Page 37 of Love in the Details

Grace laughed, slapping her knee at the same time. “Me too. Then again, it’s been so long since I’ve cooked anything that I might forget to turn off the oven at the end and burn the house down.”

“What are you two giggling about in here?” Dustin’s voice caused Kassidy to jump nearly out of the seat. She hadn’t heard him come in.

“Just mishaps in cooking. How did it go at the plant today, Dusty?” Grace asked, reaching her hand out for him. He stepped closer and leaned down enough for her to kiss his cheek. When he stood, his eyes locked onto Kassidy’s.

“I’m still not sure yet, but we’ll see what they show me tomorrow.”

Kassidy’s insides twisted, the hope and fear both twisting around herself, it that were possible.

His grandmother leaned in closer, sniffing the air around him. “Why do you smell like exhaust?”

He shrugged, undoing his tie altogether.

Before he could continue speaking, Kassidy stood, grabbing her coat and purse. “Well, I need to get home and finish up some of the projects we need for this gala to be a hit. Have a good night!” She practically ran out of the house, her heart pumping as though she’d just spurred her favorite horse and had to beat the leader’s time around the barrels.

Three days until the gala. If she calculated it all right and got a little help from her family, she might just be able to pull this off.

As long as she came out of it with her heart intact, she would call that a double-win.

Chapter 21

“What were you doing at the plant?” Dustin’s grandmother asked again.

His thoughts had gone out the door with Kassidy. She’d been so standoffish, and he wished he could change things, get them to go back to how they’d been before her brothers asked about the plant.

The biggest confusion of all was why it bothered her so much. It didn’t seem like much of her family worked there since most of them worked on the family ranch.

Shaking his head, he came back to the present. “I worked on one of the machines today.” He rubbed at his shoulder with one hand, hoping there was some pain medicine in the cabinet for him to take. He was going to be sore tomorrow.

“You worked on the machines?” His grandmother’s tone conveyed disbelief, and he chuckled, slumping down in the chair Kassidy had vacated only a few minutes before. It still smelled like her, vanilla mixed with a cinnamon-type scent.

He nodded. “Yeah, I figured it was the least I could do to understand where they were coming from.”

“And? What did you find out?” The mischief in her eyes as she waited for his answer only made him smile wider.

He thought back through the day, to the meetings he’d had with the managers. A few hours had passed before he started to understand what they were trying to explain.

“They construct some of the bigger pieces needed for our equipment. I’ve always thought we could just outsource it to another factory, but there are some flaws in the system.” He paused, enthusiasm pouring through him that he’d finally found the answer to what the numbers weren’t telling him. If only Kassidy had stuck around long enough to hear it.

“The machine I worked on absolutely needs two people to work efficiently. It turns out that the HR representative had declined several requests to hire new people, meaning our employees on those machines were taking double the time to finish each piece. Once we hire several other people, production will pick up again and the plant should be just fine.”

“And the HR rep?” his grandmother asked.

“Packing his bags and filing for unemployment.” That was the part that had irritated him the most. After going through a few things over the past couple of days, and then getting confirmation from the different department managers, it seemed the man would only hire from a temp agency because he got a cut of the fee. The guy had put so many lives at risk because of his greed.

But then again, was that how Kassidy looked at Dustin? That he could jeopardize so many people’s lives just for the bottom line?

“She’s a special one, isn’t she?” His grandmother’s voice stirred him out of his thoughts.

“Who?” Had he missed a whole conversation already?

“Kassidy. She was trying to avoid you; I just know it. What did you do this time?” There was the parental tone of his grandmother, chastising him for things he’d messed up on.

Dustin swallowed, thinking about all that had happened in the few weeks since he’d come to Coldwater Creek. He never would’ve thought he could change in such a short amount of time, but he was beginning to see the importance of getting out from behind the desk and letting others handle the busywork. He needed to be the face of the company and figure out these kinds of problems before they festered to this point.

“I was blunt, as usual. I told her family we weren’t sure about keeping the plant open, and now she’s not really talking to me.” He turned to his grandmother, sitting forward in the recliner, elbows on his knees. “Why would she care about the plant?”

His grandmother got that small smile she did when she was about to reveal some great life lesson. He might not have appreciated it growing up, but he would take whatever she was going to share tonight.

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