Page 7 of Flirting With Forever
“It is when you’d eventually be handling the cash register.”
Defeat sank into her bones. “Then…no.”
“You can’t pass one?”
“I can but—” The search would pinpoint her location, and that wasn’t something she could risk. “Look, forget it. I’m sorry to waste your time.”
She turned to go and had almost made it to the door when Cole called her name.
“Stop. Just—give me a sec to think.”
She turned, hands fisted at her sides while getting blasted with the full force of his unwavering stare.
“Why can’t you pass a check— I mean,” he corrected the moment she opened her mouth, “why do you not want a check run on you? Are you hiding something or from someone?”
Given the military cut of his hair, she figured that was where he got that look in his gaze. And the sixth sense he used now to pinpoint her hesitation. “You could say that. Someone,” she clarified, struggling to hold his gaze when his narrowed at her words.
“And you won’t go into more detail?”
“It’s personal, not professional,” she said. That response straddled a fine line but was true all the same. She’d never done anything illegal. But it didn’t mean she didn’t know illegal things had been done.
Cole Blackwell inhaled a slow, deep breath and shifted his hands to his lean hips as he studied her.
“The thing about hiring is that a good employer wants to hire someone who actually wants to work and get paid. Not goof off.”
“I qualify then,” she said without hesitation.
“You ever steal from your employers?”
“Never.” She held his gaze with ease now as the truth rang in her tone.
“Hurt someone?”
“No.” She was the one who’d been hurt. Threatened.
Cole took another deep breath and ran a hand over his short hair.
“I’ll give you a few days probationary period. See how you do. No promises on it being part time or permanent though.”
“That works for me. I move around a lot so temporary is good. Just some cash to see me to my next adventure.” She wished “adventure” was the appropriate word, but even though it wasn’t, mindset mattered, didn’t it?
Cole motioned to indicate she should move to the counter and pointed to one of the two chairs behind it.
“Have a seat. We’ve got a ton of stuff to go over.”
“Um… There’s one more thing.”
Cole stilled and studied her. “What’s that?”
“I…meant what I said about earning cash. I don’t have a bank here or anything. And since it’s temporary, like you said, paying me in cash would…make things easier for me.”
Silence filled the air between them, and she wondered if she’d pushed too far too soon. Maybe she should’ve waited until pay day and then brought up the specific payment request.
Instead, she was on the receiving end of another soul-searching look that seized her lungs and left her all sorts of uneasy. This was a man who could read people, and she got the feeling he read every sidestepped answer she gave.
“I’ll see what we can do.”
It was three hours past closing time when Gage unlocked the front door to the rentals building and let himself inside. He felt like a walking zombie from lack of sleep, but he needed to check the schedule to see what was expected of him tomorrow.
