Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
I looked down at the diary in bewilderment. “A window box has plants and flowers in it.”
“Usually.”
“White picket fence?” I whispered. “Where did he get that?” I shook my head and handed the diary back to him. Trying to figure it out would make me dizzy. “Not my problem. This is your problem now. You took the job.”
“Um…” He hesitated before closing his fingers around the diary, his expression confused. “I…must’ve gotten it wrong? It seemed like you didn’t actually want Mr. Tom taking over your schedule…”
“I didn’t.”
“Nor Patty.”
“Correct.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, trying to read me, and then sagged in defeat. “I don’t understand.”
I laughed. “Yes, I caught that.” I took a deep breath. “I thought I was doing fine managing my schedule, but there’s a reason Austin told Mr. Tom to help me. He passed it off as a joke, but clearly, I’m not being as punctual as I probably should be. Practice, remember? He was probably trying to protect my feelings, but shifters tend to be incredibly punctual, and I allow meetings and trainings and whatever to run long. I always feel bad cutting someone off, whether it be Edgar explaining his flowers or Mr. Tom trying to give me one more cup of coffee in the morning to improve my mood, or lengthening training when someone is right on the cusp of getting a maneuver.”
“You don’t like being the bad guy,” he surmised, his eyes glowing brighter.
“I really don’t. I’ve gotten better, but…” I shrugged. “You’re clearly very good at handling people, as I’ve just seen. And you’re always hanging around, anyway, watching. Well…now you get to take an active role. Maybe if you can get me through a day, then you can get me through a battle.”
He huffed. “You’re reaching.”
“Yeah, I am, but I do think I need help with this, and I really don’t want that help from Mr. Tom or Patty. Aurora is busy, Nessa is gone—and besides…” I put my hands in my pockets. It was a sign of trust—for shifters, anyway. Practice. “You’re my flight commander. My beta. It makes sense for you to give commands for me and organize the day-to-day.”
He nodded slowly. “I did something similar as the lead enforcer for my old cairn, Gimerel, but only as it pertained to the guardians within the cairn. I didn’t manage Nelson’s personal life.”
“Yeah, well, Nelson probably had a personal life. I am the job. It’ll be fine.” I pulled down the spell and started walking toward Patty. “It’d better be fine, because I cannot have Mr. Tom insulting every person who tries to meet with me. That’ll be a nightmare with the shifters.”
I heard his dark chuckle. Tristan probably wanted to see that.
Patty looked up from a magazine when I entered the room. She beamed at me and then Tristan. “All caught up?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Fantastic. Listen to this, Jessie. Tristan.” She barely paused for a breath, putting down her magazine and leaning forward. “Nelson isn’t faring well after certain events came to light regarding his mishandling of his production cairns. The cairn’s finances are down nearly twenty-five percent, which is no small number. Then there’s the issue of him making people disappear…”
Austin and I had acquired a couple of Gimerel’s production cairns after Nelson’s mishandling came to light—sussed out by Sebastian and Nessa and “leaked” by Patty. They were the factions that made Gimerel, the cairn Nelson headed up, money. Without those production cairns, he’d be limping financially, which was what Patty was saying.
Making people who didn’t agree with his methods or who stood in his way disappear, though…
I barely kept from glancing at Tristan. He’d been the one to carry out those directives, a secret Austin had realized and then told me. Then Niamh. That was as far as the information had gone. We didn’t want Tristan implicated in Nelson’s affairs.
“I can see you grimacing out of the corner of my eye,” Tristan murmured.
Dang it! I tried even harder for a straight face.
We hadn’t told him that we knew. Cat was out of the bag on that one.
“Yes, dirty business, that,” Patty said without blinking. “But great for us! If the cairn was financially healthy, most people would ignore the transgressions if they didn’t happen again. And they won’t. Nelson realizes he’s being watched. He wants to hold on to his leadership role. But with the cairn struggling…well…” She lifted her penciled eyebrows, her eyes glittering. “There is unrest. A lot of unrest. Nelson is holding it together—he’s so charming and good at public speaking—but only by a thread. He’s sitting atop a card house. All that’s needed is a stiff breeze, and it’ll topple over. And that breeze would want to come quickly, because he’s already acquired two new production cairns that he’s saying will more than make up the difference.” She shrugged. “They might—he’s good at business. They need to get up and running, though, and that takes money and time. There’s a small window for timber…”