Chapter 16
Brick couldn’t help but look over at Alaska as they walked.
The meeting with the rest of the guys went as well as expected.
They hadn’t gotten an update from their expert, Elizabeth, on Mr. Choo.
She’d been searching the dark web for any trace of him, but so far hadn’t had any luck.
Which was actually a good thing. But Elizabeth was a lot like Tex…
stubborn and not willing to quit just because she hadn’t been able to find any dirt on the prospective investor the first time she looked.
From what Brick understood, the computer genius had been through her own kind of hell.
She was now married and apparently blissfully happy living in San Antonio with her firefighter husband.
But being happy didn’t wipe away bad memories.
It helped dim them, but didn’t get rid of them altogether, as Brick had learned.
Elizabeth hadn’t asked for any payment in return for her help.
She’d claimed she liked ferreting out the untrustworthy, especially assholes who needed to be stopped from hurting others.
So Brick had told her that she was welcome to come to The Refuge anytime they had an opening, free of charge.
She’d immediately accepted the offer, saying she’d heard amazing things about the place and she wasn’t about to let the opportunity to experience it for herself pass by.
Mr. Choo was scheduled to arrive after breakfast tomorrow.
He’d spend the morning touring the camp, the cabins, and seeing some of the trails.
Then they’d have lunch, sit down for more discussion about his possible involvement and improvement ideas, and he’d head out in the late afternoon.
The day after was left open in case he wanted to come back or if their discussions weren’t completed.
While Brick and the rest of the owners had pretty much agreed they weren’t really interested in bringing Choo on board as an investor, they still wanted to meet with him and make sure their decision was the right one.
There was no doubt the money he could bring to the table would be welcome, but the question was whether or not it was truly needed.
Brick and his friends didn’t think so. But they were willing to be open-minded enough to go forward with the meeting.
At the moment, Brick was tired of thinking about business. He was ready to spend some time with the woman he loved—who loved him back. He was still pinching himself. It didn’t feel real. But then again, the warmth of Alaska’s hand in his felt plenty real as they walked together along the trail.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” she asked after a while.
“You,” Brick told her.
“Wow, you must be bored out of your mind,” she quipped.
“On the contrary, you fascinate me,” he retorted.
“I don’t know why. I’m boring as hell.”
“No, you aren’t,” he countered. “I was thinking about how brave you were to move to Europe for that first job. Not many twenty-year-olds would’ve done that.”
“Actually, I think that’s when most people would do that kind of thing. They’re single, curious about the world, and have no problem staying in hostels and other low-cost hotels while they’re traveling.”
“Okay, good point. But that’s not why you went.”
She shook her head. “No. I was running. You already know about my mom. I just needed to get away. And that was as far as I could get. When I saw the job come up online, I jumped at the chance. You actually had a lot to do with that decision, you know.”
“Me?” Brick asked. “We hadn’t talked since I left.”
“I know. But by then, you were well on your way to becoming a SEAL. I knew you’d be traveling to all kinds of exotic places.
Meeting new people. Experiencing new things.
You weren’t afraid to put your life on the line, to step outside your comfort zone, and I wanted to be like you.
” She shrugged a little self-consciously.
“I’m honored you thought of me that way,” Brick told her. “But I have another question.”
She turned toward him and raised her eyebrows in query.
“Why’d you have so many jobs over the years? I mean, I’d think that once you found a company you liked, in a city you liked, you’d stay.”
Alaska looked away from him then, and Brick found himself wary of the expression on her face as she did so.
“Well, secretaries are a dime a dozen. And I didn’t exactly fit the mold of what a lot of my bosses thought their admin should look like.”
“What does that mean?” he asked in a low tone. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like her answer.
“I wasn’t tall, blonde, and beautiful,” she said. Brick could hear the hurt in her tone. “I also didn’t flirt with the men who called or came in. I did my job—very efficiently, I might add—but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that I wasn’t pretty, outgoing, or special enough to be an asset.”
“That’s bullshit!” Brick exclaimed.
Alaska didn’t seem fazed by his outburst. “It’s the truth,” she countered.
“The world is run by pretty people…at least on the outside. Those of us who aren’t blessed with good looks, or who have disabilities, or who look different from what’s deemed acceptable—whether that be the color of our skin, our size, how we sound, or our gender norms—have to work twice as hard to be accepted than everyone else.
I can’t tell you how many times I was let go because of ‘downsizing’ or because I just wasn’t ‘working out.’ I knew it was bullshit, just as my boss did, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it because I was an at-will employee.
They just made up reasons to get rid of me. ”
“I’m sorry. That sucks.”
“I think the only time I was legitimately fired was when I went to see you in Germany,” Alaska said with a smile.
Brick frowned. “What? You were fired?”
“Yup,” she said, almost cheerfully. “I didn’t call my boss to let him know where I was or what was going on. I just didn’t show up one day.”
“I’m sure that happens all the time,” Brick argued. “People get sick or in accidents and can’t get to a phone, or they aren’t thinking about calling their boss.”
“Yeah, but it was on a day my boss had a huge meeting. I was supposed to bring in his notes and set up his presentation…basically do all the work for him. I had it done, of course, but in my panic to get to you, I forgot to email everything to him. I guess he looked like an ass in front of his potential clients and they passed on the opportunity to work with the company.” She shrugged.
“It was worth it though. I would do the same thing all over again if it meant being able to help you.”
This woman. He didn’t deserve her, but he was going to spend the rest of his life doing everything he could to try to be the kind of man who did. He brought their clasped hands up to his lips and kissed the back of hers.
“Anyway, I was glad to leave that job, and not just because my boss was a jerk. I’d been in Germany for a couple years and wanted to experience somewhere else. I just couldn’t get the hang of the German language. It’s hard.”
“So how many languages do you speak now? I mean, you lived in so many places, you had to have picked up some of the native languages here and there.”
“One. English.”
Brick smiled. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” she told him. “Some people are language savants. They’re speaking like a native after only a week in a country. Me? I can say please and thank you in several different languages, but that’s about it. I’m hopeless.”
Brick couldn’t stop the burst of laughter that escaped.
Alaska wrinkled her nose at him. “And now you’re making fun of me.”
“No. Okay, maybe a little. It’s just…you lived in Europe for decades and you didn’t pick up any languages?”
“Nope,” she said with a smile. “I was completely inept. But lucky for me, the people were generally really nice. I’d break out my guide book and say hello, then butcher a simple request for a loaf of bread or something, and they’d switch to English for me.
It’s amazing how many people know some English.
Enough for us to communicate, with lots of hand signals, that is. ”
Brick simply shook his head. He liked that she could laugh at herself.
“By the way,” he said. “You should know that the guys are never going to let you leave either. Even Tiny’s impressed with how organized you are, how many great ideas you have, and when he needs to check people in after hours, how seamless it is because you’ve already got everything ready for him.
You’re really good at what you do, Al. We wouldn’t care if you had three heads and a tail… we’d still want you to stay.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks. I know it’s probably not cool to admit that I like being a secretary.
Admin. Whatever. But I do. There’s something soothing for me to take files that are completely messed up and fix them.
Consolidating and organizing them into some semblance of order.
And while I’ll never be an IT person, I seem to have a knack for figuring out small issues with a computer and websites too. ”
“Our website already looks so much better since you’ve been here,” Brick praised. “More professional. And those updated pictures of the cabins you took have made a huge difference.”
“I love the guest testimony page I added most, I think. It’s important to have real people’s thoughts and not bogus crap on there that most people can tell is made up.”
Brick agreed. Their talk stayed business related for the rest of the way to the spot he wanted to show her.
She was smart and had great insights into every aspect of running The Refuge.
He made a mental note to talk to the guys about the possibility of making her a more permanent partner.
Any decisions they made on that wouldn’t be dependent on them staying together, although he prayed that would never be an issue.