Sisters by Choice (Blackberry Island #4)(44)

“In what way?”

“They oversold themselves and I believed them so I ended up with a lot of people who didn’t have the experience or skills I needed them to have.”

“Did you fire them or live with the disappointment?”

An insightful question she didn’t want to answer.

“Both,” she admitted. “Firing people is hard. I’ve gotten better, but I don’t like it. Sometimes it’s just easier to do everything myself.”

“But you can’t,” he said gently. “Sophie, do you get that?”

“I can do a lot. Nobody knows the business better than I do.”

“That’s true, but you have the limitation of time. I’m sure you can do any three jobs better than the people you hire but there aren’t only three jobs at CK. There are dozens and you can’t do them all. Do you trust yourself to hire the right people?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes.”

“So you don’t.”

“Bear is great. Amber, my cousin, is a disaster, but I knew she would be.”

“And you hired her anyway.”

“She’s family.”

“Sorry. Of course you’d hire her. You want people you know. Even if she’s awful, she’s a known entity. You can handle whatever pain she causes because it’s familiar. If only everyone would love CK as much as you do, but you worry they don’t and while you get that a lot of people simply want a good job, you don’t want to accept that.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this line of conversation,” she said primly, wondering how on earth he had figured it all out. He was just some Tai Chi guy. Maybe he had a degree in psychology or something. Regardless, she was surprised by his insights and uncomfortable with what they said about her.

Dugan stood, then drew her to her feet and kissed her.

“Poor Sophie,” he said, his voice gentle. “Now you don’t know what to make of me. It’s okay. When you get the urge to pull back, remind yourself that the sex is really great and giving it up would be foolish. Besides, it’s good to have a friend who isn’t family. I know you can’t trust me just yet, but I’m hoping eventually you realize I’m on your side.”

She glared at him. “You’re making a lot of assumptions.”

“I know.” He kissed her again. “So what’s the verdict? Do I get to stay or are you kicking me out?”

She thought about how rattled she still felt and knew that dealing with Dugan’s awareness was better than being by herself.

“You can stay,” she told him. “But only if you go get takeout.”

He smiled. “Done.”

  Heather barely slept the night before she started her new job. She was excited and nervous. The opportunity was amazing and she wanted to do well.

Her first concern was what to wear. For her warehouse job she’d been comfortable in jeans and a sweatshirt, but working in marketing was different. She needed something more professional, and her options were limited. Complicating the situation was the downpour outside her bedroom window. No way she could put on nice pants or a dress and her only pair of leather flats and then ride her bike all that way in the rain. That meant she was going to have to drive to work.

She decided on a dress for her first day, and took the time to apply a little makeup. Too unsettled to eat breakfast, she drove to CK where she parked and hurried inside. Bear was already in his office. He spotted her, grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. Her equilibrium slightly restored, she walked through the warehouse toward the offices.

Elliot had claimed space in the back. His office was large, with a window, a big desk and a table and four chairs in the corner. Sophie hadn’t told her what time to start, so Heather had planned to show up extra early, but like Bear, Elliot was already at work, as well.

She took a moment to breathe, then knocked on the open door.

“Good morning.”

Elliot, a tall man with a slightly imposing air, took off his glasses and looked at her.

“Heather, is it? Sophie mentioned she’d moved you to my department.”

His tone was fairly neutral, so she wasn’t sure if he was happy about what had happened or not.

“Is that all right?” she asked.

“We’ll have to see, won’t we? I haven’t filled my staff positions yet. I have a few people coming in for interviews in the next week or so. I suppose we’ll have to work it out as we go.”

He motioned to a chair in front of his desk. When she was seated, he began speaking.

“From what I can tell, Sophie outsources a lot of the support functions of the company, mainly digital advertising and customer service. Hiring order-takers is one thing, but advertising is different. It should be customized and tracked and monitored. She and I are still working out our differences on that one.”

Heather wondered if she should be taking notes. Or dictation, whatever that was. She wasn’t clear on her job function or what Elliot expected of her.

“We should start by getting to know our customer a little better,” he said. “Who is the CK buyer? We know she’s probably female, but let’s dig in deeper. I have some ideas I want to present to Sophie and I need numbers to back them up. Pull the demographic reports for the past two, no, three years. Let’s see if there have been any changes. I want to look at education, income level, number of cats in the household. At the same time, pull together a report on all households who own cats. I remember reading somewhere there were more cats than dogs in the country. Is that true? What are the demographics of cat-owning families and how do those numbers compare with the CK customer?”