Playing With Trouble (Desire Bay 1)

Chapter Eleven

He’d thought leaving Laura in bed twenty-four hours ago was tough. But watching her walk into his warehouse today, ready to work, was hot.

She looked hot as hell, and if those were her getting-dirty clothes, Jake didn’t want to know what dressing up for her was. He loved her sexy skirts and crisp tops. She always looked big-city business in those. And jeans were a fine look for her, too. Maybe a prom dress at this point was fancy for her, because he had yet to find something the woman didn’t look amazing in.

She was in sleek black jeans and tight white shirt, which hugged all her curves in the right spots, and he couldn’t help but stare. She wore red lipstick and her hair fastened back, and he looked down to find . . .

“No red heels today, huh?”

Instead, there was a pair of black Converses on her feet, and they looked about the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

“You said work clothes. So I couldn’t very well wear heels,” she said.

“Indeed,” he agreed. After a quick intro to the crew once again, he went into what he did best—running the warehouse. If Laura really wanted to see how all this worked, he had to stay true to the routine.

“Okay, so the lumber order is coming in today and we have to unload it when it gets here. First, we have to move this gravel onto the truck, and then Mannie will take it to a customer.” Jake showed Laura the paperwork, the schedule,

and how the warehouse kept track of what supplies came in and what went out.

“Okay,” Laura agreed and looked at the heap of gravel. “So all this”—she motioned to the mountain—“goes on a dump truck?”

Jake nodded. “Yep.”

She blew out a breath and looked around. Her eyes fastened on a tin bucket Jake had used to catch a leak in the roof last year. She picked it up and walked over to the gravel pile. With her chin held high, she scooped the bucket full of gravel, then went to the dump truck and hoisted it inside.

Jake chuckled a little, and she turned to glare.

“Unless you have a better way or a bigger bucket, I suggest you stop laughing at me.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “You want to see a bigger bucket?” He went to the loader machine, hopped in, and started it up. Rolling toward the gravel, he got a large scoop and took it to the truck. It would only take four more scoops and it’d all be loaded.

Laura glanced at the bucket in her hand and then tossed it and nodded.

“Quit showing off,” she yelled at him and then smiled. She wasn’t totally immune to his charms, and honestly, he wasn’t immune to hers, either.

He finished loading the gravel, trying to concentrate on the task and not on the other night with Laura. How being with her had felt different. She was also trying. She’d showed up ready to work. Was looking around and watching Jake. She talked to the crew and looked through supplies.

Between getting the gravel out and the lumber in, the day was flying by pretty quickly, and Laura didn’t complain once. But things were about to get trickier as Jake walked her through the different wood sizes and how they organized and stacked them all based on orders they had prepared for.

She just listened, asked questions, and was genuine in trying to learn.

“Here’s the manual labor part,” he said, standing by a wall of newly delivered lumber. “Machines help with some of this, because we need to move the larger pieces with some smaller pieces depending on the delivery we have coming up. No sense organizing and reorganizing it, so we try to plan what is going out and to whom and have that order ready to go.”

“Makes sense,” she said.

“Which means Henry Davis’s order is here.” He pointed at the clipboard he had along with the various sizes of wood Henry had ordered. “We’re going to stack his order against the wall right there.” Jake pointed to the east side of the warehouse. “So when we have to load it and deliver it next week, we already have it ready to go.”

“Okay,” Laura said, nodding in understanding.

“I’ll use the machine to get the bulk of the order, but if you want to work with the guys on walking over the smaller pieces, you can do that.”

“Will do,” she said with a smile, but Jake could tell she was dragging a bit. This was hard work. But she was doing it. They all worked together to get the wood organized, and Laura kept pace the entire time.

Jake was more than impressed—he was certain now that he’d been wrong about her. She was staying. Laura Baughman was done running. And he was ready to risk a hell of a lot for her.

Laura watched Jake use heavy machinery all day, and holy hell, he was sexy. All those muscles working and the effortless ease with every move he made had her panting. He was in his element. Confident. And she could see why her dad trusted him. The shop was in good hands with him.

He was patient with her, too, showing her how the warehouse operated and answering her questions. He really did have this job down, and if she were honest, she hated this. Moving wood was not her idea of fun. She wanted to get back to her flower shop, with a new respect for what went into this part of the business.