“Now”—Dane smiled around the cigar clenched in his teeth—“now, we dot our i’s and cross our t’s and see what happens.”
The other two men glared at him in confusion.
Dane rocked back on his heels and grinned at them.
“It’s time, gentlemen, to prepare a contract for our assistant director and ensure that he has no option to run.”
CHAPTER 6
The air of excitement that filled the offices of McQuade Image Consulting when Gypsy entered it several days later was nothing short of surprising. Normally, Hansel (God forgive her father’s parents for that name) and Greta McQuade were with clients rather than in the offices across the street from the Gingerbread House, the sweets and gift store Greta’s parents had turned over to their granddaughters.
They’d been busy building the small personal marketing business their first child had begun with them when he was no more than twenty. After Mark’s death, they had thrown themselves into it and ensured that their lives were as busy as possible.
With Jason overseeing the offices and potential clients, her parents had concentrated on building the images, personal and business, needed to build their reputations.
Her father was still trim at fifty with very little graying in his hair. He was standing in the small conference room, a smile wreathing his face, his brown eyes sparkling in excitement.
Her mother was sitting at the long, dark walnut table, her chair turned to the side to face him, her green eyes filled with anticipation as her head turned and they both stared at Gypsy expectantly.
Despite her green eyes, Greta McQuade’s features were pure Navajo, compliments of her maternal Navajo grandfather and paternal Navajo grandmother.
She was still slender, her five foot six frame delicate and well toned for her age. She looked ten years younger and sometimes acted twenty years younger.
Jason sat at the head of the table, grinning as he watched Gypsy, his gaze approving as they both noticed the fact that she had arrived on time for the meeting he’d called and dressed in soft light blue capris, sleeveless shell and white strappy flat sandals rather than jeans and a snug cami as she usually dressed.
Gypsy closed the door slowly, eyeing the three of them suspiciously as they continued to watch her as though she should be erupting with the same joy.
She didn’t do joy so well.
She was inclined to suspicion and watching for whatever was about to disrupt her little world when they looked at her like that.
“Did we win the lottery or something?” she asked warily.
“Or something.” Her father clapped his hands together in a gesture of building excitement, obviously ready to burst with whatever excitement filled him.
“Come in and sit down, Gypsy,” Jason invited, his smile revealing his own excitement at the news they were obviously holding back.
“Do you want to tell her, Jase?” Greta asked, anticipation gleaming in her eyes as she gripped the armrests on her chair and glanced at her daughter. “I can’t believe we actually did it.”
Jason chuckled lightly, shaking his head. “I think this is Hans’s news. He’s the one who busted his ass to pull it off.”
Her father shot Jason a look of gratitude before his hands gripped the edge of the high-backed chair in front of him.
“We just got that account we bid on last year for image development and social integration with the Bureau of Breed Affairs,” he announced, sending a sharp edge of warning to explode in her stomach as she froze at the news. “They’ve contracted for a year’s time, for their new division director and two business and civil liaisons at the new Window Rock offices of the new Bureau of Breed Affairs and Enforcement. The contracts are individual, for the positions and the Breeds filling them, rather than the Bureau itself. If it works out, though, when they fill the remaining positions for this division next year, we’ll have at least one of those as well.”
Now there was a mouthful, and her father actually pulled it off without so much as a hesitation or a moment of stuttering.
Gypsy stared back at Hans McQuade, certain she couldn’t have heard him correctly. “Image development and social integration,” she repeated, trying not to swallow with the same fatalistic impression that anyone walking to the gallows would have used. “Really? I thought the bid was for corporate rather than personal development when you were discussing it last year?”
Corporate was easy. Corporate was what her parents did best.
Since when had they begun doing personal image development and social integration? Corporate mostly consisted of some well-placed ads and newsworthy stories as well as introductions to other business owners.
The Breeds were handling that end pretty well in the eastern portion of the United States. In the western states such as Colorado, the Wolf Breeds weren’t quite as socially adept, though, and the Breed community as a whole had lost footing to the Purist militia groups rising up and attacking Breeds or working with the Genetics Council to capture and continue experimentation on them.
“The Bureau wants to step more into individual integration and image building than the Breeds Society normally focuses on. They believe that here in the West, that will be the best route to take,” her father stated with an air of pride. “I’d actually proposed this first, but the Ruling Cabinet wasn’t so certain of it, so they were considering a more general theme of increasing public support and awareness of the Breeds. I was certain if they went with the idea, we’d never have a chance at the contract with the bigger agencies vying for it. But Jonas Wyatt, along with Vanderale and Lawrence Industries, two of their main supporters, convinced the cabinet that my idea was perfect for the region and, as I’d taken the chance and carried the expenses myself to work it out and propose it to the cabinet, to allow me to have first shot at the personnel for the new Window Rock offices. As a sort of test project, they want to see what we can do.”
Leaning forward, Jason drew her attention then.