4. Confetti Cannons, Chemistry, and Karma
CONFETTI CANNONS, CHEMISTRY, AND KARMA
Dean
This had to be a mirage. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Walter’s niece, the woman I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since the night before, who had moved into my brain, filling my thoughts, and I’d been unable to evict her, was at Lockhart Ranch.
She looked even more beautiful in the light of day.
My traitorous heart slammed against my ribs.
She was standing beside my mom, and I could feel the nervous energy radiating off her. It was so unlike the night before when she’d been filled with confidence, or at the very least, bravado.
“Oh, perfect timing, boys. This is Felicity, she is interviewing for the events coordinator position. Felicity, these are two of my sons, Dawson and Dean.”
My mom’s words went in one ear and out the other. I registered that she was speaking, technically heard her, but none of what she said stuck. I couldn’t have repeated it to save my life. They were just sounds. I had zero comprehension.
Beside me, I heard my brother say, “Nice to meet you.”
Again, it could have been a foreign language for all I could tell. It was as if everything was going in slow motion. Just like the night before, seeing her knocked me off balance. My entire world stopped spinning, but I kept going.
When her eyes met mine for the first time, I saw a flicker of recognition.
My body instantly responded, surging with impulses entirely inappropriate for a myriad of reasons.
I didn’t know this woman. Not really. But I had the overwhelming urge to close the distance between us and capture her mouth in a kiss.
“Oh hello, Sunshine,” she greeted me.
“You two know each other?” My mom asked, eyebrows up.
“Not formally,” Felicity vague-sprained, performing a balancing act between truth and misdirection that only the truly interesting could manage.
“Okay, well, Felicity, if you’d like to take a seat in the conference room?” My mom’s tone was the bright, competent chirp she used when she sensed the danger of an awkward silence. “Dean will be in with you shortly for round two of the interview.”
“Oh.” Felicity’s eyes widened, a tiny bit, enough to suggest she hadn’t realized there was more to come. “Okay.”
I watched as my mom escorted Felicity to the conference room.
“Real smooth, Romeo,” Dawson spoke, but it might as well have been another language, none of it landed with me.
Once Felicity entered the conference room and was no longer in my sight, I blinked and felt myself return to the present. I was no longer floating above myself.
“What?” I asked my brother, trying to catch up with the conversation.
“Sorry, should I say, Sunshine?” Dawson emphasized the word. The nickname that she’d just christened from our conversation the night before.
Before I could respond, my mom was standing in front of me. “Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to make up for your rude behavior.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Now go hire her. I like her.”
“Rude?” Had she just accused me of being rude? How in the world could I have been rude when I was floating outside my body?
“You blanked her,” Dawson accused bluntly.
“I didn’t…I was just…” I shook my head as I tripped over my words as the entire scenario, and its consequences, became clear to me, as if my brain was a steamed-up mirror I was pointing a hairdryer at. At first it was a very small circle of understanding, but it quickly spread, expanded.
My mom had just interviewed Felicity for the event planner role, to sub in while Lydia was on extended maternity leave, and she wanted me to do the second interview and hire her.
That couldn’t happen. This was my workplace. More than that, it was my life, my family legacy. I couldn’t afford to be distracted by the effect she had on me. It was too powerful. I was used to control, especially when it came to the bottom line of our family ranch.
She was a walking, breathing, tempting liability.
I had final authority regarding employment. It had been one of the areas I negotiated when I took the position eight years ago, because my mom was a soft touch, she’d help anyone she could to the detriment of the ranch and our family’s security.
“I’m not going to hire her just because you like her,” I stated firmly, then walked down the hallway to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Having Felicity as a neighbor would be distraction enough, having her at the ranch every day, impossible. I just needed to get through the interview, send her on her way, and let my mom know she wasn’t a good fit after all.
Before stepping into the conference room, I felt something stirring low in my belly. It took me a good few seconds to realize it wasn’t food poisoning, I had the butterflies at the mere prospect of speaking to her again.
Butterflies. I’d never even gotten those as a kid, which would have been perfectly acceptable behavior. Now, I was a grown man, and this reaction belonged to a lovesick preteen.
As I opened the door, I took a deep, cleansing breath, then exhaled. When I lifted my head, I saw Felicity sitting at the table, her hands folded in front of her.
“How’s the roof?” I asked as I entered and shut the door behind me, the question coming out much harsher than I’d intended.
The corners of her mouth twitched, in what I could only assume was amusement. “It’s nice to see you, too, Dean Lockhart.”
She said my last name as if it was a secret I’d tried to keep from her.
“How’s the roof?” I repeated the question. I just needed to know they were okay before I could begin the interview. I’d planned on going over that evening to fix it, but I just needed to make sure it lasted through the night.
Felicity was a master-level room reader and she realized there was not going to be any small talk so she might as well get on with it. “It’s holding up so far.”
More relief than I should have felt flooded through me. I had an unearned sense of pride that I’d fixed the problem, even momentarily, for Felicity and Maverick.
I opened her portfolio. “Good, let’s get started.”
As I reviewed the contents, it struck me that I’d never conducted an interview where I wanted the candidate to fail.
I’d also never conducted one where I suspected the candidate would put me in an early grave if she got the job.
Yet there I was, sitting across from Felicity Foster, feeling both sensations in equal, nauseating measure.
She didn’t look nervous the way some applicants did—her fingers were steady, her posture open. The only sign of unease was the faintest tap of her thumbnail against the glass of water my mom must have set out.
I started with the basics. “You left your last event planner position four years ago. Why?”
She didn’t hesitate. “I had a baby, and the hours were so long and unpredictable it no longer worked, so I got a nine-to-five in customer service.”
“That explains the gap,” I reasoned, but she interrupted me with the tiniest lift of her chin.
“It doesn’t explain whether I can do the job. That’s what you’re really asking.”
I blinked at her bluntness. ”Can you?”
“I can,” she stated with a self-possessed confidence that left no room for doubt.
“Events management is…intense,” I said, reaching for a point of attack. “You mentioned the hours, it can be twelve-hour days. Weekends. Unpredictable emergencies. Why jump back in now?”
Her lips pressed together, and it was the first time I seemed to rattle her. “Because I miss it. Because I’m good at it. Because Maverick is old enough for pre-K and I don’t want to rot in a cubicle while life is passing me by.”
I watched her the whole time she spoke. She met my gaze head-on, no theatrics, no self-deprecating jokes. Just the facts.
I shifted to the numbers. “The budgets you submitted for the sample events were… ambitious.”
She shrugged. “I know what things cost. I’m not going to lowball you to get the job and then tell you it can’t be done for the money I quoted.”
“Most people would.”
“I’m not most people.”
I stared at her, waiting for her to fill the silence with nervous chatter. She just waited, perfectly still. So different than the night before. It unnerved me. I moved on.
“In your events strategy, you said you wanted to ‘broaden the ranch’s brand beyond destination weddings.’ What does that mean?”
She smiled and, for a moment, all the energy in the room condensed into that one expression. It was like the sun breaking through my soul’s cloudiest day. It warmed me from the inside out. My entire world narrowed, and my chest tightened with an unfamiliar emotion.
“It means this place is a gold mine, but only if you stop thinking of it as a wedding factory. There’s demand for retreats, family getaways, seasonal experiences, ‘immersive rural luxury,’ if you want a buzzword. You’ve got the infrastructure, you just need the right programming.”
I pretended to jot down a note while I processed the phrase ‘wedding factory,’ which, honestly, was what my mother called our event barn behind closed doors.
I forced my voice into a monotone. “That’s a very…expansive vision for a temporary position.”
Her smile widened. “Temporary is a state of mind.”
I tried to find the flaw in her logic, but all I could see were the places where her resume dovetailed perfectly with our needs. “What would you do first if you got the job?”
“Rebrand the event spaces.” She didn’t even need to think about it.
“Your website is three years out of date, your digital presence is mostly wedding-centric, and your packages don’t reflect the actual amenities or the new cabins.
I’d create new visual assets, update the social, and bring in a content photographer for a day or two to make it all pop.
Then I’d hit your vendor contacts and cross-promote with local businesses—get your off-season bookings up with themed weekends and family packages. ”
She paused, as if daring me to argue.
“You make it sound simple,” I countered.