Home > One Sweet Day I Found You(2)

One Sweet Day I Found You(2)
Author: Jillian Walsh

A storefront two doors down caught her eye—the West End Coffee Shop. “Oh, thank goodness,” she muttered, her shoulders relaxing.

Courtney grabbed the last of her belongings from inside the car then handed over fifty of her last three-hundred dollars in cash. “Thanks so much for the ride.”

“It was a nice change of scenery. Take care, and good luck with the new job!”

She would need the luck. Courtney attempted a warm smile. “Thanks.”

With a hasty goodbye, Courtney slung her purse, her carry-on bag, and her laptop case over her shoulder then pulled her rolling suitcase behind her.

It was time for coffee. Luscious, glorious coffee with cream. Something to clear the brain fog. Finally.

She’d grab a cup and hurry over to her new office, and then beg and plead to keep the job she had just flown halfway around the world to take.

 

 

The aromatic flavors of fresh brew permeated the colorful shop. A jazzy instrumental playlist hummed softly in the background and quirky artwork dressed the walls. Courtney stepped up to the counter.

A few minutes later, coffee and bagel in hand, she found a seat against a wall. She could not possibly handle the rest of the morning without some food in her stomach.

She smothered the bagel with cream cheese and then downed it, scanning the latest news on her phone. She took a deep breath. It was time to face the music, and she’d better step on it.

With one hand on the rolling suitcase, her bags over her shoulders, and the other hand clutching her coffee cup, she started towards the door.

A text dinged and Courtney stopped to pull the phone from her purse. She read the message.

It was from her father, welcoming her back from the land down under. Oh, Dad. He thought that phrase was so clever.

She grinned and hurried onward as another message came in from him.

Did you see any wallabies?

 

 

Courtney laughed and looked up from the phone just in time to see a tall, handsome stranger with eyes as blue as the lake displaying a look of momentary panic. “Watch it!” he said.

He stopped quickly, directly in front of her, before an actual collision could happen.

But it was too late.

The lukewarm liquid in Courtney’s lidless paper cup was sloshing about violently. It splashed them both, all at once.

Courtney and the stranger stared at each other, mouths open.

As if in slow motion, Courtney’s eyes went wide and she looked down at her top.

He glanced at his green polo.

Both were speckled as if someone had used them as a canvas for a splatter painting, only with just one muddy color. Her phone had been hit as well.

“Oh, my gosh!” Courtney was horrified.

The stranger looked too surprised to speak and returned her stunned gaze, and for a short moment, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from that gorgeous pair of blues.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” she stammered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Moving quickly, Courtney set the coffee cup and her bags down on a nearby table. She grabbed a small stack of napkins from the dispenser and handed him some.

He took the napkins and dabbed at his shirt and khaki shorts, muttering under his breath. “Shoot, I have to go back to work.”

She grimaced, then dried the screen on her phone and stole a glance to study his features. Clean-cut, with close-cropped, sandy-brown hair, a little longer over the top. Broad-shouldered with a trim, athletic build. She guessed he was roughly her age. Probably about twenty-six or twenty-seven? Not bad looking. At all.

She noticed a logo on his polo shirt that read Inlet Outfitters.

Shame she had worked him over like this. Talk about awkward.

Courtney dabbed some napkins at the coffee on her sleeveless, cream-colored top, the perfect shirt to make a coffee stain stand out. “Gosh, that was so careless of me.”

He nodded awkwardly.

She felt awful about his shirt. But how was she going to show up for her first day on the job looking like this?

She remembered the suitcase. She could change. “Listen, I’m so sorry. I should’ve been watching—”

“—Where you were going?” He tossed the napkins into a nearby trashcan and offered her a weak smile.

Courtney blushed. “I know. I’m really, really sorry.”

He ran a hand across one side of his jaw, calling attention to an alluring five-o’clock shadow. He brushed off the exchange. “Whatever. It’s no big deal. I’ll live.”

“Can I make it up to you?” she offered. “How about I buy you a coffee?”

“No. It’s okay.” He turned with a grin and headed for the counter. “Thanks, though.”

Courtney turned away, feeling terrible. She peered back at him one more time, flung the empty coffee cup into the trash, grabbed her luggage, and headed for the restroom to change.

Way to go, Court.

Strike two.

 

 

Courtney studied the pale blue walls of her new boss’s office from a chair facing his desk. A tasteful, modern sculpture of a ship sat on an end table under a stylishly dressed window. She neatened her pink, strappy top. It was one of the few things left in her suitcase that had still been clean.

Claude Beecham was a casually but smartly dressed man in his late forties. He sat behind the desk, mouth agape for what felt like minutes as Courtney explained the mishap. When she’d finished, he ran a hand over his slicked-back, dark hair and pushed a pair of reading glasses up to rest on the bridge of his nose.

“Seriously, how does a travel writer confuse something like that?” he finally said. “International date lines? Time zones? Booking travel correctly? I can understand the flight delay, but these are all important considerations for someone in your line of work. And our clients will expect more if this is your usual modus operandi.”

Wince. Apologies.

Latin—really? Invisible eye roll.

A few more embarrassing questions.

Finally, he relented. “Well, Ms. Price, I’m willing to let it slide because I needed you here yesterday, quite literally, but also metaphorically. I have no time to go through the hiring process all over again if I were to let you go right now. Do you think you can keep up from here on out?”

“Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

He went on. “You’re just going to have to promise me that nothing foolish like this will happen again. I want the assignments posted on time and not a comma out of place. Do you understand?”

“I do. You have my word.”

“Good, because I’ll be watching.”

Courtney sat up straighter.

“Thank you so much. You won’t regret it. Sir.”

“Fine. Now, you’ll spend a few hours here with Josh, learning how you’ll receive the assignments and how you’ll post your stories for editing before they go live. And then, I’d like you to check in with us every Friday here at the office for an hour or two. Otherwise, you’ll be out in the field. You do have your own mobile set-up? We don’t have a full-time computer for you here.”

“I sure do.”

“Good.”

“Your first assignment is two days from now on the shores of Cave Point County Park, nine a.m, sharp. I trust you’ll have enough time to get settled and jump in a kayak Thursday morning?”

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