Sisters by Choice (Blackberry Island #4)(29)

She rose and walked out of her office only to almost literally run into Dugan. He was standing in the hallway, looking incredibly sexy in jeans and a dark blue sweater. The fine gauge of the knit told her the sweater wasn’t cheap and she would bet it was soft to the touch. She was just about to reach toward him to find out when the obvious question occurred to her.

“What are you doing here?”

He gave her a lazy grin. “Hello to you, too.”

“Hello. What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to check things out. The island is buzzing about what you have going on here.”

She wasn’t sure what that meant. Was he curious or needy? Because while the former was acceptable, the latter gave her the willies, even if he did smell like sexy soap and look dreamy enough to star in his own calendar.

“No Tai Chi this morning?” she asked.

“Only in private.”

Which was a very normal thing to say, so why did it sound suggestive?

“You’d like a tour,” she said.

“Very much.”

“Okay, but there’s not that much to see.” She turned in a circle then started pointing. “These are the offices. Mine, one for an office manager, marketing, sales, the bookkeeper.”

“They’re all empty. Doesn’t a business do better when there are employees?”

“The bookkeeper starts Monday. I haven’t hired any of the other positions. The people the employment agency sent weren’t right for me. Besides, the front end of the business isn’t as important as the real work done in the warehouse.”

“But if you don’t have a sales department, then you’re not going to have orders for the warehouse to fulfill.”

She patted his arm. “Nearly all of our business comes from online orders through the website.”

“I get that but where are your digital advertising people? You need to have targeted ads online. You can’t keep running the same four ads.”

She looked at him, wondering if there was some kind of brain behind the beautiful blue eyes. “How do you know that?”

“I hear things.”

“Okay, I outsource a lot of the advertising. It’s cheaper and more efficient.”

“You’re big enough to have it in-house. Then you would have total control. Right now you’re getting more of a one-size-fits-all approach.”

“The company I use is really good.” She had a sudden urge to tell him not to worry his pretty head about it, which was ridiculous and insulting to both of them. “As for a sales manager, I have my eye on someone. I’m hoping to get her in here for an interview in the next few weeks. Let’s go to the real heart of the organization.”

They walked into the warehouse. There had been a delivery that morning. Huge boxes were stacked on pallets. One of Bear’s guys was moving things around with the forklift. Dugan took in the rows of shelves and the large shipping area.

He pointed to a twelve-inch-by-twelve-inch sticky note on the wall by Bear’s office. “What’s that?”

“I leave notes.”

He looked from the sticky note to her and back. “Let me guess. You work later than everyone else and leave them around for people to find in the morning.”

She wasn’t sure why but his comment made her feel defensive. “I see things that need to be corrected or I offer a suggestion for a problem. I always use the same color note so people know it’s from me.”

“You don’t think the size is a giveaway?”

“I like to have room to say what I want to say.”

“I can see that.”

He walked toward the rows of shelves filled with products. There were bags of litter, stacks of all kinds of cat food—canned, freeze-dried, dry. There were snacks, toys of every variety, beds, crates, carriers, cat trees, treats, collars, leashes and clothes.

Dugan took it all in. She wondered what he was thinking. This must be so different for him—not Tai Chi at all. People hustled and things happened.

“Do you have a retail presence?” he asked.

“Some. In the chains mostly.”

“You buy existing items and rebrand them as Clandestine Kitty.” He pointed to the canned food. “This is someone else’s formulation.”

“Yes. We have a handful of items we’ve formulated ourselves, but it’s prohibitively expensive. These days there are so many high quality foods out there so I don’t see the point in coming up with our own.”

“I agree with you on that. Some products don’t have enough differentiation to make the research and development costs worthwhile. But why not original toys or beds or something?”

He did not sound like a Tai Chi teacher. “Do you have a business background?”

He shrugged. “Some. Mostly I pick up things here and there.”

Family money, she thought. Even if he chose not to work, he must have heard things when he was growing up. Learned at the dinner table or maybe he went to college and studied business.

“I’ve tried original items,” she said. “We have several original fabrics for our cat beds. Some with the CK logo and others that are nicer than what’s usually available at the price point. I’d like to do more unique items but creative people are very annoying to work with.”