Wound Up by Kelli Ireland

Maxwell.”
    “Please, call me Justin.”
    She blushed and tucked her long, dark hair behind one ear. “Okay...Justin.”
    Nodding toward the director’s office, he gave a small wave to Mallory and started down the hall.
    Where was Grace?
    The door to the office opened as he got there, and a short, balding man boldly took his measure. “Good to see you again, Dr. Maxwell.”
    “Just Justin, sir.” For the second time in as many minutes, he offered his hand.
    Sanders’s grip was firm and dry. “A few things have changed since we first talked. Before we get into specifics, I’m going to send you to Human Resources to complete your new-employee paperwork and get your fingerprinting done. Should take about an hour. We don’t have the luxury of putting you through a formal orientation process, so this’ll have to suffice. Any questions, direct them to me.” He gestured down the hall. “HR is the third door down. It’s marked. Ask for Sharon. Have her paged if she’s not in there. She’ll set you to rights and then send you back here.”
    At the mention of changes, unease settled heavily in his gut. Surely his boss hadn’t already found out about Justin’s involvement with Grace?
    One way to find out.
“I’ll admit I’m curious, sir.”
    “Nothing to worry about. Just a few personnel changes since you interviewed. See you back here as soon as you’re done, son.”
    Surprise wasn’t enough to temper the response that nearly choked Justin with unexpected emotion. He wasn’t Sanders’s son. He’d been that to one man and one man only, and that hadn’t ended well. At all. To hide his reaction, he shoved his free hand in his pocket and clenched his briefcase tighter. “Yes, sir.”
    “Problem?” The question was posed civilly, but that didn’t diminish the cool undertone.
    “No, sir.”
    “We’ll reconnect in about an hour, then. Don’t let Sharon keep you longer than that. We’re on a rather tight timeline today.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Sanders opened his mouth to say something else, apparently reconsidered and instead sent Justin off with a nod.
    Justin took slow, measured steps as he fought to regain control of himself. “Losing it on the first day over something so trivial is pointless,” he said under his breath.
    The HR department turned out to be one harried-looking woman behind a desk so covered in paperwork, Justin had to wonder how she kept from having regularly scheduled nervous breakdowns at ten, two and four each day. His face must have relayed his thoughts because she glanced up at him and smiled.
    “You’re Justin Maxwell.”
    “Yeah. You must be Sharon.”
    “I am, and from the expression on your face, I’d be willing to bet you wanted to add ‘crazy’ to my given name. Granted, crazy
should
be my name to work in HR.”
    “I’m just a little, uh, overwhelmed at the amount of paperwork you’ve got going on there.”
    “I’m purging old files so it’s not as bad as it seems.” She looked around. “That’s a blatant lie. It’s hell. It’s every bit as bad as it looks. There are regulations for how long I have to keep every piece of paper, and no regulation is the same. Five years for one form, seven for another, infinity for yet others.”
    “How do you manage?”
    “Don’t make me try to rationalize it, Dr. Maxwell. If I do, I’ll fail. Then I’ll get up and walk out and probably be terrified to ever stop walking lest the forms catch up with me and murder me in my sleep.”
    “Fair enough.” He stepped into the room just far enough to let the door fall shut behind him and, again, held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
    “Same to you.” She shook with one hand and with the other she dug through the nearest paper mountain, retrieving a thin file folder. “I’ve got a crap-ton of forms for you to fill out. Orientation will have to wait, so I haven’t printed your employee handbook or the code of ethics for you yet. I’ll try to get that done and