by Anne Conley
“Watch out for snakes. ‘Tis the season.” In fact, it was unseasonably warm and dry this year, which had the snakes out and looking for water in unlikely places. “The molding is all over against this wall back here.” She picked her way through the piles of wood, watching where she stepped, leading the way to where Les needed to look.
A low whistle came from Les. “This is some pretty nice stuff. Where’d you get it?”
“Um, some of it came from a remodel Mr. Burt did last winter, some of it came from an auction in Jacksonville, and some of it came from the old Lancaster place on Serendipity Road when they tore it down. I made a deal with those folks. They let me come in and take what I wanted for a small fee.”
“Cool,” Les murmured as he pulled pieces away from the wall, choosing what he wanted to take with him. Suddenly, he dropped everything with a girlish shriek and jumped back. Charlie was at his side in an instant, gun drawn.
Sure enough, a copperhead about two feet long lay there, coiled up and looking deceptively innocent.
“Good eye, Les. Those things are bad news.” Carefully, she aimed at the head, and as soon as she drew a bead on it, the head disintegrated with a loud bang. Smoke hung in the air along with the gunpowder’s acrid smell.
“My hero. I hate snakes.” Les tried to chuckle good-naturedly, but Charlie could see he was shaken up. “They don’t travel in pairs, do they?” He was looking around them, eyes wild while he shoved his shaking hands in his pockets. Charlie suppressed her giggle. He probably hated clowns, too.
“No, that’s water moccasins. At least, that’s what I’ve heard, anyway.” She picked up the pieces of molding he’d dropped and led the way out the shed, lithely dancing between piles of wood.
“You always packing out here?”
“Yeah, it’s snake shot in a .22 revolver. Won’t really hurt a man, but it’ll blow off a snake’s head in a heartbeat.” This was her home now, and as distasteful as snakes were, she’d learned to co-exist with the non-poisonous ones and she had a bullet for every poisonous one she ran across.
“I feel so safe with you.” The teasing lilt in his voice brought a smile to her face.
“I aim to please,” she drawled.
“Be sure and tell Charlie you need a raise. In fact, I’ll email him this afternoon, as soon as I get back to my office.” He was walking behind her, carrying the pieces he would be taking back to his customers.
“Will do.”
Justin’s Jetta was parked in front of the house when they walked back into the office and the flirty banter was gone. His dark gaze raked over her possessively, before dragging across Les, then he planted a firm kiss on Charlie’s mouth.
“I brought you lunch, sweetheart. I know you probably haven’t eaten yet.” Keeping his arm draped around her shoulders, he handed her a plastic container filled with some sort of hamburger helper.
“Thanks, Justin. That’s sweet. I’ll eat in a little bit.” Stifling her annoyance, she set the container on the edge of her desk and turned back to Les. “Just bring back whatever the customer doesn’t pick, and you can pay for the rest. I’ll write up the ticket for you then. Okay?”
“Sure, I’ll try to get them to look at it this afternoon and choose. Hopefully I’ll be back out here later tomorrow.” He flashed a smile at her, waved to Justin, and left.
“I don’t like that guy,” Justin announced after Les had walked out the door.
“You don’t like any guy who talks to me,” Charlie said dismissively.
“So?” He leaned against her desk.
Leaning against the other side of her desk, so she was looking directly into Justin’s eyes, Charlie replied patiently, “So, my business deals primarily with men. You’re going to have to get over that if we’re going to keep seeing each other.”
“Why did you go into a business like this again?”
“Because I like old houses and the details that make them unique. I wanted to do this. I enjoy doing this. And I make money doing this.” She’d had this discussion with Justin before, but he didn’t understand it. He didn’t really like old houses, living in a newer subdivision that had gone up in the last ten years on the outskirts of Serendipity.
He grunted in reply, which was all Charlie could hope for. It was either a grunt or an argument, and she wasn’t in the mood for the latter. She’d been relatively happy with her no-strings attached attitude until she met Justin, but doubts had been rising to the surface of her mind about him for some time. Initially, she’d told Justin they could have a casual thing, since she wasn’t interested in anything else, but he’d convinced her to take things a step further. Charlie was discovering it was a mistake to give it a go. He was hot, good between the sheets, and a relatively good guy. But if this was what a relationship was, having to justify her decisions all the time, she wasn’t so sure about it.
Deciding to keep the peace, because she didn’t have the energy for what she wanted to say, Charlie ate in silence. The food was warm and tasty and Charlie had skipped breakfast. Since she’d been up since the wee hours of the morning, she was starving in addition to exhausted.
“Want to go out for dinner tonight?”
“I was hoping for an early night tonight. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Justin pouted, sticking his bottom lip out in an unattractive manner. He had some annoying habits, and his pouty, possessive side wasn’t attractive. Since the pouty, possessive stuff had started happening, the sex had gone downhill. For her, anyway.
“I haven’t seen you in three days, except for bringing you lunch and that movie last night. I really need some Charlie-time,” he wheedled, the whiny tone grating on Charlie’s nerves.
“Okay, but I need to have an early night. Just dinner. No movies, no dancing, no going back to your place. Okay? I have to be in bed at eight o’clock. Or else I’ll die.” She was only half-joking.
“Fine.” He nuzzled her neck, and Charlie had to admit it felt good. “I’ll pick you up here? Five-thirty?”
“Sounds good.” She kissed him—a lazy kiss that had no chemistry whatsoever—and he left, taking his plastic container with him.
After Justin was gone, she logged onto her email and saw one from an auction service. She had a client who dealt with her directly to find stained glass pieces from the McMannis Manufacturer. It was an old family business that had gone under during the depression, and the great-grandson of the artisan was trying to acquire all of his ancestor’s pieces he could. Charlie had put out feelers with the auction houses she knew, and they sent her alerts when something they thought she’d be interested in was going up for sale. And she was definitely interested in this piece.
It was a McMannis piece—an arched stained-glass piece of the Madonna and child. The picture on the website was beautiful, and had the signature coloring of the McMannis artisans. It really was gorgeous. The auction was in California, a four-day drive—if she was careful—in two weeks. That would give her a week to get ready and a week to get there. No problem.
She put in a call to Mr. McMannis, making sure he authorized the travel expenses before she made the drive, and as soon as he heard what the piece was, he was ecstatic.
“He did a series on the Madonna for the Austins, the first governor of Texas. How exciting! There were five arches of various sizes for the first capitol building. Of course, subsequent renovations relocated them and split them up. This is the first one I’ve been able to find.” Mr. McMannis was an older gentleman, in his sixties, who had retired from the railroad. Apparently, he’d done some speculation on the side, because he was a very rich man who wanted his family’s stained-glass pieces. What he did with them was anybody’s guess.
“Well, I’m glad I could locate another piece for you.” This was her third to find, and his finder’s fees had been pretty generous. “Let’s discuss the maximum bid for this one.”
After hanging up with Mr. McMannis, Charlie felt like her day was pretty productive. She loved road trips for pi
eces. As she mentally calculated what she would need to take with her, she scanned through her email again, finding Les’s email to “her boss.”
She smiled as she opened it up.
Mr. Booke,
I’m writing to let you know how pleased I am with your Girl Friday, who does everything at your place of business. I’ve never met you, but she’s always there, willing to greet me with a smile. She knows the products, where they come from, and their historical significance. Today, she even saved my life from a four-foot copperhead. It was the biggest copperhead I’ve seen in my life, and she selflessly shot it in the head.
I don’t think you pay her enough. She hasn’t discussed her pay scale with me, but whatever it is, it’s not enough. She needs a raise. That girl could run your business for months in your absence, and nobody would ever be the wiser. Help like that is hard to find.
I just wanted to let you know you have a gem there. Keep her happy.
Les Paul
Well, what a fucking sweetheart. Charlie let the warmth of his words flow through her. Nobody really said that many nice things about her. Ever. Sure she got compliments, but the rare ‘Hey, nice job’ didn’t really compare to this email. And the thing of it was, Les had no idea she was Mr. Booke. It wasn’t anything intentional, at all. The first time he’d called, he’d just assumed she was a secretary or assistant or something. And she hadn’t corrected him. He certainly wasn’t the only one who assumed she was just a secretary, but Les hadn’t figured it out yet.
She enjoyed his flirty banter on the phone, and was afraid it would stop if he knew she ran the business. A lot of men around Serendipity were like that. They felt intimidated by a woman who knew her way around business stuff, and Charlie had always been good with numbers. Not much else, but numbers were her thing. And the architectural details were also a man’s world, one she wasn’t much welcome in. She’d like to think not all men were that way, but she wasn’t going to push it. Just the fact Les had assumed she wasn’t the owner of Charlie’s Recycled Restoration spoke volumes about his mindset. Another reason not to date him.
Realizing what time it was, she logged off the computer and got ready for her date with Justin. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be too pushy tonight, and she’d actually be able to go to bed at a decent time.
Chapter 3
From the Serendipity Herald—December of last year
Last night, in a closed board meeting, Les Paul was named chairman of the board of the Refuge of Light, a local non-profit organization battling human trafficking in East Texas.
“It’s a larger problem here than anybody realizes. With Dallas and Houston about the same distance away, this is a central location for predators to snatch young girls and exploit them,” Paul said regarding the organization. “The Refuge is taking a holistic approach to healing the victims instead of criminalizing them and dumping them back into society.” Mr. Paul is also heading the project underway to build a safe house for the victims.
When asked about The Liberator, Mr. Paul replied, “We honestly have no idea who she is, other than she’s a woman. The girls’ descriptions vary widely, probably because of the amounts of drugs pumped into their systems and their lack of bindings to any sort of reality we can relate to.” The Liberator has been anonymously rescuing girls and dumping them, literally, on the Refuge’s doorstep for five months. The Refuge of Light has expressed an interest in discovering her identity.
“We want to be able to thank her. Also we feel that our efforts could be more effective if we could work with The Liberator and her sources. For one thing, we have no idea how she knows where the girls are to rescue them.”
The organization is making plans for their annual fundraising banquet in May of next year.
“Shit!” An enormous tower of papers and drawings spilled off Les’s desk as he swung around in his chair, toppling to the floor. He bent down to pick it up, gathering everything in his arms and dumping it on the desk. He needed to find the bid sheet he’d made up for the Grants, his client who’d suddenly decided they needed crown molding in their dining room. Shuffling papers around, he again told himself he needed a helper, someone like Sweetness, to come in and turn his office into a well-oiled machine. In fact…
He opened his email, to find that Mr. Booke had indeed replied to him.
Mr. Paul,
If you insist that I give my associate a raise, then I will have to pass the expense down to my customers. All crown molding will be fifty cents a linear foot more than the quoted cost. Thank you for bringing the issue to my attention.
Charlie Booke
Well, that didn’t work out the way he’d intended it to. He needed to bring Sweetness over to his side, somehow. He’d dumped the papers off the floor onto his desktop, where his phone was. He needed to call Sweetness and hear her voice.
Jesus, he was half in love with the woman, and he didn’t even know her name. He grunted under his breath. Story of his damn life.
He was rummaging through the papers when his phone rang. Spilling most of them onto the floor in his haste to answer it, he managed to find the lifeline of his business.
“This is Les.”
“Hey, buddy! Long time no see. How’s things?”
“Better than I deserve, Lance. How are you doing?” He’d gone to college with Lance nearly twenty years ago, and had gotten an invitation to his third wedding coming up. Unable to attend, since Lance lived outside of LA now, Les had sent a gift card to someplace they’d registered.
“Tying the knot in a couple of weeks and I’ve run into a problem. I was hoping you could help me out, man.”
“Name it.”
“Our band has quit on us. Their manager double-booked them or something, and now Priscilla is freaking out that we don’t have anyone to play at the wedding. I managed to get a DJ for the first part, but Priscilla wants music for four hours, and there isn’t a DJ available for that long on such short notice. Can you play some background music for a couple of hours after the DJ is gone?”
“You want me to drive out there to play at your wedding?”
“I’ll pay for a plane ticket, man. No problem. Or gas, whatever.”
“Okay. I can do that. I don’t fly, though; it’ll have to be gas.”
“You’re the best. You can play whatever you want to—you don’t have to go all chicken-dance on us and shit.”
“Deal.”
After hanging up the phone, Les threaded his hands on top of his head and leaned back. Now he had something to look forward to. With all of Sweetness’s flirting and posturing, the truth was, she had a boyfriend. And she was female. No way would she ever be interested in anything with him.
She’d looked exhausted yesterday, and Les caught himself hoping she managed to get some rest. The shadows in her eyes were deeper yesterday, too. Les didn’t have a clue what had happened in her life to make her look so vulnerable, but the look broke his heart. Not that he had a right to even think about his heart where she was concerned, but if he was honest with himself, Les wanted to get closer to Sweetness.
He was a fool for love—had been in love with nearly every woman he’d ever met—and had never really had a serious relationship. He’d had a couple of seriously one-sided ones, but nothing ever stuck. Sweetness wouldn’t be any different.
But she just might come and work for him, if he could get the price right.
He dialed her number and listened to it ring.
“Charlie’s Recycled Restoration, can I help you?” Her sweet, throaty voice screamed sex at him, and he shifted in his seat to accompany the sudden tightness in his pants.
“Hey there, Sweetness.”
“Hey, Les. Did your clients like any of the molding?”
“Yeah, I’ll be out later today to pick it up, but I was calling about something else.”
“Oh yeah?” Her voice lowered an octave, and Les had to control the urge to start talking dirty. That wasn’t really his bag, but something about this woman made him think a
ll sorts of inappropriate thoughts.
“How would you like to come over to the dark side…?”
“Excuse me?”
“How much is Charlie paying you? I’ll double it if you come work for me. I need someone with your knowledge and aptitude to help me. And you’re good with organization and numbers. Come on, please?”
“I don’t think so, Les. I’ve got a really good gig here.” He could hear her laughing, and it stung a little, but he was nothing if not persistent.
“What, are there benefits I’m not aware of?”
“You could say so, yes.” She sounded cagey, but still playful, so he decided to play along.
“I can tack on some extra benefits, Sweetness. You just name it.” Her breath caught on that line, so he continued. At some point, he probably shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t stop himself. The husky timbre of his voice gave his intentions away. “I got all sorts of benefits in mind for you, Sweetness.”
“I’m sure your benefits are…amazing.” She was breathless, and Les did a fist pump in the air in spite of himself. “But I really can’t.”
He wilted a little, but remained confident persistence would pay off in the long run. “Think about it, the offer’s open.” Defeated, he ended the call with the promise of seeing her that afternoon. He’d try to time it so her boyfriend wasn’t there. Maybe he could illustrate the benefits he had in mind.
Charlie was hopeful that Justin would get the hint. She’d told him last night at dinner that she was capable of feeding herself and didn’t need him to bring her lunch every day. Unfortunately, he hadn’t listened to her, because at twelve-thirty on the dot, he showed up at her door, sandwiches in hand.
“I brought lunch. Have you eaten?”
“No, I was about to grab something though. I told you last night you don’t have to bring me food.”
“It’s no problem. I was making my own lunch and went ahead and made yours too.” He walked around her desk and spun her chair to face him. Landing a kiss on her lips, he whispered against her mouth. “I missed you, Charlie.”
