Claire

The time on her phone read 5:55 p.m. Claire couldn’t believe the work day had flown by.

But that’s what happens when you have a little crush on your boss. You dread the moment you have to leave and go home to your real life, no matter how many cute faces and comfy pairs of stretchy pants await you there.

And she had more than a little crush. That might have been the case on the day of the interview, when she walked in on him smelling like cow shit. Now, the week after Thanksgiving, she had a massive, serious, all-encompassing, mind-consuming infatuation with her boss, Devin Halpert, Regional Vice President of WX Genetics.

In an ideal world, she might have objected to someone hiring her based on physical chemistry. But under the circumstances, she needed the job. And his unbelievably hot, bad-boy good looks and simple, sweet nature made him irresistible to her. There was no way she could say no to the job, no matter how under-qualified she knew she was.

To say that Devin Halpert cleaned up good was an understatement. His snap-front cowboy shirts reminded her of those seriously hot Chris Isaak videos from way back. He had the same kind of lips and dreamy eyes.

Not to mention the way his slim-cut Wranglers hugged that ass of his, which she got to see plenty of today as he waltzed in and out of the office with visiting investors and clients.

Today’s investor had come from Des Moines to meet with Devin in person to make sure his loan to the company was indeed going to be paid back with the promised interest. Devin was giving him a whirlwind tour of the operations. He was pouring on the cowboy charm, with his boots and hat and his particular way of saying “ain’t.” To some people it might seem like a put-on, but Claire could tell it was 100 percent real.

Anybody else in Devin’s shoes would have held this meeting in his office, but Devin had asked Claire to arrange for a horseback tour of the ranch. When the investor was hesitant to get his clothes and overcoat mussed on the back of a horse, Devin had convinced him by saying, “Yeah, I understand, the stiffs at the bank never want to take a meeting with me on the back of a horse in the sunshine either.”

Now the truth was Devin had never taken a single meeting with any person from a bank, ever, as far as she could tell. But it was an impressive little bluff, and it worked. No private investor wanted to be conflated with a banker. Especially not in rural Iowa, which in many ways still felt the sting of the farm crisis of the 1980s.

After the investor had left, Claire made a daring move by going into his office, closing the door, and telling him, “Devin, I just wanted you to know, I think you handled that really well. I don’t think he’s going to recall the money. I think your sister is going to be really happy.”

Devin had stared at her, dumbfounded. For a few seconds, she was nervous. Had she been being too presumptuous in assuming he didn’t know what he was doing? Was she overstepping bounds as an assistant? She bit her lip and waited for him to respond.

A bad-boy smile slowly spread across his face and reached all the way up to his eyes.

“Thanks, Claire.”

The way he said her name perked up something that lay dormant inside her. Nobody had ever said her name like that. Low and intense. Like a storm was brewing. This was an entirely new feeling for her.

“Well, I just wanted you to know. A lot of people call here in a panic. Evidently, Pete did a lot of damage, but you are doing really well at keeping everyone happy and the money flowing in. You said when you met me you didn’t know what you were doing here, but I think you’re brilliant. Don’t sell yourself short.”

They shared another one of their comfortable silences as they stared at each other. This time, she did not look down at her feet and blush.

And then he had asked her to go to lunch. In the moment she was thrilled and had a wonderful time eating burgers with him at Hawk’s Diner and listening to his ranching stories. And she had fun watching him listen with interest to her stories about her younger siblings.

Upon returning to her desk after lunch, her happiness had dissipated a bit, noticing the side glances, and the conversations among groups of coworkers suddenly stopping when she walked by.

Now, almost quitting time, Claire was pretending to work by compiling a list of Christmas gifts for her little brother and sisters. Pretending to work was more for the benefit of the others and not so much for Devin. He honestly did not seem to care want she did. Just as she was starting to type out her list, her desk phone was ringing. That’s odd, it was coming from Devin’s office.

She picked up the receiver and pushed line 5. “Hi,” she said, grinning.

“Hi,” he said. “This is Santa.”

“Umm, OK?”

“Listen, I’m supposed to do some goody-goody community stuff on behalf of the company, so can you do me a favor tonight?”

“Anything,” she said, her voice almost catching in her throat. She would do literally anything he asked her to do.

“Great. Can you go down to the square and collect all the rest of the stars on the Helping Star Tree? I’ll give you the company card and you can go buy all the gifts.”

She replied, “Absolutely. That’s very generous of you.”

He chuckled. “Well, it ain’t my money, it’s the company’s money.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice low. “But it was your idea. It’s very sweet of you. You deserve credit for that.”

There was a pause. She could hear him breathing. “Do I?”

This was getting ridiculous. She turned around and swiveled around and looked at him through his open door. She couldn’t help but smile shyly as he was staring at her, his ear still to the receiver.

“Yes, you do.”

Then he lost his smile and looked at her differently. There was smolder in his eyes. “It makes me very happy to hear you, of all people, say that.”

Their eyes continued to connect after they both hung up their phones. He really was terribly handsome, and when he stared at her like that, it made her think about things. Things she had never done before.

It made her wonder if he would be the one to give her some experience in the bedroom. He liked her, she had no doubt about that. But maybe he was only flirting with her because he didn’t know how else to relate to women.

Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to parse it. She was 22 and didn’t feel like being suspicious of any man’s motives anymore. At this point, she wanted to get the job done and move on with her life.

Maybe if they did something about this sexual tension, she could get him out of her head.