2. Chloe
Chapter 2
Chloe
“ I t’s a bad omen,” Karl mused, sipping his chai with one hand while steering the SUV with the other. “We need to hightail it back to Seattle. This place is cursed.”
“It’s a shoe,” JJ drawled from the back seat. “Let’s not blow things out of proportion.”
“It’s not a shoe. It’s a Choo,” Karl corrected, peering at her in the rearview mirror. “And what are the odds that she’d break a heel and almost assassinate her ex-husband on day motherfucking one?” He made the sign of the cross. “Bad omen.”
“I don’t believe in that shit,” I said as he parked in the driveway.
“Okay, then spill some salt and break a mirror. Prove it.”
I gave him my biggest eye roll. “Enough,” I said, pushing the passenger door open. “This day is already a shitshow, and it’s not even nine a.m. Wait here.”
I hobbled back into the house and returned a few minutes later with a new pair of shoes, finding Karl now in the passenger seat.
“Now,” I said, buckling my seat belt. “Who’s ready to talk about nothing but work?”
I could feel their rolling eyes. “You’re going to have to audit all the projections after we do the staffing, equipment and environmental analysis. That will take a lot of time.”
“And re-review the Maine forestry bylaws,” JJ piped up. “You always avoid it.”
I turned in my seat. “It’s day one,” I said calmly. The last thing I needed was to start out frustrated with the two people I was closest to. “We’ve done this a few times. It will be fine.”
She sighed. “I know. But this one feels different.”
“Yeah,” Karl said. “You usually stay in Seattle and pop in for occasional visits.”
“She moved herself, and us, across the country.” This from JJ. “The stakes are higher.”
Karl squinted at me, then gave JJ a knowing look. “I think it’s the guy.”
“Nah.” JJ waved him off. “She wants to be near her sister.”
The two of them often talked about me like I wasn’t there. And honestly? It usually made me laugh. There wasn’t a topic off-limits between us, even if they worked for me.
“Enough,” I said, gathering my bag and checking to make sure I had a scrunchie on my wrist. My hair had a mind of its own, so I never left home without one.
“You really need to define your why,” JJ said sagely.
“Yes,” Karl added. “And allow yourself to feel your feelings.”
Ugh. It was too early for this conversation. “Spare me your Gen Z psychobabble,” I said. “Can’t I just repress my feelings and get through it? Just for today?”
I took in the buildings one by one as we pulled into the parking lot of the campus. This was all so grand and total overkill. I’d probably be renting out a fair amount of the office space and selling off some of the equipment in the coming months.
We ran lean. That had been our model for years, and it worked. We’d develop and implement sustainable practices that suited the region and the workforce. The product would be our focus.
This approach had been successful many times over, on several continents. That success was what made it possible for me to swoop in and buy this place.
I’d let JJ loose in the woods, and she’d run her numbers and take her soil samples. From there, we’d turn things around in a few short months. In the meantime, I’d deal with the legal issues, the employees, the finances, and, oh yes, a small—or should I say, large and muscular—problem named Gus Hebert.
“Guys,” I said, turning around in the passenger seat. “I need to make something clear.”
Karl was arranging his hair in the rearview mirror. “Yes?”
“We are not discussing my ex-husband anymore.”
“But he was almost your first victim,” JJ said, her lips turning up in a feline grin.
“First?”
“I always assumed that if you got a taste of the murder life, you’d get hooked,” she replied.
With a scoff, I rolled my shoulders. “Remind me to find you a therapist up here. And it’s not up for discussion. We have a job to do, and he is an employee.”
Karl gave me an exaggerated eye roll. “Sure. You act like you’re not dying to tell us all about him.”
He knew me too well. Though I wasn’t dying to tell, I was floundering and out of my emotional depth. And I desperately needed someone to shake me until I got my game face on. But as close as I was to Karl and JJ, they were still my employees. It would be unprofessional to tell them that.
“Business mode,” I said, narrowing my eyes. It was our code word for when we had to focus.
“Yes, ma’am,” Karl said, giving me a mock salute.
With a frown, JJ busied herself with zipping her backpack.
I got out, straightened my skirt, and looked up at the main building.
“Give her a few hours, and she’ll crack,” JJ whispered to Karl on the other side of the SUV. “The loss of a shoe is a big deal to her.”
“I heard that,” I hollered over my shoulder as I strode toward the entrance.
My breath hitched as I got closer. So much hurt and anger flowed through me. I was the boss, for fuck’s sake. I owned this building and the land it stood on. But instead of walking through the doors like a dragon ready to slay, I was sweating and twitching and experiencing mild nausea.
Not the first impression I wanted to make on my new employees. Not that there were many left. I’d inherited a workforce that was at about one-quarter of its capacity, something my team would be fixing sooner rather than later.
Summer was the slow season, so this was the perfect time to implement our sustainable practices, conduct field studies, and get the forecast for the next few seasons set.
JJ hustled past me, wearing her backpack and her game face. She had clearly received the day-one ass-kicking memo.
Karl trailed, sipping his coffee and providing a running commentary of the building.
The whole place was an eyesore. If toxic masculinity got an architectural degree and constructed a building in the woods, this would be it. Steel, glass, dark wood, modern light fixtures, and cement floors. It was dark and gloomy and massive.
Despite the July sunshine, the lobby felt like a damp cave.
“Was this place built by vampires?” Karl asked. “What’s with the lack of windows?”
The soaring ceilings made it even more tomb-like.
“Focus,” JJ snapped. She was antsy. It had been a few weeks since she’d been out with her beloved trees, and it showed in the way stress rolled off her. No one was more passionate about sustainable forestry than JJ, and no one was more knowledgeable.
My heels echoed in the soulless foyer as we headed past the vacant reception desk and elevator to the stairs. The lobby area that had probably once held chairs was empty, with only the gleaming cement floors left.
I had done this before. But the stakes were higher here. This was my company. Not my partners’. I’d been waiting years for the chance to strike out on my own. Rick and Terry, while my mentors and incredibly supportive, were set in their ways, and for the last few years, they’d been more focused on cruising toward retirement. They were looking for bigger companies that could generate more profit with less work. So they were letting me spin off, do my own thing, and it was my money, and my ass, on the line.
But I believed in Maine, and I believed the techniques we were putting in place in Canada and out west could transform the timber industry here. If done right, they could give it more longevity and sustainability.
And this was the start. I was here to prove that my concept worked. That small, family-owned companies could still compete and evolve. I’d put up my own money and had taken this company on myself. Any success or failure was on my shoulders. While I’d usually relish the challenge, the weight I had been carrying alone was beginning to press down on me.
JJ handled the trees, but I was responsible for the business. And while the records prepared before the sale were quite extensive, I still had a lot to do to get myself up to speed.
Sadly, doing so would mean working with him.
Gus.
And his broody stare. Gus with the shoulders and the beard and the permanent frown etched onto his handsome face.
The way he’d looked at me this morning was jarring. Like he could see right through me. Like he knew how terrified I was of fucking up.
I wanted him to cower in my presence. Recognize that I was a badass bitch who could kill him with one arch of my eyebrow. I wanted him to look at me with awe and shame, to atone for his sins.
Shaking thoughts of Gus from my mind, I led Karl and JJ up the stairs and to the main office space.
From there, we split up. Karl got to work, figuring out where the computers and other equipment we’d had shipped would go, and JJ retreated into the conference room to find maps and photos of the forests.
I found a large, empty office and set my laptop up on the desk. My goal today was to get my head in the game and prepare myself for the weeks ahead.
But as I was giving myself a mental pep talk, the sound of a throat clearing from the doorway snapped me out of my meditation.
Dammit. Already, I was shit out of luck.
Because there, standing with his arms crossed over his plaid shirt, was the man himself.
“Morning,” he said. His expression was stony.
I tried to force a smile, but my face was hot and my hair was probably wild from digging under the desk for an outlet. “Good morning.”
For a long moment, he watched me without speaking, almost as if he knew how much I despised awkward silence and was weaponizing it against me.
“You tried to murder me,” he finally said. “Should I be worried?” His voice was deep and smooth and far too nonchalant about the whole experience. I’d rather he yell at me for my insane driving. Instead, all I saw was a cool, calm exterior and a deep frown.
I put my hands on top of my desk and stood. I was nowhere near as tall as him, but I needed every inch I could get.
“It was not an attempted murder,” I snapped. “At best, it would be involuntary manslaughter.”
He took a step closer, never taking his eyes off mine. “Wow. That’s a comfort. Thanks.”
I shrugged, ignoring the way his voice vibrated through me and lit up nerve endings. “It was an accident. My shoe broke.” I waved a hand at him. “If I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead.”
One corner of his mouth quirked. “Noted.”
“You can go now,” I said, lifting my chin and faking a level of confidence I didn’t feel. I did not like being alone with him, even in a room as large as this. It was too much, too intimate. His scrutiny was so intense it was palpable, and his glare alone was slowly breaking down the protective walls I’d spent decades building up.
“I don’t spend a lot of time in the office. But I’m here to help. Anything you need.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
Slowly, he walked toward me, and when he was directly in front of me, he placed his hands on my desk. They were wide and strong and tan. And dammit, my traitorous eyes dipped and studied his left hand. No ring. It was a detail I was better off not knowing.
“Think of it as an olive branch.”
His proximity and overall maleness were making my brain short-circuit. It was too early, and I was too under-caffeinated to spar with him today. “Olive trees don’t even grow in Maine. Aren’t you the tree guy here?”
With a small shake of his head, he headed for the door. At the threshold, he turned and winked, and with that, he was gone.
My heart lurched. What the shit?
This was all kinds of wrong.
I was supposed to grind him to dust beneath my one-thousand-dollar heels, not be on the receiving end of unsolicited winks. Day one was already off to a shittastic start.