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oom filled, and the various department managers came in and sat near the front. Once everyone was seated, a familiar man stepped in front of the group and said, “Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming in early today. I’m Owen Palmer, your new owner.”
It was the dark-haired, blue-eyed customer I’d chatted with the day before. I was so very, very fired. I wondered if maybe I’d at least get credit for honesty. That was the only way I could imagine my job being saved. I hoped someone left a newspaper behind this morning. I’d definitely need to review the job ads.
He talked about keeping the store open in spite of the challenging economy and mentioned a few changes to help us be more profitable. Most of it had to do with more creative shelving and how we could take advantage of the fact that we didn’t have to abide by top-down dictates like the chain stores. We could shelve books where our customers were most likely to discover them, even in multiple places around the store. It wasn’t exactly an earthshattering idea, but it wasn’t something too many other stores did. He talked about getting employee input on purchase decisions and offering incentives for hand-selling books.
I tensed when he got around to discussing the coffee shop. I didn’t think he’d fire me now, but I prepared myself for a lecture on providing a positive customer experience. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but our coffee is lousy,” he said. There was nervous laughter from the group, and I cringed. It wasn’t my fault, but would he see it that way? “We need to revamp our coffee shop, and we’ll be considering new suppliers.” I wondered if the revamp would include employees who didn’t peruse the classified ads while on the job or openly criticize the coffee to customers. But all he discussed was the quality of what was offered, not the employees. He’d probably fire me privately, in a one-on-one meeting later that day.
The meeting wrapped up, and everyone headed to their respective jobs, or to home, if they had later shifts. Most of the booksellers were already talking excitedly about how to rearrange the sections. Florence and I were less excited, since it was our department that had been singled out as a failure. Not that we disagreed—we avoided our own coffee shop—but it didn’t bode well for the owner to criticize us.
We hurried to get the café set up for the store opening. In spite of the nasty coffee and stale scones, we had our usual morning crowd. In this city, I was surprised that people hadn’t found better options, since I passed several on my way to work in the morning. The whole time, Owen Palmer hung around, lingering over a cup of coffee at the outermost table while he watched the flow of customers.
When the rush had died down and we were getting ready for the morning coffee break crowd, Owen came over to us. “Which of you is the resident coffee connoisseur?” he asked.
“She is!” Florence said, pointing at me and making herself scarce with a wink over her shoulder.
“I guess I am, though I wouldn’t call myself a connoisseur. I just drink it,” I said. “She doesn’t. She doesn’t even drink caffeine, if you can believe it—and she’s in grad school.” I was babbling, giving him information he didn’t even want, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
“Then I’ll want you to help me in selecting new suppliers and revamping the shop. We do good business, but I think we could do better if we had better stuff to offer.” He frowned. “In fact, I’m not even sure why anyone comes here at all. There’s better coffee at just about every corner deli.”
“I think people feel like getting their coffee here makes them smarter, or something,” I said without thinking, then mentally winced. I shouldn’t be shooting off my mouth to my boss. He was just so nice that he lulled me into honesty. He was so good-looking that he addled my senses somehow. Then I wondered if maybe he was that guy who’d made the world go still that morning at the diner.
“Image means a lot,” he agreed. “And that’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about. Would you mind holding off on your job search for a little while? I think I could use your expertise while we revamp the store. I’m hearing rumors that one of the chains is going to open a branch nearby, and I want to make a big splash before they can get established.”
“So you’re not firing me?” I blurted.
“Is there a reason I should?” he asked, with a mildly amused smile.
“No, no,” I hurried to say. “But you didn’t see me at my best yesterday.”
“You were honest with me about the product you were selling and steered me to something I’d enjoy more.”
“And I was job-hunting on the job,” I said without thinking, then winced. What was it about this guy? He seemed to deactivate all my filters.
“The way I see it, it’s my fault if I can’t keep my employees happy enough to want to stay or if I can’t recognize talent and make the best use of it. So, this afternoon I’d like you to join me for some meetings with potential vendors and then what are you doing for dinner?”
“Dinner?” I parroted dumbly.
“I’d like to hash out some advertising and marketing ideas. It might be easier to do that away from the store, and if I’m asking you to work beyond your usual shift, I should at least buy you dinner.”
He sounded all-business, which dashed the romantic fantasy that had sprung unbidden into my brain. And then I remembered Josh. My boyfriend. The one I had a date with that night. “Oh, tonight. I can’t,” I said, stumbling over the words. “I have dinner plans already.”
“Then maybe we can talk tomorrow afternoon here at the store. My schedule will be a little more open then.” He grinned, and a slight flush washed over his cheeks. “I’ll buy the coffee, though that’s probably more of a threat than an incentive.”
“Okay,” I said, even as I felt a sting of disappointment that I didn’t want to analyze too closely. Getting my head turned by my new boss would be a very bad idea.
But there was just something about him …
Chapter Six
It was with a surprisingly illicit thrill that I left the store with Owen that afternoon. This was strictly business, but it felt like a first date—a first date with someone I’d had a crush on for ages, which was really weird, since I’d only just met him. I was back to feeling like there was music playing in the background, which made me question my sanity. I didn’t think most people went through life with a personal movie soundtrack playing in their heads. I hadn’t even turned on the radio that morning, so I wasn’t sure where the insidious tune had come from. Maybe from the store’s background music?
When we hit the first coffee dealer, the smell of coffee was so strong it nearly knocked me off my feet—in a good way. “I think I’m getting a contact caffeine buzz,” I whispered to Owen.
He grinned in response, a smile that lit up his eyes and made my knees go wobbly. He was so very adorable. And he was my boss, I reminded myself firmly. Plus, I had a boyfriend who had brought up the subject of marriage. Wobbling was out of the question. “I may not sleep for a week,” Owen said, “which is good because right now, I don’t have time to sleep.”
The coffee expert at this place took his work very seriously. I felt like I was at a snooty wine tasting and being encouraged to find hints of oak or lemon in the wine, only he was asking us to discern flavors of earth and spices in the coffee. The one time Owen and I dared to glance at each other, we both nearly spit out our coffee from laughing. I didn’t know the finer points of coffee, just what I liked and didn’t, and that I didn’t like supposedly gourmet coffee that tasted like it had been scraped up from the bottom of the coffeepot after sitting for a day or two. This stuff was definitely an improvement over what we’d been serving, but I wasn’t sold on it. Luckily, we still had two more places to go.
The rest of the afternoon seemed to go by in a blur—or in a series of quick scenes, all with that music playing in the background. We tasted coffee, made faces, laughed, and compared notes, and all the while, we really seemed to be bonding. I still didn’t know much about him as a person, but I knew he was nice, funny, smart enough to retain a lot of information, and he really cared about what he was doing.
