Page 110 of Love Is Brewing

“He won’t,” he said. “But he is going to want to have more conversations with her and get things set. It won’t happen overnight either. I think she’s afraid to commit. She keeps saying she’s too young to know what she wants right now.”

Phoebe understood that part about the fear of deciding.

“Will she move to New York if she ends up running some foundation for him?”

“Those are things they have to work out,” he said. “I don’t get in the middle.”

She finished her lunch, put the paper container in his trash, and gave him a kiss. “Can I walk out on my own or do you have to follow me?”

“I have to follow you,” he said. “Sorry. You won’t be able to get through the doors without my key card. Do you want a key card?”

“No,” she said. That might fall under the deciding part of her life she didn’t want to put pressure on.

Travis had installed the new cameras and it was working with Elias’s old system. The past month there didn’t seem to be any issues that she’d been told about.

Elias never even mentioned if staff were upset over the cameras either, but he had said they were very low-key about installing them and didn’t want it made public knowledge either.

He walked her out to the last door, kissed her and she moved briskly to her car and drove to her office.

“Visiting with Elias for lunch?” Kayla asked her when she walked by her paralegal’s office.

She stopped and walked back a step. “Yes,” she said. “You get information fast.”

Kayla shrugged. “Beth was my boss. She’s nice and all. I think she wishes I went back. I worked in the offices for a bit and then down in distribution. I didn’t mind filling orders or doing what they asked of me. She saw you.”

“And she has time to send a text?” she asked.

“Probably on lunch. There is a big buzz going around with the collaboration. I got a picture of the can and all. You’ve got to be so excited about it with your brother too.”

Phoebe nodded and walked back to her office.

No reason to respond to that and encourage more water cooler talk.

She checked her email before her call and then got to work.

An hour later, Sophie was buzzing her. “Lori Riser is on the phone for you. She said you are expecting her call.”

She rolled her eyes. It’s not how things went. Normally the information would go through Sophie and then filtered to her or a paralegal, but it was fine. She’d been pretty clear about using “we” and not “I” when talking with Lori. Like she did anyone else.

“I’ll take it. Hi, Lori. How can I help you?”

“I’m having an issue with my neighbor. I’m not sure what to do and the police aren’t helping. I think it’s because my neighbor is friends with an officer. I didn’t want anyone to see me talking to an attorney and have it get back to them.”

And this was where small towns got complicated.

“What kind of problem are you having?”

“My neighbor is always playing loud music during the day. Their kids are a nuisance on the street and my property. I’ve nicely asked more than once that they lower the music. It causes my windows to shake.”

“And you’ve called the police?” she asked.

“I have,” Lori said. “They come out and talk to them to lower the music some, but it will start up again a few days later. I want to put a fence up to keep their kids off my property. I had someone come out and survey my land and their shed is actually on my property. I asked them to move it, but they won’t. I never realized my property line extended that far.”

“Legally, we can send them a letter giving them thirty days to move it. We’d do that with a copy of the survey. They can choose to pay for a separate survey if they wish to counter your results.”

“They won’t,” Lori said.

“Then the first step is a letter for them to move it. If they refuse, you can file suit for it to be removed and seek damages on top of it. You have to decide if you want to go that route.”

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