AllFreeNovel
Share Us
June stared at me with her hands over her mouth. I glared at her.
An eruption of noise and chaos flooded through the staff lounge as everyone clamored and wanted to know if I’d been burned and what had happened and how my pants caught on fire.
I had eyes only for the chaotic mass of red curls and shocked, pink features of June Matthews. I threw the water bottle on the ground and shook my burned, soaking pant leg before storming up to her. “What pea-brained,childish idiocywere you doing in an office loungewith fire?” I heard myself roar.
The small crowd gasped. June’s moss green eyes welled up with tears.
“Dr. Brady!” Carla barked from the back of the pack.
I clenched my jaw with resigned regret. Okay, so I hadn’t meant to yell. But she could have hurt herself—or worse, the surgical center.
I looked over at the assembled crowd made up of nurses and the other receptionists, along with Dr. Black and Dr. Buchanon. Carla nudged to the front of the throng with her sharp, dark eyes pinned on me and her arms folded. I gestured toward the table. “We can’t have fire in a medical facility.”
“We don’t talk to one another in this way, Dr. Brady,” Carla snapped. Although her eyes did flit to June with some consternation. I put my hands on my hips. Seriously, how was I the one at fault here?
June sniffled, and a tear leaked out of the corner of her long-lashed eye. “I’m sorry. It’s just… It’s my birthday.”
My internal groan echoed the sympathetic gasps of the nurses and staff. I might as well have wrapped her with rope and left her in front of a train. Villain mode activated.
“Were you harmed, Dr. Brady?” Carla asked briskly.
I looked down at my pant leg. The fabric on my black trousers had been singed and ruined beyond repair, but my skin barely smarted. “I’m fine,” I clipped.
“Good, then I’d like to see you in our conference room.”
I resisted the urge to sigh, and taking a step forward, I held out a hand to June. “Let me see your hands, first.”
“Did she touch the fire?” Jackie gasped.
“She threw it at me,” I said with no small amount of acidity.
“I’m fine,” June said, and clasped her hands against her breasts again. Was it my imagination, or had her fear suddenly turned back to malice? A little shine of defiance lit in her eyes, and I mentally tucked that away for later. What had I done to her, exactly? She was the one who had lit me on fire.
“Staff meeting,” Carla declared.
“Can’t we just meet here?” Dr. Nayar drawled. She was, if possible, even more no-nonsense than I was, and had a breadstick from her lunch in her hand and a sour expression on her dark brown lips.
“Fine. Those who aren’t here will get the announcement via email.” Carla took a few steps back, putting her tall, thin frame further into the lounge near the corkboard along the back wall. She pulled on the hem of her navy blazer. “There have beenseveralunsavory exchanges between personnel ofallkinds,” she said, hooking me with her gaze. I glared back sardonically.
“And I have become concerned about our team effort and staff morale,” Carla continued. “As such, I have discussed it with Dr. Frazier and Dr. Vasquez, and we have agreed that a company retreat would do wonders for our collaborative spirit.” She held up the leadership book like a preacher giving a sermon. “When we are willing to risk adventuring into the wilderness, and even becoming our own wilderness, we feel the deepest connection to our true self and to what matters the most.”
I wasn’t the only one who rolled my eyes.
“We’ve arranged for a retreat in the wilderness,” Carla said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “And every employee will attend.”
I didn’t see how staying at some hotel in the woods, getting buzzed every night off cocktails, and sitting in a circle with our planners was going to do anyone any good, but if it pulled the attention off my growing “criminal record” in this place, then so be it. Frazier and Vasquez had controlling shares as partners, so if they had planned it with Carla, then there was little I could do about it.
“We have already booked a weekend in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.” She gave us all a death glare. “There will be cabins. And hiking. And I don’t care if you hate the outdoors. We need it.”
A few groans came from people scattered throughout the crowd, but most of the employees seemed thrilled.
“When?” I asked, putting a hand in my pocket.
“Clear your weekend for June twenty-fourth through the twenty-sixth,” she said. “The office staff will work hard to clear your work schedules, and we will make this happen because this,” she said, gesturing to the room as a whole, “is not going to fly.”
I had a date with a tennis player that weekend. Figured.
“If you can’t find childcare,” Carla continued, addressing the room beyond June and me, “please come speak to me. We will do everything we can to help you find arrangements. Okay?”
