She’s fucking tiny, a little wisp of a woman who probably wouldn’t even come up to the bottom of my beard if she were standing on her tiptoes. Hell, she’s so slight an attacker would probably still laugh at her if she were pointing a gun in his face. If I saw her from behind, I’d mistake her for a child.
But I didn’t see her from behind. I got a full front view of the woman, and there’s nothing childlike about her. Not the curve of her breasts in that silky blouse she was wearing. Not the deep penetrating gaze she seemed reluctant to throw my way.
No. Hayden Prescott is all woman, just in a miniature package.
It’s another reason why I’m so floored that she garnered so much of my attention last night.
I like my women sturdy. I don’t want to end up hurting one of them on accident when I—
Shit, why am I even letting my head go there right now? I’ll never see her again.
“You have to call her and get her back in the class.”
“Uh, what?” If I had a little bubble above my head, this man would’ve just popped the damn thing.
“Hayden Prescott needs to be in that class. Were you not listening when I explained that every one of those women were handpicked for a reason?”
“Is she one of the ones with domestic abuse in her background?” I ask, breaking the rule I set for myself not to get too invested in any of their stories.
It’s not because I don’t care, but it’s hard to fight the urge to fix things when I find them broken, and nothing fixes a man who hurts women than his own trip to the emergency room.
“She had a home burglary.”
“People get robbed all the time. Does she live in a shitty neighborhood?”
“Her address is in a nicer part of town, but she lives alone. She doesn’t have many friends.”
“She had a friend last night,” I mumble, still able to picture the glint in her friend’s eyes as she tried to smile her way into the class.
“What’s her friend’s name?” Wren asks as he turns back to his computer.
“Parker something or other.”
“Parker Maxwell?”
“Sounds right.”
“She’s not flagged at all for needing the class.”
“And I could tell that about her last night.”
That’s not completely true. Many women are well-versed at being able to hide what’s going on in their personal lives, but that woman is a man-eater through and through. I’ve dealt with my share of them in the past, mostly for clients who have interacted with them and were left with the short end of the stick.
“Looks like you’re going to have fifteen in the class.”
“They left. Put them both in the next class.” I make a mental note to suddenly be busy if Deacon decides to host another one of these training classes.
“She needs help now. Just give her a call and tell her that she can come to the next class with her friend.”
I close my eyes and take a long, frustrated breath in through my nose. “Sure thing.”
“And Quinten?” Wren says before I can leave his office. “It would be best if I could get that paperwork to Pam by the weekend.”
“It’s Friday,” I remind him.
He just grins before turning back around to finish working on whatever he was doing before I interrupted.
He’s back to arguing with the damned bird before I can close the door.
I spend five minutes chatting with Jude in the breakroom before heading to my office. What I did yesterday wasn’t a mistake, but there’s no way to call someone and tell them to come back after making them leave without sounding like an asshole.
As I sit in my office chair, I wonder if I could get Pam to call Hayden and get her up here to sign the stupid paperwork. After ten minutes of staring at the phone, I look up her information in our computer system and make the call.
“Hello?” she says, answering after the third ring.
So much for just leaving a voicemail.
“Hayden Prescott?”
“I’m not interested.”
“Excuse me?” I ask, confused.
“I don’t care about an extended warranty. My roof is fine, and vinyl siding would look terrible on my house.”
I fight a laugh, wondering how many calls she gets for those types of things that she went through the whole spiel that quickly. I guess I’m just lucky she isn’t screening her calls, or unlucky depending on how you look at it.
“This is Quinten Lake with Blackbridge Security. I’m—”
“The giant jerk.”
I pause, not sure if she’s using giant in reference to my size or level of jerkiness.
“I’m the instructor for the shooting safety class.”
“Look, I didn’t want to go to that stupid class to begin with. I had no idea that Parker wasn’t registered. I don’t understand a follow-up call after being embarrassed. It’s not like I’m planning on leaving a bad Yelp review or something, so you’re wasting both of our time.”
This woman is so fucking feisty, and I must be crazy because I kind of like it. She’s like a stack of short-fused dynamite in a tiny little package.
“I’ve been told by my office manager that there was a mix up. You and your friend are welcome to rejoin the class.” I shake my head, knowing that sounded like a personal apology rather than some type of processing mistake. “I’ll just need you to swing by our main office at some point today to complete the paperwork.”
Silence fills the line, but the timer on the phone display is still clicking off the seconds, so I know she hasn’t hung up.
“Let me get this straight, you kick us out of class, realize it’s a mistake, and then expect me to spend my time coming to you to complete paperwork I could’ve easily done last night?”
I open my mouth to argue that I didn’t ask her to leave, that it was her friend who was the unauthorized attendee, but there’s no sense in arguing the point.
“It’ll only take a few minutes,” I say instead.
“The drive wouldn’t. Can I not just complete the paperwork at the next class?”
“We’ll need to go over the information you missed at last night’s class.” I find myself wanting to rile her up just to get another taste of her hair-trigger attitude. “I’ll need to reschedule that class for you sometime during the week. What day—”
“I can give you an hour before the next class, and that’s it.”
The corner of my mouth turns up. “Are you a fast learner?”
“I’m not an idiot, if that’s what you’re asking. What does the first class entail?”
“Missouri laws regarding handguns,” I answer.
“So nothing that requires actually touching them?”
“Correct.”
“I’ll bring a notepad an hour early.”
“I have a pamphlet. So, you don’t—”
The call goes dead, and I find myself equally entertained and annoyed as I place the handset back on the receiver.
She’s like a chihuahua. The size of a small animal with the attitude of a fierce lion.
Finding myself restless, I head back to the breakroom for a bottle of water.
“I hear you kicked someone out of your class last night,” Jude says as I enter the room.