Irresistible Bachelors: Books 1-5 by Landish, Lauren (bts books to read TXT) 📕

half tank after running out of gas in high school—and lean back, laughing to myself. I guess I’m more tired than I thought. Or maybe the lemonade was a little harder than normal?

Nah, that’s not Mrs. Barnes’s style. Like a lot of my clients, she’s pretty sweet. I didn’t think she’d be one of the flirty ones at first, but I’ve gotten my fair share of customers who want to put a little spice in their lives by calling me over to do work around their houses. I didn’t expect that, but it’s okay.

It still sometimes feel like I stumbled into this line of work by lucky accident. When my best friend, Tony Steele’s, mother had us do some work for her, I was glad to help Tony out. After he left town to take over a new family venture in Hawaii, I was asked by his big brother, Oliver, to join him at Steele Solutions. While I’m more than happy to help Oliver out in town and around the area, I’m no real estate tycoon type. I like working with my hands and my brain at the same time. Rewiring a house, repairing plumbing, all sorts of things like that are more interesting to me than just running numbers on a computer screen.

Not that I don’t give Oliver his respect. The man works hard, and he’s hardly the kind to sit on his ass. His business, his family, his wife’s cafe . . . the man works hard, and he can use his hands as much as his brain when he wants. But for me, I get as much satisfaction out of fixing a roof as I do cashing the check I get for the job. Oliver just likes to separate the two is all.

“That way, he doesn’t get hit on by his customers,” I chuckle as I put the nozzle away. “But I gotta remember to thank him and his mom.”

It’s true. Janice Steele’s word, and her circle of friends, have made it possible for me to be an independent handyman. Starting with working around her place, then Oliver’s properties in town, I’ve grown to the point that I’m booked out sometimes two weeks in advance, unless it’s an emergency job like Mrs. Barnes’s garden. Most of my customers, other than Oli, who’s more than willing to jump in and swing a hammer with me if he can, are either widowed or have husbands who are getting up there in age, and they aren’t quite up to some of the challenges of keeping up a house. That’s where I come in.

I climb back into my truck, heading for home. It’s not a big place, a fixer-upper that I bought with the ‘finder’s fee’ check that Oli cut me for the Hawaii property he’s made huge bank on, but I’ve got it in good shape after a year. Either way, I’ve got the rest of the weekend to chill out, then Monday, it’ll be back to work. “Ah, it’s not all bad,” I tell myself as I head out, plugging my music player into the dash of my truck and letting Roxy’s voice accompany me home. “Eight hours a day, five days a week, and I’m my own boss. TLC for Oli’s properties, repair jobs, and cashing checks. Can’t really beat that.”

“Well, there’s one way I could beat it,” I think as Roxy switches to one of her love ballads. “But that’s not for me.”Cassie

“And boom!” I cheer myself as, with a bump of my hip, I close the filing cabinet drawer, signaling another project complete. “Headshot!” I hit the button on my computer’s media player, and a karaoke version of the old DMX song X Gon’ Give It To Ya starts playing, with me singing my own version instead. “Cass gon’ give it to ya, fuck doin’ deals on your own, Cass gon’ deliver to ya . . .”

I know my little celebration is trite, and I really shouldn’t be yelling out Headshot complete with my own choreographed song and dance every time I complete a deal, but I’ve busted my butt on this. Besides, I’m alone on the second floor of the Flaming Dragon building, and nobody’s around to see my silly moves or hear my stupid lyrics. And if Tom Cruise can dance to Ludacris in Tropic Thunder, then by God, I’ll do what I want when no one can see me.

I’m just hitting the final lines when I turn around and find my boss, Martha, standing inside the door, laughing silently at my antics. I freeze, both hands thrown up in finger pistols, and she laughs harder as the music stops. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just investigating the sound of howling strangled cats they were talking about down in the coffee shop.”

“You scared the shit out of me!” I hurriedly protest, wiggling and patting my ass. “I might need to do an undie check! You know how dangerous that was?”

“Oh, yeah, you’re the most gangster hundred-and-ten-pound girl in the entire state,” Martha says with a chuckle. She’s dressed as she always is, in a fashionable blouse and slacks combo that, while nowhere near as formal as the clothing I wore when I worked at Aurora, still broadcasts a sense of professional competence that’s more than backed up by what she does. The company might be called Steele Solutions, but Martha’s as vital to Oliver’s success as his own smarts. “What in the world are you doing?”

“Cel-a-brate-ing! The McCormick deal is officially in the books as a win!” I reply, twirling and blowing off my ‘guns’ before holstering them in their invisible holsters next to my skirt. I still like to wear my sexy office clothes when I can, and Oliver doesn’t mind as long as I’m willing to get dirty and throw on a pair of jeans when I need to. And he knows from his own brother’s word that I can get my hands as dirty as anyone. “I got the last of