and said, “Oh, this? I’m just practicing for the wedding.”
Confusion spun inside him. “Huh?”
“Charlotte asked me to be a bridesmaid, so I figured I should wear a skirt for the next few days, just to get used to it.”
“Oh.” He swallowed to bring moisture to his arid mouth. “Right, that makes sense.”
Maddie headed for the desk and walked around it, setting her purse on top of the laser printer. “So anyway, I’m sorry for showing up late. Like I said, we ended up staying in Denver longer than we’d planned and—”
“Did you do something to your hair?” he blurted out.
She wrinkled her forehead. “What? Oh yeah, I got a haircut. The wedding, and all that.”
Owen noticed that her hair was so long it hung halfway down her back. And she’d cut it? He wondered how long it had been before, but realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her without a ponytail. Now her hair was loose, a shiny light brown, and she’d layered it so that it framed her heart-shaped face in an extremely fascinating way. And why hadn’t he ever noticed how long her eyelashes were? Was she wearing mascara? And why, damn it, could he still see the hard peaks of her nipples?
A shot of lust jolted through him, shocking him into speechlessness. As his cock thickened beneath his jeans, Owen choked down a wave of mortification. Was he actually springing a boner at the office?
“Anyway,” Maddie said again, “I checked the company account today and the deposit from Ann Hastings came through, so—”