Page 33 of Lucifer's Revenge
“What’s all this?” He pointed to everything spread out on the counters and table.
“First, I’m not cheap, not by a longshot.”
“I never said you were.”
“Okay, sorry about that, let me try to explain this. You know I’m twenty-eight, right?”
“Yes.”
“When I went to my first paranormal hotel, I was eighteen. This will be my tenth trip. I get so excited to get underway, that I always get up earlier than I should, but then the excitement kicks in and in my mind, if I stop for a meal, that will take away from my time to explore where I’m going once I get there.”
“Okay,” Luc said with a smirk, and watched her as she expertly started putting things together.
“I know you enjoy things like we’re about to do, and it’s only a six hour drive, but I cooked us up some breakfast sandwiches wecan eat on the way. I also have some ham and cheese, and roast beef sandwiches we can eat for lunch. I figured we could take a few extra minutes when we stop for gas, or eat them going down the road.” She looked at him from beneath her lashes.
With a gigantic grin on his face, he walked over, gathered her in his arms, and hugged her tightly. He didn’t let her go for several minutes, not until her tense body started to relax.
“Thank you. I’m not saying that to placate you. I’m saying that because in my excitement to get here to pick you up, I failed to grab anything to eat for breakfast. I’m starving.”
“You’re not just saying that?” she asked, then laughed when his stomach growled.
“Okay, I only have English Muffins, but I have ham, bacon, or sausage, with eggs and cheese.”
“Yes,” he said, and picked up one of the sandwiches with sausage and bit into it. He groaned and held up his hand for her to wait, and disappeared. He came back with his travel mug and filled it from the full pot still sitting on the counter. After he ate his second sandwich, they wrapped the others, along with the ones for lunch, made sure their mugs were full, everything was off, then as she grabbed her purse and made sure the house alarm was set, with the door locked behind her, they climbed into the truck and got underway.
They rode in comfortable silence until after they stopped for the first tank of gas, and once they were underway again, with bottles of water, and full coffee mugs, Luc reached over and took her hand is his. They were on the expressway, and he set his speed control, settled back and looked over at her.
“I know this is probably none of my business, but could I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Whatever happened to that woman that tried to tell you that I was no good for you. The one that asked to use PTO time?”
“Crap, what a nightmare that turned out to be.”
“Can you talk about it?”
“I can now, since it’s all over with.” She sipped her coffee, gathered her thoughts, then turned in her seat slightly to face him. “As I said months ago, she tried to tell me that you weren’t a good person, without even knowing you. Then I proceeded to tell her about all the flawed men she had dated over the years. We left that with me not being her friend until she apologized to me. In the interim, I would be her boss only.”
“Correct, I remember that, then she asked someone else to cover for her and asked to be paid with the time owed her.”
“Correct. That same day, if you recall, I made up the schedule for the next two weeks. The people that work for me have the same hours every day. It’s like if they had a factory job and worked a certain shift. I learned early on that they didn’t like to have their hours changed. Some of them were going to school, or had families, and their hours worked for them. It took me roughly one month since becoming the lead librarian to learn this. It hasn’t changed in seven years. Well, the only change I had to make was when one of them requested time off for a personal day or vacation.”
“Wow, that must be an easy job. Not the entire one, but scheduling. I know I hate that the most when I’m doing my paperwork.”
“Yeah, I have wonderful people that work for me. Anyway, what you might not know is that whatever I do, scheduling, payroll, new library cards, ordering books, destroying books, charging late fees, everything has to have a copy sent to the district office.” At his furrowed brow, she sipped her coffee again, and gripped his hand.
“This might not be in all states, but here, a district is the county. I happen to be in charge of the largest library in our county. There are seven of them. The district librarian overseesall seven of them, and we all send in our paperwork and they keep it on file. Oh, we do too, but they have a copy.”
“Cover your ass situation?”
“Basically, yes.” She sighed and shook her head. Instead of looking at him, she looked out his side window, or at his chest and became mesmerized by how it rose and fell as he breathed. She shook her head, and smirked at his quirked brow. “Anyway, when I put up that schedule, we were only two days into the current one, and the one I put up was for two weeks.”
“So, what was posted for almost three weeks?”
“Yes, and I never put up the new two week one until I received approval from the district. The day after Meg told me she was working for Sally, and she wanted PTO, Sally never called anyone again to fill in for her, nor did she work any of her hours for the next two weeks. As per our policy, if someone is a no call no show two hours after their start of shift, we document it in their personnel file, then contact district with an e-mail and a phone call.”
“Did you call her? To check on her?”
