Chapter 9
9
CHLOE
“So what did you tell him?” Amanda asked. She picked up my hand and started removing the glittery deep-red polish she’d applied at our last session.
“Chloe? Did you take the job?” Amanda persisted.
“I told him I would think about it.” I frowned as the last vestiges of color disappeared from that nail. I loved having long nails. Was proud that I’d finally trained myself to stop biting my nails, a bad habit I’d reacquired the day I’d come home to find the police on my doorstep.
I also loved sitting across from Amanda as we caught up with each other’s lives. We hadn’t been friends when I’d first sat down at her station. We’d bonded when we discovered we’d both recently moved back to Port Paxton thanks to a ruined relationship. We’d since met up for coffee in between nail sessions, or texted each other when one of us couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night.
“I mean, I should take it, right? The money’s great. It’s full time, so I won’t need to juggle jobs. It comes with benefits and even a pension plan if I stay long enough.”
“Sounds great. So what’s the problem?”
“It’s never been my life’s dream to wield a chain saw for a living. I can do it, sure.” For now. I wasn't getting any younger, but I kept myself in good shape. “I should take the job, because I’m not going to find anything that pays better, but I want to be doing what I trained to do.”
“Sounds like you’re trying to talk yourself into it even though you don’t want the job.”
Before I could say anything more, Amanda said, “Orrr maybe you’re afraid that working with a guy you’re dating might jinx the relationship. Maybe you’re afraid it’ll create a power dynamic between you because he’s your boss?”
I snorted. “I shouldn’t let whatever is going on with Brad and I interfere with my decisions about my future, but…” It did. There was something growing between us, something I’d been trying to deny. It was more than a friends-with-benefits relationship. Damn it, I couldn’t be falling in love with him. I couldn’t do that again. But he made it so easy.
“We’ve talked about this before. You got divorced and humiliated in a very public setting and ended up divorced in a very public way.” Amanda was one of the very few people I trusted enough to tell about Tony. “You came back to Port Paxton because your parents supported you until you could find a new job to pay off all the debts your douchebag ex left you with. I get that. But now, it’s time to start thinking about Chloe. What does Chloe want with the rest of her life? What job do you want to do? Have you thought any more about going back to school and training as something?”
I floundered to answer her but ended up huffing out, “That’s just it. I liked my job at the planning board. But I’m not going to convince anyone in any planning office here to hire me, not with my association with Tony in my background. No one’s going to trust me to be near their accounts, or handle their money in any other business. They all think I was in league with him.”
“Are you sure they won’t trust you? Have you applied to any offices? Has anyone actually said they wouldn’t hire you given—”Amanda caught her bottom lip between her teeth, her nail file pausing in its journey before she continued, “—your history with douchebag?”
“Not locally, but yeah, I have. In Kitchener, Guelph, London, Peterborough, Oshawa. I got a call back from a place in Peterborough before I moved back here, but they wanted a police history done and at that point, I was still trying to clear my name, so I had to withdraw my application because I wasn’t sure I’d pass.”
“And the others?”
“I’ve never made it to the interview stage.” Which in this economic climate wasn’t uncommon. I had friends who had sent in hundreds of applications and never gotten a nibble. I shrugged in frustration. “You know I don’t want people around here knowing about my past. You know how small towns are. They’ll never let me forget that I’m associated with a con artist. It was bad enough in Guelph, amongst people I thought were my friends.”
Amanda nodded. “Believe me, I know how small towns are.”
“What I’m really worried about is if they could go after my father. Or Grandpa Frank. They’ve both worked hard building up their businesses and if people start questioning their integrity? I couldn’t live with myself knowing I may have destroyed their credibility. Neither of them can afford it.”
“Have you talked to either of them about it?”
“Of course, I have. Dad told me not to worry about. He’d handle any…” I cleaned up my father’s precise words, “idiots that came after him about Tony. Grandpa Frank said the same, but still…”
“But you got hired at the restaurant. And John is willing to hire you.”
“Working as a waitress isn’t the same as working in a planning office, or handling other people’s money.” Okay, yes, I was responsible for collecting money from the patrons at the diner, but I waved that away because the amounts were so different. “I’ve gotten lucky because the people around here remember me from when I lived here as a kid. They know me through my father, but I’m scared everything’s going to blow up in my face again.”
“Is that why you don’t want the Prunery job? Because it means you’ll be meeting more people? Maybe some vacationers who might recognize you.”
I hadn't been worried about that until this very minute. Unaware of the newest fear she’d piled onto my shoulders, Amanda continued. “Chlo, you work—worked—in a restaurant. No one recognized you. No one stood up and accused you of anything, did they? People don’t look at the help. They don’t look at their waitress or the person who is pulling the brush across the lawn and shoving it into a weed whacker?—”
“Wood chipper,” I corrected her
“—and think ‘oh look, it’s that woman who was married to that lowlife who scammed people a gazillion miles away. I don’t want her to doing blue-collar work on my property.’ Trust me, they won’t even look at you.”
As I debated pointing out that Guelph really wasn’t that far from Port Paxton, especially when it came to the internet, Amanda patted my hand. “Believe me, there are plenty of women who sit across from me week after week, right where you are sitting, who couldn’t tell me what my name is or what color my eyes are. They won’t look at me in the face. We’re talking women who have been customers for years.” She started with the whole cuticle trim thing she did. (Which was the reason I came to her when I’d first moved back. My cuticles had been a disaster and I had never figured out how to manage them. Still hadn’t, no matter how many times she’d tried to teach me.) “Seriously, Chlo, people don’t notice as much you give them credit for.”
I huffed a laugh; I couldn’t help it. “Maybe I should train as a nail technician. We could start up our own salon.”
“If that’s what you want to do, then do it. Count me in.”
I didn’t want to become a nail technician, but I needed to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up . But for now, I needed a job. Any job. I couldn’t afford to be picky.
Should I take the Prunery job? Physically I could handle it. Lifting fifty pounds wasn’t an issue. Neither was wielding a chain saw. However, as I hadn’t admitted to Amanda, Dad might decide that since I worked for Pine Ridge Prunery, my feelings about doing outdoor work and property maintenance had changed, and that I no longer cared that much about my degree or working in an office. Then he’d pester me about taking over for him permanently.
Same with Grandpa and taking over his tree farm. If—when—I turned them down, again, I’d be treated to another of Dad’s unending lectures questioning how I could I be so selfish in not wanting to inherit the family business.
My family was my rock, but that didn't mean they never felt like a hard place.
The fact was, I hadn’t had a choice as a teen. It was like, as the only child, it was preordained that I would take it over, that I would head up the next generation of tree farming, property managing Pogues. Back then I’d hated living in Port Paxton with its one cinema, single bowling alley, and a dozen churches of various denominations, with the whole town knowing exactly who you were and who to report your hijinks to if they caught you doing anything the busybody neighbors didn’t approve of.
Now? I’d discovered I liked the slower pace of the area. I loved listening to the birdsong, especially in the spring, identifying each genus as they returned, starting with the unique trill of the red-winged blackbird, sighting the first robins hopping across the spring lawn. I love watching the overwintering male goldfinches gradually change from their winter khaki colours to bright yellow, darting from tree branch to tree branch.
“So are you going to take the job?” Amanda asked yet again, her hand resting on the bottle of bright-pink nail polish I’d chosen when I first arrived at the salon this afternoon.
I blinked when I realized she’d already finished the base coat and I hadn’t even realized it. Wow, I must have really zoned out. But her question brought me back to the decision facing me.
I needed to be adult about this. I didn’t want to work outside in all types of weather, fighting off bugs while dripping with sweat in the summer, freezing my ass off in the winter. But working as a groundsperson would give me—and my bank account—breathing room. If I looked at it as a temporary job, it would give me the opportunity to do some night classes at the local college and hopefully find a new career. Something that wouldn't have future employers doubting my trustworthiness because of my ex. Something that would let me keep my nails. Put on make-up, do my hair, slide my feet into high heels, and feel like a woman, instead of wearing overalls, a hard hat and steel-toed boots.
With a deep breath at the sacrifice I was about to make, I shook my head and placed my hand over the bottle of polish I’d chosen. “Change of plans. Cut my nails shorter—these aren’t going to work at this length.” Broke my heart to say, but it was a temporary measure, right? I could always grow them back later. “And tell me I’m doing the right thing.”
“It’s a job, and a good paying one at that. They’re hard to find. So yeah, I think you’re doing the only thing you can at the moment.”
She picked up her nail scissors. “How short do you think you need them to be? We could still do nail polish, even if your nails are short.”
By the time I walked out of her salon, my nails were so short that when I’d tapped my fingers on Amanda’s table, my nails barely touched the wood. It hadn’t taken much to convince me to go with a neutral polish to protect them from the wear and tear they were about to face. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, I told myself, even though I knew they’d probably be chipped and the polish would need to be removed by the end of my first shift, but if I wore gloves, maybe it would survive more than a day?
Baby steps.
Once I was settled in my car, I pulled out my phone and found John’s card, thumbed in his number. Surprisingly he picked up, instead of his wife as I’d expected.
“About that job offer…”
brAD
After working nearly seventy hours last week, not including the hours I’d spent with Ellie on my business proposal, my eyes felt like I’d poured grit on them when I pulled into the PRP parking lot. Which is why I had to blink several times when I noticed Chloe’s truck parked a few spots down from me. What the heck was she doing here? After checking in with the office to pick up the job list for the day, I wandered into the work shed and found Chloe wearing a pair of PRP overalls, chatting with Finn at his workbench.
Before I could head to her, John came to stand by my side. “I see you’ve noticed your newest apprentice.”
“ My apprentice? Chloe?”
“Yup. I just hired her as your new groundsman. Person. Whatever.”
Would John care that we’d been dating? Playing it cool, I rested a hip on my workbench. “Um, she’s a Pogue, right? The daughter of the guy who owns Port Paxton Property Management?”
Did that sound vague enough? Too vague?
“Yup, that’s the one. Plus, she’s Frank Pogue’s granddaughter. You know, Pogue’s Christmas Tree Farm?” John explained. “She grew up helping her grandfather shear the trees, so she’s already trained in of some of the work we do, and how to use the tools. Plus, she isn’t afraid of hard work in all weather.”
Except Chloe said she hated working outside. I knew she needed a job but she’d been so desperate that she had to apply to be a groundsperson? “You didn’t tell me you were thinking about hiring her.”
“Last I looked, I’m the boss here, not you. What’s your problem? You’ve been complaining about being shorthanded for the last month. Or is it you don’t like the idea of working with a woman?”
“It’s not that she’s a woman, it’s just…” I sputtered out. What? That I don’t like to mix dating and work?
Except John was right. Chloe had the skills. I’d seen it for myself.
I glanced over at her, assessing her as she examined a set of shears. She needed the job, needed a steady paycheck, though I had no doubts she wouldn’t stop looking for an office job. If I told John that, he might let her go without giving her a chance. Or he might ask how I knew she would be looking elsewhere and then I’d have to explain we’d been dating. It wasn’t like there was a rule Pine Ridge Prunery employees couldn’t date fellow employees—mainly because there’d never been a female PRP employee before. Other than Molly. But what if John decided to enforce a rule now?
“Look, I’ve hired her. So quit your bitching, pull your fucking big-boy pants on and get to work training her up.” John raised his voice. “Hey, Chloe.”
Chloe faced us, her gaze skating across my face before flitting away. Like she was embarrassed to be here? Or that she was afraid he might guess we were dating? Or…what?
“This here is Brad Calhoun. He’s our head arborist so you’re going to be working with him the first few weeks until he says you’re all trained up on safety procedures.”
Again, Chloe’s eyes flickered over me briefly — was that a blush rising in her cheeks—before she nodded with a, “Yeah, we met a few weeks ago at Marilyn Bordon’s.”
“Right. Now listen, you do exactly what Brad tells you and you’ll be good to go, you hear?”
“I will. Thanks, John.”
John walked away to talk with Finn, Krishna and Blair from Team B, leaving me facing Chloe who murmured an almost-shy, “Hey.”
I thought about asking her why she hadn’t mentioned she’d applied for the job. Had she accepted that date—hell maybe even fucked me that night—with the pure intention of turning it into a job offer? But she didn’t owe me any sort of explanation. Instead, I simply grunted a “hey” in response.
Aware of John and the other guys watching us, I headed to the racks of tools, trusting Chloe to follow me. I checked the printed list of client sites Molly had left on my workbench, mentally changing the order of them so I could train Chloe on ground clearing before I needed to trust her to spot any climbs I might need to do.
I explained what tools we’d need for each job site, and pointed to my personal preferences. “At the end of the day, it’ll be your job to make sure they’re all cleaned, sharpened and back in place, ready for whoever needs them tomorrow. I’ll go over all that with you then.”
Chloe nodded, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. “You don’t keep your tools in the truck?”
“I keep some tools there, but they all need to be cleaned so they don’t spread disease from one place to another, and that’s easiest right here in the work shop.”
“What about a wood chipper? Will it be my responsibility to hook one up to the back of the truck?”
“Yup. I’ll be training and supervising you, but John’ll set you up with a training session before you’re allowed near one.” I glanced again at Molly’s list. “Looks like we won’t need one this morning. If we decide we need it, we’ll drive back at lunch time and pick one up. And I’ll work it.”
“I’ve used them before at my grandfather’s farm.” Was that a touch of defensiveness in her tone?
“Yeah, I know, but I haven’t seen you work one and I want make sure you’re doing it properly. Those suckers are deadly and I don’t want to have to watch you do a Fargo imitation.”
“A what?”
“Fargo? The movie?”
She shook her head. “Never seen it.”
“One of the characters uses a wood chipper to dispose of a body.” I’d never witnessed it happen firsthand, but one of my classmates had been killed the first week he’d used one. It had been a lesson for our whole class to treat them with respect
Once we had loaded the company truck with the equipment we’d need, I hopped into the driver’s seat and waited until Chloe took her place. I pulled out the tablet I used to keep my personal notes, turned it on, and opened the spreadsheet I had created. Then I handed it to her and said, “Transfer Molly’s notes to this. I’ll show you what I like to track at each job site so we can give an honest assessment of hours to bill the customer, and then if we get called back, I can remember anything else I need to look at.”
As she tapped the notes into the tablet, I explained that I’d set up our route so we hit the farthest worksite first, then would gradually work our way back so the last one of the day was closest to the office. The next forty minutes as we drove around to the top side of Hawkeshead Lake, she typed, and I tried ignore the scent of her shampoo filling my truck. A vaguely floral scent I’d noticed the first time I’d kissed her, and awoken to the next day since my head was on her pillow. A scent that now gave me a woody. I shifted in my seat, both to relieve some of the pressure and in hopes Chloe wouldn’t notice my predicament.
We were ten minutes from our destination when Chloe flipped the cover closed on the tablet and frowned. “Are you angry at me for something?”
How to answer that? “Not angry, no. Though I’m curious as to when you decided to apply for the job.”
Shit, I hadn’t meant to phrase it like that. Even I could hear the accusation.
“You think I used you to get hired?”
From the irritation filling her voice, I guess she’d heard it as an accusation too.
“I didn’t say that.”
“For your information, I didn’t apply for the job. John approached me. He said how shorthanded you guys were and you needed a good groundsperson. He knew I needed a job, and that I was good with tools.” She tilted her head in consideration. “How did he know that, do you think? I thought he and my father had been talking, but now I’m wondering, did you put him up to this?”
“No, I didn’t.” Shit, this really wasn’t going the way I’d planned. I had the woman of my dreams in my truck, possibly training to be my partner, not just at work but my life. I softened my tone. “I don’t have a problem with you working for PRP. I know you’re up for it. You surprised me, is all.”
“Going from your attitude right now, you don’t see me as a good surprise.”
Fuck. Me. “I don’t like mixing my personal life with my work life, all right? You’re my employee now. Everything I say to you, anything I do, might be misconstrued as sexual harassment. That puts me on edge. I like you, Chloe.” I more than liked her, but I knew this was not the right time to admit that I was more than halfway in love with her. “I was looking forward to getting to know you better, but now? I don’t know where we stand.”
She blinked, glanced out the side window for a mile or so before facing me again. “I don’t either. Know where we stand, I mean. I like you too, and I’d like to keep dating you.”
I blew out a breath as quietly as I could so I didn’t give away my relief.
“Does John have some rule against co-workers dating?” she asked.
“Damned if I know.” I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “But it’s more than that. If something happens between us, if we get distracted because we’re fighting or something,” or me ogling her because let’s face it, she was a major distraction, my currently rock-hard dick a case in point, “that’s when accidents happen. I don’t want either of us to get hurt.”
“Are you talking about a blade slipping and one of us getting cut, or are you afraid I might be gunning for your job?”
More like she had the power to break my heart, but there was no fucking way I was going to say that out loud. To her or anyone.
Damn it, she was the one. I was certain of it. So why did life throw this obstacle into our way?
Was it an obstacle? Or was I being stubborn? Over what? She needed a job. She was good with tools and was capable, so why was I worried?
Because if she decided to break up with me, it would fucking destroy me to come into work every damned day and have to see her, to know she didn’t want me as much as I wanted her.
As for her gunning for my job? I shot her a quick smile. “You gotta put in three years of on-the-job training and over seven hundred hours of class work to become a certified arborist, Chloe. Right now, you’re a groundsperson and have lots of training ahead of you. So no, I’m not afraid of you gunning for my job. Frankly, if you want to go for your arborist’s apprenticeship, I’d welcome it. I’ve been after John to hire more trainees for years. The more arborists we have, the more we can expand the company, our range. Even as an arborist, you wouldn’t be a threat to my job. You’re be a welcome addition to the PRP team. It’s about time we have some female representation.”
She tilted her head, a question filling her expression. “You talk like you’re a part owner. Like John works for you instead of the other way around.”
“Nope, not an owner.” Yet. “I’m simply the lead arborist. That’s all. But for now, we need to figure out how we’re going to handle the fact that we are dating and working together.” And how to keep John from finding out, because I had a feeling he wasn't going to like it, even though he and Molly were literally married and had worked together for years. John wasn't always predictable with his moods, and it wouldn't be fair if Chloe lost a job she needed because she was dating me.
Chloe
I spent most of the trip to the work site staring out the window, analyzing Brad’s reaction to me working with him. For him. And whether the news of us dating could get me out of the job if I needed it to. I hadn’t even been on the job for an hour yet and I was already planning my escape.
Real good work ethic, Chloe, I scolded myself.
At a stoplight on the far edge of town, Brad broke the silence. “For now, I don’t think we should let any of the guys at work know that we’re dating, especially John. I think we need to keep things on the down-low.” He held up a hand before I could reply. “No, I’m not ashamed of you. I want to protect your reputation.”
Like my reputation was worth protecting. It had been shattered long ago. Not that he knew anything about that. That I knew of.
“Fine.”
Brad hmphed. “I’ve heard my mom and my sisters say ‘fine’ like that, which means it’s anything but fine. But for now, let’s get through this job and we can talk more at lunch.”
By lunch, I was dirty and sweaty, and really glad he’d insisted I wear the leather gloves PRP provided. I’d also been treated to nonstop lessons on types of trees and what to look for when assessing the health of a tree. That hadn't been part of my education with Dad, though Gramps could go on and on about evergreens. But mainly I’d been hauling brush and tossing it in the back of the truck.
Glad for the break, I grabbed the bag I’d packed my lunch in and settled beside Brad on the truck’s running board.
“How you holdin’ up?” He opened a large container revealing large portions of rice and vegetables mixed with beans, a couple of power bars, an apple, a banana, and several energy drinks.
Jealous, because I’d worked up an appetite after all that physical labor, I withdrew one of the two PB&Js I’d packed this morning. “So far, so good.”
He eyed my lunch. “You need to bring more food. Especially protein. Cheese, beans, meat, something more substantial than a PB&J. You’re going to get lightheaded otherwise.”
With that pronouncement, he grabbed one of six bottles of water from his cooler, cracked one open and handed it to me. “Finish this before we get back to work. You’re going to need to hydrate, too.”
“If I drink that whole thing in the next half hour, I’ll have to find a bush to pee behind or knock on the neighbors’ door and ask to use their bathroom if they don’t want me mooning them.”
“Nope. You’re sweating it out already.” He cracked open a second bottle, downed half of it, before saying, “You get dehydrated real easy if you don’t keep up your water intake. As the day gets warmer, the more water you need to drink.”
“Are you always such a mother hen?” I teased, though I lifted the bottle and to my amazement, went through at least a third in one session. I’d been thirstier than I’d guessed.
“Part of the job as your supervisor.” His tone softened. “And with you? It’s my privilege to make sure you’re properly taken care of.”
I snorted, spewing a mouthful of water down my chest. “Where’d you get that line? From another one of your sisters’ rom-coms?”
He lifted a hand and stroked the side of my neck, sending a shiver right down to my core. “Not a line. Not one that I remember hearing in a movie, anyway. I remember how you said you hated working outdoors in your family’s tree farm or helping your dad look after his clients’ properties. That you preferred working in an office, using your brain, and yet here you are. So I’m going to try to make it as…well, comfortable isn’t the right word, but I am going to make sure you look after yourself.”
“I have bills to pay and didn’t have a job to pay them.” I couldn’t help the bitterness filling my voice. "At least we'll see more of each other, right?"
The huge smile he gave me after that statement made me feel a little better. I was going to have to watch myself with this guy. It would be so easy to tell him all my secrets, and then he'd run screaming.