"No, sir. At least not with us."
"Good," I said. "Then I appreciate the call. Have a nice day."
I hit the button to disconnect the call with one hand, and used the other to open my email on my laptop. Sure enough, the official response was there. I knew they'd mail something to us too, but I didn't want to wait for this. According to the documents, Darnell's company had set it up so we got the fastest processing possible and a personal notification by phone. That had cost extra, it seemed, but he'd paid it without saying a thing, which made me think he wanted Emily as a part of the team as much as the rest of us did.
Pressing a button printed out the forms in the storage room. Scooting back from my desk, I headed down the hall to the door across from Cy's office, and stepped in. Page by page, the papers were stacking up. Carefully, I read through each one, looking for anything that would be a problem for Southwind later on, but there was nothing. Emily's credit was atrocious, but besides that? This woman was damned near a saint.
Then I headed to Violet's office. Tapping on the door, I stepped in without waiting for her answer. Sure enough, she was on the phone, making arrangements to have a quote for cleaning service. She kept talking but waved me in, so I claimed the chair in the corner of the room. Naturally, I looked over the papers again.
There had to be some catch. Things in my world never worked out this easily. Then again, Violet was the one who'd thought about hiring her, and she had some kind of intuition for people. If Emily actually took this job, then the only other full-time employees we would need were the teachers, and they could drive in for school days. We would have no one else living on property permanently except the students.
Finally, Violet set down her phone. "What's going on?" she asked.
So I passed her the papers. "Emily's background check just came back from the state."
"State?" Violet asked. "So she made it through Darnell's initial check?"
"Yep, and he put a rush on the state approvals." I was struggling not to smile while her eyes scanned the pages. "I also just realized that the chaperone is the only other employee who will live on the property."
"Mhm," Violet agreed as she kept reading. "Gran kept the psychologist, nurse, chaperone, and some teachers on the grounds, but it isn't required." Then she reached the last page. "Ash, is her credit a problem?"
"No," I assured her, "it's not. If she had access to state secrets, then maybe she could be at risk of being bribed, but this is just a check to make sure she's safe around kids. She's good, Vi. I can hire her."
"Pay?" Violet asked.
"Cobalt suggested we match Luke, but she won't need to cover rent."
Violet was nodding slowly, clearly trying to think through any potential problems. "Everyone voted yes, so when do we make her the offer?"
I pulled out my phone again and leaned forward to start typing on it. "Luke has her number, right?"
"Yeah, for when Faith wants to have Zeke come over," she said.
So I sent a text to Luke, asking if he'd share that with me so I could talk to the woman about working here. It took a few seconds, and then Luke sent back a thumbs-up emoji. Right after that came Emily's name and number. Without thinking about it, I copied the message to Violet, sent it, and then saved Emily into my phone.
"Any other stipulations you want to put on her working here?" I asked just as Violet's phone began to buzz. "And that's me."
She still checked the screen, then set her phone back down. "I don't think so," Violet said. "I just feel like we can be sure of her, Ash. She's clearly on our side of things, and there's no way she'd do anything to risk Zeke's safety. What more could we ask for, a clean drug test?"
"Considering where she works now," I pointed out, "I'm pretty sure she can pass. So how about I make this offer, and then we can handle all of that stuff later. You good with that?"
"So good," Violet said as she turned back to her computer. "Also find out when she plans to move in. We won't be open for a few more months, but there's no reason she needs to keep paying rent at her old place."
As I opened up her contact, I stood. "Sounds good to me." Then I kissed the top of Violet's head and headed back towards my office, pressing the button to make the call.
It rang twice before Emily picked up. "This is Emily," she answered.
"Hey, it's Ash," I said. "You have a minute to talk?"
She laughed. "Let me..." There was a pause and a bit of a scratching sound, and then it felt like the tone changed. "There, I have you on my ear buds now. I'm just cleaning a toilet."
"Lovely," I grumbled. "Well, I can't promise you won't need to do that anymore, but I wanted to let you know that the state check came back today. You're good. Everything passed, and we'd like to offer you a job at Southwind as the student chaperone."
"Really?" she gasped. "Everything's fine? I mean, I'm not exactly qualified, and - "
"Emily," I said, stopping her before she could start overthinking this, "you're qualified. We need someone who can deal with teenagers. Someone who they feel like they can talk to, who will know when they need to be busted for breaking the rules and when it might be better to pretend like we don't see it. You're more than qualified, and your son proves it. The job is yours if you want it."
"Yes," she breathed. "Oh my god, Ash, you have no idea how much. I've been having to tell Zeke that it's not a guarantee and that we should be thankful to even be considered."
