Night Heat (Forged of Steele 2)

It was hard for Jocelyn to keep her voice steady when she replied, “No guarantees there, but it’s worth a try.”

Bas threw the file aside and glanced at his watch. It was almost four in the afternoon. He had a ton of files he still needed to review so there was no reason for Jocelyn Mason to be on his mind.

But she was.

Muttering a curse he leaned back in the chair and picked up a file he had placed to the side. He had done the accounting three times and still the figures weren’t right, but before he jumped to any conclusions, he would do as Jim had instructed him in another letter that Kilgore had dropped off a few days ago. All the note had said was: Talk to Reese first about any discrepancies you may find in the bookkeeping records.

Then, just that quickly, he dismissed the note from his mind as his thoughts wandered to Jocelyn again. He had known she was troubled by something the moment he’d seen her. It was there in her face. She’d had that worried look. And ridiculous as it seemed, something deep within him had wanted to get rid of whatever was causing her stress.

Luckily all it had taken was a phone call and the use of his connections to make things right and to remove her troubled frown. But as usual, they had almost gotten into another argument, something he hadn’t been up to. After talking with Harry he had quickly left, eager to be gone from Jocelyn’s presence before she found another bone to pick. After a sleepless night and dealing with Sadie that morning, he hadn’t been in the best of moods, either. The last thing they needed was to be at each other’s throats…or lips.

Damn, but he couldn’t get their kiss out of his mind! He shook his head remembering. Whoever said ‘out of sight, out of mind’ didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, he thought, reaching for an apple from the basket of fresh fruit Sadie Robinson had dropped off a few moments ago. The woman had stayed only long enough to lecture him on how much better fruit was than some of the other snacks she’d noticed him gobbling up. He hadn’t found her spiel amusing but Noreen, Mason Construction’s secretary, had.

Noreen Telfair.

The woman’s name suddenly made him recall the accounting issue and why he needed to talk to Reese. The one thing he’d noticed about the attractive woman was that she appeared to be a good worker who didn’t have much to say. He knew that she was in her late forties, a divorcée with a teenage daughter, and that she had moved to town three or four years ago from Atlanta. He’d discovered that bit of info from reading her employee records, which was something he had taken the time to do on everyone who worked at Mason’s.

“The guys said you were looking for me.”

Bas glanced up when Reese walked into what used to be Jim’s office. Bas took one look at Reese, saw his tense expression and immediately knew something was bothering him. “Hey, man, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, closing the door behind him and crossing the room to sit in a leather chair. “Today’s been a rough one.”

Bas chuckled. “Tell me about it.” He was pretty good at reading people, and although Reese had said things were fine, Bas knew that something wasn’t. But he was a person who made it a point not to get involved in anyone else’s business unless he was asked.

He leaned forward, remembering why he needed to see Reese. “I was going through the accounting records and found several discrepancies. Kilgore delivered a letter to me a couple of days ago that Jim left. In it were instructions that I talk to you first if I found problems with the books.”

Reese sat up straighter in his chair as a confused expression covered his face. “Jim said that?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder why. As far as I know I’m not privy to any information regarding Mason Construction’s accounting records. What’s the discrepancy?”

“Several deposits of large amounts were placed in an account for Noreen. The last one was a couple of months before Jim died. I verified the signature and he signed off on all of them, but he doesn’t note in the records what they were for.”

“Oh,” Reese said and then sat back and smoothed his hands along the arms of the chair. “I don’t know exactly what they were for, but I have an idea.”