Balancing Act by Laura Browning Page B

noticed was the huge bouquet of summer flowers sitting on her desk. It was not a formal florist’s arrangement; instead it looked like someone had cut as many flowers as they could stuff into a lead crystal vase. Her lips twitched. There was a card leaning against the vase. Inside was a picture of Seth holding the flowers in front of an almost denuded flowerbed, and scrawled on top of it, “Please forgive me?”
    This time she smiled, but she sure wouldn’t let him know it. She made his coffee as she always did and took it into his office.
    “Hmmph,” he grunted from behind the pages of one of the innumerable newspapers he read each morning. The day continued as it always did, with Seth working nonstop and barking orders at her. It made her wonder if the flowers and the picture with the hastily scrawled note were figments of her imagination, but no, every time she stopped by her desk, there they were. She took the flowers home with her at the end of the day. They were too much of a distraction sitting beside her while she tried to work.
    The next morning when she arrived, a large coffee from Starbucks and a cinnamon scone awaited her…along with another card. Tessa flipped it open to find a single question scrawled on a thick note card, “Would it help if I were sweeter?”
    Tessa glanced at Seth’s office door and smothered a giggle. Seth? Sweet? But she smiled at the thought, and somehow many of the objections she kept raising to Seth Barlow-Barrett as a man began to disappear.
    He grunted when she took in his coffee and then drove her like a workhorse until late morning when he stopped and looked up. And then she wondered why she had ever thought him at all appealing.
    “I’m supposed to meet my mother for lunch at the club,” he stated. “It’s this Habitat thing again. Would you come with me?”
    Tessa tilted her head. “Do I have a choice?”
    “Would you still come if I said yes?” he countered.
    “Yes. I happen to have a lot of experience with Habitat.”
    “Then you have a choice.”
    “I’d be happy to go with you.”
    By the end of lunch, Seth was scowling, his mother was beaming and Tessa was smiling wickedly at her boss. She could almost feel the steam rolling from him as he helped her into his SUV. He’d raked his hands through his wavy, golden hair so many times it stood on end.
    “Did you have to volunteer me to work with a bunch of Women’s Club do-gooders who have some insane idea about building a house?” he bit out as he slid behind the wheel and slammed his door. He glared at her with eyes that shot angry sparks at her.
    Tessa smiled at him with as much innocence as she could muster. “I’m sure you can handle it, Mr. Barrett. You do know how to hammer a nail, or does the butler see to that?”
    Seth dropped an F-bomb before putting the car in gear and driving in stony silence back to Barrett. Tessa kept her expression blank, but congratulated herself on setting him up. It would do him good to learn a little patience on a volunteer work crew.
    The next morning when she arrived, there was a construction apron and a hammer on her desk with a note that said, “Mother was so happy when I told her you loved working on Habitat houses and would be joining us this weekend.”
    This time when she set his coffee down, he lowered his paper and stared at her.
    “You know what they say about payback,” he said in a silky voice.
    Tessa arched one brow at him. “Bring it on, big boy. I can hammer a nail. Can you?”
    Thursday morning she arrived to find a short piece of rope tied in an intricate knot. With it was a card. Tessa found herself looking forward to Seth’s morning messages. The card read, “It’s called a fisherman’s loop. If we work all day Saturday, may I take you and Zach fishing on the bay Sunday?”
    Tessa’s hand trembled as she read the note. Two thoughts raced through her mind at the same time. He’d remembered what she had told him about Zach’s love of fishing.