Eventually, everyone had paired up except Sally, and she found herself left in
the middle of the room, feeling just a little foolish and self-conscious.
‘Haven’t you found a partner?’ Janet asked her.
She shrugged and shook her head. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone here who
matches with Butter.’
A strangely tense silence fell over the group and Sally wondered if everyone
else in the room knew something she didn’t.
‘That would be me,’ said a deep, male voice from behind her.
She spun around and pins and needles danced over her skin as she met the cool,
dark eyes of Logan Black. He smiled ever so faintly as he held up his
nameplate and revealed one word: Bread.
‘Well, there you go!’ Janet looked delighted and actually clapped her hands.
Sally forced her face muscles to form a smile.
‘I want you to go off in your pairs. Move the chairs if you like. Or go next
door to the canteen. Find somewhere private to sit where you can talk. In HR
circles, we call this activity Blind Date. You have twenty minutes to
get to know as much as you can about each other.’
It was a simple request and everyone else looked happy to pair up and find a
place to sit. Maeve and her young geologist were already in a far corner,
grinning stupidly at each other and clearly getting on like a bushfire.
Logan Black, however, made no attempt to approach Sally and she remained
marooned in the middle of the room.
She’d never been a wallflower at a dance, but now she knew exactly how those
poor girls had felt. If the boss was going to be stuffy about this, she might
hold her head high and sweep out of the room.
‘Come on, you two.’ Janet was like a mother hen shooing her chicks. ‘Off you
go. Get cracking with the questions.’
To Sally’s dismay, Logan Black, stuck his jaw at a belligerent angle and
approached Janet, dipped his head and muttered something in her ear.
Sally could guess what the boss was saying: he didn’t want to be teamed with
the newest, lowliest employee.
But Janet dismissed him with a wave of her hand. ‘These sorts of exercises are
never a waste of time. This will be good for you, Logan. You’re an introverted
thinking type and Sally’s an extraverted feeling type. It’s a perfect match.
Now off you go. Think of it as a blind date and be a good sport.’
Sally knew her cheeks were bright pink, but she was not going to let the boss
upset her. Lifting her chin, she smiled at him bravely. ‘I’m ready when you
are, Mr. Black.’
‘Very well,’ he said grimly and his frown deepened as he nodded to a vacant
table with two chairs. ‘Over here will do, Miss –’
With a shrewd smile, Sally turned her name plate over.
‘Ah, yes. Miss Finch. Not Sparrow.’
It was a small victory and she wished she felt more relaxed as she sat, wished
her heart and lungs would behave normally as Logan Black lowered his long
frame into a chair on the other side of the small desk that separated them.
She drew some comfort from Janet’s suggestion that the boss was an introverted
thinking type. It made sense. She’d met men like him before, in the Outback.
Quiet, almost reclusive men, driven by inner goals.
‘Now,’ he said, with an affectation of boredom, ‘Ladies first. Apparently, you
have to tell me all about yourself.’
‘What would you like to know?’
His eyebrows were black and perfectly arched and in response to her question,
the right one lifted. ‘How are you settling in to your work here?’
‘I think I’ve settled in rather quickly. I love working here.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
To cover the awkward silence that followed, Sally said, ‘I guess it’s my turn
to ask you a question.’
‘Fire away.’
‘What did you have for breakfast?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Logan couldn’t have looked more stunned if Sally had asked for his home
telephone number.
‘I – I asked what you had for breakfast?’
‘What kind of a question is that?’
‘A safe one, I hope.’
He smiled.
Oh, my gosh.
When he smiled the skin around his eyes crinkled and his face was transformed.
He looked just as he had playing football with his nephews, delightfully
carefree and young.
‘I had a cup of coffee for breakfast,’ he said.
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes. It’s all I ever have.’
Sally was sure she shouldn’t correct her boss, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘But breakfast is terribly important. My father and brothers couldn’t face a
day’s work without a mountain of toast and a full, cooked breakfast.’
‘What kinds of work do your father and brothers do?’
‘Is that your next question?’
Another gorgeous smile. ‘I guess it is.’
Emboldened by this warmth, Sally told him. ‘My father and my eldest brother
Matt run our family’s sheep and wheat property at Tarra-Binya. Steve’s on an
oil rig off Western Australia. Josh operates a big drag line in the Central
Queensland coalfields and Damon’s a mustering contractor, when he’s not on the
rodeo circuit.’
The dark eyebrows rose higher while she told him this. ‘That’s quite a family.
I can see why they need their big breakfasts.’
Sally smiled. ‘And now it’s my turn to ask another question.’
Logan Black actually chuckled. ‘I’m nervous.’
‘Don’t be.’ She stifled a terrible urge to ask him about the white roses. I
can’t ask that. I mustn’t. Instead, she blurted, ‘What’s the most
important thing I should know about you?’
‘I’m your boss.’
‘Come on, that’s cheating. It has to be something I don’t already know.’
‘Who said there were rules?’
z
From “Blind Date with the Boss"
By: Barbara Hannay
Mills and Boon Romance
November 2008
ISBN: 978-0263848984
Copyright: © Barbara Hannay
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. The edition published by arrangement
with Harlequin Books S.A. For more romance information surf to: http://www.eHarlequin.com
