Borrowing Second Chances

Chapter 2

2

Bob rubbed his temples, fighting a looming headache. He knew it was going to rear its head as soon as he stopped working. He pressed ‘submit’ on the upcoming payroll, then glanced at the clock. Four-fifteen. He was at a good stopping point and could call it a day. That was what a normal person would do. But ‘normal’ didn’t describe Bob. And the clock didn’t say five o’clock, which meant he had to keep going for another forty-five minutes. What could he do that was productive but wouldn’t suck up more time than that?

He had just decided to go over the slides he’d made for the new employee orientation that he’d be delivering the next morning, when Mayor McAllister poked her head in.

“Oh good, you’re still here,” she said with an over-the-top smile. The new mayor did that a lot.

He tried to return the smile, but his headache made the attempt feel more like a grimace. “Of course. It’s not five yet,” he said, nodding toward the clock.

“Perfectly true.” She paused, then asked, “Can I speak with you in my office? It won’t take more than a few minutes.”

Bob stared. The mayor never called him into her office. “You can’t tell me here?”

Mayor McAllister seemed like she was going to agree with his request, but when an employee from another department entered the office to use the laminating machine, she said, “I’d rather talk in private, if you don’t mind.”

Bob looked around the HR office. He only had one Human Resources employee, and he happened to be out sick. That would mean closing the office early. It wasn’t just this that bothered him, though. Bob didn’t like impromptu meetings. He wanted to know what it was about—to be able to plan ahead. Had he done something wrong that he didn’t know about?

It was at that moment that Bob’s headache decided to settle in right behind his eyes, and he tried to keep his annoyance at bay. He’d rather wait to speak with the mayor until the next day when he was feeling better, but whatever she had to say seemed important, and his curiosity was just as insistent as his headache.

“Does meeting in my office make you uncomfortable?” Mayor McAllister asked, her brows scrunched in concern. “We can leave my door open, if you’d prefer.”

Bob realized he’d been staring into space, rubbing his forehead as he willed his headache to simmer down. She probably thought he was uncomfortable about a private meeting in her office because she was the first female mayor that Amor had ever had.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Bob said. He waited until the employee using the laminating machine was finished, then stepped out of the office and locked the door behind him. He didn’t move right away. What if there was an employee emergency? Would they know where to find him?

“You all right?” Mayor McAllister asked.

“Yes, of course.” Bob straightened his shoulders and walked with long strides toward the mayor’s office.

Mayor McAllister entered after him and sat down at a large desk. She motioned toward one of the chairs across from her. “Have a seat.”

Bob nodded, then lowered himself slowly until he sat on the seat. It had a worn feeling to it, and he made a mental note that he should try to sit on the one on the left next time.

“As you know, we’ve been hiring in many of our divisions lately,” the mayor started. “You have the orientation prepared for tomorrow morning?”

The mayor didn’t need to ask; she knew it would already be done. Maybe she thought that asking about it was the polite thing to do. But Bob still felt insulted at the insinuation that he might not already have prepared his presentation. He decided to stay quiet and he gave a single nod.

“Good,” she said. She interlaced her fingers and eyed Bob with a thoughtful look. Seconds ticked by, and he wondered if that was all she had wanted to ask him. Before he could ask if there was anything else, Mayor McAllister straightened and said, “I have a special assignment for you.”

Bob’s anxiety returned full throttle. Whenever someone used the word special, it was code for, You aren’t going to like this, so I’m going to try to make it seem like a good thing. He remained silent, his thoughts racing with worst-case scenarios. The most unsettling was the possibility that she’d transfer him to the tourism department. Like Amor didn’t already have too many tourists.

“I’ve never asked you to travel,” the mayor said. “Up until now, your position hasn’t required it.” She stopped and seemed like she was gearing up for whatever would come next. “I need you to visit a few career fairs over the next week on a recruiting assignment.”

That got Bob’s attention, but there was no way he could have heard the mayor correctly. No one would purposely send him on a recruiting assignment. He’d be their last choice.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“I need you to travel to colleges and universities around the state. We have a desperate need for employees as the tourism industry has expanded more rapidly than we could have predicted.”

“I’m not the man for that kind of assignment,” Bob said, still confused on what the mayor was asking him to do, or at least why she was asking him to do it. “You have plenty of employees who would be way better at that than I would.”

“I made my choice,” she said. “It’s you.”

Bob stared. She was serious? “Why? You know I’m terrible with people. If I go, no one is going to want to visit Amor, let alone come and work here.”

“That is your opinion, and I don’t agree,” the mayor said. “But in simpler terms, as the manager of Human Resources, it’s in your job description. You are in charge of recruiting.”

Bob frowned. He had never paid attention to that part of the description because he’d never thought he’d ever have to do it. But he couldn’t argue with the logic of having to do something because it was his job. Bob slid back down into his chair. “When do I leave?”

The mayor seemed surprised, like maybe she’d expected more of a fight out of him, but she quickly regained her composure. “You will leave this weekend. Your first career fair is on Monday.”

Bob tried to hold back a grimace. “Okay.” He glanced at his watch. Four-thirty. “Anything else?”

“There is one more thing,” the mayor said. Before she could tell him what that thing was, she was interrupted by the office door opening.

“Would you look at that, I’m right on time,” a woman’s voice said.

Bob expected the mayor to tell the woman that she was interrupting a private conversation, but when the mayor didn’t, but instead looked like she’d been expecting the woman, he turned in his seat to see who it was.

She stood in the doorway to the office, her long blond hair hanging over one shoulder. Her hair was smooth—the type that made you want to run your fingers through it. But it was when his gaze moved to her face that his heart stuttered.

Debbie.

He hadn’t seen her much since she’d moved her salon over to the touristy side of town. Her hair was longer, and no longer purple like the last time she’d asked him to notarize some paperwork. But her eyes were still the same bright blue.

She noticed him at the same time and her mouth dropped open, but just a little. Enough to send Bob’s pulse racing.

“I-I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I didn’t realize you were in a meeting.” She spoke as if to the mayor, but her gaze never left Bob.

In that moment, it was as if they had never broken up. She still undid every nerve and left him speechless. He never could think rationally around Debbie. After they had split up a couple of years before, it had taken months for Bob to be able to function normally—or at least what was normal for him. He was the town’s only notary, so Debbie had no choice but to come see him on occasion. But she never allowed herself to look him in the eyes as she was doing at the moment.

That wasn’t entirely true. There had been that one time a little over a year ago when she was selling her old salon to a real estate developer and Bob had tried to stop her from signing the paperwork. That hadn’t been his finest moment, and Debbie had seemed to agree when she’d stormed out.

What was she doing here? Her proximity made him want to relive their first kiss and remind her of what they’d had—what they had given up. The memory of the way she’d sat on his lap while he was in her styling chair, her breath tickling his ear, made blood rush to his cheeks. Just the thought of her lips on his made his skin clammy, and he had the urge to pull her close right then and there.

But then the mayor spoke, and reality came crashing in. Debbie had broken up with him, and she was happier now. She was too spontaneous and full of life to be happy with someone like Bob.

“I actually wanted both of you here,” Mayor McAllister was telling Debbie. “I know this whole thing is short notice, but the colleges and universities we contacted took their time in getting back to us.”

“Why do we both need to be here?” Debbie asked slowly.

“Because you’ll be working together on this project.”

Bob’s gaze snapped back to the mayor. “What?”

“You’ll be traveling together. As a team.”

Debbie’s gaze flickered to Bob, then back to the mayor. Her features were contorted in panic, and it made Bob bristle. Was spending time with him, even in a professional capacity, so awful to evoke that kind of reaction?

“When you said I’d be working with a recruiter, you purposely chose not to tell me who it would be,” Debbie said to the mayor, her voice low. “You know about our past.”

“Yes, I do,” Mayor McAllister said, still bright and chipper, as if they were talking about the unusual amount of rain they’d had that summer. “But I also know that you are both the best people for the job. Bob will make sure everything runs smoothly, and you’ll be the one who can talk to people about the impact that tourism has had on local businesses, and the town in general.”

Bob hated to admit it, but it made sense. Debbie could make someone want to live in a van by a river, never mind a thriving tourism town.

“And we’ll be driving separately?” she asked, her tone hopeful.

“Of course not,” the mayor said. “That would be a waste of gas as well as a safety issue. I’d never send anyone alone, driving all over the desert.” Her eyes sparkled, like she was enjoying herself.

If Bob didn’t know any better, he’d say she’d purposely picked the two of them because of their past. Scratch that. That seemed exactly the kind of thing the new mayor would do. Just because she had a different title didn’t mean she’d changed at all. For better or worse, she had been born a matchmaker.

His gaze flickered toward Debbie, who he was surprised to see had now narrowed her eyes and was glaring at the mayor.

“Really, Zoe?” Debbie asked. “I agreed to do this for you, not because I had to, but because you needed me.”

“And you need the money for your salon, right?” Mayor McAllister asked. “I need someone who is good with people. Is it my fault that I also need someone who is good with the logistics, and that person happens to be your ex-boyfriend?”

The conversation was taking a turn that made Bob both uncomfortable and hurt. He didn’t want to see how badly Debbie wanted to get away from him, or how she would turn down money just to not have to sit in the same car as him.

He stood and backed toward the door, but someone else was just stepping in, blocking his path of escape.

Mayor McAllister looked at whoever had just entered the room, and relief smoothed out the mayor’s features. “Sandy, I’m glad you were able to make it.”

Bob turned and saw Sandy, the baker’s daughter. She tucked a strand of her short brown hair behind one ear. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “Mother doesn’t approve of this at all, and it took some convincing for her to allow me to come.”

Mayor McAllister raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I thought she had agreed that this would be a positive thing for you.”

“Cold feet, I guess.”

The mayor turned her attention to Bob and Debbie. “You both know Sandy, don’t you?”

Bob and Debbie both nodded, but Bob couldn’t have spoken if he’d wanted to. His surprise at seeing Sandy in the mayor’s office equaled the surprise he’d felt when he had seen Debbie. Sandy rarely went out, and when she did, she was usually helping her mother at the bakery. Rebecca kept a pretty short leash on her daughter, despite the fact that Sandy was an adult, and had been for quite some time. Sandy had to be around twenty-five or twenty-six, but was as dependent on her mother as a young child.

“Sandy will be your other travel companion,” Mayor McAllister said.

When the mayor had first told Bob that he’d be leaving on a recruiting trip, he’d thought she was being funny. When he’d said that Debbie would be joining him, he’d thought she was being cruel. But adding Sandy to the mix? This was beyond anything Bob could define.

Mayor McAllister was unique, but she was good at what she did, which was why the town had elected her in the first place. But why would she send Sandy? The woman hadn’t left Amor in at least a decade, and she hadn’t made a decision for herself in just as long. She was certainly no better at talking with people than he was.

Bob was trying to figure out how to tactfully ask about the mayor’s unusual choice when Sandy answered the question herself.

“I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Larcher.” She gave him a smile that told him she wasn’t offended. “I promise I won’t hold you back. Think of me as your ball boy…or woman, in this case.” Her eyes brightened. “I like the sound of that. Ball woman,” she said again, as if testing the sound on her tongue. “Whatever you need, just ask and I’ll get it for you. No job is too small. No job is too…well, there may be some jobs that are too big, just as a forewarning. My therapist has said I’ve made a lot of progress over the last year, but I’m still working on a few things.”

“Uh-huh,” Bob said. He tried to smile, but his headache, which had been replaced by the shock of the situation he had found himself in, had returned full force. “We can go over the details later, but I do have a couple of things I’d like to get done before I head home for the night,” he said, once again backing toward the open doorway.

“Before you go, I just wanted to let you know that I’ll have the itinerary on your desk in the morning,” Mayor McAllister said. “Let me know if you have any questions about it.” She didn’t seem as confident as she had before, almost like she was second-guessing her decision to throw the three of them together for a whole week. Good. Maybe she’d call the whole thing off.

He gave a quick nod, then, without glancing back, he hurried back down the hall to the HR office. He stood outside the locked door, trying to process everything that had just happened.

Seven days. With Debbie.

Bob no longer felt the need to stay until five o’clock, and quickly left the building.

He didn’t want to risk the possibility of running into her again on his way out.

And it was obvious that she would rather not see him either.