Night Heat (Forged of Steele 2)

She felt more tears well up in her eyes, tears she refused to stand before him and shed. “Yeah, I guess I am. Goodbye, Reese.” And as quickly as her legs could carry her, she turned and began walking away. And although it broke her heart, she didn’t look back.

“What do you mean we got the wrong tile?”

“Because it’s not what we ordered,” Harry Henderson answered Jocelyn in disgust. “The box says it’s what we ordered but the color is off a shade. See for yourself.”

Shaking her head in frustration, Jocelyn put down the saw and went to inspect the box in question. Mason Construction had used Harry exclusively for all their tile work for as long as she could remember. Over the years the older man had brought his son and his grandsons into the business, however, he refused to give up the work and retire.

She often wondered how, at seventy-one, he was able to get on his knees to lay tile. But she had to admit he was still good at what he did and could be depended on more than a lot of the younger workers.

She opened the box and looked in. He was right. These marble tiles had the wrong accent color.

She glanced back up at Harry. “How much of the wrong tile did we get?”

Harry rubbed his bald head, reluctant to tell her. “All thirty boxes, which was supposed to cover over three-hundred square feet.”

The entire foyer. Jocelyn breathed in deeply. It was either that or scream. “Let’s get the store on the phone.”

“I did that already. They apologized for their mistake but said when they called the distributor they were told it’s a popular shade that wouldn’t be available for six weeks.”

“Six weeks! But it was their mistake.”

“I told them that. But six weeks was the best they could do.”

“That’s not good enough,” Jocelyn said, seeing red. And it didn’t help matters that she hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep. “Marcella wants to move into this place in two weeks. Let’s skip the distributor and go straight to the manufacturer.”

“I did that, too. It’s their policy to deal only with the distributor.”

“I don’t give a hoot about their policy. Give me the number,” she said, snatching the cell phone out of her back pocket and punching in the numbers Harry was calling out to her. This was definitely not her morning. They’d had to cancel the committee meeting because three of the members had called at the last minute to say they couldn’t make it. And then the traffic light on the corner of Rondell and Marlborough had been out, which had backed traffic up for almost an hour.

Jocelyn sighed when she encountered an auto prompter and had to punch in some more numbers. She glanced up and saw that Harry had had the good sense to get lost for a while after sensing she was getting hotter than fire. Reese would normally handle discrepancies such as this, but the guys told her he’d left to pick up supplies. They’d further told her that he was in a bad mood. She couldn’t help but wonder what had Reese’s dander up.

A half hour later, her head was spinning and she’d gotten nowhere. The six-week delay still stood.

Jocelyn snapped the phone shut. Didn’t businesses believe in providing good customer service anymore?

“So, what’s going on?”

She looked up and her eyes collided with those of Bas. For some reason, seeing him made more anger spike through her. He was the reason for her not getting the proper rest last night, and seeing him reminded her of it.

And to make matters even worse, the midday sunlight that was streaming through those windows they’d installed a couple of weeks ago was hitting him at an angle that made an uncomfortable quiver pass through her stomach, not to mention the flush of heat that spread through her body. As usual, he was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. This time the shirt was rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers. She frowned, wondering if he had a real allegiance to any team. To any woman.

She shook her head, getting even angrier that she would wonder about such a thing; his love life was no concern of hers.

“Bas to Jocelyn,” he said, waving a hand back and forth in front of her face. “Can you read me? You seemed to have zoned out.”