Lucas McGowan surveyed the scene in front of him.

It wasn’t pretty.

In fact, it was pretty much a fucking mess.

He kicked the door shut behind him, balancing his takeout coffee in one hand and the keys he was still holding in the other. He sidestepped the boxes the UPS guy had delivered last week, boxes that he hadn’t bothered to unpack yet.

He tossed his keys on the desk near the back wall, framing the only window in the room. This was his office, had been his office for months, ever since he’d set up shop as a private investigator, but he still thought of it more like a closet. The size, small; the shape, long and narrow.

And the mess. The mess was definitely reminiscent of his teenage years. Or an episode of Hoarders.

He shifted a stack of papers so he had a place to set his coffee down, then shrugged out of his jacket, yanked the gray beanie off his head, and tossed both to the floor. There wasn’t a hook to hang them on.

His gaze shot to one of the boxes stacked against the wall, a different stack than the ones delivered last week. There actually was a hook. He’d ordered one a few weeks ago. He just hadn’t unpacked it yet.

He shook his head and reached for his coffee, taking a long sip, savoring the warmth and the caffeine. A cup of coffee from Lulu’s was about as good as it got on a cold winter morning. And Rosie, the newest server there and Blaine’s girlfriend, knew just how he liked it: a generous splash of cream and a shot of vanilla.

Lucas settled in his chair and flipped open the laptop on his desk. He knew his calendar was clear for the day—he had work to do to finish up a couple of cases, but nothing that would take him out of the office—but he wanted a visual confirmation.

Double-check everything. Be a stickler for details.

He didn’t know if those were traits he’d been born with or that had developed from being on the force. Probably a little of both.

After a quick glance at the calendar, he opened a new tab and clicked through to the ad he’d placed.

Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

Irritation welled up inside of him. He picked up one of the pens scattered on the desk and began to tap it against the wood laminate surface.

He needed an assistant. He needed help.

It was a conclusion he’d reached last week. He’d been mulling it over for weeks—for months, actually: would he need help? AFPD had a healthy support staff for its police officers, and he was well aware that organization and paperwork were not areas of strength for him. Far from it. Having someone on board to help with those details would only be a good thing. It would allow him to focus on cases, to build a reputation in a new field, to turn nothing into something. To succeed.

He’d been all set to find someone right away, but reality set in pretty quickly after that first week, after he’d paid rent on his office space and tallied the receipts from all the equipment he’d purchased to start this new venture. There was no way he was going to be paying for anyone to help him out. Hell, he’d be lucky to see a paycheck himself any time soon.

And so he’d made do. Taken every case that had come his way, pouring every ounce of energy and every second of time he had into them. His business grew, at least to the point where he was no longer bleeding money, but the mess surrounding him had grown, too.

Lucas looked at the room with critical eyes. There were files stacked on a chair and on the floor, haphazard piles that threatened to topple at the slightest touch. The filing cabinet he’d purchased secondhand, a metal monstrosity that sported its fair share of rust, sat vacant and unused. And the boxes. He didn’t want to total up the number of boxes that needed to be sorted through, the items inside put away and organized.

He sighed. To do all of this, to get everything put away and to have his office looking like a professional establishment instead of some slacker holed up in their parents’ basement, was going to take a shit ton of time. Time he didn’t have.

There was a knock on the door and Lucas looked up, startled. Clients didn’t come to his office, for obvious reasons. He always met them somewhere else: Lulu’s, Shorty’s, the tavern in town, or their own homes or offices. Hell, he’d met people in parks and down by the river, too. People could be weird when hiring a private investigator and often wanted to keep it on the down-low. Lucas didn’t care. As long as the case was legit, he didn’t have to break (too many) laws, and there was a paycheck at the end of it, he was willing to do pretty much whatever.

The door pushed open.

“Is this McGowan & Company?” a girl asked from the doorway.

She took a step into the office and Lucas’s eyes widened as he corrected his assessment. This was not a girl but a woman, probably in her mid-twenties, who was now standing in his office. Long blonde hair peeked out of a red knit hat, and the puffy white coat she was wearing swallowed her small frame. She was holding a manila folder in her gloved hand.

“Lucas McGowan?” she asked, her blue eyes landing on him.

Lucas stood up and cleared his throat. “That’s me.”

She eyed him critically. “You’re a private investigator, right?”

He nodded.

Her gaze drifted across the small office, and he watched as the frown on her face deepened. “Is this your office?”

He nodded again.

“Did you just move in or something?”

He coughed. “Not quite.” He glanced at the folder in her hands. It wasn’t thick—there was probably only a page or two inside—and he wondered if the woman standing in front of him was answering the ad he’d placed. Maybe she’d decided to come by in person to drop off her résumé. Make a good first impression and all that.

“Are you here for the job?” he asked hopefully.

The woman stared at him. She really was beautiful—not just the blonde hair and blue eyes, but the whole package.

“Job?” she repeated. She was still standing in the doorway, still surveying the office as if it were a science experiment that had gone awry.

Lucas’s gaze shifted to the overflowing trash can and the pile of empty takeout containers stacked on the bookcase next to it.

There were probably things growing in that pile of trash that would make for a good science experiment.

“The job listing,” Lucas said. “For an office assistant.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m here for a job?”

“Aren’t you?”

A muscle in her jaw pulsed. “You think because I’m a woman walking into your office I’m here to apply for a job? As your…your office assistant?” Her eyes swept the room again. “Looks like you need a custodian more than an office assistant.”

Her disapproving tone was clear, and he felt like an ass for making her think he’d made a sexist assumption about her.

“Sorry,” he said, holding his hands up. “I put an ad online for office help the other day and just assumed you were here for the job. My apologies.”

She looked at him coolly and said nothing, her lips holding their thin, tight line. If she was trying to make him squirm, she was doing a good job of it.

Lucas shoved his hands in his pockets. “So, if you aren’t here for the job, what are you here for?”

For the first time, her demeanor shifted. For one brief second, the confidence and aloofness were gone. Something flashed in those blue eyes of hers, a tidal wave of sadness that slammed into Lucas. And just as quickly, it was gone.

She marched toward him, her snow boots silent on the thin, industrial-grade carpet. She thrust the folder she was holding into Lucas’s chest.

“I’m here to hire you.”

He lifted his hand to take the file, his fingers grazing her gloved hand as he did so. “Hire me? For what?”

She was even more beautiful up close. Porcelain skin, long thick lashes, lush pink lips that didn’t have an ounce of gloss or lipstick on them.

And those eyes. Those blue eyes were like ice—cold and dangerous, yet completely alluring. An involuntary shiver ran through Lucas, but he didn’t look away. He couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to.

“I need you to find out who killed my brother.”