Chapter 2 Piper
TWO
PIPER
The project office was on the second and third floors of the three-story building I’d circled half an hour ago.
I made my way up the stairs, clutching my brown paper muffin bag in one fist and my coffee in the other, and spotted the Baldwin Consulting logo on a glass door.
The letters B and C interlocked in shades of cool, professional blue.
Underneath, the words “Engineering Design and Construction” were written in a simple white font.
This was real. I’d finally found a job and moved my boys and my life across state lines; now my next chapter was about to start.
My nerves jangled. I was still rattled about the coffee shop, surprised by the strength of my reaction.
Jacob used to barge through life like that all the time.
And he’d get what he wanted, too. I was so sick of making myself smaller for men—but the confrontation had left me jittery and off-balance.
I took a deep breath.
So what if there’d been a jerk at the coffee shop?
Today was the first day of my new job. That was exciting!
I’d sacrificed a decade of my career to raise my kids, caught between exorbitant childcare fees and no job prospects in my old town.
The only logical choice—as my ex-husband liked to remind me every time I told him I wanted to work again—was to stay at home with the kids.
But today, that would change. I couldn’t let some self-important man with no concept of social norms ruin that for me. Those types of people existed everywhere, and the only person whose day was ruined by his actions would be me, unless I brushed it off and moved on.
Squaring my shoulders, I gave myself a sharp nod, painted a polite smile on my face, and pushed the door open.
My steps echoed on the floating laminate wood-look flooring, and my gaze was drawn to the chunky reception desk to my left.
Behind the desk sat a woman wearing a white blouse with jeans.
Her hair was dark blond and cut to her shoulders, and she wore tortoiseshell glasses to frame her big blue eyes.
“Are you Mila?” I asked, approaching.
“I am. Does that make you Piper Darling, who’s come bearing coffee?” A hopeful smile lit her face, which made a twist of embarrassed guilt squirm through me.
“Well,” I replied, “about that…”
“Uh-oh.”
“There was an incident,” I started. “I don’t have your coffee.”
She deflated slightly. “Darn. But I love incidents, so if you tell me what happened I might forgive you.”
Laughing awkwardly, I shook my head. “It’s embarrassing. I might have overreacted, which is not the first impression I want to make.”
“Well, you’re in luck, because I love when people overreact.”
My laugh was more genuine this time. “There was a long line at the coffee shop, right?”
“Right.”
“And I finally got to the front. Took, like, ten minutes.”
“Long wait.”
“Yeah. And right when I open my mouth to order, some guy—”
“Ugh! A guy!”
“Exactly! Some guy just pushes in front of me and barks out his own order!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“And he tried to order my blueberry muffin!” I lifted the bag for emphasis. “Just marched right up there and demanded the last one.”
“Unbelievable.” Mila barked out a laugh. “Who was he?”
“Hell if I know. But I’ll tell you what, he didn’t like me standing up to him.”
“I bet. You made a scene?”
“No,” I replied primly. “I stood up for myself. If anyone made a scene, it was him.”
“Darn straight,” Mila agreed, her smile wide. “So how does this affect your no longer being the bearer of black gold for me this morning?”
I bit my lip. “I got worked up. I’m sorry. I was so busy trying to get this jerk to get in line that I completely forgot about your coffee.”
“I suppose I’ll have to manage with office brew, then.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
She grinned and waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. What coffee shop was it?”
“Place called Peak Coffee,” I said, showing her my takeaway cup.
That was the moment a new expression flashed across Mila’s face. Gone was the delight she’d shown at a fresh bit of gossip, replaced with shocked understanding. She blinked and tried to recover with a smile.
“What’s wrong?”
Mila shuffled some papers, glancing in one manila folder and then another before sliding a stack of documents toward me. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I’ve got some paperwork for you here, and we’ll get you to do a few little training courses, you know, safety, company culture, that kind of thing…”
Dread began to snake through my gut. “Mila…”
She glanced up to meet my eye—and shifted her gaze behind me.
I experienced one of those moments of certainty. In that space of time—a second or two, maybe three at most—understanding filtered through me, and I knew what Mila was looking at.
No. Not what.
Who.
I knew who Mila was looking at. In those three seconds, all the feelings that I’d tried to brush off came rushing back with full force. The anger. The outrage. Even the underlying nervousness and feeling of inadequacy at re-entering the workforce after so much time away.
All I had to do was turn around and confirm my worst suspicions. As my heart thundered, I spun slowly, sucking in a breath through my teeth, trying to fill lungs that had suddenly turned to stone.
Leaning against the doorway, cool as could be as he brought a paper cup from Peak Coffee to his lips, was the line-cutting, arrogant, full-of-himself jerk that I’d so valiantly stood up to this morning.
“Rhett,” Mila said, artificially bright. “Good morning.”
“Not sure I agree,” came the dark response.
The man’s eyes were still burrowing into me—and I knew.
I just knew that this was the very wealthy man who’d bought a dilapidated ski resort in a small town in Colorado with the intention of injecting new life into the area.
The man who’d taken a chance by hiring an interior designer with a decade-long gap on her resume.
This man was my boss, Rhett Baldwin.
My savior. The one to whom I owed my fresh start. The visionary who didn’t discriminate against single moms. The man I’d insulted and sassed and stood up to just a few minutes ago.
I was so, so, so screwed.
Because Rhett Baldwin was a big deal in this town.
It hadn’t been hard to deduce his sterling reputation by the way people reacted when I told them where I’d be working.
My new landlord, an older woman with four grown kids—three of them had scattered to far corners of the country, as she’d informed me within minutes of meeting me—had sighed and smiled when I told her I’d be working at the resort.
Her exact words were: “That Mr. Baldwin—he’s a good egg.
Left, made his fortune, then came right back home to lift us all up with him. Yes he did.”
I’d tried to leverage that goodwill to extend the three-month lease she’d given me, but my landlord needed the money from short-term rentals during the ski season. She’d promised to see what she could do, though, seeing as I was working for Mr. Baldwin.
That wouldn’t happen once she heard about my confrontation at the coffee shop this morning. And she would hear about it, I was sure.
When I’d signed my kids up to school and met the principal, she’d given me a sharp nod and said, “Rhett saved this town from ruin. Not everyone agrees with his ski resort plans, but I think it’s a good thing he’s doing.
” From that point on, she’d softened toward me.
When she introduced me to Nate’s teacher, Ms. Diane, she’d said, “This is Piper Darling. She’s working over at the ski resort, redesigning the lodge with Rhett Baldwin,” and the teacher’s face had broken into a smile.
Rhett had paid for Ms. Diane’s daughter’s medical bills after she’d blown out her knee playing volleyball.
That daughter was now playing D1 college volleyball on a full-ride scholarship, a path that had been open to her based on Baldwin’s kindness and generosity.
The man was unofficial royalty in Lovers Peak. And in front of a dozen people this morning, I’d verbally smacked him down.
I was so getting fired.
Which meant no one else in this town would hire me. Which meant moving away again—more moving costs, possibly breaking my lease, starting the job hunt all over, pulling the kids out of school again…
This was bad. This was so, so bad.
“How’s the muffin?” my boss asked, nodding to the crinkled brown paper gripped in my white-knuckled fist.
I blinked at him, then looked down at the bag. “Haven’t tried it yet.”
“Huh,” he said, pushing off the doorframe. His coffee cup dangled in one big hand as he prowled closer. “You wanted it so badly, though.”
“I was worked up,” I replied, and I wasn’t sure if I was defending my right to eat my baked goods at my own pace or somehow apologizing for the scene I’d caused this morning.
“I noticed,” he said, and came to a stop just a couple of feet away from me, on the edge of what was a comfortable distance for two near-strangers.
Pushing the boundaries of proper behavior—again.
My eyes narrowed. “You cut in line,” I accused.
“I own the coffee shop.”
Taken aback, I was silent for a beat. Then heat rose up my cheeks. Still, did owning the coffee shop excuse that kind of behavior? Gritting my teeth, I set my jaw. “I don’t see how that’s relevant, Mr. Baldwin.”
“Oh, we’re being polite now, are we?”
“I can call you one of the names I’ve been using in my head, if you prefer.”
His grin flashed so quickly that I almost missed it, and I resented that he was enjoying sparring with me. He was obviously full of himself, and no matter how well he filled out those jeans, I wasn’t going to fall for his charm the way the rest of the townsfolk had.
I’d fallen for a man’s charm before, and it wasn’t going to happen again.
Mila cleared her throat. “I was just about to give Piper her paperwork…”
“We’ll get to that later,” my boss replied, not taking his eyes off of me.