by Erin R Flynn
“Or the fro-yo place I did in high school,” Carrie agreed.
Glad they had it then. I had enough technical and complicated in my life that could short-circuit my brain if I wasn’t careful.
“It takes about fifteen pounds of oranges for one gallon of juice,” Travis muttered, shaking his head. “I would never have guessed that. Damn.”
“True, but picking that much with her setup is ridiculously easy,” Deon reminded him. “Even the seventy-five pounds for her to make up for it would—”
“I don’t know that’s fair if they only get the juice and not the full fruit,” I cut in, thinking that was excessive. “I get all the rinds to make oils and citrus water from or whatever.”
“Some I would like for zesting,” one of the other guys interjected. “Or peels to go with beers or drinks.”
Others agreed and I nodded. “Okay, so what if you got a quarter of the peels and half the juice of what you picked? If you want all the juice and half the peels, you get me the same weight in loofah. I can always use more loofah harvested.”
“That’s really generous,” Carrie cut in before anyone else could. “And I have a bunch of friends who asked if they could come out with me to get real juice for a cleanse that doesn’t cost four hundred fucking bucks. A juice shop is great when you’re on the go but getting a chance to come here and get enough for a week? That’s fucking amazing.”
“We’ll have to work out the specifics of that later,” Deon interjected to steer the conversation away from locking anything in.
“Hey, I thought you were giving her the big plan today?” she griped. “That’s part of why I came. I want to see what you’re plotting after weeks of assessing and making tweaks so we were lined up with the direction you think she should go.”
“It’s why some of us came too,” Travis admitted, shocking me when he shrugged. “We’re all business owners and we care about you, Sia. You’ve been knocked around with all these break-ins and the online store getting hacked over and over. We can help maybe.”
“I didn’t even know it was ready to go today,” I purred, giving Deon a glance that I would spank him later.
“I didn’t realize everyone would talk amongst themselves when I said I wanted to make sure the juicing machines were a hit,” he grumbled. “Let’s finish here and I’m ready to show you at the brew house.”
We finished up juicing all we had and then Jimmy and Carrie disassembled it all so we could bring it over to the brew house and wash it all well. Which was a huge pain in the ass so I wasn’t thinking that would go over well regularly.
We drove the trolleys with carts over to the brew house or others brought the vehicles over. We went inside and Deon got everything ready while the rest of us loaded distillers or the drying racks for grinding peels later into products.
Everyone helped, the excitement in the air of progress and cool, and we were gathered and ready.
“This wasn’t meant to be a huge presentation so bear with me,” Deon muttered, his lips twitching as if amused. He had elevated my computer monitor so we all had a better view and brought up the map of the farm. “I have several concerns I’ve already shared with you.
“First, the security here. People just buzz themselves in and you’ve had problems with that and it’s getting worse. Second, we’ve gone over the store and the problems there that not everyone needs to know. Third, the site.
“Your guy was in over his head, he knew it, you knew it, you wanted it fixed so leaving that alone. Now from a streamlining and efficiency standpoint I noted several other areas that could use work. We’ve talked about the lists, and while organized on the day and your people trained well, it can be better.
“The tablets have arrived and I’ve formatted them with the bare bones program so your teams can start getting a feel for them. Carrie brought up shipping problems and I agree, what you’ve been dealing with is bullshit.
“Now, two options then to do it better—partner with Amazon and let them sell for you, or UPS. Amazon takes out so much per item and given you sell smaller items it’s not cost effective.
“Using UPS will be. It’s based on weight and can easily be calculated for shipping costs on the website. My overall goal is to make everything less stressful and run better. You’ve been running to make things up and that’s understandable, but going forward, the plan will be to improve efficiency.”
“Drop the bomb,” I pushed when I could tell he was getting nervous. “I know this is going to have a huge price tag and I can take it, so just drop the bomb.”
He nodded, letting out a slow breath, and pointed to the monitor. “I propose you expand. First, you purchase the farm next door—”
“How would that farm feel about that?” Travis asked.
“Very well actually,” Deon answered. “They were thinking of selling in the next few years and retiring. They were thrilled at the possibility it would be to Sia without Realtors and whatever extra hoops, and they adore her so the land would be in good hands.”
“Just add a hundred acres more?” I chuckled, giving him approving look for thinking big. “Well, how greedy of you.” I bit back a smirk when heat flashed in his eyes but he continued.
“We’ll implement the security measures before the sale and expansion happens, but eventually it will look like this.” He changed the map to add the new land and broke what would be mine into four uneven parts. “Now you’d have three streets with entrances and the main road on the side without.
“That gives you entrances to each part of your land. I say this not to chastise, but to do it better, but there is no reason Travis needs access to the brew house. All the people for the greenhouses shouldn’t be able to enter here, and given you’re already being targeted, that’s not safe.
“Your house is the same. That will become a call button entrance that will not open unless you buzz them in. The brew house will have keycards for your employees and people.
“The greenhouses the same. Travis gets one keycard that he gives to his group that works for him like he would keys to a PO box or the store. It’s secure and not just anyone coming in saying they’re new with Travis or any of the others. I’m certainly not picking on him.”
I nodded. It made sense and it was feasible. “The volunteers?”
“Same thing,” he answered, nodding when I went to object. “They are getting free food, so they can jump through one hoop to keep you and all of this safe.”
“Plus, volunteers are registered and have IDs at hospitals or animal shelters or any other business,” Carrie added. “I think it’s absolutely smart and needed.”
Everyone else seemed in agreement and I found myself nodding. Okay, if it wasn’t that far out there, then I could get on board. Deon seemed relieved that his job of protecting me and all of what I had would be easier.
“Now, their house will be converted into your new store,” Deon continued. “It will now be on the property and protected. Renovations will be made as needed but it will also house your finished product. It will also be where your full-time employees work so it’s part store, warehouse, and offices.”
“But—” I started to object.
“You need full-time employees, Sia,” he said firmly. “They will leave you alone at the brew house so no one’s nosy and you have the peace you need to work. It’s a whole different area, but you have thousands of orders piling up in your email. You need full-time staff to run the store, handle the shipments, and the customer service. You can do social media stuff then and have room to expand, do better.”
“It’s smart,” Carrie muttered when I didn’t answer, my other managers nodding. “Hell, I would want the job when I graduated. I love working for you, and being a production or sales manager for such a cool company with awesome products would be amazing.”
“Maybe,” I said, wanting to see what else he had planned.
He nodded. “The commercial building they have will be converted to a community outreach building.”
He hurried on when I opened my mouth. “One of your employees can handle all the crazy regularly, including everything you donate, but building on that, the juicers which people will want. There’s no reason that can’t be capitalized on.”
“We can’t sell it just like I don’t sell my produce as—”
“You’ll get officials in here demanding what your secrets are,” he cut in, nodding. “The inspectors to grant you as organic and that means someone knowing your proprietary nutrients and how you pull off your magic. And that will get out just like it always does, just like those who work for companies that have products like yours. They sign NDAs too but someone always talks.
“I get that, but you’ve got the way around that. There are other ways around that. If the cheerleaders hold a fundraiser and sell the juice, you didn’t sell it. They used your produce and machines.
“If a church does it, same thing. I also have ideas to upgrade the brew house for bigger machines and equipment. I’ve seen you running three forty-gallon kettles of the same batches. Can’t you not get a bigger one?”
“Yes,” I answered, understanding he was asking more because of the magic used. “Even if I didn’t need a huge batch, those still work and on that, I agree. Those just sort of fell into my lap and like you said, we’ve been running to catch up, not take a step back and assess.”
“I understand, but I did that. You need more warehouse space here for ingredients, a bigger drying room, and more space for packaging. I have more specifics to go over with you as well but later. These kettles you have can be moved to the outreach building. There’s no reason a group of volunteers from a church can’t come make jams to sell for a fundraiser.”
I winced. “Yeah, I know Briony lets a few pick what they want from her greenhouses, but they always try and convert me. And marry me off.”
His lips twitched. “I’m sure we can make it clear behaving is part of the bargain, especially if they know your family tried to force you into a marriage to benefit them.”
I swallowed a flinch, several people going still around me. His eyes flashed upset with his mistake because he didn’t know my full cover story.
“My father’s family tried after my parents passed. My parents would never have allowed that. Distant family tried to marry me off to get into the corporate farming game and take all my parents built.”
Deon nodded. “We think some of this might be part of what’s going on now so that’s why I know. Sorry, I shouldn’t have just announced that.”
“It’s fine, but you handle the churches. People might like me, but agnostic or mostly maybe Wiccan doesn’t always do well with churches.”
“I know several good ones that wouldn’t care if you were atheist, as everyone does their own thing. They prefer knowing kind people than the labels,” one of the other restaurant owners promised. “And they would love a chance like that. They would come help to get it going for sure.”
Deon nodded, taking notes probably to talk to him later.
“There will be offices and a counter in the community building, and that’s where the juice will be and someone who knows how to do it full time. We saw how it was done and in the greenhouse isn’t the right space. Have a sort of juice bar set up, and if Travis’s guys harvest thirty pounds of oranges, that goes into the system.
“They pick up their gallon of orange juice that’s already been squeezed from there. It would be too much time cleaning in between squeezing instead of one long one from all the oranges and then all the lemons.
“And people can blend if they want like Carrie and her people want to. I have the best options for bottles they’ll bring back and will be cleaned there. New plastic caps every time.
“And it all becomes so much more efficient. Yes, you’ll add on more greenhouses and one whole loofah greenhouse, because even I know you always need more loofah.
“But I promise it won’t be as overwhelming as it seems. I’ve laid it out in stages and with specifics that can easily be pushed back or moved forward depending on how each stage progresses.
“We’ve got more help with schools being off a few more weeks and can get a jump on all of it. A lot is on my end that I will handle. At the end of it you’ll have expanded, but you’ll also have a lot less on your plate, and with the right bottom lines that will make the investment worth it.”
I rubbed my neck as I stared over it and mulled the idea. “And how long would this take?” How long would you be here with me?
“At least six months, probably closer to eight or nine to not rush and find the right contractors.”
I bit back a smile at the answer and not from a business standpoint, which was so unlike me I almost fell off my chair when I realized it.
“I’m leaning towards yes but I want to talk to some people, including a potential investor in the expansion. Definitely I need to talk to some of the farms and growers that sell to me directly if they could handle the increase, but I’m leaning towards yes.”
The excitement exploded in the room and people stayed for the in-depth look at the first stage, which really amused me. And halfway through I realized I was really turned on. I loved a smart man and Deon was ridiculously intelligent, having thought of how to handle a lot of this from several angles.
Nice.
8
Deon
The next several weeks with Sia were amazing, the best of my life. After she talked with Meave, Briony, and several other of her LLL witch friends, they all backed the idea of doing things better—and more importantly, protecting her best.
We finalized the details and I honestly felt guilty about the amount she was paying me when half of why I kept adding more was to have an excuse to stay with her longer.
The other half was because it was good for her and her business, which was important to her and I wanted to help… Just from right at her side.
The implementing of the new program with the tablets and running lists and information better went amazingly well. She was shocked how easily everyone took to it.
Same with getting the right system in for security, including cameras at the gates, getting the right software on her new computers with extended hard drives, and offsite storage of video so no one could fuck with it.
When people heard it was all to protect Sia, no one said a word about having to deal with keycards and IDs, even if volunteering.
The neighbors were pretty quick to sell after they talked price for real. Meave knew an awesome architect, who did her renovations, and the woman made up designs that thrilled Sia for her new store and corporate offices even though it meant expanding the house.
Travis knew good guys who had done his restaurant, and some of the others even came and helped on weekends with the crew.
Same with the community building. Everyone was willing to help once she had the right supplies to insulate it a bit better, convert a section into a full kitchen to handle fruit, whatever else might be going on, and even get the sales counter in.
Even though it was winter, we figured how to get a new drive put in on the back of the property to connect to the other greenhouses.
The second the weather was warm enough, Sia had gobs of people helping to put in the fencing needed to separate the parts of the property. She was shocked, but I knew it would be like that. She was so, so sweet to everyone that there was no way they wouldn’t help her if they knew how.
It took me a few weeks to get the program to run fully the way she needed before I integrated it with the site. Before we gave a blanket it was back up, I worked with her team and the new system of shipping with UPS to process the orders that were piled in Sia’s email.
And with the special discounts for the delay, people were surprisingly understanding—well, mostly—because of the hacking and break-ins.
And we just kept moving forward. The site came back up and Sia was impressed and I liked when Sia was impressed with me. I really did.
Fuck, it was amazing when she was and I craved it.
Weeks of being her Tuesday and Friday night guy and it was going well. I played the long game, being patient, noting the looks she gave me worrying I’d be jealous when Travis came over that first night or someone else Thursday.
That wouldn’t be the way to win her. She need patience and a chance to process the changes before taking a step closer.
But there was progress too. I noticed after I touched her now and again during work—nothing sexual but simply touches—she did the same with me. I felt the chemistry and the teasing.
It drove me a bit nuts that I wound her up and someone else got to have fun with her, but after they were gone, she was all mine again. I never pushed into their time but added chances for my time.
She never objected to me eating her out while she had her coffee. It was one of her favorite things when I knelt behind her and attacked her sweet pussy while she stood there.
And that was all I did. I thanked her for letting me be greedy and the rest of the day she would shoot me looks full of heat.
My patience and attention paid off, because when things ended with her Sunday night guy the first week of February, she casually mentioned it and maybe not finding someone new when I was so greedy and needed her. I took the bait but asked for something in return that took some convincing to get.
“I would love to be greedy and have Sunday. Maybe make Sunday hot and heavy anal sex night and fuck you so good, but I want to be extra greedy.”
“Like?” she asked, giving me a heated but hesitant look.
“Sleep with me those nights. Stay in my room. I’m not asking to invade your haven, but I want to hold you after we share something so explosive.” I moved over to her when she didn’t answer. “We could start the week with slow making love if you wake in my arms.” I kissed that spot on her neck that made her shiver. “Be my witch the whole night, Sia. I’ll treasure you like you deserve.”
She licked her lips as she glanced up at me from under her lashes. “Fine, but you shower with me the morning after. I love your scalp massages and I’m going to be greedy too then.”
