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“Yep.” Theo gave her a long look like he was going to say more, then changed his mind. “Just a Good Samaritan with some extra time on his hands. I trust his intentions.”
Alanna shrugged. All the better. She refocused on her presentation. Time to go in for the kill. The lioness inside of her growled. “What do you say, Theo? Three months. That’s all I ask.”
Theo ran a hand through his sandy hair. “It’s a lot of changes,” he murmured. “This place would be… different. I can almost feel Great Grandma Rose rolling in her grave.”
“Great Grandma Rose built this place from scratch,” Alanna reminded him. “She was a businesswoman before her time. She wouldn’t roll in her grave, Theo. She’d give you a high-five and probably a smack on the ass so you’d get going.” Okay, maybe an ass-smacking Great Grandma Rose was a bit of an exaggeration.
Alanna knew next to nothing about the revered Perry matriarch who had planted the first grape vines in Yucca Hills. But, nonetheless, she still felt a kinship with Rose Perry, fellow girl boss, across the generations.
“It’s the only way, Theo,” she told that woman’s great-grandson. Rose’s legacy hung in the balance.
Theo grimaced as if he were in physical pain. Alanna hated to distress her friend, especially someone with such a kind and generous heart. But this is what Theo needed to hear. She was giving him a lifeline. Probably the last one he’d get. All he had to do was take it.
Theo took a deep, deep, deeeeeep breath, then stuck out his calloused hand.
*
The sun was a fading glow on the horizon the next day when Stella nudged up the driveway of Dede’s house. Alanna’s feet ached in her heels as she stepped out of the car, but her heart was exultant. After her successful pitch at The Rose and Thorn yesterday, she’d marched down Chaparral Drive like a well-dressed Roman army, pitching and gaining new clients nearly everywhere she went. Of the 10 clients she’d cold pitched in the last 48 hours, seven were now official clients of New Horizons Public Relations Agency… at least for the next three months.
She’d given them all the same offer. Three months of free work and then they could decide whether to hire her. Each pitch had included a tailored PR plan. No sweat. It’d only required a full week of 12-hour days to learn the ins and outs of wildly different industries and create each individual pitch deck.
Her efforts had paid off. Along with The Rose and Thorn, she’d picked up Valentina’s Cantina, the Auto Yard, and Cactus Blossom, among others, as clients. Alanna’s weary steps took her up the front porch, where her mother’s windchimes hummed a soft tune. As soon as she opened the door, she breathed in a delicious whiff of simmering food.
Oh, right, she’d only gobbled down a snack bar between pitches. Alanna’s stomach gurgled hopefully. She entered the kitchen and saw her mother at the table, knitting a scarlet blob.
“Did you cook?” Alanna asked suspiciously as she dropped heavily into a chair.
“Hamburger Helper. Even I can handle that,” her mom replied with a wink. “I made it an hour ago, but I’ve been keeping it warm in the oven for you.”
Before Alanna could even force her tired legs to stand and offer to help, her mother was busy humming around the kitchen, lifting a plate from the cabinet and pulling a bubbling dish from the oven. It seemed as if mere moments had passed before a plate heaped with Hamburger Helper sat on the floral placemat in front of Alanna. A glass of water and a glass of wine stood next to it.
Alanna could almost weep… if she were the crying type, which she wasn’t.
“Thanks, Mom,” she said.
Dede bent down and laid a gentle kiss on Alanna’s head. “Even you need someone to take care of you every once in a while.”
Nope, she definitely wasn’t sniffling. That was allergies.
Just as Alanna picked up her fork, her phone dinged.
Sully?
The name jumped to the front of her traitorous brain, and she cursed her weakness. She hadn’t heard a peep from the handsome handyman since the Petunia arbitration. And why should she? He’d gotten what he wanted.
But even as she pulled her phone from her purse, her heart throbbed with hope. She missed waking up in the morning to a silly icebreaker in her text messages and imagining his smile when he received her saucy answer.
“Who is it?” her mother asked. Was that a hitch of hope in the older woman’s voice?
Alanna opened her phone and her shoulders fell. “It’s from Brenda, my real estate agent.” She quickly scanned the message, sent a short reply, then replaced the phone in her purse. “The movers are coming tomorrow to pack up my things. They’ll drive them down and be here around 5 PM.”
“Oh.” Her mother picked up the knitting. “I was just thinking, maybe it was…”
“It wasn’t,” Alanna said firmly. There was no point in getting her mother’s hopes up. No point at all. “Brenda walked the condo today. Says there’s only a few repairs she wants to make. It’ll need a new paint job, too. And then it’ll be ready to put on the market.”
Alanna was babbling and she knew it, but she had to say something into the void.
“You could always call him, you know,” her mom said. Her hands moved swiftly and smoothly as her knitting needles clicked. “Or text. I guess that’s what all the young folks do these days. But I think calling is better. It’s more personal.”
