The Family Business #2 Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Smashwords Books

  The Family Business #2 (BBW Romantic Comedy) (c) 2014 Mac Flynn

  Book 2 of the adult THE FAMILY BUSINESS Series

  Genre: Contemporary Romance / Romantic Comedy

  Smaswords edition

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  Chapter 1

  The best I could say was he was well-intentioned, but out of his league. He was also my aspiring boyfriend, and my boss. None of this was a combination for success, but it made for one hell of a fun, stressful, and exciting time.

  "George? George!" I heard a woman's voice call me. I sighed as I sat in my little cubby-hole of despair between palettes of perfumes and boxes of balls. It was my best friend, Jamie Newton, calling me. I slunk out of my hiding spot and she smiled when she spotted me. "There you are! I thought you went home."

  I managed a shaky smile and got to the point. "What's he done now?"

  Jamie sheepishly grinned and shrugged. "I don't know who you mean," she teased.

  "You know I'm meaning Alex Brenton, so what's he done now?"

  Alex was our new manager and partial owner of the Stacy Department Store where we worked. At that moment Jamie and I stood in the back room, a large warehouse filled with everything a department store could ever need. Boxes of purses, palettes of ping-pongs, and a plethora of possibilities hidden in the countless other crates. We were the forklift crew, the first line of defense when a product ran out on the shelves. When a department cried out for shoes, we were there. When a shelf needed a box of popcorn, we were there. When a customer service representative screamed for a child's toy while the child was screaming right next to them for it, we were there. We were the forklift crew, and our duty was to haul those items to the department doors, and ensure the safety and sanity of all those beyond those doors. It wasn't an easy task. There were long days in the darkness of the warehouse and sometimes the boxes fell on you, encasing you in a pile of rubber duckies or scary dolls, but somebody had to do it.

  And Alex Brenton wasn't helping us do any of this hard work. Actually, he was doing the opposite. Wrong orders, missed orders, late orders, wrong delivery times, and incomplete request forms were just a few of the mishaps and mayhem he'd caused on his first week of the job. Now he was about to outdo himself.

  "Well, he kind-of-sort-of ordered something that may-or-may-not-be dangerous," Jamie told me.

  I blinked. "Jamie, that sounds terrifying. What is it?"

  "Well, you know how the perfume department has all those scented beeswax candles?"

  "How could I forget? Every time an order comes in those things stink up the place."

  "Well, the department put in an order for more beeswax candles, and Alex kind of read it wrong."

  "How wrong?"

  "He ordered bees."

  "Isn't that what he was supposed to order?" I asked her.

  She cringed and put a hand on my shoulder. "Not beeswax, George. Bees."

  My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. "Live bees?" I gasped.

  "Yep."

  "And we found out about this when?"

  "Well, the truck's out back and the driver isn't happy about taking back the boxes."

  "We can't keep them here!" I exclaimed.

  "I know that, you know that, but he doesn't want to hear that," she told me.

  I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Where's Brenton?" I growled.

  "I, um, I can't seem to find him," Jamie replied.

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. It was up to me to save the day again like in those other orders. I marched through the maze of wide metal shelves stacked with palettes and arrived at the back where stood the loading and unloading bays for the delivery trucks. There was a large crowd of our coworkers around one of the docks, and that told me that was my destination. They nervously looked at the truck and whispered among each other, and the words weren't kind toward Alex.

  "This new guy is worse than Stouten," one of them muttered.

  "He's one of that family that bought the place. They probably want to run it into the ground and sell it off," another replied.

  "How many forklift drivers and lifters does it take to unload a truck?" I yelled over the mumbles.

  The worry of being found standing around by the higher ups dispersed the crowd faster than yelling 'fire.' In a minute the people were gone and I saw a large man with a plaid shirt standng by one of the doors with the back of his truck pulled up to the loading bay. I put on my best smile and walked up to him with as much disinterest as I could muster. It wasn't that I didn't care about the boxes of bees that bussed inside that air-conditioned truck. That freaked me out.

  No, my disinterest was meant for the driver. The truckers were a strange and fascinating lot. Alone on the road most of their days, they built up a wealthy of words that would have made Tolstoy look like a children's book author. Once they smelled the slightest hint of interest they jumped on you and wouldn't let you go until you heard all of those words, and any new ones they thought of while they were talking. Once dispensed of their arsenal of word weapons they'd leave you in a stupefication of awe and mind-numbing confusion. In other words they were gabby, and the last thing I wanted to do was get trapped in one of their endless conversations.

  The first thing I wanted to do was find Alex and strangle him, but that would have to wait until I got this ticking-time bomb of bee business away from the store. "I heard you have an order for us for a bunch of bees," I told the trucker.

  "Yep."

  "Can I see the delivery slip?"

  "Yep." He handed me the slip and I looked it over. Alex definitely messed up this time, and was nice enough to sign his name to the order form.

  "Any way you can just take these back for a full refund?" I asked him.

  "Nope." He was one of the more eloquent drivers.

  "Partial refund?"

  "Nope."

  I threw up my arms. "What do we have to do to get rid of these things?"

  The man stiffened and his eyes flickered around the unloading bay. Nobody was around but us. He leaned in toward me, and I leaned away from him so that I hardly heard his whispering voice. "You wanna hear a story?" he asked me.

  "You're joking, right?"

  The trucker straightened and scowled at me. "Nope."

  My shoulders slumped and I sighed. "All right, let me hear your life story, and then we can get this truck of bees out of here?"

  "Yep."

  "All right, I'll do it." For the company. But for Alex, I'd get him for this if it was the last thing I did.

  "Wow, who knew he was that old?" Jamie wondered two hours later. Our ordeal with the bee trucker was over, but I would be scarred for life. Some of the trucker's tales had been hair-raising, personal, and personally hair-raising. The two of us were walking back from the unloading dock and searching for our dear, soon-to-be-departed back room manager.

  "Who knew I could think of so many ways to kill a man?" I muttered.

  "What was that?" Jamie asked me.

  "Nothing, just thinking happy thoughts," I replied.

  "It sounded like you were thinking happy thoughts in your homicidal voice," she pointed out.

  "You're just hearing things."

  "No, I'm pretty sure I heard you speak that way just before you hit a man for hitting on you," she protested.<
br />
  "He deserved it."

  "Does Alex?"

  "He deserves what's coming to him, too."

  "He's your boss," she reminded me.

  "Please don't remind me," I grumbled.

  "You can't hit him."

  "Maybe I can put a voodoo curse on him and just need a fistful of his hair," I insisted.

  Jamie cringed. "Won't that hurt?"

  "I hope so."

  "George, you're not being reasonable here."

  "This isn't a reasonable situation. Besides, I wasn't going to hit him."

  She looked doubtful. "What were you going to do?"

  "I was going to kill him."

  Jamie choked on her spittle. "George! You could get into trouble for doing that!" she scolded. Ever the voice of reason except when she was saying insane things.

  "I'll be doing the world a favor," I protested.

  Jamie grabbed my arm and stopped me. "George, I'm sure he means well, and he's probably working very hard right now-"

  "George! There you are!" a voice shouted at us. We turned to see Alex himself walking through the maze toward us. He had a bright smile on his chipper face. It was enough to make me cringe. "What about lunch?" he suggested.

  My eyes darted over to Jamie. "Working hard, or hardly working?" I whispered. She just sheepishly smiled and shrugged.

  By this time Alex reached us and stood before me ready for be sacrificed for my revenge. "What do you say?" he offered. I wanted to say a lot of things, but none of them could be said in public.

  I counted to ten to gain some patience, then glanced at my watch. I nearly lost the patience I'd gained when I saw it was still morning. "It's only eleven, and lunch doesn't start until noon," I pointed out.

  "That's fine. I have some business matters I want to talk to you about, so it can be considered on company time," he replied.

  I sighed and turned to Jamie. "Cover for us, will you?" I pleaded. She straightened and saluted. I could count on Jamie to hide our disappearance with a good lie.

  "All right, where did you want to go?" I asked him.

  "Oh, that's a surprise," he chuckled.

  "I can't wait."

  Chapter 2

  Alex drove me from the department store down a few blocks to a familiar hangout. It was The Bar, the usual hangout for the employees of the Stacy Department Store. It was also where we'd first met. He led me inside the darkened joint and to the same booth where he'd found me sitting alone and relaxed. Now I was neither of those things.

  I plopped onto the cushioned bench and he slid in beside me. "Remember when we first met?" he cooed.

  "How could I forget? It was only a few weeks ago." It, or rather he, had haunted me ever since.

  "You lied to me about not being an employee and I saved you from a fate worse than death," he mused.

  I rolled my eyes. "I omitted some truths and only had milk spilled down my shirt," I reminded him.

  "But it could have mutated to something far worse," he warned me.

  "Like what? A killer sundae?"

  "It's possible."

  "Not in this dimension."

  "What if we compromised and I say I saved your clothes?" he suggested.

  "How about you say what I came all this way out here to hear?" I countered. "Something about business?" He smiled and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I promptly removed it. "That's not business," I scolded.

  "You're the most important business deal I have," he cooed. He leaned in and lowered his voice. "What if we had a merger tonight? My place?"

  "What if I said no and told you that while you're trying to salvage your love business, your real business is sinking?" I quipped.

  "Sinking? Sinking how?"

  "With a shot to the starboard side. In a few more days it'll be at the bottom of the ocean," I replied.

  "That bad?" he wondered. His innocence was so cute on that handsome face. It melted my hard, homicidal heart, and I sighed.

  "Let me put it this way. You're a-well, you're a man-"

  "A good man," he added.

  "-but you're a lousy manager," I told him.

  "I've just had some setbacks. That's all," he argued.

  "We just got your shipment of bees in today," I informed him.

  "I've been meaning to ask you what department would want to order live bees," he mused.

  "The perfume department wanted beeswax candles, not live bees," I corrected the fool.

  Alex cringed. "Is that what it was?"

  "That's what it was."

  He sighed and nodded. "All right, I'm a lousy manager." He leaned away and ran a hand through his deliciously soft hair. I envied his hand to be able to stroke him any time it wished. Then I told my lecherous mind to shut up. "I've handled company mergers, massive stock transfers, and company boards, but never something like this."

  "Sounds like you've dealt with the macro-managing and now you're dealing with the micro-managing," I pointed out.

  He chuckled. I didn't hear any humor in it. "Yeah, you're right, and to make matters worse my father's given me an ultimatum. Have one week clear of mistakes in the next two weeks or he's going to pull the plug on my little experiment and send the store into merger."

  "Your dad's given up on you already?" I wondered.

  Alex shrugged. "He's not a very patient guy. The worst thing about this is I have no idea where to start improving my performance. Everything I do ends up wrong."

  "Well, the beginning is a good start for most people," I teased.

  "Could you point me in that direction? Because I'm really lost," he pleaded.

  "How about you start by learning where everything is in the back room and where it's supposed to go?" I suggested. "At least then you'll be suspicious when you think you need to order a ton of frozen hamburgers for the floral section."

  He laughed, and this time there was some mirth in it. "I wouldn't do something that bad." I stared at him with a straight, long face, and he slunk down in his seat. "Did I already do it?"

  "No, but I'm sure you were working your way up to the largest disaster the department store has seen since the board came on," I predicted.

  Alex smiled and slid his arm around my shoulders. This time I didn't get it off. "But with you by my side we can rule the store, and then the world."

  I stuck out my tongue. "You rule the world, it's too messy for me."

  "But where's a benevolent dictator without his despotic wife?" he pointed out.

  "An eligible bachelor, but focus with me on the present problems before you take on the world," I scolded. That's when I removed the arm. "And if the present problem with the store isn't fixed than our relationship is going down in the same ship."

  "You drive a hard bargain," he sighed.

  "I'm ruthlessly efficient at saving my job, even from the man who wants to marry me," I replied.

  Alex smiled and shrugged. "A man's got to have some dreams."

  "Start dreaming of shipping orders because you're going to be looking at a lot of them in the next few weeks. Oh, and promote me to your secretary. I'm going to need a lot of access to you and can't get that unless I have a title," I commanded.

  "I've been trying to give you access to me all lunch time," he pointed out.

  "And for all that we haven't even gotten a bite to eat, or much of a plan to save the store," I countered.

  "You are very focused on saving this company, aren't you?"

  "Yep, and you'd better get focused if you want your family to be proud of you. Didn't you tell me your dad and older brother didn't agree with how you were going to handle the store buy-out?" I reminded him.

  He cringed and sank so low on the bench he almost slid out of view. "Don't remind me," he muttered.

  I grabbed his collar and yanked him back up. "I'm going to remind you because it gives you incentive to succeed. Don't you want to prove those two wrong?"

  "Three," he spoke up.

  I blinked. "Three what?"

  "There's three of t
hem against my idea now. My sister chimed in with her vote and doesn't agree with the plan at all."

  "So that's three against four? The odds are still in your favor," I pointed out.

  He shook his head. "You don't understand. My sister is so set against my plan that she's coming from Asia to oversee the results herself."

  "Wow, what a vote of confidence," I quipped.

  "You know siblings."

  "Not having any, I can only guess," I told him.

  "Oh, well, it's not always fun."

  "That's what I'm guessing."

  "I'm leaving myself in your capable hands to save me from your future in-laws," he announced.

  "Oh goody, on both accounts," I muttered.

  "They're not all bad. My mother is fond of you, and my other brothers found you at least amusing and pretty to look at," he told me.

  "Will they keep your other three relatives at bay while I work to make you the best warehouse manager this store's ever seen?" I asked him.

  "That, I'm not so sure."

  My shoulders slumped and I sighed. "Then we'd better get started after lunch. I'll give you a tour of the place and we'll go from there."

  "But Mullen already gave me a tour," he reminded me. Mullen was the manager of the entire store and a member of the executive board.

  "He showed you the pretty stuff, but I'm going to show you the terrible things."

  Alex raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

  "Like a half ton of spilled grape jelly and decomposing plastic toys."

  "Plastic toys don't decompose."

  "When they've been used as samples for hundreds of kids they practically disintegrate," I countered. "Now let's get ordering food so we can get down to business before there isn't a business to get down to."

  At that moment my intention to satisfy the grizzly in my stomach was interrupted by a herd of people who strolled into the restaurant. They were loud, rude, and familiar. They also wore blue coveralls or shirts with a big K emblem in gold stitched somewhere on their clothes. I slunk down in my seat and hoped the corner was dark enough.

  Alex noticed my slinking. "Something wrong?" he asked me.

  "Get down!" I hissed. I grabbed his arm and tugged him so we both sat where our eyes peeked over the top of the table.

  "Mind telling me why we're hiding?" he whispered.

  I nodded over to the herd who flocked over to the bar and took up all the stools. There were women among those men, but you could hardly tell the difference between the two. "Those guys are from the Ken Department Store," I replied.