Page 8 of Love You
TJ tapped the keys on his tablet and turned the screen so Win could have a look. A bio picture of a smoking-hot brunette smiled back at him and a vague recollection of that face tugged at his memory.
“Ah, jeez, you didn’t sleep with her, did you?” Colt got up and grabbed a Danish from the box.
“No.” He’d taken the trip with Haley, a former GA guide who’d had friends at the Alaska tour company. As a professional courtesy, the company had given them a deal. The trip had been a blast and he and Haley had had a good time together, going their separate ways afterward. Last he’d heard, she’d moved to Costa Rica. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Well it’s my business if I’m going to put you on the account, the account we haven’t gotten yet,” TJ said, and added for emphasis, “The account we could really use to offset the cost of Stanley Royce.” Royce, one of their clients, had sued GA after tumbling down a mountainside in a porta-potty. Long story. The short version: GA had settled out of court and instead of having their insurance handle it and watch their premiums skyrocket, they’d dipped into their reserves. The whole fiasco had cost the company plenty and it had happened on Win’s watch, putting the blame squarely in his court.
“FlashTag is also looking at another company out of Mammoth. Mountain Adventure. It’s between us and them so we need to kill it.” TJ turned to Darcy, who as usual never said a word during these meetings. Despite being a closet sex fiend, she was an introvert around his brothers. “I want you on this too.”
“Me?” She shrunk back.
Win had to admit it was odd casting. Darcy’s knowledge of adventure sports was right up there with Win’s experience giving birth.
TJ drummed his fingers on the table. “You still want that promotion? If so, I need both of you to get this account. Win, you dazzle them with the sports stuff and Darcy . . . you keep things organized.”
Okay, Win was willing to concede that he wasn’t the most systematized. But if someone told him when and where to show up, he brought his A game. He glanced over at Darcy but couldn’t get a read on her. Other than doing that twirling thing with her finger and hair, her face remained neutral. Sometimes, he’d catch her at the front desk, talking on the phone, smiling, and those dimples of hers would deepen. It lit him up, those dimples.
“You down with this?” he asked her because sometimes TJ was overzealous and tried to bend people in ways they didn’t want to bend.
“I want a promotion.” She stared down at her lap.
Win took that as a yes. “Okay,” he said. “We’re on.”
TJ mapped out the plan, which entailed a lot of wining and dining. Not really Win’s thing. Give him a kayak, a raft, skis, rock-climbing gear and he was good to go. Otherwise, he was a bit out of his element. And he doubted bashful Darcy was any better at buttering up slick Silicon Valley suits. She was the quiet, studious type. That is when she wasn’t breaking into men’s homes and jumping their bones.
“Where do we come in?” Josh asked, motioning between him and Colt.
“Anything Win or Darcy wants you to do to make this deal happen,” TJ said. “It’s Win’s contact so he takes the lead.”
“So we’re resting the future of GA on Win’s delicate shoulders?”
Win responded by giving Josh a middle-finger salute.
“Scary, but we aim to deliver and Madison De Wolk wants Win. What can I say? There’s no accounting for taste.” TJ pretended to shudder.
Win, being the youngest, was often the butt of his family’s jokes (though no one was immune from being razzed in the Garner family). Admittedly, part of the teasing he’d brought on himself. Between the carousing and the women, he wasn’t taken too seriously. But he was working to rectify his reputation. And if he could help turn around the company . . . Royce had not only cost them a good chunk of change, he’d hurt GA’s reputation. In the age of social media, it didn’t take much to derail a business. Since the porta-potty incident, GA had seen a drop-off in clients.
He and his brothers would fight with all they had to save their parents’ legacy. Gray and Mary Garner founded the company in the 1970s and had weathered recessions, bad investments, and the expense of four college tuitions. But after the Royce setback they couldn’t afford to give Darcy a raise with her promotion. Or buy new gear. As far as Win’s shoulders being delicate, ha, he wasn’t even going to dignify that with a comeback. But more than anything he’d like to prove himself, show the family he was just as important to Garner Adventure as the rest of them.
“Meeting adjourned, then?” Colt fiddled with his cell phone. He didn’t like to leave the police station for too long. Jack, his assistant chief, had his back but Colt was a control freak.
All Win’s brothers were, making him wonder how that particular trait had skipped him.
After the meeting, he went in search of Darcy, who’d disappeared. Maybe she’d ducked into the john again to work on that stain. It was too early for lunch and Win didn’t have a tour until that afternoon. A couple who wanted to go parasailing for their thirtieth anniversary. He couldn’t think of a better way of celebrating.
To kill time, he left the building, thinking Darcy might’ve stepped out too. It occurred to him that he didn’t know how she spent her time out of the office and didn’t have the first clue where to look for her. So he headed in the direction of Paddle and Pedal on the boardwalk. The company did a killer business in summer, renting everything from kayaks and canoes to bikes and surreys to the tourists. Surrounded by a lake, a river, and five major ski resorts, Glory Junction was an outdoor adventurer’s paradise. And Paddle and Pedal was a good spot to connect with prospective clients. Plus, he liked shooting the breeze with the two guys who owned the shop.
Halfway down Main Street a beat-up Chevrolet pickup drew up next to him.
“Where you off to?” Rita Tucker, the town’s mayor, asked in her gravelly smoker’s voice, and gave him a thorough up and down. “I have some new ideas for the calendar.”
“I think I’m out this year, Rita.”
She pulled to the shoulder and turned off her engine. Ah, hell, Win didn’t want to spend his morning facing off with the mayor over her pervy calendar, even if it did raise tons of cash for the volunteer fire department. But posing, oiled up in nothing but a Santa hat and a holly wreath, was precisely the image he was fighting against.
She pushed open the door and stomped out of the cab. “Since when?”
He tried for diplomacy, instead of telling her the calendar was cheesy as hell. “I think it’s time to give someone else a chance. What about Boden?”
