Page 12 of Falling for Her

“Well, then I think maybe it should be good cop/bad cop.” I can tell the answer isn’t the right one. “I think the bigger question here is, why isn’t he following the rules to begin with?”

“Finley . . .” I can hear his frustration.

“I don’t even know your name, so I can’t call you anything.”

“Lincoln, but people call me Burke.”

“Well, people just call me Finley. Now, back to discipline.”

“You answered right the first time.”

Phew. “I thought so.” I try to sound sure of myself. “But I will, if you want. Or I can keep track of anything that comes up, and you can either discuss it with me or with him.”

“So you’re going to critique my parenting”—he leans back in the seat—“when you have no children of your own?”

“Well, I’m a human being, and I’m assuming your child is also human, so chances are he isn’t perfect. I mean,” I gesture to him, “case in point.”

“Okay.” He gets up. “This is really not going to work.”

Fuck! Get it back, get it back, get it back. “I mean, I’m sure you have lots of other candidates to pick from.” I get up too, trying not to freak out. “Collins and Theo said you had a Mrs. Larue here and that she made a great first impression.”

I can see from his face that he’s shocked I know about Mrs. Larue. The only reason I do is because Theo got a call from his cousin who knows someone. Let’s just say, news travels fast in a very small town.

“So, are those the only questions you have for me?” I don’t wait for him to answer. “I was also going to say that I will do the cooking and cleaning for you.” What the fuck are you talking about? my head screams at my mouth. You have not cooked a day in your life. And you probably don’t know how to turn on a vacuum. “But, well, you made your decision before you even gave me a chance.” I hold out my hand. “It was nice to meet you, Lincoln.” I shake my head to correct myself. “Burke. Whatever you want to be called. I’m sure you’ll have better luck with Mrs. Larue.”

He looks at me and then at my hand. “Everything is telling me not to hire you.”

I drop my hand and roll my eyes. “Why? I’m really curious. Why is that? I answered your questions honestly.”

“You did,” he admits.

“I even threw in cooking and cleaning, and I’ll even do laundry if you want . . .” Stop fucking talking before you offer him other things you know nothing about. “. . . just to prove to you I can do this job.” I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I cannot do this job. I’ve never been around kids in my whole life, well, not since I was one.

He stares at me, and I look at his plump lips and almost-perfect face, minus the little scar at the side of his right eye. “Okay, if you want to be stubborn and not give me the job to prove your point, you win.” I nod. “Good day.”

I’m about four steps into my march out when he snaps, “Fine.” I turn around to look at him. “You can have the job.”

CHAPTER FIVE

LINCOLN

“Fine,” I snap at her retreating back.

Her hips stop swaying side to side as she slowly turns around. Her blue eyes look bright, as if she knows she won this fucking game, which might irritate me more than anything. But I have to be honest with myself. There was nobody else, and I think she knew that.

“You can have the job.” I can’t even believe the words are coming out of my mouth.

She folds her arms over her chest, and her head tilts to the side. I think she is trying to hide a smirk, but the look on her face tells me she knows that I know she won.

“Hmm.” She taps her finger on her chin. “Now I don’t know if I want it.”

I look up at the ceiling and close my eyes. “It’s going to be a long month.”

My phone rings, and I untuck it from my back pocket to see it’s Maggie calling. “Yeah,” I grunt, putting my phone to my ear.

“Hey, Burke.” I can count on one hand how many times she’s actually called me by my first name.

“Yeah?”