“Always.” The man never turned him away. Sure, he was technically Glen’s employee, but he’d been a mentor of immeasurable importance after Glen’s parents had died in an unexpected plane crash and was always treated like an extension of the family.
“I just got out of a broker meeting.” Glen closed the door behind him.
“Learn anything invaluable?”
“Disturbing, actually.”
Chuck regarded him with a crick of his head. “Oh?”
“Our team didn’t have any ideas, general or specific, to increase sales.”
“That’s not unusual,” Chuck told him. “They’re not the hungry ones.”
Glen pointed two fingers in Chuck’s direction. “Exactly. So I asked them to give me names of newer brokers who we can tap into for ideas.”
“Excellent idea. So what was disturbing?”
Instead of answering the question, Glen said, “We need different levels of broker meetings.”
“I’m listening.”
Glen paced the office instead of sitting. He liked working on his feet whenever he could. Sadly, a lot of his job was behind a desk.
“How many employees do we have on our sales team?”
“Just here? Or in our other locations?”
“Here.” They had brokers in their satellite locations, but the majority of their calls were funneled through the main office.
“Fifty to seventy. Depends on the turnover.”
“That isn’t including the exec team?”
“No.”
“Damn.”
“Mind sharing, Glen?”
He met Chuck’s gaze. “I’m slacking. I know a few of the guys on the floor based on the payroll that comes across my desk, but I couldn’t match a face to the name.”
“Your job isn’t in personnel.”
“No. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t know a little more about the team bringing in business.” The memory of his father talking about an employee, a broker . . . a secretary, even someone in the mail room came to mind. He’d always taken the time to meet the employees, even if only once. It’s part of why Fairchild Charters had done so well. It wasn’t a family business in the full sense. They had hundreds of employees from all walks of life. They commissioned planes all over the globe for their clients. They did have a small fleet of their own aircraft and several pilots on call to fly within a couple of hours when need be. It would be impossible to know everyone.
But Glen could certainly take the time to meet his brokers.
“You know, son, it’s not disturbing to stumble across an idea that stares you in the face. It’s disturbing if you don’t.”
Chuck was right. He felt better listening to the man’s wisdom.
Glen moved to leave the office.
“Glen, Mimi and I haven’t had you over for dinner for months. This weekend good for you?” Mimi was Chuck’s wife of over thirty years.
“I have plans.” A mass of blonde curly hair filed his head and made all the disturbing thoughts blow away.
Chuck offered a smile. “Good ones, I hope.”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Save me!
The text from Dakota followed Mary’s last client of the day. It was after five, later than she normally worked, but she’d had to squeeze her clients in from the two days she spent at the hospital with her BFF.
That bad? Mary texted en route to her car.
They’re fighting over who needs to stay here and who can come next week.
The image of Dakota’s small-town Southern mother fighting with Walt’s metropolitan mother made her chuckle. I’m on my way.
Hurry. My mother is in my kitchen rearranging everything.
Mary placed her phone in her purse and nearly ran straight into a chest.
She snapped her eyes up and stepped back. “I’m sorry . . . I wasn’t—” Her words fell away. “Jacob?”
Jacob Golfs was standing beside the driver’s side door of her car, his expression stoic, his clothes slightly disheveled. “Hello, Mary.”
She’d always given her clients permission to use her first name. But standing this close to one who had recently started to act out of character made her wonder if that was a good decision.
“What can I do for you?” She tried to keep her stance at ease even when the hair on her neck was standing up.
“You spoke with Nina.”
“Briefly, this morning.”
“What did she say?”
“You know I can’t talk about that. If you’d like to discuss something we all spoke about together . . .” She left her words open-ended, knowing he understood the rules.
He blinked a few times. “She won’t talk to me.”
Nina had told her that Jacob was calling obsessively, even when she told him she needed time to think, time away from him.
“Sometimes a little distance helps us see things clearly,” Mary told him.
“Did she say that?”
Mary knew how to use his words to help her cause. “Does that sound like something she’d say?”
He shook his head. “She said to stay away so she could think.”
“And are you giving her space?”
He was rubbing his thumb to his forefinger on both hands. “If I can’t talk to her, I can’t make it right.”
The man was codependent with his wife and would probably never admit it.