Читать книгу The Sweetest Hours - Cathryn Parry - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

DURING THE NEXT six weeks, Kristin heard nothing from George Smith.

She returned to work the Monday after he left, expecting questions about her time spent with him, but most of the office was busy celebrating the news of Andrew’s firstborn daughter. In the excitement, no one remembered to ask Kristin anything about what had happened on Saturday.

She sat at her computer and checked her company email, but found no messages from George—not even about Aura Botanicals. She thought he might at least have some lingering questions about the company and its products.

Kristin felt...well, sad. Not at all relieved. Maybe even a little bit hurt.

Of course he was busy—he spent his life traveling, he’d said. And he had thanked Stephanie for dinner; he didn’t owe them anything more than that.

But, the night had affected her—how could it not? Even not knowing that he and Kristin had kissed, her family still talked about him.

George had sat congenially around their dining table, and he’d read the Robert Burns poem in the accent of his country. Even without the kiss, that alone made him more memorable than any other man she’d known.

I hope you find your castle. He’d meant it figuratively, of course. But how did she go about doing that? She had no idea what her mythical castle even was.

Kristin signed off her email and chewed her lip. Maybe George would contact her when his report to Jay Astley was finished. That was what she hoped for.

Or maybe she would never hear from George again.

She didn’t know.... She felt so confused.

She leaned back in her chair and stared at the water-stained ceiling tiles. The night had certainly been an adventure. And to think that before George had shown up, she’d been feeling depressed with her life, traveling along in her rut of routine, longing for something to change, but every time she’d tried, getting into trouble.

Unlike George, she couldn’t just pick up and leave her hometown. She’d trapped herself here. Her rut was just something she had to figure out how to live with.

* * *

WEEKS LATER, TOWARD the end of her shift on a bleak, drizzly Monday, Kristin’s supervisor, Dirk, poked his ponytailed head into her office. “Jay Astley has called a meeting with management. You’d better step in here, Kristin.”

The owner of her company considered her management? That was something new. Kristin perked up.

She pushed away from her desk and hurried after Dirk. Her gangly supervisor diverted his path to the coffee machine, but she followed the other managers into the conference room, the place where Laura Astley had interviewed Kristin for her job six years earlier. Kristin hadn’t been to many meetings inside the gleaming, modern plant manager’s lair since then. This was Andrew’s turf, and Andrew didn’t hold her in confidence.

Inside the sunlit space, most of the office staff were already present. The top managers had staked their places around the polished board table; the lesser supervisors lined the walls behind them. Kristin found a spot at the back of the room and squeezed in.

Dirk wedged beside her, a coffee mug in hand. “Man, Astley looks like hell,” he said to her in a low voice. “I just saw him come inside the plant with two bodyguards flanking him.”

“Bodyguards?” Kristin asked. “Why would he need that?”

“Why do you think?”

Everyone hushed as Jay Astley entered the room and took a seat. He’d seemed to have aged ten years since Kristin had last seen him. One glance at Astley’s face—pale and broken, thoroughly lacking in sleep—and she felt sorry for him. Even at Laura’s funeral he hadn’t been so stooped and withdrawn, shoulders slumped as if he carried a heavy, sad burden.

A burly man wearing a suit and security-guard expression lingered in the doorway, staring them up and down. “He looks like he’s packing heat, doesn’t he?” Dirk whispered.

She did notice a bulge on the man’s hip beneath his jacket. Kristin swallowed.

Dirk sipped his coffee.

“I don’t think this is a good thing,” she whispered back.

“Probably not.” Dirk grinned. “At least I have my DJ business to fall back on.” Behind his hand, he said to her, “I hope our severance check is sweet—I’d love to get some new amplifiers. I’m looking forward to the unemployment checks, too.”

She stared at him. “We are not getting laid off.”

“Sure we are.”

How could Dirk even think that? She’d never been through a layoff before, but she’d seen a movie about it with George Clooney once, and this was not the way it happened.

In the movies, George Clooney met with people one-on-one.

This...this...was a mass announcement. Something different was going on.

Jay Astley, their CEO, turned slowly, gazing from face to face, regarding even the people standing behind him, including herself. A single tear ran down his cheek.

Kristin’s jaw slackened. This was really bad.

“You’re probably wondering why I called you all here, so I’ll just get to it,” Jay said in a raspy voice that didn’t sound like his own.

It seemed to Kristin that everyone hushed and leaned forward.

“I’ve had to sell our company,” Jay said.

A collective gasp rang out. Kristin put her hand to her mouth.

“Yep,” Dirk muttered. “I was right.”

Kristin elbowed him. “Shh!”

“Without Laura, I just...can’t do it anymore.” Jay’s voice faltered and then stopped.

Kristin’s heart went out to him. This was horrible. Laura had been the heart and soul of Aura Botanicals, and it seemed she’d been her husband’s heart and soul, as well. As awful as things were for him now, Kristin couldn’t help thinking how wonderful it must’ve been to have a love as great as that.

“An outfit overseas bought the rights to Laura’s products.” Jay gripped the edge of the table, unable to look up. “In your next paycheck, there will be a bonus.” He took an audible breath. “I’m hopeful you’ll all see fit to stay with me through the end of the month. We’ll need help disassembling the machinery and moving the inventory to the new location.”

New location?

“But what about our jobs?” Andrew asked, putting voice to the question on everyone’s minds, judging from the nodding and murmurs. “Will the new company keep us on?”

“Andrew...” Jay began.

“Will they keep this factory open, Jay?” Andrew demanded.

Jay didn’t answer.

“You owe us better than this,” Andrew hissed.

Kristin clutched at her throat. If she had a knife, she could cut the tension between the two men. No one else spoke. Their plant manager had challenged their CEO, and the CEO was on the hot seat. And yet, she desperately wanted his answer, too. What about their jobs?

Tears rolled down Jay’s cheeks, one after another. It was excruciating to watch. Their boss was falling apart in front of everyone. This was not how it happened in the movies, either. In the movies, company owners hid in the back room or at an off-site location and let the consultants deliver the bad news. Here, their CEO faced them himself.

Kristin thought she might be sick to her stomach. Everybody present had something on the line here. This factory was the lifeblood of their community. It was the center of Kristin’s life.

“I thought...I could save the company...for Laura’s sake, I tried.” Jay’s loss of control was outright now. “You have to understand,” he pleaded, “this was Laura’s baby...her only baby...but now it’s losing money, and despite the recommendations, I had no choice but to sell. It’s the only chance her formulations stand of surviving....”

Oh, Laura. Kristin blinked her eyes against the stinging she felt. She knew what it was like not to have kids or a family of your own. She’d watched Laura pour all her considerable love into her work—her balms and her lotions, her healing aromatherapies. To Kristin’s mind, the world was a better place with Laura’s potions in it; and Jay was right, it was good that somebody wanted to rescue them so they would live on.