Leo’s grin widens as he offers her a paint-smudged hand. “Leo Alden. The talented one in the family. Two years younger than this geezer.”
“I’m twenty-six, jackass.” I roll my eyes. “Leo, this is a serious meeting. Go paint your mural. You don’t need my input.”
He winks at Charlotte. "Come get me if my brother needs a good smack on the back of the head. He has no manners around pretty women.”
“I’ll be fine, thanks.”
Leo finally leaves, and I let out a long sigh. “Sorry about him.”
Charlotte doesn’t respond, too busy jotting down notes. After a moment, she closes her notebook and looks up at me. "I’ll work on getting more donors, and I suggest you work on that too. We’ll need to figure out vendors, catering, and seating arrangements. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m guessing neither you nor Felony Melanie planned any of that yet."
I grin sheepishly. "You’d be guessing right."
She sighs again, clearly exasperated. "This is going to be a lot of work, Caleb. Are you sure we can pull it off in three weeks?"
"Of course," I say, trying to sound confident. “We’ve got you now, don’t we?”
She shakes her head, muttering something about working miracles. “Can you take me to see the event space? It’s that big barn, apparently? What about the rest of the area…there are a lot of buildings around here.”
“Barn for the gala, but this building will be for restrooms and staging for the caterer.” She’ll be impressed that I actually knew the answer to something. I try the smile again.
She doesn’t even notice it. “I’m basically starting from scratch here, but my career is important to me so I will make this gala an incredible night that will bring in a ton of money for your retired dogs. This is a very tight deadline and a lot of things can go wrong.”
She looks at me, eyes focused and lips in a flat line. “Caleb, is there anything I need to know about this event, or the organization before I go all in? Anything that could cause problems later on?”
“Yeah, a big problem.” I lean back in my chair, lacing my fingers behind my head. “You might fall in love with me.”
She stands. “Wonderful, so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about here.”
chapter three
Charlotte
I’m a woman in the service industry and I am no stranger to flirtatious men. That doesn’t make it any less annoying, though. Caleb Alden is tall enough, muscular enough, and has a head of brown hair that’s just long and shaggy enough to make him the ideal handsome man. But I seriously could not care any less about his handsomeness or his flirtatious banter.
My career has only just gotten started, and I’m on track to turn myself into someone important in the event planning space. I’m working toward a good salary, my own mortgage payment, and a retirement fund. I will not live my adulthood working crappy jobs paycheck to paycheck like my parents did. I love them, but I won’t be them. This guy is no stranger to flirting with women, clearly, and he knows he’s handsome. I don’t know what kind of validation he’s hoping to get from me, but it’s not happening. I’m here for the job, nothing else. Hopefully this job’s biggest donor won’t throw a wrench into anything.
WLB Construction is owned by my ex’s dad, not my ex. He won’t have anything to do with this. I stiffen my shoulders and tell myself it’ll all be fine.
“Let’s see the event space.”
Caleb leads me back through the building and I make a hasty sketch in my notepad of the layout of this place. It’s a large old farm turned business and nonprofit and the whole area kind of looks like it’s having an identity crisis. There’s a lot of acreage here, with a long winding gravel driveway from the road. The three story old Victorian home to the right of the property is gorgeous and has been beautifully maintained. Then there’s the massive barn to the left. It has that beautiful, classic barn shape that makes you think it should be painted red, but it’s made of dark brown stained wood, or maybe it’s just really old, I can’t tell. Then there’s a more modern building that’s between the two, but closer to the barn. Fresh concrete sidewalks tell me it was probably built in the last year or two.
“How long has this place been open?”
“Almost a year,” Caleb says. “The foundation was created three months ago. I wanted to have the gala on the exact one year anniversary but that’s a Monday, and my brothers said no one will go to an event on a Monday. This is our first big fundraising event, and it’s my full time job that’s not paying me a salary yet. I need this to be successful.”
“What’d you do before this?” I ask. I don’t know why I ask, maybe I’m just trying to get a feel for how serious this guy is about his fledgling new nonprofit. I’ve planned events for nonprofits before but they’ve all been huge organizations that run like well-oiled machines.
“I was a police K9 handler. SWAT certified.” That last bit seems to be thrown in to impress me with the way he flexes his forearms and rolls his shoulders back. It is impressive, but I don't care. I’ll choose a badass career over men every single time.
“So you know what you’re talking about when it comes to dogs.” It’s not really a question but he answers.
“Yes, ma’am.” We’ve reached the massive barn doors and he pushes it open. “Tah-dah! Here’s our event space.”
I stand on the dirt, gripping my clipboard between my folded arms, and take in the place. It’s a freaking barn. An old freaking barn. An old, dirty, abandoned-looking freaking barn.
The sound that escapes my mouth is something like a groan and a gasp of horror. “Okay,” I say. I take a deep breath and try again. “Okay… Well, there’s plenty of natural light…streaming in through the broken boards. And high ceilings…with cobwebs. And…empty room.”
