Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
And it took me a moment to collect myself enough to give the well-intentioned men a sweet smile. “Let me get my boss to help you. I’m new, and I haven’t gotten familiar with everything yet.”
The one with more gray hair than the other glanced at my boobs so quickly I was pretty sure he thought he was so slick I hadn’t noticed. “Don’t you worry, beautiful.”
I wanted to sigh, but I just smiled all over again.
And that’s when the door opened and the last figure I would have expected to come in, did.
Well, not the last, but one of them.
It was the uniform on that long, strong body that caught my eye first.
He was already looking at me. And if he was surprised, I wouldn’t have been able to tell because of the sunglasses he had on. Well, that and the fact that the customers decided to keep talking.
“What’s a pretty thing like you doing working here instead of a clothing store? Or maybe a jewelry store? I’d bet you’d sell everything in one those.”
Pretty much any other job but this one was what they were hinting at.
I was trying my best. I really was. But it had only been a couple weeks.
I slid my gaze back to the less gray-haired man. “I’m not really that fashionable, and I don’t wear much jewelry.”
Out of the corner of my eye, Mr. Rhodes wandered farther into the store, but I could tell he was still looking at me.
“One of my friends is a lawyer in town; he might be looking to hire a new secretary if I put in a good word for you,” the one with the most amount of gray hair said.
Did he insinuate he’d hint at his friend to fire his current employee to hire me?
I shook my head and tried to give him another smile. “That’s all right, I like it here.” When I wasn’t screwing up. And when people weren’t petting me on the head like it was okay for me to not know things.
Fortunately, they settled on a rod on their own, and I rang him up and did my best to ignore the way they both kept staring at my face and boobs. When he took the receipt and rod out of my hands, I gave them both a smile and only let myself sigh once they were out of there.
But just as soon as the door closed, the reminder that if I was planning on staying—and yeah, I didn’t love every part of the job, but one more glance at how tired Clara was told me I wouldn’t be leaving any time soon—I needed to get my shit together. For her. I needed to learn so I could answer questions on my own and not feel like crap about being so useless.
That was when I looked around the store and spotted the man by the fishing accessories.
It hit me.
Who would know more about outdoor things than a game warden?
No one.
Okay, maybe someone, but I only knew very limited someones here, and it wasn’t like I could ask Clara to sit me down and teach me anything. We barely had enough time to talk at the store, and she was always busy afterward. We’d made plans twice to go out for dinner, and she’d bailed both times because something had come up with her dad.
And sure, Mr. Rhodes didn’t exactly seem to have a whole lot of extra time on his hands either, considering I only saw his truck at home after seven most nights but…
I had saved Amos’s life, hadn’t I?
And he had said he owed me, even though I didn’t plan on ever taking him up on the offer, right?
The more I thought about it, the more I settled into the idea of asking him for help. What would he say? That he had better things to do? Or he’d remind me that I didn’t even have two more weeks left at his place?
Which reminded me that I needed to decide if I was staying so I could find another rental.
Or not.
I rang out a couple more customers as I thought about it, and by the time he strolled up after saying something to Clara and saying something to Jackie that I couldn’t hear—how he knew them, I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to find out—he slowly walked up to the counter and set down two spools of line. I should really figure out what the point of one being thicker than the other was.
“Hi, Mr. Rhodes,” I greeted him with a smile.
He’d taken his sunglasses off and slid them through one of the gaps between the buttons of his work shirt. His gray eyes were steady on me as he said in that same uninterested, stern tone from before, “Hi.”
I took the first package of fishing line and scanned it. “How is your day going?”