“My neighbour’s an arse.”
“He definitely has a nice one of those.” Imogen was still staring. “Mind if I find out just how powerful those glutes are when something’s riding him?”
Lainey shook her head. Immy was something of a man eater, and Lainey had long since given up trying to stop her sister from chasing most things she considered hot, but she was making an exception for Jake Maynard.
“You do not go near my neighbour. In fact, you pretend you’ve taken a vow of chastity while you’re here. At least until my neighbour doesn’t think I’m running some sort of brothel.”
Imogen started to laugh. “That’s what he said?”
“That’s what he insinuated was my nighttime job.”
Her laugh got louder. “If only he knew you’d only seen one cock in the last two years, and Hugo’s didn’t really count, it was that small.”
Lainey shrugged and managed a smile. Her ex had a micro-penis, something he tried to compensate for by being pretty horrible to her in front of others. She’d found him the perfect man until they’d slept together, or tried too. When he’d realised she was faking pretty much everything, he’d cried. She’d felt sorry for him, until he’d started trying to prove his manliness in other ways.
Imogen made a crude gesture with her little finger. “Bet Jake Maynard doesn’t have that problem.”
Lainey suspected Immy was probably right. “We’ve one more person to interview. I gave one of the jobs to Josh Barnes.”
“Figured. He practically skipped down the drive. This looks like Holly. You ready to start?”
Lainey bit back a whinge. Seeing Jake head off riding had made her want to do only one thing; saddle up and go and explore the area on horseback. She’d studied some routes and spoken to Rayah Maynard, Jake’s sister, who had clearly got the nice genes. “I suppose. Then we’ll pick one of those five. I’m not doing anymore interviewing for this post.”
Immy shrugged. “You’ll need a manager, and someone for admin. I can cover admin a few days, but I start work in two weeks, so I’ll have to go back to London.”
“Make sure you don’t take those jeans back with you.”
“I’ll leave them in the dirty washing for you.”
Imogen absolutely would, too. Lainey bit her lip and said nothing.
Holly Denholme waseverything Lainey had wanted in an employee but hadn’t hoped for. Petite, curvy and experienced, she’d just come out of a marriage that hadn’t been all it should’ve, and Severton was where she’d decided she was spending the next couple of years at least.
Twenty minutes into interviewing her, while Imogen checked references, Lainey decided that she had, in fact, found her manager. Ten minutes after that, there was a job offered, accepted, and one of the small outbuildings that was habitable had been let out with immediate effect.
Something had worked well today, even if she had slapped her neighbour round the face.
Chapter Three
Jonny Graham had been one of Jake’s best friends since Jake was old enough to form words, possibly even before that. He was some high up person in the local fire service now, and not a toddler who liked taking toys apart anymore, which Jake figured was pretty good progress. He was also Jake’s sister’s husband, something Jake was still getting his head around.
Especially as Rayah was pregnant. Which meant Jonny had sex with his sister. Jake’s sister. And Jake wasn’t sure how he felt about that on either of their behalf, so he tried not to think about it and just look forward to meeting his niece or nephew in another couple of months, or however long it was.
“The funding’s fallen through.”
Jake looked up from his coffee, the old mutt he’d somehow ended up with two days ago sitting on his feet as if he was never going to move.
“What funding?”
“For the helicopter. We were promised a donation that would take us to target from a business…”
“Yeah, the accountants just outside of Leeds.” Jake frowned. “Alex thought they were dodgy.”
“Turns out they were. The main man’s just been arrested for fraud. Unless there’s a miracle or someone has a rich dead relative they didn’t know about leave them thirty grand, the whole thing’ll fall through.” Jonny sounded pretty despondent.
Jake pushed the coffee pot over to him. “Have another.”
Jonny filled up his mug. This was his third coffee since he’d gotten here half an hour ago. “Rayah will only have decaf in the house so this is fucking amazing right now.”
