Persuasion Skills (4 page)

He stepped out onto the front cabin porch
and paused for only a brief moment at the sight of the faint cloud of smoke
moving in the distance. He checked his watch. It would be a while before he
heard the faint roar of the approaching vehicle and the sound of crushing
gravel beneath its tires.

His heartbeat quickened.

He trotted down the steps and walked over
to the waiting chopping block, where he grabbed the heavy axe and began to chop
the nearby blocks of wood into long, clean logs.

It would be a few more minutes before the
vehicle would even be visible along the long driveway. His lips twitched in a
rueful smile before they firmed and he focused back on the waiting block. He
continued with his task, lifting the axe and swinging it down to splinter the
wood.

He concentrated on the control needed to
pull the weight of the axe forward with precision. The effort it took to
control the flex and stretch of the muscles in his arms and chest to move the
heavy tool up and down kept his mind focused and away from leaping up and
rushing to greet the approaching car.

He needed to play his ruse all the way
out. Years of friendship had proved that Pepper never agreed to anything unless
she was convinced all of the facts were lined up and in her favor. His goal
over the next few days was to overload her constantly running mind with some
hard facts.

The smooth humming of an engine finally wove
its way up the road as he continued to chop.

He glanced up from his task in time to
see a slate grey SUV make its way up the gravel path that passed as the
driveway to his cabin. Within a few seconds, he could see Pepper’s face peering
at him through the front window.

The usual sense of peace that her
presence always gave him rushed through, right before his skin tightened in a
zing of awareness. Seeing her never failed to jumpstart his senses. Her
features had changed very little since college, but she’d grown her afro out to
a long mass of curls that stretched past her shoulders.

At that moment, the mouth he’d secretly
lusted after for years was set in a firm line, and a blaze of anger shone in
her steady gaze. Neither warning sign prevented a smile from spreading across
his face as the car drew near.

She wore a white snow cap with earflaps,
her curls spilling around her shoulders, and what looked like a heavy white
winter coat. She looked like a ferocious bunny.

If looks could
kill.
He
chuckled softly.

He swung the axe one last time and
planted the blade firmly in the chopping block before walking leisurely to the
top of the drive and waiting.

It wasn’t hard to keep the smile on his
face as his gaze caught hers and held. He could practically feel the waves of
rage rolling off of her as she pulled the car to an abrupt stop only inches
from where he stood.

He merely winked at her and gave a
cheerful wave. God, he loved hunting rabbits.

She stared at him for a searing moment
before climbing out of the tall vehicle and dragging out a medium-sized piece
of luggage. She snapped up its telescoping handle and marched the few steps it
took to stand in front of him.

He let his gaze wander over her frame,
taking in the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the tight grip she had on the
luggage handle, and the clenching and unclenching of her free hand. Yet the
only thing that caused his smile to dim was the hurt mingled with the outrage
on her lovely face.

He let his gaze drift back to her
clenching fist for a moment before looking at her face again. Staring into her
eyes, he let loose a loud sigh as he widened his stance and shoved his hands
into his coat pockets.
This is going to
hurt
.

“Go ahead. Do it. You know you want to.”

He let the taunt hang in the air, waiting
for her to speak, react,
do
anything.

She stared at him for a few seconds
before her eyes swelled with unshed tears.

The sight caused a small ache in his
chest. Nothing ever hurt as much as seeing Pepper cry.

The thought barely registered in his mind
before she pulled back her clenched fist and slammed it squarely on his jaw.

His head jerked to the side with a snap.

“Fuck!”

He let loose a few more choice
expletives. Trust Pepper to have a killer right hook.

The stars in his eyes cleared just in
time for him to watch her turn and stomp toward the porch steps and up to the
front door of the cabin.

“Feel better now?” he called out to her
retreating back.

Her answering response was a decisively
unladylike hand gesture over her shoulder before she entered the cabin and slammed
the door behind her.

He rubbed his jaw for a few seconds
before turning and walking to the car door. Peering inside, he glimpsed the
keys still dangling from the ignition.

Reaching inside, he pocketed the keys
before popping the hood of the SUV open.

“Well, let the games begin,” he muttered
to himself as he walked to the front of the car and reached under the hood.

He barely winced in pain as a smile
spread across his face while he reached into the belly of the car and yanked
out a bundle of wires.

Chapter Three

Pepper braced herself against the thick
oak door of the cabin and stared blankly into the open room, trying desperately
to fight back the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. She lifted
her aching hand and massaged the bruised knuckles.
I can’t believe I slugged him!

When she had first spotted Jax standing
in the driveway, a rush of euphoria had filled her to see him again, but that
sense of relief quickly returned to a haze of anger when she saw the grin on
his face. The pure audacity of the smile had enraged her.

After the weeks of confusion, hurt, and
frustrations she’d been through because of the sexy, arrogant inventor, she’d
barely been able to breathe past the ball of fury in her throat. To see him
smile and wave at her so nonchalantly had pushed her to the edge. His audacious
goading had shoved her clear off.

And damn the
bastard, it felt good,
she thought, shaking out her fist and straightening away from the door.

She wouldn’t let him get to her. She’d
come up to the cabin for a reason, and as much as maiming Jax appealed to her
at the moment, she had a job to do.

For the first time, she took a good look
at her surroundings.

It was smaller than she expected. She
doubted the whole structure took up more than a thousand square feet of space.
But what it lacked in size it more than made up for in comfort and opulence.

The cabin was really just one huge open
space, reminding her of the loft Jax had back home in
Miami
. He hated confined spaces.

The ceiling was high. Well over twenty feet,
as far as she could tell, with beautifully rustic exposed beams crisscrossing
over her head. Despite the dark wood covering the ceiling and walls, the entire
place was flooded with light from the huge floor-to-ceiling windows stretching
along the far back wall and showcasing the snow-topped mountains.

The front door landed her directly into
the great room. It contained plush off-white couches arranged around a large
travertine-faced fireplace on the left far wall. The room flowed into a large
kitchen. The two spaces were separated by a large, light-colored granite
island, which, judging by the chairs surrounding it, doubled as a dining table.

A few feet from her right, there were
three steps that led up to a dais that sported a large four-poster bed atop a
fluffy, white fur rug. She hoped some poor polar bear hadn’t died for the sake
of luxury.

From her vantage point, she could glimpse
another door slightly open a few feet from the bed and that looked to lead to a
bathroom. The gleaming glint of marble peeked out at her, and she couldn’t hold
back a snort.

Jax never was one to rough it.

Thinking of him had her lips firming
again in anger. It didn’t matter how and where he chose to spend his “vacation”
time. She had made the journey to
Colorado
for a reason. She refused to let him to continue to postpone the Lubtech deal
any longer. She had worked too damn hard on it to let him screw it up now.

If the mountain wouldn’t
come to the Mohammed....

She shrugged out of her hat and heavy
coat, slung them over a plush couch as she passed, then marched to the kitchen
island with her rolling case in tow.

After opening the case, she placed a
laptop and tablet on the double-duty surface and switched them on. She also
removed her paper file on the Lubtech purchase and a few other important pieces
of paperwork before she sat down in front of the computer and began keying in
commands.

A few minutes later, Jax’s heavy
footsteps resonated on the front porch. When she heard the door open, she
refused to look up.

“So how much longer do you plan on
staying mad?”

She ignored him and continued typing.

“Oh, the silent treatment, how mature.”

Her hands didn’t pause on the keyboard.

“The meeting starts in few minutes. I suggest
you park your butt down until it’s over,” she said through gritted teeth.

She heard the scrape of the chair and
felt the brush of his thigh against hers as he pulled out a seat and sat down
next to her.

“You’re as sweet-tempered as ever, I
see.”

She bit back a growl and clicked open the
program that would host their video conference.

Before leaving the office, she had
confirmed with the legal department, and they assured her that an electronic
signature from both Jax and herself would suffice to move the Lubtech deal
forward, as long as it was witnessed appropriately by all parties. Hence her
trek into
Colorado
mountain country with a satellite laptop and electronic signature tablet.

Her screen flickered, and the faces of
their senior contracts attorney and the CEO of Lubtech Enterprises came into
view. She launched immediately into her speech.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. Let’s get
this meeting started, shall we?”

It was a relatively short conference, and
Jax even participated, asking several pointed questions as well as addressing
some of Lubtech’s concerns regarding keeping true to certain research ethics
the company had established and wanted maintained after the buyout. The rat
seemed genuinely eager to close on the deal.

His willingness to participate in the
meeting only served to incense her further.

If he was so damned excited about the
acquisition, why hadn’t he flown back to
Miami
when she’d asked?

The time finally came when they both
signed the electronic pad, and she sent the digital file for the lawyers to
worry over and finalize. She breathed an internal sigh of relief.

The deal was finally done, but the sense
of happiness was soured by how she’d had to go about getting it finalized.

She and Jax would normally be hugging and
giving each other high fives after closing a deal like this, but she couldn’t
even trust herself to look at him without wanting to scream.

When she finally closed the lid on the
laptop, the silence stretched out between them.

“So how long are you going to make me
wait before you talk to me again?” he finally asked.

She kept her eyes trained on the granite
surface of the island.

“As long as it takes for me to not want
to throw you off the top of this mountain,” she said in the sweetest voice she
could muster.

“Come on, don’t I get brownie points for
sitting through the meeting like a good little engineer? You’re lucky I was
able to stay conscious long enough for that,” he said. “I think you gave me a
concussion.”

Her gaze flew to his face. He winced and
rubbed his jaw. As usual, his cheeks sported a layer of stubble along his olive-toned
skin, but she could clearly see a dark bruise forming.

She turned her head quickly from the
sight, pushed back from her chair, and stood. Ambling away from her makeshift
conference table, she walked to the kitchen counter and pulled a hanging
dishcloth from a corner cabinet before rifling around in the tall stainless
steel refrigerator for some ice.

After wrapping some cubes in the cloth,
she returned to the island and plopped the homemade ice pack in Jax’s lap
before sitting back down and staring at him.

“You deserved it,” she muttered.

His soft chuckle filled the room.

“Maybe,” he said as he gingerly placed
the cloth on his jaw.

“What’s the deal, Jax? You know how much
this contract meant to me. Skipping town, putting off meetings—at least for
this long. This isn’t you.”