She hung her towel on the rack at the end of the cabinet. “Yep, let’s do the bar first. I’ll gladly sweep and mop if you’ll take care of the chairs and the trash.”
“Are you going like that?” His eyes started at her mismatched socks and traveled up the legs of her faded Rudolph pajama bottoms, and then took in her oversize T-shirt with its picture of Minnie Mouse wearing a Santa hat.
“Yes, I am.” She started across the floor. “We’re going to get sweaty and dirty, so why get cleaned up now and then again before we open the bar this evening? That don’t make a bit of sense.”
“I agree.” He stopped long enough to put on his boots. They might look ridiculous with his baggy shorts, but there was no way he was going into that office in his socks—not when there could be spiders hiding in those piles of papers.
Jorja brought out a mop bucket and filled it with water, then stopped in her tracks, pulled out her phone, and took a picture of him setting chairs on the table.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked.
“If Abigail calls me again, I’m going to send the picture to her.” She picked up the wide dust mop and began to sweep the floor.
“Why would you do that?” he asked.
“So that she’ll know you’re harmless.” Jorja laughed.
“You could have given me a chance to pose,” he teased.
Chapter 5
Jorja heaved a long sigh and then opened the office door. Not one blessed thing had changed since she had found the checkbook to pay for the beer delivery. The place still looked like a tornado and a hurricane had had a fight in the middle of a post office.
“I’ll get a big garbage bag.” Cameron said.
He was so close to her that his warm breath caressed her neck and sent sweet little shivers down her spine. She dismissed the sparks by telling herself that she hadn’t been out with a guy in over a year—not since she and Eli had broken up. Sure, Cameron was sexy, even in baggy shorts and cowboy boots, but he sure wasn’t her type.
When she finally trusted herself to turn around, he was already on his way back toward the office with the whole box of black bags. “Cleaning up that place will take more than one.”
“Think it will all fit in the dumpster out back?” she asked.
He set the box down on top of the checkbook ledger, pulled one free and handed it to her. “If it doesn’t, I’ll find out where the dump is and take the rest off in my truck. Where do we start, and why did the last manager let things get this bad?”
Jorja shook the bag out, hung it over the back of a chair, and picked up part of a stack. “Maybe his or her job wasn’t to take care of bills, and Merle didn’t feel like messing with it. She must be eighty by now, because she’s the same age as my granny.” Items on the top of the precarious stack were dated three months earlier. As she worked her way down the mountain of mail, she sorted by putting the junk in the bag and organizing the rest into three different piles on a chair—unpaid bills, bills that were paid, and other things that had to be filed.
By noon, Cameron had hauled two bags out to the dumpster, and they could see one fourth of the desk. Cameron picked up a stack of paid bills, opened the file cabinet, and groaned. “You’re not going to believe this.” He pointed.
“I don’t think anything would surprise me right now, unless it was a snake hiding in that drawer. If that’s what you’re looking at, then clear the way from here to Tennessee.” She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. Thoughts of snakes and working with a sexy cowboy sure did heat up the room.
“No snakes, but if a spider comes up out of this drawer, I’m on my way to Florida,” he declared. “The problem here is that not one of these files are labeled. How in the hell did Merle know what to take to her CPA for tax purposes?”
Jorja rounded the desk and stared into the open drawer. “Holy crap on a cracker,” she moaned. “You do realize that since we took ownership before the first of the year, it’s up to us to organize all this, and get it ready for the CPA in the next few weeks. What in the hell have we gotten ourselves into?”
“Key words there are ‘in hell.’” He nodded.
“Amen, sweet Jesus.” She sighed. “We’ll put the stuff that should be filed in a box. When we get the desk cleaned off, we can start with one drawer at a time and get it all put to rights.”
“And I thought I’d just walk into my own bar and start to work.” Cameron groaned again. “Guess nothing comes for free.”
“You got that right.” Jorja took a step backward and stepped on a pencil, and her mind immediately told her it was a snake. She jumped as high as she could, but there was no way she was landing back on that evil monster. She wrapped her arms around Cameron’s neck and both legs around his waist, and then hung on like he was a tree and she was a spider monkey.
“I murdered a spider for you, so you can kill that snake for me,” she panted with her eyes tightly closed.
“I had a reason to do a stomp dance.” He laughed. “But you’re asking me to go to jail for murdering a pencil.”
She opened one eye slightly and gave the yellow pencil a dirty look. Then she realized that Cameron had instinctively caught her by grabbing her butt with both hands. Her face heated up and she tried to wiggle free, but he tightened his grip.
“Let me go,” she said.
“Not just yet.” He took two steps back, rounded the end of the desk, and carried her all the way to their apartment.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He set her on a kitchen chair and said, “I need to borrow your pistol. Mine is out in my truck.”
“What for?” she asked as she started for the chest of drawers. “You don’t need a gun to kill a spider.”
“Honey, there are two rattlesnakes, real ones, curled up together under the desk,” he told her. “Thank God you didn’t pull out the chair and sit down to work your way through those stacks of mail.”
“You’re teasing me, aren’t you?” She drew her legs up and scanned the room. “Are you sure there’s two?”
“Two heads, two tails. Is it all right if I get your pistol from the drawer, or should I go out to the truck for mine?” he asked again.
“Get mine and kill them. How did snakes get in the bar anyway?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but I intend to check every crevice, crack, and corner in that office and the bar for unwelcome vermin. We need to be more careful until we get things in order.” He took the gun from the drawer and started out of the room. “Stay right there until I get back.”