Unacceptable Behavior Read Free

to the garage he regularly used for his own truck. It was another forty-five minutes before the tow truck came and her car was loaded. She’d had plenty of time to think about her actions.
    It was time to pay the piper! He grinned and headed into the office building.
    Rafe frowned when he walked into his dark, empty office. Someone was really looking for a sore bottom.
    “Maxine!”
     
    * * *
     
    Max jumped. “Down here, Rafe… you don’t have to roar!”
    “I thought I was pretty clear with my instructions, young lady.” The soft-spoken words from directly behind her sent a shiver of foreboding across Max’s skin.
    “I just thought I would…”
    “I don’t know what you just thought but I know you better get your keister down the hall to my office pronto, little girl.” Again the command was given quietly and somehow it was way scarier to Max than if he’d yelled.
    “Rafe, I know I really screwed up but…”
    “One…”
    She blinked. He was counting?
    “Two…”
    Max’s eyes widened and she rubbed her hands over her arms to dispel the shivery feeling that seemed to be growing.
    “Three…”
    She jumped up and hurried down the hallway to Rafe’s office. Max wasn’t exactly sure what was happening but childhood had ingrained the knowledge that anything higher than three was really bad.
    Her heart was pounding in her chest as she skidded to a stop and plopped down into the chair in front of his big desk.
    The light flickered on behind her. Max held her breath with an air of expectancy. She had no idea what she was expecting, but the way her tummy was doing flip-flops said it wasn’t good.
    Strong thighs came into view as Rafe seated himself on the edge of his desk in front of her. Max gulped.
    “Look at me, young lady.” Again with the soft-spoken command.
    Max stared straight ahead, afraid of what she’d see in his eyes if she looked up. He would surely hate her now.
    “Maxine…” he drawled slowly, as if to wring every ounce of displeasure with her he could from the two syllables.
    Max looked up to meet his eyes. The stern look that met her caused her bottom to clench of its own volition.
    “You want to tell me what happened out there?”
    “I rear-ended you?”
    One dark brow rose.
    “It was an accident…”
    “What were you doing when you had the accident?”
    “Ummm… well, I guess I was… changing the radio station… yes, changing the radio station and only took my eyes off the road for a second and…” Max was warming to her explanation.
    “You wanna try again?”
    Max frowned. “No, I just told you what happened…” Her stomach plummeted from about twenty stories when he pulled her cell phone from his shirt pocket. Please let it have gone dead… please.
    “Now it seems to me you were reading a story about a girl named Amanda getting her butt busted,” Rafe said baldly.
    So much heat filled her face, Max thought she would spontaneously combust at any moment. This was mortifying.
    “You wanna tell me what Miss Amanda did to warrant such discipline?”
    She didn’t answer but watched Rafe put a finger to the side of his face as he pretended to think about it.
    “Hmmmm, what could she have done…? Could she have been reading while driving and rear-ended Jack?”
    All that Max could manage with the huge lump in her throat was a horrified squeak and a shake of her head in response.
    “Cat got your tongue?”
    She closed her eyes as even more heat rushed up her neck and a pounding started in her ears. Max wondered if it was possible to expire with embarrassment then realized she couldn’t be that lucky. “She forgot to pay the water bill,” she said softly.
    Rafe took a minute to admire her color-infused face before getting up to get the straight-backed desk chair by the window. Setting it down a few feet from Max, he rolled up his sleeves.
    Max finally risked opening her eyes when the silence grew too long to bear. The sight of the chair and Rafe rolling up his