Not Quite Perfect (Not Quite Series Book 5) (6 page)

Mary placed her focus back on her notes to find herself being pulled out of them once again.

“Is it always this busy in here?”

“Weekdays. The breakfast crowd on Saturday and Sunday keeps it open on the weekends.”

“It sounds like you come here a lot.”

The stranger had settled into his seat, twisting his body just enough for her to know that he wasn’t going to let her ignore him. So instead of being rude, she went ahead and put her pen down and closed her notebook.

“At least once a week. Are you new to the area?”

“I started my new job at Owen, Peters, and Masons last week.”

She recognized the name of the firm. Their offices sat behind the building she was in. “So you’re an attorney?”

He shook his head. “An accountant.”

She pushed her unruly hair over her shoulder.

“I know, boring, huh?”

“Numbers are important,” she told him.

“They do a lot of forensic accounting over there. Something I specialize in.”

“Congratulations on your new position then.”

He lifted up his glass of water and she followed his lead. “And to new friends.”

Mary went ahead and lowered her glass and extended her hand. “Mary Kildare.”

“Kent Duvall.” He held her hand a fraction too long.

Instead of it upsetting her, she looked a little closer and saw the lift in his eyes. The one that said he liked what he saw.

How had that happened? She hadn’t been so much as glanced toward in months, now she had a date with Glen before the week ran out and Mr. Duvall was giving her the eye.

Carla arrived with two Reubens, giving them both something to do other than talk.

“That is one thick sandwich.”

It took both hands to pick it up, and still pickled cabbage managed to drip onto her plate. “Enjoy.”

It was salty, fatty, and sinful, but oh so good. Mary enjoyed her first bite and watched Kent as he took his. He smiled as the flavors hit his tongue.

“That’s amazing,” he said once he swallowed.

Mary acknowledged with a hum and went in for bite number two.

Kent quizzed her on other places close by to catch lunch and asked where happy hour took place when the mood struck.

She offered lunch suggestions but explained that she didn’t do happy hour close by and he’d have to ask his office staff for that connection.

By the time she’d made it through half of her sandwich, Carla had already dropped off a small box for the other half along with the bill. As often as she tried, getting through the whole meal proved impossible. Besides, lunch the next day or dinner that night was instant.

Her phone buzzed in her purse as she finished boxing her lunch.

It was Dakota with a text.
I’m leaving the hospital by three.

Do you need anything?

Xanax for my mother. She’s already driving me crazy.

Mary grinned.
You’ll have to ask your husband for that prescription.

The symbol of a heart and the letter
U
appeared, which Mary sent back before tossing her phone back in her purse. She set the money on the counter for her lunch, the same amount she always did, and twisted out of her chair.

Kent seemed disappointed she was leaving. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” she told him.

He wiped his face. “Maybe I’ll see you here again?”

She felt the need to move quickly . . . like if she didn’t, this stranger, who wasn’t hard to look at and hadn’t given her one red flag during their brief conversation, was going to ask for her number . . . or something . . . if she didn’t run away. On any other day, or week, she might linger and see where things went, but since Glen had just asked her out, her insides twisted with the thought of juggling two men.

“I am a regular,” she reminded him.

His eyes did that connecting thing again. “I’ll look forward to it.”

She was blushing. Felt the heat in her cheeks and tried her best to stop it. “Have a nice day.”

“Good-bye, Mary.”

She shuffled a little too quickly and felt his eyes follow her as she walked out of the deli.

Chapter Seven

Glen sat in a meeting with all the senior brokers for Fairchild Charters. Because he’d called a meeting, the men wore suits and ties, where on most days they’d feel free working in more casual attire.

“As you all know, our bookings are down from last year.”

“Damn recession.” Chris was his number two when it came to sales. The man had been with the company for close to fifteen years and had lost most of the hair on his head to prove it. He’d been on the team longer than Glen had held the position of CFO.

“Even our regulars are holding back on their flights this year,” Scott said.

Glen leaned forward on his elbows. “Last year we offered the two-thousand-dollar recession coupon and our flights increased by eight percent over the holidays.”

“Are you suggesting another coupon?”

Glen shook his head. “I think we need new promotions.”

The half a dozen men sitting at the table stared at each other.

“Nothing?”

“We’ve been here before, Glen. Discounts, empty leg incentives, it’s all we have outside of giving away free flights.” Scott probably had the most lucrative broker clientele. He pulled in over seven figures annually even with the recession.

“There has to be more ways to pull in new clients.”

Jay, a thirty-five-year-old previous Wall Street stockbroker, was the newest addition to their senior team. “If you don’t mind me saying, Glen . . . I think you’re asking the wrong group of brokers.”

All eyes turned to the newbie. A few men instantly protested.

Glen stopped them. “Who should I ask?”

“The guys on the floor . . . those putting out cold calls in an effort to find the next rock star, the next basketball player who signed a big contract and doesn’t want to fly commercially anymore. The new guys are listening to the excuses as to why someone with the means says no. All of us are in the black. We don’t hustle like we once did.”

“Speak for yourself, Jay,” Chris scolded.

“Do you even know where to find the cold call list?” Jay asked.

Glen knew cold calls were taken off of the Contact Us page on their website. But even he had no idea how to access it.

Chris started to argue. “I’m beyond cold calls.”

“Exactly my point.”

“I do my job.”

“Damn, Chris . . . let it go. Jay has a point.” This came from Gerald, another onetime stockbroker who made the switch to selling private charters after the market crash. And like Jay, he’d made a name for himself in a short amount of time. That seemed to be the case with Fairchild Charters. Their brokers circulated quickly because of the stress of the job. It was all high sales, not something Glen could remove. The incentive his brokers had to fill more flights was what kept his birds in the air.

Glen stopped the arguing with his words. “Here’s what I want from you. I need a list of names from the floor. Guys who have been with us long enough to taste what they want, know the system, but haven’t hit the point where their client list pays them enough to work less than five days a week.”

“I don’t know that many of the newbies,” Scott confessed.

Glen leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe we need to start up a mentorship incentive.”

There was one thing Glen had learned about the brokers. They were a competitive lot who didn’t take a ton of shit from their coworkers.

Glen pushed back from the table. “I want a list of three names minimum from each of you by Monday.”

He left the men muttering to themselves with thirty minutes to spare before meeting with his brother for lunch.

He waltzed past the secretary of his chief operating officer with a simple point of his finger. “Is he with anyone?”

“Nope.”

Glen smiled and noticed the flush on the secretary’s cheeks. Cute, but he didn’t mix work with pleasure.

The door was open to the corner office that had been held by Chuck Nielson almost since the inception of Fairchild Charters. The older man had been one of Glen’s father’s best friends in addition to one of his most valued employees. “Gotta minute?” Glen asked as he let himself in.

“Always.” The man never turned him away. Sure, he was technically Glen’s employee, but he’d been a mentor of immeasurable importance after Glen’s parents had died in an unexpected plane crash and was always treated like an extension of the family.

“I just got out of a broker meeting.” Glen closed the door behind him.

“Learn anything invaluable?”

“Disturbing, actually.”

Chuck regarded him with a crick of his head. “Oh?”

“Our team didn’t have any ideas, general or specific, to increase sales.”

“That’s not unusual,” Chuck told him. “They’re not the hungry ones.”

Glen pointed two fingers in Chuck’s direction. “Exactly. So I asked them to give me names of newer brokers who we can tap into for ideas.”

“Excellent idea. So what was disturbing?”

Instead of answering the question, Glen said, “We need different levels of broker meetings.”

“I’m listening.”

Glen paced the office instead of sitting. He liked working on his feet whenever he could. Sadly, a lot of his job was behind a desk.

“How many employees do we have on our sales team?”

“Just here? Or in our other locations?”

“Here.” They had brokers in their satellite locations, but the majority of their calls were funneled through the main office.

“Fifty to seventy. Depends on the turnover.”

“That isn’t including the exec team?”

“No.”

“Damn.”

“Mind sharing, Glen?”

He met Chuck’s gaze. “I’m slacking. I know a few of the guys on the floor based on the payroll that comes across my desk, but I couldn’t match a face to the name.”

“Your job isn’t in personnel.”

“No. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t know a little more about the team bringing in business.” The memory of his father talking about an employee, a broker . . . a secretary, even someone in the mail room came to mind. He’d always taken the time to meet the employees, even if only once. It’s part of why Fairchild Charters had done so well. It wasn’t a family business in the full sense. They had hundreds of employees from all walks of life. They commissioned planes all over the globe for their clients. They did have a small fleet of their own aircraft and several pilots on call to fly within a couple of hours when need be. It would be impossible to know everyone.

But Glen could certainly take the time to meet his brokers.

“You know, son, it’s not disturbing to stumble across an idea that stares you in the face. It’s disturbing if you don’t.”

Chuck was right. He felt better listening to the man’s wisdom.

Glen moved to leave the office.

“Glen, Mimi and I haven’t had you over for dinner for months. This weekend good for you?” Mimi was Chuck’s wife of over thirty years.

“I have plans.” A mass of blonde curly hair filed his head and made all the disturbing thoughts blow away.

Chuck offered a smile. “Good ones, I hope.”

“I’m not sure yet.”

Save me!

The text from Dakota followed Mary’s last client of the day. It was after five, later than she normally worked, but she’d had to squeeze her clients in from the two days she spent at the hospital with her BFF.

That bad?
Mary texted en route to her car.

They’re fighting over who needs to stay here and who can come next week.

The image of Dakota’s small-town Southern mother fighting with Walt’s metropolitan mother made her chuckle.
I’m on my way.

Hurry. My mother is in my kitchen rearranging everything.

Mary placed her phone in her purse and nearly ran straight into a chest.

She snapped her eyes up and stepped back. “I’m sorry . . . I wasn’t—” Her words fell away. “Jacob?”

Jacob Golfs was standing beside the driver’s side door of her car, his expression stoic, his clothes slightly disheveled. “Hello, Mary.”

She’d always given her clients permission to use her first name. But standing this close to one who had recently started to act out of character made her wonder if that was a good decision.

“What can I do for you?” She tried to keep her stance at ease even when the hair on her neck was standing up.

“You spoke with Nina.”

“Briefly, this morning.”

“What did she say?”

“You know I can’t talk about that. If you’d like to discuss something we all spoke about together . . .” She left her words open-ended, knowing he understood the rules.

He blinked a few times. “She won’t talk to me.”

Nina had told her that Jacob was calling obsessively, even when she told him she needed time to think, time away from him.

“Sometimes a little distance helps us see things clearly,” Mary told him.

“Did she say that?”

Mary knew how to use his words to help her cause. “Does that sound like something she’d say?”

He shook his head. “She said to stay away so she could think.”

“And are you giving her space?”

He was rubbing his thumb to his forefinger on both hands. “If I can’t talk to her, I can’t make it right.”

The man was codependent with his wife and would probably never admit it.

“Perhaps if you gave her a couple days to cool off she’d talk to you.”

Jacob kept shaking his head no. “This is making me nuts.”

Obviously.

“One of Nina’s concerns in counseling is that you don’t communicate effectively.”

“I can’t
communicate
at all if she won’t pick up the phone or tell me where she is.” He spat out the word
communicate
as if it left a sour taste in his mouth.

“She told you her needs, Jacob. Time to think. If you are listening to her and trying to meet her needs, which you tell me you want to do, then you’ll give her some space.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Space. Fine.”

“Good.”

Jacob turned a full circle before twisting toward his car on the other side of the lot.

Mary scrambled a little quickly inside hers and locked the door. She knew a conversation about her personal boundaries was in order, but she didn’t dare have it while standing alone in a parking lot.

The drive home helped clear her thoughts. It would have been nice to drive by her favorite beach spot, but the text from Dakota had pushed her to get home before the in-laws made a frazzled time even worse.

Mary made quick work of dropping off her car, her notebook, her briefcase holding her laptop, and the leftovers from lunch at her place before heading across the street.

After a single knock, Mary let herself in as she had for years.

Something savory cooked in the oven, filling the house with a scent Mary had never experienced in Dakota’s place.

“Biscuits are about the easiest thing to cook, JoAnne,” Elaine was scolding the other grandmother.

“Mine come from a box.”

“That’s a shame.”

Mary poked her head into the kitchen. “Hello.”

“Hi, Mary. I didn’t hear you knock.” JoAnne was one for propriety.

“She doesn’t have to knock.” Dakota sat perched on the couch, her cast leg elevated on several pillows on the coffee table.

Mary did a quick head count. She saw the men outside in the backyard. A tiny bassinet sat beside the sofa. Inside, a sleeping Leo puffed with pink lips. She moved beside Dakota and sat next to her. “So how is
Grace
doing today?” She stared at the cast as she spoke.

“It feels better now that I can’t move it.”

“Blue suits you.” The baby blue cast looked like Leo’s blankets.

“I thought it worked.”

Mary ran her thumb under Dakota’s left eye. “You’re exhausted.”

“He’s up every two hours needing a boob.”

“Then you should try sleeping now.”

Dakota glanced toward the kitchen. Both Elaine and JoAnne were huddled around the stove, their backs to them. “Need I say more?”

“What is Walt saying?” she whispered.

“That it will only be a couple of days. But they keep talking like they will be here for weeks.”

Yeah, but Dakota needed her rest now. “Where is Monica?”