Chapter 2 #2
She glanced up at Cole and found him assessing her. Her nerves kicked up another few notches because there was a…hardness there that reminded her of her father. This was a man who’d seen some things.
“Follow me,” Cole said, leading the way toward a door at the opposite end of the building. He used a key to unlock it and then waited for her to walk through in front of him.
Her stomach knotted up like a noose. “I thought I’d work in there.” She jerked a thumb toward the convenience store.
“No. That’s a separate business. If you get the job, you’d be working in here, answering phones, taking appointments and bookings, as well as eventually handling payments. Did you park nearby?”
“Uh, yeah,” she said quickly. “Actually, I’m right outside in the alley in back. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine. That’ll be your space if you’re hired so the front doesn’t get too crowded for the customers.”
She really needed this job but— “So I’d be working for you?”
“Yeah. We offer a wide variety of rental options from golf carts and black car service to skim boards and beach chairs. We also offer loading and unloading for tourists, seasonal things like putting up Christmas lights and checking on homes for out-of-town owners, in addition to small repairs like changing AC filters and basic maintenance every beach house needs as corrosion takes its toll. All of which requires a schedule so everything gets done and nothing is missed.”
“That’s a really wide range of options.”
Cole Blackwell scraped a palm over his face like he thought it was a few too many options but, other than a slight grimace, didn’t comment on her observation.
“Tip of the iceberg. And like I said, it means creating and keeping the schedule up to date, which would be your main job. Alec said you don’t have references?”
Annnd here we go. “No. But I’m really good at organization and know my way around a computer.”
“Name a weakness of yours.”
She blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Most interviewers ask about a person’s strengths. I want to know your weakness.”
Sloane’s pulse picked up speed. “Uh, okay. I guess it would be that I’m…sort of a loner.”
“No team spirit, huh?”
She shrugged and fought the urge to shift as he pierced her with a searching stare. “Teams are fine, but I also work well alone. I don’t require motivating and like working independently…so I tend to keep to myself.”
“Being a loner is one thing, but if you need help, I want you to be smart enough to ask for it so we don’t lose customers.”
“I can do that,” she said firmly.
“Can you pass a background check?”
Her stomach sank. “I can but— Is that really necessary?”
“It is when you’d eventually be handling the cash register.”
Defeat sank into her bones. “Then…no.”
“You can’t pass one?”
“I can but—” The search would pinpoint her location, and that wasn’t something she could risk. “Look, forget it. I’m sorry to waste your time.”
She turned to go and had almost made it to the door when Cole called her name.
“Stop. Just—give me a sec to think.”
She turned, hands fisted at her sides while getting blasted with the full force of his unwavering stare.
“Why can’t you pass a check— I mean,” he corrected the moment she opened her mouth, “why do you not want a check run on you? Are you hiding something or from someone?”
Given the military cut of his hair, she figured that was where he got that look in his gaze. And the sixth sense he used now to pinpoint her hesitation. “You could say that. Someone,” she clarified, struggling to hold his gaze when his narrowed at her words.
“And you won’t go into more detail?”
“It’s personal, not professional,” she said. That response straddled a fine line but was true all the same. She’d never done anything illegal. But it didn’t mean she didn’t know illegal things had been done.
Cole Blackwell inhaled a slow, deep breath and shifted his hands to his lean hips as he studied her.
“The thing about hiring is that a good employer wants to hire someone who actually wants to work and get paid. Not goof off.”
“I qualify then,” she said without hesitation.
“You ever steal from your employers?”
“Never.” She held his gaze with ease now as the truth rang in her tone.
“Hurt someone?”
“No.” She was the one who’d been hurt. Threatened.
Cole took another deep breath and ran a hand over his short hair.
“I’ll give you a few days probationary period. See how you do. No promises on it being part time or permanent though.”
“That works for me. I move around a lot so temporary is good. Just some cash to see me to my next adventure.” She wished “adventure” was the appropriate word, but even though it wasn’t, mindset mattered, didn’t it?
Cole motioned to indicate she should move to the counter and pointed to one of the two chairs behind it.
“Have a seat. We’ve got a ton of stuff to go over.”
“Um… There’s one more thing.”
Cole stilled and studied her. “What’s that?”
“I…meant what I said about earning cash. I don’t have a bank here or anything. And since it’s temporary, like you said, paying me in cash would…make things easier for me.”
Silence filled the air between them, and she wondered if she’d pushed too far too soon. Maybe she should’ve waited until pay day and then brought up the specific payment request.
Instead, she was on the receiving end of another soul-searching look that seized her lungs and left her all sorts of uneasy. This was a man who could read people, and she got the feeling he read every sidestepped answer she gave.
“I’ll see what we can do.”
It was three hours past closing time when Gage unlocked the front door to the rentals building and let himself inside. He felt like a walking zombie from lack of sleep, but he needed to check the schedule to see what was expected of him tomorrow.
After the last employee deleted the computerized version and screwed up the system so badly, he’d never been able to get things to sync properly to his phone.
That meant stopping in at the end of each day and seeing what had been changed or added, or pulling over somewhere to call for an update Cole was too cranky to give.
That was the thing about being in business with his family.
It meant a lot of time together to get on each other’s nerves.
He frowned when he moved behind the counter and caught the hint of vanilla and raspberry. Maybe Ana had been in to visit today? Cole’s wife didn’t stop in often, but it was known to happen. Still the perfume lingering in the air didn’t match Ana’s fancy boutique-store style and left him curious.
“Hey, glad I caught you,” Cole said as he entered the side door from the convenience store.
Gage swung round to face his brother. “What are you still doing here?”
“I had a limo booking—and I wanted to check in with Brooks and see how the new girl’s repair went.”
Gage froze with his hand in midair. “What new girl? You already hired someone?”
“I told you we weren’t messing around.” Cole gave him a pointed glare. “So, yeah, I did. She started training this morning and worked all day.”
Gage looked around the counter and the business area of things, his gaze searching.
“What are you looking for?”
“Did she break anything? Screw up the computer? Tell someone off on the phone? Disappear at lunch and not come back?” There had to be something. There always was. The ineptness of today’s hires shocked him sometimes. His brothers said he was being too picky, but—he wasn’t. He really wasn’t.
Cole crossed his bulging arms over his chest and shook his head.
“She’s attentive and picked up on stuff really fast. First day went extremely well until she tried to go home, and her car wouldn’t start from a dead battery.”
Gage raked his fingers through his hair, his gaze lowering onto a colorful sheet of paper he’d missed during his first perusal. “What’s this?”
“Your schedule for tomorrow. She’s working on getting the calendars to sync like before, but that last guy really screwed something up with the system. She made an appointment to talk with the tech company to get it fixed tomorrow.”
“I already tried that.”
“You got pissed off and hung up on him. She’s going to try again.”
He stared down at the paper with a frown.
“She printed that off because I told her you come in every night to check the calendar.”
“And it’s all here?” Gage asked, highly suspect that something wasn’t missing. That was another thing with the guy he’d hired last. For everything on the list, three had been accidentally left off out of carelessness or disorganization.
“Said all you needed was the sheet.”
Whoever she was, she’d highlighted and color coded the items. Blue was maintenance.
Red meant calls that needed to be returned ASAP.
Orange tagged bookings for loading and unloading bags and crap for tourists who overpacked and knew they couldn’t carry it all inside their rented vacation homes.
Gray marked the black car service, listing the client, destination and estimated time frame so he’d always know where Cole would be.
There were several more colors, but the time frames were generous enough and didn’t overlap.
“She did all of this? Without the computer?”
His normal schedule was chaotic and overbooked, but that was his own fault. Still, thanks to the different colors, a quick glance told him what he needed for each job and where he was supposed to be.
“Yeah, so don’t be a jerk and give her a chance. She seems nice. Ana’s waiting, so I gotta go. See you tomorrow,” Cole said on his way back out the door.
Gage was still looking over the schedule and lifted a hand in goodbye. When he didn’t see anything unusual, his brain finally kicked back in. “Wait, what’s her name?”
But Cole was already gone.