“Nice to meet you all,” I told them.
“There’s plenty of pizza left, ladies. Help yourselves,” Noah said.
Chapter Eight
Noah
* * *
Three hours later, I watched from the window in the office as Nellie’s car pulled out of the small parking lot by the main building.
I’d spent the afternoon teaching her how to use our booking software. She was a quick learner, and she picked up on it faster than Jeannine had. She just had to work on her confidence when answering the phone. All and all, I was impressed with her—and not just because she’d left a lasting impression on me weeks ago. It felt right, having her around, and that settled the restlessness that had taken hold of me since the night we’d spent together.
Hiring her had been more of an on-the-spot decision than Damien would have liked. As expected, I heard all about his reservations when I’d gone out to ask Easton to go pick up the pizza from Pizza Picasso. He would have rather the two of us had sat down and gone over her resume, called her references, then offered the job to her.
He felt like my hiring her on the spot was a desperate move, and maybe it was. Maybe I was desperate to have her around, and desperate to get out of the office. All those things could be true at once, and they were.
I had seen the hesitation on Nellie’s face when it came to accepting the job. I wouldn’t jeopardize things by acting on my residual feelings from the night we spent together, especially not now. Maybe down the road we could revisit that night, if she ever gave any indication that was what she wanted.
The back door beeped, signaling someone was entering through the laundry room. A few moments later, Damien appeared in the office.
“I’m leaving now. Pathways have all been shoveled and Easton’s finishing up putting sand down.”
“Alright, sounds good.” I nodded.
“How’d it go with the new girl?” he asked, lifting his chin toward the front desk.
“It went well, considering it was her first day and all.”
“It shouldn’t have been,” Damien grumbled.
“Are you still pissed that I made an executive decision?” I challenged.
“Kind of, yeah. What if she’s a thief? Or a terrible employee?”
“I doubt she would have kept her previous job for eight years if that were the case, Damien.” I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. “She only left that job because she moved to Hartwood Creek.”
“Yeah, well. Maybe she had a prior record that her former employer was okay with, but that wouldn’t fly on a family resort,” Damien was grasping at straws, and he knew it.
“Well, good thing she’s on probation, right?” I pointed out. Damien didn’t look any more appeased by that reminder. I sighed. “I’m still planning on calling her references, but relax. She’s capable, and I have a good feeling about this.”
“Your ‘good feeling’ better not be in your pants,” Damien grumped, shaking his head as the door to the laundry room swung open behind him.
“Oh, are we talking about good feelings in pants?” Easton chimed in, a devious look on his face. “Not exactly workplace appropriate conversation material, brothers.”
“I thought you were leaving?” I asked Damien, irritated.
“I am,” Damien said, heading back out through the laundry room. We often parked in the back lot, to keep spaces free for guests out front.
“He’s in a mood,” Easton said, watching our older brother storm off and slam the door behind him.
“When is he not?” I retorted, roughly pulling out the chair and sitting down. We answered phones until five during the week. Easton leaned against the front counter, a bemused smile on his face.
“So, the new girl is pretty hot. Is that what’s got Damien pissed? He thinks you hired her because she’s good looking?”
“He thinks I rushed into hiring her without doing my due diligence of checking references, but she’s a friend of Sage’s and has Nix’s approval. I’m not worried about the references.”
“Yeah, fair enough. Rumour has it, though, that she’s a former hookup of yours.”
