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muttered. “These are both for me.” He
drained a third of one cup and set it down. “Caffeine. I should mainline the
stuff.” He blinked at her through sleep-bleared eyes. “You look way too perky
in the mornings, have I told you that?”
    “I don’t think you usually see me this early in the
morning.”
    Jared nodded and polished off the first cup of coffee.
“True.” He gave her an appraising look. “You must be pretty damn sexy with your
hair all messy, before you get up and make yourself presentable.”
    She rolled her eyes, ignoring the tingle in her belly at his
implied compliment. He’d come just a bit too close to a reminder of their
encounter and she definitely didn’t want to let him—or herself—continue that
train of thought. “Drink more coffee, because I don’t think you’d have said
that if you’d had enough caffeine.”
    He grinned and picked up his second cup. “Probably not. My
internal censor goes on the blink when I’m tired. If I’d had more coffee, I
would have just thought that instead of saying it.”
    The man was incorrigible. Not only had she insulted him the
night before, she’d gone to his room and fucked him silly, all the while
ordering him around and being pretty much a bitch. And yet here he sat flirting
with her.
    Of course, getting off twice the night before had probably
put him in a pretty damn good mood.
    He took another swig of coffee. “So what time does the
planting fun start?”
    Thank god. Back to business. “Nine o’clock.” Cassidy
checked her watch. “We have about an hour to finish our breakfasts and drive
out to the site.”
    “Think any of the people who signed up will actually show?”
    None of them had seemed especially thrilled with the idea.
However, curiosity went a long way, and she knew the townspeople were curious
about their motives. “Some of them, probably,” she said noncommittally. “Maybe
even most of them. They’ll want to know exactly what we’re doing, and you may
have convinced a few that they actually have a chance to find jobs with JaBro.”
    “A few of them do, if they have any experience,” he replied
firmly. “I didn’t lie to them, Cass. Dad said if anyone seemed to have a good
work ethic and had worked in construction in the past, he’d take their
applications, at least.” He paused. “We have a couple road repair projects
coming up in the area, and it’s cheaper to hire local labor than to find
housing for our regular employees.”
    Confused, she said, “I thought you only worked in the
southern part of the state.”
    “We’re expanding.” He didn’t sound impressed about it. “A
couple companies around here have gone out of business, and Dad and the uncles
are taking up the slack. You should know all this. You do work for us, after
all.”
    “I don’t work for you.” She found the idea offensive. Maybe
JaBro helped her pay her bills, but she didn’t consider herself their employee.
That would give them a level of power over her that she didn’t want anyone to
have. “I consult for you. I work for myself. Unless the road repairs impact the
environment, which they shouldn’t since the roads already exist, I don’t need
to know where you’re taking over next.”
    “All right, all right. Nitpick much?” He finished off the
second cup and stared glumly at the dregs at the bottom. “At any rate, yeah,
anyone who shows up can fill out an application, and anyone who has the
experience JaBro is looking for might end up with a job. At least a temporary
one. So hopefully we’ll have some kind of turnout.”
    “You’d better hope so.” She nodded toward his shirt, a
button-down blue oxford that augmented his blue eyes perfectly. With it he wore
slacks similar to what he’d had on for their town meeting the night before.
Even on a day like this, the man had to show off his wardrobe. Maybe she would
teach him how to dress properly for planting, since they would have to do this
in other towns too. She