Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Rob
Rich people are a pain in the ass.
I know this because my sister married one. And then the guy Natalie married sent his assistant to assist me and I don’t seem to get a say in the matter. Actually, I do have a say because I’m in charge of the Christmas fair this year, but my entire family pressured me to let Donovan do this favor for me, so here I am, waiting for an assistant I don’t want who’s supposed to help me with things I don’t need help with.
Because, again, rich people are a pain in the ass.
A sound distracts me and it takes me a few seconds to place it—the authoritative clack of high heels on the cement floor. It’s not something I hear around the station very often. There’s nobody else around, so I leave my office and walk to the top of the stairs that lead down to the equipment bay.
The woman standing between the ladder truck and my red SUV has her hand on one hip and the other is holding a black satchel. Black seems to be the theme—black hair flowing down her back, black business suit with a skirt that shows off stunning legs, and black heels that make sure I don’t miss those legs.
She’s definitely not from Charming Lake. There’s no way I would forget having seen her before.
My battered leather work boots aren’t quiet on the wood steps as I descend the stairs to find out what she wants. She looks up and the overhead lights hit her hair differently. It’s not black, just a really dark brown, and her eyes are a light brown.
“Can I help you?” I ask when I reach the bottom.
“I’m looking for Rob Byrne.”
While that would explain why this woman is in my fire station, I still can’t wrap my head around why she’s looking for me at all. She looks like a lawyer. Is somebody suing the fire department? Sure, Mrs. Hoover was really upset we ruined her flower garden back in August, but we were trying to put out the fire in her kitchen at the time. Even for her, a lawsuit seems like an extreme level of crankiness, and not a proper thank you for the fact we saved the rest of the house.
Then it hits me— she’s Donovan’s assistant. This is the woman he sent to help me, even though I told him not to.
“That’s me,” I tell her.
Her scowl deepens, and she tilts her head slightly. “You’re Rob Byrne?”
“Yup. Still me.”
“Sorry, I was expecting?—”
Her words cut off and she takes a deep breath while I wonder what she’d been about to say. She was expecting somebody older? Younger? Taller? Somebody dressed in a suit like my brother-in-law wears, sitting at a conference table?
“I’m Whitney Forrester,” she says, shifting her coffee cup to her left hand so she can extend her right. “I work for Mr. Wilson, and he decided I’ll be helping you with the Charming Lake Christmas Fair this year.”
He decided . The way she phrases that isn’t lost on me, and I wonder if she thinks this situation is as ridiculous as I do. When she withdraws her hand, I realize I’d held on to that handshake a few seconds more than necessary.
“I apologize for being late, but my phone’s GPS didn’t seem to be accurate,” she continues, talking fast. “And directions like ‘take a right after the old feed store’ would be more helpful if the old feed store hadn’t—according to the third person I asked for directions—burned down when I was seven years old.”
“Sorry about that. We’ve been trying to get that GPS issue fixed so out-of-towners stop getting lost, and so we won’t have to rescue anymore cars from the snowmobile trail their phones told them to take, but it’s an ongoing process.”
She takes a quick breath and straightens her spine even more before pasting on a fake smile. “Well, I’m here now and ready to get started.”
I wonder what it would take to make her really smile. She’s here to help me plan this year’s Christmas fair, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make a little side quest out of making Whitney Forrester smile.
“We’ll be outside a lot. Did you bring boots with you?” I like the way her nose wrinkles when I say the word outside .
“I brought boots, yes, though planning is more of an indoor activity.”
The planning is, but the execution is not. I’ll probably keep that to myself for now, though. “Real winter boots? Or boots that look cute with your outfit?”
“Cute? I don’t do cute , thank you.” She doesn’t smile. “I packed appropriate footwear for this trip. My mistake was thinking the Christmas fair committee would meet in an actual committee meeting room.”
My brother-in-law might be a suit-wearing pain in my ass, but he’s actually a really great guy. When he puts his phone down and closes his laptop, he’s warm and funny and madly in love with his family. But I have a hard time seeing this woman putting her phone down and being warm and funny. If I asked her to hold a snowball, I probably wouldn’t have to worry about it melting.
“Committee?” I chuckle, even as I start plotting some way to get back at Donovan for this. “I’ve been called a lot of things before, but never a committee.”
“There’s no committee?” The icy mask slips, leaving confusion and maybe some anxiety in its wake. “It’s just you?”
“Just me,” I confirm. “If you’re looking for the Christmas fair committee, I’m your guy.”