Page 14 of Help Wanted

She shook off her boxing gloves as quickly as she could and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” She only then noticed she was out of breath. “I was working out, nothing else,” she added stupidly in breathy pants.

She heard a man chuckle on the other end of the line.

“Is this Kenley Carmichael?”

“Yes.” She worked hard to calm her breathing so she didn’t sound like a whacko.

“This is Zane Jackson from New Haven Custom Boats.”

“Yes?” She couldn’t help but sound confused. He’d made things perfectly clear when she’d retreated out of his office.

“I was wondering if you were still available for the job. If you aren’t, it’s fine. No worries.”

“I’m still available.”

“Oh. Okay.” He almost sounded disappointed. “Then I’d like to offer you the position.”

“Really? I mean—thank you! Thank you so much. You won’t regret this, I promise.”

They briefly went over her salary—which was more than fair—and he told her to be at the office at eight on Monday.

“No problem, and thank you for believing me,” she said when they’d wrapped up the business portion of the phone call.

“I don’t have a husband so I figured I wouldn’t have anything to worry about one way or the other.”

“Right.” She frowned. “See you on Monday.” It would have felt better if he’d hired her because he believed she’d do a good job, but getting out of her brother’s basement was the most important thing.

“Actually, I won’t be there when you come in, you’ll need to get with Sidney. I made sure she knows your name.”

“Thanks,” she said again before they hung up.

She screamed with excitement and hit the bag a few more times out of joy, realizing too late she didn’t have gloves on anymore. She winced, but was too happy to let the pain deter her.

She tore down the photo of her old boss, ripped it up into small pieces, and threw it into the trash on the way to the shower. There would be celebrating tonight.

She started by calling her father, who was happy and reminded her how many times he’d told her everything would work out. He put her stepmother on the phone, who asked all the important details.

“Do they have good benefits?” she asked, much like Kenley’s mother would have had she been alive. Kenley felt blessed that she’d had two wonderful women in her life who loved her as their own, even though neither had given birth to her. Long ago she’d stopped wondering about the woman who had.

“Yes.”

“Are they paying you well?”

“Yes. And they gave me a week vacation to start.”

“That’s nice.”

When her parents were as thrilled as she was, she got off the phone to call Rachel, followed by Alyssa, from Hasher and Bourne, and anyone else she could think of.

Vanessa invited her out for a celebratory drink.

That night when they got back, Kenley tried to calm down enough to get some sleep. She found that while alleviating the worry of a paycheck was definitely something to be happy about, she was more excited about the actual job.

Of all the companies she’d applied to, this seemed like the nicest place to work. She couldn’t help but think it had something to do with it being owned by a handsome man. Something about Zane Jackson’s eyes made her think he’d be a sweet guy when he wasn’t trying to be intimidating. She was actually looking forward to getting to know him.

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