Dare to Resist (Wedding Dare, #0.5)(2)
“I’ll be in touch,” Colonel Jepsen said. “Gentlemen.” He gave the men a nod and retreated into the office suite. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed bright enough to reflect off the wall in front of Kady.
“How’d it go, Barbie?” Beckstein said as he hoisted himself from his seat and lifted an ancient briefcase into his beefy palm.
Kady tsked. “Al,” she said using the nickname she knew he hated. “Don’t you know anything? Barbie was blond and would’ve been at least five nine. At five three and with black hair, I’m much more of a…Catwoman.” She walked up to him and could nearly look him in the eyes he was so short. “You have something…” She grimaced and pointed to a crumb stuck to his tie. He batted it away with a deep frown. “Yes, so feel free to call me Selina, if you can’t remember Kady. I’d be happy to be named after a character who was a great thief,” she said with a pause she knew he’d understand since he’d accused her of that very thing last year, “and a great crime-fighter.”
Colton’s stifled snicker behind her made the treat of dressing down Beckstein all the sweeter, especially as the little man’s face turned beet red. Not everyone in her field was the outright arrogant, sexist * Beckstein was, but she’d gotten used to dealing with men who didn’t take her seriously in professional situations. Turned out being a young, petite woman mattered more to some people than the fact that she could write complex code half asleep and with one arm tied behind her back. That was part of the reason she needed to win this contract. It was exactly the feather in the cap of her portfolio that would garner her the respect—and the promotion—she deserved in her firm.
“Now,” she said, turning to the man she’d crushed on since about the time she got her first bra. Crushed. As in, in the past. Not anymore. Nope. “Do you want to call the transport driver or should I?” Because the facility was new, a few miles from a one-stoplight town, and required special clearances to enter, a driver had been assigned to shuttle them from the airport nearly ninety minutes away to the base and back again after all their presentations were complete. The three of them represented the finalist companies in what she understood had been a quite competitive request for proposals.
“No need,” he said, making a big show of checking the chunky black military watch he wore. How a watch could be so damn sexy, Kady didn’t know. But the simple movement—from the flick of his wrist that hiked up his suit coat to the way the muscle on his forearm popped—was pure masculine poetry in motion. Bastard. “He’s been here for nearly half an hour. We’ve all been waiting.” Colton’s eyebrow arched again as he retrieved his laptop case from a chair.
Kady suppressed an eye roll. “Oh, well. Why didn’t you say so? Come on already,” she said, heading into the hallway and feeling Colton’s gaze bore into her back. “And don’t blame me that my presentation went longer. I can’t help it if they were totally engaged by my plans.”
“Sure they weren’t asking questions because you’d talked over their heads and left them confused?” Beckstein asked from behind her.
Kady scoffed and tossed a glance over her shoulder. “You know as well as I do that I’m the best there is at boiling complicated concepts into completely accessible explanations, Al. So keep dreaming if it makes you feel better.”
No response. Exactly. She smiled at Beckstein’s silence.
Walking right beside her, Colton was like a big, gorgeous, brooding mountain. She glanced his way, and sure enough, he was staring down at her in that intense and penetrating way he had. The heat of a flush crawled up her neck. “What?” she asked, hating that he didn’t even have to say anything to get under her skin.
He pressed his lips together and shook his head, which of course drew her gaze to his mouth and made her remember how he—
Nope. Don’t go there. She blew out a deep breath.
They continued down the hall, the click of her heels on the tile floor and the intermittent thunder the only sounds. Finally, they entered a large rectangular lobby decorated with flags and portraits of the president and the base’s commanding officer.
A young soldier stood by the glass front doors talking on his cell phone. He turned when he heard them and gave a nod. “Yes. I understand. What about going east across—” He paused. “Roger that. I’ll take them there.” He lowered the phone and approached, a troubled expression on his young face. “Sirs, ma’am, I’m afraid we have a hiccup in the plans.”
“What is it, Soldier?” Colton asked.
The guy gestured toward the doors. “Looks like monsoon season came a little early this year, sir,” he said. “The storm’s washed out the roads, which doesn’t matter much since the airport’s grounded all flights for the rest of the day due to the wind and lightning.”
Kady frowned and mentally ran damage control on tomorrow’s schedule.
“That’s not a hiccup. That’s a disaster,” Beckstein said, mopping his brow. “I have work to do. A company to run. What exactly are we supposed to do now?” He turned on her. “This is all your fault.”
She inhaled to respond when Colton held a hand up to Beckstein. “That’s not helping anyone, Al,” he said.
Kady bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at the little man’s scowl. She shouldn’t like the way Colton always stood up for her, especially when his sense of duty to her older brother played a role in the behavior, but she supposed it was mildly endearing. Sometimes.