Page 54 of Necessary Roughness

Chapter Nine

TWO DAYS LATER, Jordan left her parents’ house for the clinic. She’d arrived late Saturday night on her parents’ doorstep after sneaking out of Tanner’s house. They’d welcomed her with open arms and chocolate chip cookies.

“You can stay here as long as you need to,” her mother said.

The physical therapy clinic would be a relief after the drama of the weekend. Tanner’s appointment wasn’t until tomorrow, so she had a day to lick her wounds before she had to face him again. A few minutes later, she was on the quiet street heading toward the freeway. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

She turned her radio up. She wasn’t going to crumple like a wet tissue when she had a setback. She had had twelve hours or so to cry about it. She had clients to see and more than enough activities to occupy her time. She could follow up on the apartment applications at lunchtime. Mostly, she hoped for a good day at work. She was going to be fine.

“I can do this,” she said aloud. “It’s not a big deal.”

She’d broken up with guys before. This wasn’t really a breakup, though. They hadn’t been together long enough for a breakup. They’d slept together only once. She’d sneaked out of his house instead of thanking him for allowing her to stay at his house for a month, which she still needed to do. The money she saved was almost enough for a down payment on a tiny condo forty miles from Seattle that Harrison had found.

She pulled into one of the employee parking spaces at the clinic after a visit to the Starbucks drive-through. She didn’t make it to the break room before she was intercepted by Marco.

“Hey, Jordan, good to see you. Did you have a fun weekend?”

“Sure,” she said. She knew from previous experience that he really didn’t want to talk about her weekend. “What’s up?”

“Let’s go into the break room and sit down for a few minutes. I have something I’d like to talk to you about.”

She hadn’t seen any other employees’ cars in the parking lot yet on her way inside. He was being weirdly friendly. She didn’t think she’d done anything to get fired for, but things didn’t look good so far.

“Have a seat,” Marco said as they walked into the break room. “Want a cup of coffee?”

She held up her Starbucks cup. “I already have one, but thanks.” She took a deep breath. “Is there something I can help you with, Marco?”

He sat down at the table with a cup of coffee.

“Actually, there is,” he said. “I have been thinking about this for a while now. I haven’t said anything because the time wasn’t right. I’m sure you understand.”

She gave him a nod. She didn’t understand at all, but it was better to let him talk and figure it out later.

“My wife is retiring. She’s been at Microsoft for over thirty years now. Her stock is vested, and we have enough money to start a new life.”

“That’s great,” she said.

“I know. It’s exciting. We can spend some time chasing our dreams for a change.” He sipped his coffee. “I’m sure you can guess what’s going to happen as a result.”

“I—I’m not sure.”

“Initially, I was going to let everyone go and close the clinic. I don’t want to think about this place when we’re traveling the world.” He took another sip of coffee. “I really don’t need the money from a sale. Someone else would take my client list and close the place anyway.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Don’t look so serious! It’s not that bad. I think I have the solution, and that’s where you come in.”

“How can I help?”

“I’d like you to buy the clinic. You’ll keep the place open, you won’t sell off the client list because you’d have to lay off all of your coworkers, and you can give me a down payment and a monthly percentage of the profits.”

If Jordan hadn’t been sitting down, she would have fallen down. She took another sip of her latte.

“What do you think? I’m prepared to offer excellent terms,” he said.

“It sounds like a great opportunity, but I don’t have that kind of money, Marco.” Was he insane? She wasn’t a multimillionaire. Mostly, she was shocked he was talking to her about this in the first place.

“You’re not thinking big enough here,” he said. “You need some investors. You retain fifty-one percent of the business, you sell off forty-odd percent. The clinic has been increasing in profit for the past ten years. Why don’t you think about it for twenty-four hours?”

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