Chapter One #4
Pigeonholed as short and petite all her life, Evie was accustomed to amused looks but rarely encountered such bluntness. “My daddy always told me that as long as my feet reach the ground like everyone else’s, that’s all that matters.”
The leggy Ms. Nightwhisper smiled more broadly. “Verra true. Yer father sounds like a wise man.”
“He was.” Evie stepped back and swung the door open wider. “Come in. The hall’s drafty. Especially with the weather a little cooler today.”
As the lady stepped inside, her intoxicating scent wafted through the door with her. Intense, but not overpowering, Ms. Nightwhisper smelled like fresh peonies just opening to the sun.
Evie took a deeper breath. Peonies were her favorite flower. As she was a firm believer in signs, her tension and nervousness melted away. How dangerous could this woman be?
She scooped a load of laundry out of the most comfortable chair in her living room/office. “Have a seat, Ms. Nightwhisper. Can I get you anything to drink? Cola? Water? Tea?”
“Call me Morganna, aye?” As the lady poured her long, lithe form into the chair, Evie couldn’t tear her eyes away.
The woman moved with the mesmerizing yet fearsome grace of lava flowing down a hillside.
“And no thank ye. We’ve not much time to tarry.
” She glanced at the wall of monitors, slightly tipping her head to one side as though bemused.
“Quite the setup ye have there.” Then she turned her full attention back to Evie.
“We’ve not yet received yer information and canna book yer travel arrangements.
Is there something about the website that has ye confused? ”
“You came all the way from Scotland to offer me tech help?” Craig Durness’s customer service put the rest of the world to shame.
Morganna’s unusually dark purple eyes sparkled as she laughed and shooed the question away with a flick of her long, slender fingers. “Ye mustn’t miss this opportunity. ’Tis rare for such a chance to come into one’s life. Do ye not agree?”
Evie decided to be as blunt as Morganna had been about her height. “It’s also strange since I didn’t enter any sweepstakes, and in this day and age, it pays to be careful.”
“Verra true.” Morganna nodded. “Wise, as well.” She crossed her legs and idly bobbed her foot up and down as she folded her hands in her lap. “But now I’m here, and as ye can see, everything is as it should be. Shall we fill out the information? I’d like us to be on tomorrow’s flight to Scotland.”
“Tomorrow?” Evie dropped into her desk chair.
She needed to sit down. “I can’t possibly leave tomorrow.
I haven’t even gotten a month’s worth of vacation approved, and I honestly don’t see that as a possibility.
Especially on such short notice. Thirty days is just too long to expect another dispatcher to cover my drivers. ”
Her visitor eyed her for a long moment, then, once again, tipped her head at the monitors.
“Did I not hear on the news today that several logistics companies had let their people go?” She slowly nodded.
“Aye, I remember it clearly. They said they had to do it to save money and improve their bottom line.” The slight crease between her perfectly shaped eyebrows deepened.
“What exactly is a bottom line, by the way?”
“How much profit they make.” Evie swiveled her chair closer to her desk. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t heard about any layoffs.” But she also hadn’t taken a break and checked any of her news sites yet either. It was early, and she was only on her second cup of coffee.
“Ah…I see.” Morganna twitched the slightest shrug, then smiled at the computer screens. “Well, I’m sure ye’d know if anything had happened to yer position within yer company.”
“I’m sure I would.” But intuition hit Evie with a sickening gut punch and made her swallow hard.
A sudden urge to check her email burned through her like a red-hot poker.
“Can you excuse me just a sec while I check something? I know I’m home, but I’m clocked in and working.
” A nervous laugh escaped her. “I’d never want to cheat my company. They’ve been too good to me.”
“By all means,” Morganna said. “Do whatever ye must.”
She knows I’m jobless. Evie turned away from the smug woman and faced her screens. She couldn’t be jobless. It wasn’t possible. She didn’t have enough savings to start from scratch all over again. Teeth clenched and holding her breath, she clicked on her work email and refreshed the inbox.
There it was. Plain as day. An urgent email from the Human Resources Department with the subject line: Unavoidable reduction in force.
The sentences about severance, recouping vacation and sick leave days, and resources for finding replacement healthcare at what Evie was certain would be an unaffordable price blurred together as she watched her tidy little world turn into a choking gray cloud of nothingness.
Slowly closing her eyes, she dropped her head into her hands. Gone in the blink of an eye. It hadn’t been the career she’d wanted, but it had been a solid job that took good care of her until she could find better.
And now it was gone.