LITMIR.BIZ

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at her with that same impassive mask he’d donned the moment they’d figured out who was who and the mess they’d created thanks to that night.

      Who was this icy stoic sitting across from her? If Brodie Hayes had acted like this, she would’ve left that wedding when she should’ve.

      “Heavy-handed threats are no way to inspire people and build a team,” Caitlyn said. “Even if the team needs some refining, they are all Cowboy Country has right now. Electricians aren’t exactly standing around in herds. Bottom line is, that’s not how we operate here. Do you understand?”

      He sat back in his chair, staring down at his hands, which were steepled at chest level. For a moment she thought he might apologize.

      “It wasn’t an easy decision for your father to hire Hayes Consulting. Alden Moore is extremely good at what he does. He’s the amusement-park king. Hiring me for Cowboy Country was him admitting he may have been in a little over his head. Your dad is damn good at what he does, but this park is a departure from his wheelhouse. When your father hired me, one of the first things he asked me was, ‘Hayes, are you afraid to fire people?’ I assured him I wasn’t.”

      “So what? You decided to walk in here and prove yourself first thing, even before I could bring you up to speed on how things work around here?”

      “I didn’t need to be briefed to see what that guy was about,” Brodie said. “Your father has already given me my marching orders. Did he not brief you? I thought you were his second-in-command.”

      No, she was not his second-in-command. That would’ve been Bob Page. Bob had left unexpectedly after suffering critical injuries in a horseback riding accident. This happened about a week before her father’s heart attack. Based on the catastrophes of Cowboy Country’s number one and number two honchos, if Caitlyn didn’t know better, she might’ve worried that this project was cursed.

      She was too much of a realist for that, and she was dead set on proving to her dad that she could deliver.

      “I actually work out of the research offices in Chicago.”

      She paused to see if he’d make any Cait from Chicago cracks.

      He didn’t.

      She may or may not have been a little disappointed. Her rational side was relieved, but her traitorous heart, the place where she stored the snow globe memory of that night, still held out hope for some wayward spark to leap out, revealing the dashing romantic she’d met that night in February.

      It didn’t.

      “I transferred to Horseback Hollow to take the reins while my dad is recovering.”

      “Yet, you don’t have a copy of the briefing your dad gave me.” He held up the papers.

      He was so smug. She didn’t know what she wanted more: to smack that smirk off him or to walk up and kiss him to see if he could still turn her inside out.

      “That’s easy to fix.”

      Caitlyn pressed the intercom that connected her to her assistant.

      “Janie, please come in here. I need you to make some copies for me.”

      Five minutes later, the woman was standing in front of Caitlyn with the papers.

      She scanned them quickly, reading on the first page that Alden had, in fact, instructed Brodie to “slice and dice,” as Alden had put it.

       Slice and dice.

      Get rid of anyone who didn’t do the job past expectations.

      She looked up. “This is how my father works. However, since he’s not here, and I’m the Moore Entertainment executive in charge, you’re reporting to me now. And I’m telling you, we will be making some adjustments to this plan, because it doesn’t work for me. The first rule is, you don’t fire anyone until you talk to me. Do you understand me?”

      “Every single employee on this team needs to be all in. One hundred percent. If not, we won’t meet our goal.”

      “I agree,” Caitlyn said. “That also goes for the two of us working as a team and not against each other. Do you think we can do that?”

      He was quiet for a moment. Their gazes were locked, but he seemed to be looking right through her.

      “Of course,” he said. “What’s done is done. Let’s put everything behind us and move forward.”

      For a moment she wasn’t sure if he was talking about the Clark Ball incident or their Fortune wedding after-party. She certainly wasn’t going to ask or let him think he could intimidate her with innuendo.

      “Why don’t we go walk the park? It’s the best way for me to bring you up to speed. Then we can come back and figure out how we need to revise that plan, while making sure we open on time.”

      * * *

      Brodie considered himself a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. However, when it came to business, he had one hard, fast rule: do not sleep with the clients.

      It complicated matters.

      He was living the reality of that truth today, and it was throwing him off his game.

      He’d been blissfully unaware the night he’d met Caitlyn and had given himself over to the lure of their attraction. How could he resist? How could he have known that their worlds would collide in the most jarring way? In the years since he’d been in business, he’d never found himself in a situation like this.

      After dealing with other peoples’ complicated matters on the job all day, every day, he did his best to keep his personal life as unencumbered and hassle-free as possible. Of course, things didn’t always go smoothly. He’d faced the occasional sticky wicket of finding it necessary to extract himself from the casual fling that clung too tightly. And there were uncomfortable cases when he was out with a beauty only to run into the previous evening’s delight. But he prided himself on being up-front with the women in his life. Those who played by his rules stuck around for the fun of it. Those who fancied a different level of commitment usually ran out of patience and moved on.

      He couldn’t blame them.

      In his circles, everyone knew that Brodie Fortune Hayes wasn’t interested in getting serious. Work was his mistress, his lady love. He had no reserves or residual to give of himself.

      As he stepped inside the Hollows Cantina, he had to ask himself if somehow he’d been able to glimpse the future and known that Cait from Chicago would be the person to whom he’d report at Moore Entertainment, would the night of the wedding—Valentine’s Day—have taken a decidedly different turn?

      His head—the place he relied on, the one voice that he always knew wouldn’t steer him wrong—trumpeted a resounding yes. But another part of him, a place that was foreign and uncomfortable, begged to differ.

      Well, then, that was easy. He was going with his head. It was the only sensible thing to do. Especially since the workday wasn’t over yet.

      After he and Caitlyn had wrapped the disastrous day at Cowboy Country, they’d agreed to meet for dinner at The Hollows Cantina, where they would iron out the details of their united front plan.

      When he took the job, he’d known good and well that Alden Moore would be difficult to please. The man had a formidable reputation. Little did he know that working with Moore’s daughter would prove to be even more challenging!

      It went deeper than the fact that they’d seen each other naked. This woman was different from anyone he’d ever worked with. She was trying to manage a group of hostile employees with warm, fuzzy Kumbaya nonsense. She didn’t seem to realize that people were walking all over her. He was willing to bet that Clark Ball wouldn’t have pulled that bit of insubordinate baloney on her father. If Caitlyn Moore would simply get down from her high horse and listen to him tonight, he just might be able to help her save Cowboy Country.

      First,

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