Betrayal of the Dove - By Capri Montgomery Page 0,27

it back again, this time looking more exasperated than she did just a few seconds earlier. He wanted to go out there and take her in his arms, settle her down with one smooth loving kiss, but he couldn’t—not yet. She wasn’t ready for that yet.

When she took a rubber band from the drawer and pushed her hair back in a ponytail he knew it was time to get out there. She had left the store open and ran upstairs just two days ago for what she called an ouch less scrunchie because she didn’t want to use a rubber band in her hair, but here she was doing it today. He stepped outside of the room, letting the door close behind him. “Hey,” he said calmly. She looked up at him and he could see unshed tears in her eyes. She wouldn’t cry, at least not with him there because she was too stubborn to let any man know he’d hurt her. He gathered it had something to do with a previous heartbreak, but he wouldn’t know for sure because they hadn’t talked about it.

“I’m being sued,” she said softly. “Can you believe that? It’s like, oh she didn’t hire me maybe I should sue her.” She shook her head.

“Why didn’t you hire him?”

“He had three months of experience. He was cheap and I thought about it, but then you walked into my store. You had so much experience, you were offering to help me get this place together and you came highly recommended—that is I know my brother had something to do with it and you wouldn’t have come in here if you weren’t qualified. I might be stubborn, but I’m not stupid. When help this good comes along for a price I can marginally afford I’m going to take it.”

He nodded. “So when you go before the judge you tell him that. You had a more qualified candidate come along who was willing to take the pay you could afford and you hired him. It had nothing to do with the color of my skin, nor did your not hiring the other guy have anything to do with the color of his skin.”

She nodded and smiled a weak smile. “Yeah, but I’m going to have to close the store and I just really can’t afford more closed days. I closed for Thomas’ wedding. Then my mom got sick not long after that. She had just gotten back to California from the wedding and she ended up in the hospital. She called me because she didn’t want to bother Thomas on his honeymoon, or Eve because she was already somewhere in Ireland, or Gavin because…well, none of us really like to have to call Gavin. Overkill,” she nodded. “I think my mom was probably afraid he would shoot one of the doctors for not taking better care of her,” she shook her head. “He just might have.” She chuckled lightly. “Anyway, she called me and I closed the store to go be with her.”

“Is she okay now?”

“Yeah, it was just acid reflux, but she thought she was having a heart attack the pain was so bad. Her husband was out of town on business so I went and stayed with her a few days until he got back. But in this business, closing for even a day hits my sales hard. If I’m closed I can’t move products. If I don’t move products, I don’t get paid. I have a small savings right now, but I don’t want to deplete it. I’m still trying to build it.” She sighed. “Oh well, such is life. I’ll figure it out. But if I’m closed you can just take the day off or something, and if it goes on longer I’ll figure out a way to…I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about your pay because you will be paid. Speaking of pay,” she pulled a check out of the closed drawer behind the counter. “I paid you from the day you started, so this check is a little bigger because it includes extra days. And I’ll be paying you weekly. I think I mentioned that to you already, but just in case you forgot.” She was definitely new to having employees herself, but not new to the game of retail business. Her previous jobs must have prepared her for how things worked and she picked the things she liked, changed the things she didn’t like, but