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I recognize enough of the street name to know it’s in the Queen Anne neighborhood.
I only hope I’m not about to deliver her to some psycho ex-boyfriend’s house or the place she shared once with a roommate who’s long gone.
While I wait for Rick to return, I ponder what the hell to do before I buckle Miss Lark into the passenger side, carefully shifting her into place.
I don’t let my hands linger a second longer than they want to.
I’ve already been touchy, digging around in her pocket. By the time I slide her bag under her legs and around to the other side to deposit my own bag behind the driver’s seat, Rick returns, sighing and running a hand through his short crop of greying hair.
“No one answered the page, Mr. Marshall,” he says. “Seems like we’re on our own.”
“I have an address,” I say. “One where we can hopefully leave her safely. It shouldn’t be too much of a detour.”
Rick’s pleasant facade actually cracks—something I’ve rarely seen in the years he’s worked for me. No matter where I travel on the job, Rick is on the ground a day or two ahead of me.
He handles my accommodations and transportation, discussing any local legal issues when I’m contracted out to corporations outside the United States.
When I come home to Seattle, he keeps my house in order, and any business matters that have followed me home from my contract assignations are well sorted and ready for me to handle on my own time.
The man is unflappable, and he typically handles anything without protest.
I’m not used to seeing dismay and concern cross his face.
Just a flicker, but it’s there, glaring and unmistakable.
Still, he smiles again and says “Of course” before moving to open the driver’s side back seat door for me. “Just let me know where, and we’ll be on our way.”
I give him the address and slide into the back seat, well aware that I’m typically alone in these instances. But considering Miss Lark is sleeping off her migraine attack, I can at least pretend to be alone until the time comes to deposit her in someone else’s hands.
As Rick settles behind the wheel and drives us into the light traffic that comes with a cold Seattle dawn in February, I retrieve my laptop and settle in to review a few reports.
I’ve mostly closed out my last contract—a major semiconductor chip manufacturer in Taiwan that hired me to step in as temporary COO for a six-month stint to reverse a revenue decline caused by material shortages.
So I restructured their manufacturing processes to reuse waste and scrap materials in new manufacturing, launched multiple new products with tiered pricing models to capture new markets, and sourced previously unknown suppliers who were willing to sell off key materials to help fill the gaps.
Four months in, my client hit breakeven.
By the time I booked my flight back home, they were seeing a profit again.
I’d just like to keep an eye on their actual revenues versus projections over the next six months. Too many companies that bring me on to sort through their chaos like to fall apart again the second I’m out the door.
Technically, not my problem. I’ve done the job I was hired to do.
I have zero responsibility to stay and hold their hand, but there’s nothing I hate more than good work going to waste.
As we take a corner, a soft weight flumps against me.
My laptop veers off to the side, bumping against the door.
That weight slides down my chest, settling in my lap.
I freeze, just staring.
Miss Lark has slid down the back of the long bank of seating in the car’s rear passenger area, shifted by the momentum of the turn.
She’s so slender there was too much slack in the seat belt, tumbling her down until she’s now pillowed on my thigh, with her gold hair spilling over my dark slacks in sunrise tones.
Goddamn.
