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Chapter
Six
Grant went abouthis boring tasks on Tuesday morning, the only thoughts keeping him sane until lunchtime were those of Beatrice Callahan.The woman had lit up everything inside him with her tears, then her smile, then her laughter.Her touch had made the flames fan into infernos, and he frowned at an invoice he swore he’d already paid.
“You don’t even have her number,” he grumbled to himself.He sure as heck wasn’t going to text Cass, the woman who’d booked the cottage, and ask for it.Bea hadn’t volunteered it last night, even after a fantastic meal, the great conversation, and a stellar walk along the beach, complete with one of the more spectacular sunsets Grant had ever seen in his life.
Perhaps it was only that spectacular because of the woman at his side.
She hadn’t touched him again, hadn’t made any move to hold his hand on the beach, nothing.He’d followed her lead and done the same.His divorce sat further in the past than hers did, but fourteen months was a fairly decent amount of time.
“Still only final a week ago,” he grumbled.“Not to mention she’ll only be in town for another week or so.”She’d lived in Texas for her whole life, and while Grant hadn’t asked how old she was—he’d been taught some manners—that wasn’t a short amount of time.
A relationship between the two of them definitely wasn’t in the cards, the stars, or anything else that predicted the future.He focused on the blasted invoice and figured out it was for the re-graveling of the driveway of a house that sat at the end of the bridge.Yes, he had to pay this.
He logged onto his computer and paid the invoice, and he’d moved on to clearing out his email inbox before the bell on the management office dinged.He looked up, as he wasn’t expecting visitors.Rarely would people come by to chat, and no one else really knew where the office sat.
Grant loved the house here, though he’d converted the single bedroom into a storage room which held all the things he needed for the fifteen rentals he managed on Hilton Head Island.The single-car garage held shovels, rakes, a couple of lawnmowers, a wheelbarrow or two, fertilizer, and anything else he needed to tend to the yards.
A couple of the condos he managed had lawn services, so he didn’t have to mow those every week.He used a lawn care service for the rest, but sometimes, he had an emergency job that needed to be done.To do that, he needed some basic equipment.
A woman stood there, a tight black dress hugging her straight up-and-down frame.Nothing rumbled through Grant at the sight of this woman the way it had with Bea last night.He rose to his feet.“Can I help you?”
“I have an interview?”the woman asked.She couldn’t be older than twenty-five.Maybe twenty-six.
Grant frowned, and then his memory caught up to him, huffing and puffing as it pushed aside all thoughts of Bea.“Yes,” he said, the word exploding out of his mouth.He looked at his desk and ran his hand through his hair.“Yes, you do.”
He’d put her application here somewhere.He hadn’t interviewed someone in a long, long time, and he honestly had no idea what to ask.He probably should’ve made a list of things he needed to do this morning—andthink circularly about Beatrice Callahanwould not have gone on it.
“I’m Vanessa Galen,” she said, coming toward him.
He located her application when she said her name, and he grabbed it and looked up.“This says you have a job at night?”
“Yeah,” she said.“I’m a cocktail waitress at Vipers.”
And the slinky black dress suddenly made sense.He looked from her back to the paper and settled on the edge of his desk.“You can sit.”
She did, in one of the two available chairs, and Grant caught the popping of her gum.That would have to go.His patience seemed thin already this morning, and he told himself to be nice.Be nice.Be nice,Grant.
The inner voice inside his head morphed from his to that of his sister, Julie.As twins, Julie and Grant sometimes called one another at nearly the same time, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she called during this interview.She always seemed to know when he was stressed or needed an escape.
“Have you been home yet this morning?”he asked, a quick glance at the clock showing that morning was nearly over.
“No,” she said with a sigh.“We close at four on weekdays, but then we had a cleanliness training, and then I had a supervisor meeting.”She actually yawned but stitched her smile back into place pretty fast.“I can do this job though.Don’t you worry about that.”
“It’s a part-time position,” he said.
“That’s why I applied,” she said.“Afternoons, a few days a week.”She’d obviously memorized the listing he’d put out last week, and while he’d gotten a few applications, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to set up more than this one interview.
“You’re going to be a supervisor at Vipers?”He lowered the paper, because he wasn’t reading it anyway.
“Yes,” Vanessa said, a hint of pride in her voice.“Starting Monday.The other girls will come to me for their table assignments, and I don’t have to serve drinks anymore.I work the floor.”
In that dress, yes, she’d be working the floor.
Grant put her application on his desk.“Can you type?”
“Yes, sir.Fifty words per minute.”
