Hard to Handle by Jessica Lemmon Page A

ink pens on the corner of the counter. She hadn’t grabbed one of those.
    Yeah. Something was up.
    For the last few days, Aiden had watched her work. She came in when the store opened, or just before, and stayed for two or three hours to arrange, and help sell, the parts she’d dug out of the warehouse. Aiden helped, referring customers to the clearance display and explaining they were making room for new inventory.
    In the case of parts the clearance rack didn’t hold, Sadie had equipped Aiden with a Midwest brand price sheet with their most popular items on it. Yesterday when she’d overheard Aiden say a certain Midwest part would need to be shipped, Sadie had run out to her car and dug the part out of her trunk.
    She was driven, no doubt about it.
    Aiden smiled at empty doorway leading to the warehouse where she’d disappeared in a blur of blonde, pen-wielding beauty. Sadie was about to become number one in sales thanks to the Axle’s contract. In pursuit of the goal, she wasn’t about to let any detail fall by the way.
    His admiration for her work ethic stirred something familiar within him. His own drive. His own goals. Aiden had finally, finally taken a step toward getting what he wanted when he’d accepted the job at Axle’s. Not that he wouldn’t do what he’d done for his mother a hundred times over, but this was his chance. A new chapter of his life. A brand new day.
    Or it would be, as soon as he nutted up and talked to Axle. He needed to quit putting it off, lay out his pitch, and see what his gruff employer thought of it.
    Aiden had a break coming up, and no plans other than finding a sandwich shop where he could fill his empty void of a stomach. He could invite Sadie to come with him, get what he knew would be her blatantly honest opinion of the business deal he was considering.
    A plan. Simply having one made him feel as if he was halfway to victory. Aiden abandoned the sales floor and walked to Axle’s office. He poked his head through the open door to find Axle sitting at his computer, pecking away at a snail’s pace with the tips of his sausage-like fingers. “I’m going to take a break soon. Cover me?”
    Axle turned, the chair beneath him creaking in disagreement. Over a pair of his wife’s flowered pink reading glasses—Axle lost a pair of reading glasses a week, at least—he gave Aiden a solemn stare. “Okay,” he said, his tone revealing nothing.
    Aiden headed down the hallway away from Axle’s office, shaking his head as he wondered at his burly boss. Any inside information on how to scale the granite wall that was Axle Zoller would be appreciated. The man was about as readable as a braille instruction manual for complicated electronics.
    In the warehouse, Sadie was standing on a stepladder straining for a box just out of reach of her slight height.
    “Need a hand?” he asked.
    “Oh!” He’d startled her, and Sadie grasped the shelf for support to keep from falling. Over her head, the large box swayed and began to tip.
    Aiden rushed for her, and before he’d worked out how to do it, pulled Sadie off the stepladder and folded her into him, protecting her with his body.
    And then time stopped.
    Her scent wrapped around him, tickling his nostrils and reminding him of holding her as he kissed the sense right out of her. Her silken blonde hair wound softly around his fingertips where his palm cupped the back of her head. The press of her breasts against his chest, the way his arm locked around her lower back, made him want to pull her close and never let her go.
    Then, in a cascade of clanks and clatters, the box overhead toppled and delivered an array of parts to the warehouse’s concrete floor. And one heavy piece in particular right into Aiden’s shoulder.
    He let out a sound between a growl and a grunt as the sharp edge hit his shoulder, but he didn’t let Sadie go until he was sure it was done raining metal. Only then did he allow her to pull away. She did, slowly, turning