Page 7 of Starting Over in Cedarwood

Shaun left the ballpark and drove back to the newspaper offices. Along the way, he listened to Mozart. The wordless music grounded him and helped him relax. The tension between his shoulders dissipated and he flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. After a little piano concerto, life wasn’t so difficult. He parked, then headed inside. Cara waved to him.

“Hi.” He stopped at her desk. “Problem?”

“You have a gentleman outside your office who wants to discuss promotion options for his restaurant, and you need to call Stone McCartney at the animal shelter. They want to place an ad, but also want to do a guest spot in the paper. Feature a shelter pet each week and try to get a few more adopted. It’d be good promotion for everyone.”

“Agreed.” He took the piece of paper from her, then nodded. “Thanks. Now, who is the guy? I don’t want to go in cold and screw up his name.”

“Oh, it’s Jack Walters-Lord. He runs Jack’s Hot Dog Shop. He just wants to advertise that he’s open and doing to-go orders.” Cara grinned. “I love eating there, but I wish it weren’t so bad for my waist.”

“Your waist is fine.” He folded the paper and tucked it into his pocket. “I’ll have to try his food. Thanks.” He wandered down to his office and found a man sitting on one of the chairs in the corridor. “Hi.” Shaun stuck out his hand. “You must be Jack Walters-Lord.”

“I am.” Jack stood and shook hands with him. “Thanks for meeting with me.”

“Not a problem,” Shaun said. “I’m Shaun Fallows, advertising director here at the paper. I’m told you’d like to discuss advertising for your restaurant. Pardon my appearance. I’m rumpled because I was just at the ballfield.”

“That’s what I’m here for—the advertising, not the rumpled part.” Jack pulled a couple of pieces of paper from his pocket. “I sent the information to the general advertising email, but I wanted to see what you’re printing and my options for streamlining or fixing it.”

“You sent it to the online form and email?” Shaun settled on his chair, then rolled up to his desk. “Let me see.”

“My assistant did. There should be something from Henry Walters-Lord. He does some freelance work for the paper,” Jack said.

“Oh yes. Here.” Shaun brought up the ad on his tablet and switched to client view. “Here you go. I haven’t met Henry, but I hear his work is good. Now, let me know what you want changed or whatever and I’ll do it.”

Jack looked over the ad. “Just the name of the shop. It’s Jack’s Hot Dog Shop. No extra letters—no p or e. We’re not that fancy.”

“God it.” Shaun noted the changes. If he recalled right, the information had been added per the client, but whatever. Maybe Henry wasn’t a great typist.

“And we only accept cash, except for the online orders—those can be cash or charge.”

“I’ll fix that, too.” That information should’ve been noted in the extra information section, but he’d bet the assistant hadn’t read that far. Few people did. “How long do you want it to run?”

“A month.”

“Done.” He noted the information on the paper, then fixed the letters and wording. “Now look at it.”

“That’s great.” Jack sighed. “It’s been hectic lately. Henry and I got married, consolidated our homes and I can’t keep anything on track outside of the restaurant. It’s like my world got turned upside down.”

“I hear you—I’m not moving in with anyone. My now ex-boyfriend and I were together for ten years and he refused to commit. I wanted to get married and he wanted to start dating again. It threw my life into flux, so I can’t imagine trying to consolidate and get married.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what convinced him he should start dating?” Jack massaged his forehead. “It’s not my business.”

“No, I don’t mind. He had a guy on the side, so the dating thing was their idea,” Shaun said. “He never wanted to be with one guy for long, but I had no clue he’d been dating people while we were together. I’ve nicknamed him ‘the shark’ because he’s always got to keep moving.”

“Ah, one of those.”

“When did you know Henry was the one, since we’re discussing such things?” Shaun saved the ad template and moved his tablet aside. “I thought Jonah was the one and I was wrong.” He paused. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Don’t mind it at all.” Jack shifted in his seat. “I knew Henry was the one when he wasn’t jealous of the restaurant and wanted to help me. Other guys gave me the choice of them or the shop. I can’t dump my business. It’s my livelihood. If it’s done, then I’m done, and I needed a man who could accept that.”

“Makes sense.” He turned the tablet around. “This is the final ad. What do you think?”

Jack nodded. “Perfect. Thank you. I did get the bill and it’s paid.”

“Great. This will go starting tomorrow and will be in the lifestyle section for the first week, then alternate between the sports and national news sections for two weeks. The final week it’ll go back to the lifestyle section, but it’ll run every day.”

“That’s exactly what I want.” Jack stood. “I’ve never run an advertisement before and this was painless, so thank you for that. I was worried it’d be difficult or something.”

“I try to keep it simple,” Shaun said. “I know it’s stressful to figure out what to say, where to advertise and how best to spend your money. The nice thing about your month-long ad is that it’ll run on the website, too. So you get a little more bang for your buck and we can arrange for a clip to be recorded for the web show.”

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