Can't Fight This Feeling Read Online Free Page B

them. She crossed her arms over her chest.
    “You actually work here.”
    “I’m helping out.”
    “That’s your name on the apron,
Angel
. Some of it, anyway.”
    “Angelica wouldn’t fit.”
    “Huh.” He was still staring at her. “I guess I now have a new appreciation of having a short name.”
    “Even better for you, two of the five letters in yours are the same.”
    His brows rose. “Yeah. Made it so even a mountain yokel like me could learn to write it.”
    She glared at him. “I didn’t say that.”
    “No, you didn’t.” There was a speculative light in his gray eyes. Against his tanned face, they looked almost like clear water. “What are you doing working here, Angelica?”
    “I don’t know what you mean.” She loved the store and the hours she spent here gave her more job satisfaction, she suspected, than any career in high finance ever could.
    “It’s not your kind of place.” He glanced around, his gaze roaming over the bins of nails and the spools of chain in various gauges. “A woman like you...”
    The word
spoiled
went unspoken. So did
good-for-nothing
. One time she’d overheard him talking to his sister, and he’d referred to Angelica as a useless piece of fluff. Out loud.
    She should despise him.
    “Don’t you know...” she started sweetly. “Oh, but you wouldn’t, so let me explain. Some of us, you know, we
elite
, we have a program.”
    “Oh, yeah?” His eyes narrowed and now he crossed his arms over his chest. “What kind of program?”
    “Kind of like...like scouting.”
    He barked out a laugh. “Yeah, how’s that work exactly?”
    “We earn badges for doing things the common folk do.”
    “Badges.” He sneered the word. And though of course he couldn’t possibly believe her, she continued in a haughty tone.
    “Yes. Badges. For learning to boil water. Or helping out an elderly man. Or earning a paycheck for an honest day’s work.”
    And with that she swept off. It wasn’t a flounce. Only a rich, spoiled girl would do that, and the woman who was now Angelica Rodriguez was so far from that, it wasn’t even funny.
    * * *
     
    T HE PROPRIETORS OF THE Bluebird Motel had decided to close for the season early. The small rooms weren’t properly winterized, so it had always been open for the fair-weather seasons only. Despite that, Angelica had thought she might have a few more weeks in room 4. Now they told her she could have her spot with the reasonable rates for just a few more days. The owners wanted to get to their second home in Phoenix as soon as possible.
    Which meant Angelica needed a new place to live and another job to pay for it. Other rentals in the mountains were more expensive.
    The village of Blue Arrow Lake was composed of fancy boutiques and lovely restaurants, but she’d struck out finding work in any of them. It was an in-between time. Not the summer when people came up to play in the sunshine and not the winter when they came for the snow. Still, as she walked to her car parked on a side street, the buttery color of the fall sunshine was buoying. The air smelled clean with just a touch of nuttiness from the drying leaves and grasses. The cool nip to the air was bracing.
    As if to reward her rising mood, she saw a help-wanted sign posted in the window of a small building. Over the door was another that read Maids by Mac.
    While she didn’t have retail experience and had never worked in a restaurant, she’d gone ahead and asked about jobs anyway. It seemed she might have a better shot at a business that was actually advertising for workers. And perhaps cleaning wasn’t something that required a wealth of prior professional experience.
    Of course working as a maid might not be a coveted career choice, but Angelica was desperate enough to squelch any hesitation and hurry for the door. The knob turned and it swung soundlessly, allowing her to enter a small office space. Behind a counter was a desk with a computer and phone. A filing cabinet sat