“Sure I do. What do you call it when we finish something and I tell you to take a long weekend? Comp time. Meanwhile, I’ll make some calls and find you somebody else to work for. What do you want to do? This, or more of an office job?”
“Well, this, if I got to choose. This is the best job I’ve ever had. I told you so.”
He grinned. “Thought maybe you were just flattering me.”
“I don’t do that. You need to hear the truth. Who else is going to tell you, other than Dakota? But there aren’t a whole lot of challenging high-level assistant jobs in Wild Horse, have you noticed? Unless you’re calling the lumber mill, you’re going to strike out, period. Never mind, I’ll find something. That office job. Somebody’ll have one. Meanwhile, there’s unemployment. If you feel guilty, shell out some severance pay, because Idaho unemployment pays a max of four hundred a week, and I’m not paying the rent on that.”
Blake scowled at her. “See, this is what I’m talking about. You could flatter me alittle.Or assume I give half a damn.Which is why I know you’re also helping pay your grandpa’s rent, now that your mom’s passed.”
“And once Dyma goes off to school in the fall,” Jennifer said, moving on from that with some semblance of briskness, “I’ll move in with Grandpa. Or we’ll both do it right now, if I’m making four hundred a week. Come on, Blake. Severance.”
“See,” he said, “I had a thought about that.”
She was still going for breezy and confident. He liked breezy and confident. You didn’t suck up to the boss, but you adjusted your manner to suit the job. “Except that you owe me,” she told him. “I was probably the most efficient woman in Wild Horse to begin with, and I’ve made strides, working for you. I’vegrown.”
Possibly in more ways than one. She knew she was turning red, and she felt the waistline of the Spanx digging into her flesh like the torture device they were. Why had she made those cheesecake brownies over Christmas? You couldn’t make them and not eat them, at least she couldn’t. Everybody knew that the better-looking you were, the faster you got hired, especially for the really good jobs. The kind of job there actually might be, now that Blake had elevated the tone in Wild Horse with the resort and the NFL and all. Possibly.
Probably not, though.
There had to be three hundred calories ineachof those brownies. They weren’t just brownies with cream cheese swirled through it. Oh, no. They were fudgy brownies with a layer of cheesecake on top.
And she’d eaten so many of them. She’d put in a whole lot of extra time on the elliptical machine at the gym, working off her nerves, but still. That would take alotof … ellipses.
Right. That was no more cheesecake brownies, then. Rigorous discipline.
“You have,” Blake said, and she thought,I have what?“You’ve outgrown Wild Horse, that’s for sure,” he went on. “Ever thought about Portland? And, yes, I’m paying you severance. Do me a favor.”
“Uh …” It took her a second. Maybe that was the relief. Or the panic. “Portland?”
“Yes,” he said patiently. “Portland. You know. Where I’m based. Where I used to work. Where I know people. I’d be offering you a job right now, but I’ve got an assistant there already.”
“Meredith,” she said.
“Want to work in development?” he asked. “We’re expanding. Maybe you’ve noticed. I could fit you in.”
“My grandpa …”
“You know what?” Blake said. “Dakota and I stopped by your house on the way here and had a talk with your grandpa. He says you should go for it. So let’s take that off the table. And Dyma’s going to the University of Washington in the fall, right? Early decision, so she’s all set.” He was talking right over her now. “Which is, let’s see, counting on my fingers … Oh, yeah. Two and a half hours from Portland.”
“Dyma doesn’t want me that close,” Jennifer said. “If she had her way, she’d be going to MIT, or the University of … somewhere ten thousand miles from here. Which is, of course, why I shouldbeclose, but never mind. I get it. Anyway, it’s Aeronautics and Astronautics. There’s a limited amount of trouble she can get into and still get that degree, and she wants that degree. Of course, she’ll probably get into every bit of that trouble, but like I said, never mind. My grandpa, though—ofcoursehe’s going to say I should go. His daughter died six months ago, though, and his only great-grandchild is leaving town the second she can. How’m I supposed to leave him, too?”
More panic. About all of it. Her life was changing too much, and now, she was going to have to absorb one more thing. She’d absorbed so much already, she felt like a sponge. At a certain point, you had to wring the sponge out.
“Generally,” Blake said, “you leave by walking out the door and closing it behind you. He sounded pretty insistent to me. Today is the first day of the rest of your life and all that. And again, it’s Portland, not Beijing. Six and a half hours in the car.”
“Besides,” she said, not deigning to answer that, “I don’t know Portland. A lot of getting things done, assistant-wise, is your contacts. And I don’t have any there.”
He sighed. “I might believe you more if you didn’t sound so triumphant about being so unqualified. It’s going to be some football player, not Jeff Bezos.”
“Jeff Bezos lives in Seattle.”
He waved a hand. “Who cares. It’s not him. The guy I find isn’t going to be that picky. He doesn’t know what to be pickyabout.Or if you want that office job, I’ll find it. Either in my company, or somebody else’s. Something with a future. Nothing easier, because in case I haven’t mentioned it, I’m a successful guy with successful-guy friends, and you’re good enough to work for any of them.So come on. Tell me. What is it really?”
She stared down at her skirt. It was a navy-blue check. She wore a lot of navy blue. Redhead. Slimming colors. Et cetera. The outfit was new, though, which meant she probably shouldn’t have spent money on it, because she’d known this was coming. Realistically, of course she’d known, and she was nothing if not realistic. The skirt was fitted at the top, then flared, and it hit above the knees for once, because her legs were her best body part. Other than her breasts, but you didn’t emphasize your breasts at work. Or ever, actually. She was wearing black tights with the skirt, though, because she was serious. An assistant. In the background. She rubbed the fabric between finger and thumb for comfort, told herself it could be an interview outfit, and said, “I’ve never been a city person. Heck, I’ve hardly ever even been there.”
Shoot. She hadn’t meant to say “heck.” Nobody sophisticated said “heck.” Also not “shoot.”
Blake was leaning back against the desk, his hands gripping the edges. His voice was gentle when he said, “Then don’t you think you should try?”
