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“Hi beautiful,” Adam says, coming over to us, and I sigh happily as he gives me a soft kiss. I like that he’s not hiding us from Cleo. Not our date the other night or this simple greeting this morning. I don’t want to sneak around with him and this. Not now, not ever.
I’m glad for the ten extra minutes as it takes most of them to get Cleo dressed before I do her hair, making sure it’s untangled before braiding it. I make two separate braids, loving how thick her hair is. It’s a soft butter brown with dimensional color that goes perfectly with her rosy complexion and green eyes. She and Adam have the same eyes, and I love seeing them light up with joy.
When I get to the ends, I check with her, wanting to know what she’d like. “Do you want to leave them out like this, or I can put them into a bun?”
“I like this way,” she says with a giggle as the ends slip over her shoulders. Each braid is thick enough it could honestly be one braid for a lot of people. There’s no need to fluff them out to make them look thicker, so I leave them tight, hoping they’ll stay all day. “Thank you, Miss Jasmine. I love it.”
“You’re welcome sweetheart. I know that not all boys can get their fingers to work the right way for girl’s hair, so anytime you want some help, just let me know,” I tease her, and the hug she gives me before we head off in different directions, seals it for me. This is the start of my new family. I won’t let anything come between us.
Chapter 8
Adam
I move off the elevator and surprise hits hard when I hear how quiet it is. It’s completely opposite of my office where people are always coming and going, the shops so close the hum of machines surround you. Most of the desks and office I pass by are empty despite being ten o’clock in the morning.
The last I checked, Cartwright was the leader in all things construction along the western half of the US, so this is a little strange.
“Hi there, I’m Joan. You must be Mr. Thompson,” the woman behind a desk say when I reach the end of the hallway I was directed towards downstairs. “Mr. Johnnie will be right up, his wife is expecting again so he was late leaving after getting their twin boys up and fed. Mr. Jamison and Ms. Serena are already in the conference room, just to your left there,” she adds, and I glance down the hallway seeing more empty desk behind windows. “Don’t let the emptiness fool you. Ever since these boys have started settling down and having babies, they’ve taken the office jobs to hybrid positions. The ones that can work from home and still complete all their duties can do so at least two days a week. I like getting out of the house so I don’t mind handling the stuff that can only be done here.”
“Wouldn’t work for my company. Even my office staff end up taking trips down to the manufacturing floor to get what they need. It’s hard to hear a phone ring around there,” I tell her, feeling immensely better to learn the place isn’t hitting a rough patch and this is a last-ditch effort to pull themselves out.
I don’t have to expand. We’ll be just fine staying as-is, but when I see something that can help the community, I want to do it. Expanding my company will give a minimum hundred more people jobs between the additional floor staff and added office personnel to handle the increase of billings and invoices. Not to mention, if we get the whole process, employees to handle inventory, packaging, shipping, and potentially delivery to locations. That’s a lot of jobs for people right here in Oak Grove.
I give the door a knock and it opens almost instantly, a man likely an inch shorter than me there. He’s probably ten to twelve years younger than I am, but it’s not going to intimidate me with having to do business with someone younger.
I looked into Cartwrights information after seeing the open bid for their new manufacturing request. I’ve heard about them before, hell, I even used them to redo my house but that was twelve years ago, and I didn’t even deal with any of the Cartwrights. I hired them because they were the most recommended, and it turned out to be the right choice.
I know the original Mr. Cartwright has handed the company off to his kids, but it definitely didn’t slow them down any, in fact, it’s only been in the last six to seven years that things have really taken off for them, which is saying something considering they were already the highest grossing construction company in the state, let alone the town.
“Hi there, I’m Serena Cartwright,” the woman in the room says as the guy steps back to let me enter. “This is my brother-in-law Jamison.”
“Adam Thompson,” I add shaking both their hands.
“Hope you don’t mind if we’re a bit informal in here,” Jamison says motioning towards the seats. “It gets confusing in here with the Mr. or Ms. Cartwright stuff.”
“That’s fine with me, everyone at my company calls me Adam. There’s a few that will only go so far as to do Mr. Adam, but they’ve been there since my father ran the place and he was always Mr. Thompson with them. I don’t run things the same way he did,” I tell them as another man comes through the door. He’s a bit older than Jamison, but it’s obvious they’re brothers with the same dark hair and facial features.
“Sounds like you’d fit in around here then,” the newcomer says before proffering his hand to me. “Johnnie…Cartwright.”
“Pretty sure he figured that one out,” Serena says rolling her eyes at him and I have to fight to control the laugh that hits me in the chest.
“Where’s Julie?” Johnnie asks glancing around the space.
“She had to go out to the Merrit site,” a third man says as he comes through the door. His resemblance to the other two says it’s yet another brother and I’ve got to say, it’s shocking at just how similar they all look. Not quite a copy and paste of one another, but close to it. “Hi, I’m Jesse,” he adds holding out a hand to me.
“Adam,” I tell him, and he gives me a nod before settling down into a chair next to Serena, his hand giving her shoulder a little squeeze. It makes me curious to know if they’re together, because while the woman is stunning, she’s more than a bit older than him. Hell, I think I’d say she’s older than me and I know I’m several years ahead of all these men.
“Julie’s fine, just dealing with permit issues,” Jesse tells Serena, and she relaxes, giving him a smile in return. “Julie is our CEO of Construction, she handles that side of the company’s oversight and while finding a new manufacturer isn’t necessarily construction since it’s Serena’s line, she likes to be involved. She’s sat in on all the other meetings and conference calls rather than me, so I was getting up to speed on them. I’m CEO of Operations, while Johnnie is our CFO, Serena our Chief of Design, and Jamison’s one of the company’s carpenters and helped Serena create these items. He also helped to take the pieces they came up with and turn them into ready-to-assemble items. The goal is to offer them to a wider array of customers at an affordable price for a higher caliber piece that won’t fall apart in a few weeks or months like some.”
“With the Cartwright quality of work behind it,” I guess, and he nods. “Thompson Manufacturing can certainly create all the hardware for your pieces. Currently we run two shifts and that is necessary to produce all of the items we’re contracted to make, but, we have the capability to create a third shift to add in the new productions.”
“But it would require new staff that’s untrained to run it,” Jesse says.
“Getting new people in will be no problem. I have a filing cabinet full of applications of people looking for jobs. Some of them would be brand new, yes, but others have experience elsewhere that sit at the top of the stack for when we do have a vacancy come up. In the last eight years, turnover has decreased to mostly retirements only. We have the occasional individual that just can’t handle the work, but those are far fewer than other companies in the industry.”
“How’s that?” Serena asks, putting a smile on my lips.
“I took over when my father died almost sixteen years ago now. I knew nothing about the business and hadn’t seen the man other than the occasional visit in nine years and honestly, didn’t want anything to do with the place. It was left to me in his will, and I didn’t want the people that worked there to be hurt by me shutting it down or selling it to someone that wouldn’t look out for them. So I learnt the place hands-on, saw the people that were leaving, saw the resources that went into training someone, and decided to make some changes,” I explain with ease. “The first was to give employees incentives to stay so the resources we put into their training didn’t go to waste. Now, employees once they reach their second anniversary are vested in the profit sharing program I created. Every year of employment, they receive an additional percentage of the profits. Most employees look forward to that year-end bonus and it create loyalty. They know if they stay, work hard, we make more profits, which increases the amount they receive. It’s reduced turnover by two hundred percent in the last ten years.”
