“You’ll deal with it in eight minutes.”
My gaze snaps back to hers. “Excuse me?”
“I scheduled the call.”
“You scheduled a call with Eric Wolf without asking me?”
“You were busy being mad that I wouldn’t make coffee.” She taps the folder before I can answer. “I pulled what I think you’ll need. Current holdings, last quarter notes, and the projections you scribbled on the back of what I’m pretty sure used to be a grocery list.”
For a moment, I have absolutely nothing to say.
That doesn’t happen often.
“You don’t schedule client calls without checking with me first.”
“Then check your messages when clients leave them.”
Her tone is calm, not smug, which somehow makes it worse.
I should be pissed. Hell, Iampissed. But only because she’s right, and because the folder she set on my desk is exactly the one I would have wasted twenty minutes trying to find.
“Fine,” I say. “But you sit in quietly. You don’t speak unless I ask you to.”
“Of course.”
I don’t believe her for a second.
Eight minutes later, Eric Wolf appears on my screen, seated behind a desk that probably costs more than my first truck.
“Luke.”
“Wolf.”
“How’re things in Iron Peak these days?”
“Can’t complain.” It’s my usual answer. “You ever miss it now that you’re on the other side of the valley?” Eric Wolf and his brothers grew up in Iron Peak, before I ever moved out here. They’d spent their summers with their cousins in Rock Creek, though, and from the little I know about the situation, those summers were their escape from a tough life on this mountain. All five of them had ended up settling in Rock Creek, preferring it to their childhood home.
“You know I don’t.” He shakes his head with a laugh before his gaze flicks past meand lands briefly on Lilly. “Looks like the rumors are true.”
“What rumors?”
“That someone finally talked you into hiring help.”
I flick my gaze to my newassistantand clench my teeth. “Good news travels fast, apparently.”
Eric laughs. “Small towns, right?”
I don’t bother answering, especially when, next to me, Lilly makes a small sound that could almost be mistaken for a laugh. I don’t look up again because I know if I do, I’ll see that little spark in her eyes and start thinking things I have no business thinking about during a client call.
Or at all.
“You called about a purchase,” I say.
“I did.” Eric’s expression shifts. “Commercial property outside Rock Creek.”
“Numbers look good.”
“They do.”
