Forged of Steele Bundle (Books 1-4) - Brenda Jackson [138]
“I did that, too. It’s their policy to deal only with the distributor.”
“I don’t give a hoot about their policy. Give me the number,” she said, snatching the cell phone out of her back pocket and punching in the numbers Harry was calling out to her. This was definitely not her morning. They’d had to cancel the committee meeting because three of the members had called at the last minute to say they couldn’t make it. And then the traffic light on the corner of Rondell and Marlborough had been out, which had backed traffic up for almost an hour.
Jocelyn sighed when she encountered an auto prompter and had to punch in some more numbers. She glanced up and saw that Harry had had the good sense to get lost for a while after sensing she was getting hotter than fire. Reese would normally handle discrepancies such as this, but the guys told her he’d left to pick up supplies. They’d further told her that he was in a bad mood. She couldn’t help but wonder what had Reese’s dander up.
A half hour later, her head was spinning and she’d gotten nowhere. The six-week delay still stood.
Jocelyn snapped the phone shut. Didn’t businesses believe in providing good customer service anymore?
“So, what’s going on?”
She looked up and her eyes collided with those of Bas. For some reason, seeing him made more anger spike through her. He was the reason for her not getting the proper rest last night, and seeing him reminded her of it.
And to make matters even worse, the midday sunlight that was streaming through those windows they’d installed a couple of weeks ago was hitting him at an angle that made an uncomfortable quiver pass through her stomach, not to mention the flush of heat that spread through her body. As usual, he was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. This time the shirt was rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers. She frowned, wondering if he had a real allegiance to any team. To any woman.
She shook her head, getting even angrier that she would wonder about such a thing; his love life was no concern of hers.
“Bas to Jocelyn,” he said, waving a hand back and forth in front of her face. “Can you read me? You seemed to have zoned out.”
Even angrier than before, she folded her arms over her chest. “And where have you been?”
He leaned back against the fireplace mantel and smiled slowly. “I didn’t know you wanted me.”
What he said and the way he said it sent her pulse into overdrive. It wasn’t fair. The man had a sexy physique, he was handsome as all outdoors, and on top of everything else he had a sexy voice that could rival Barry White’s any day.
“Did you want me, Jocelyn?”
Sighing deeply, she set her jaw, determined not to say anything. She thought better of it and opened her mouth to tell him a thing or two, but he was quick and placed a finger to her lips. “Remember our truce.”
She glared. She didn’t care one iota about their so-called truce. Her main concern was tile, namely marble. If Marcella got wind that she would have to wait six weeks for her foyer to be completed, all hell would break loose. A thought suddenly came into Jocelyn’s head. Bas was supposed to be the expert troubleshooter, the fixer-upper, the problem solver. So let him deal with it and see if he made more progress than she did.
“We got the wrong tile,” she snapped.
He gave her a carefree look. “Then return it.”
As if she hadn’t been trying to do that for the past half hour. “It’ll be another six weeks before the distributor can replace it.”
“Tough. We’ll go to the manufacturer.”
Did he think she hadn’t tried that already, too? “I did that,” she all but spat out. “And I got nowhere.”
“What’s the name of the distributor?”
Jocelyn blew out a sharp breath. “Arnett Distributors.”
“Arnett Distributors?” He almost laughed. “Then there shouldn’t be a problem.”
He sounded so convinced she couldn’t help but ask, “And why shouldn’t there be a problem?”
He smiled