“And you have ideas.” His openly dubious expression made her want to smack him.
“I do,” she said evenly.
“Let’s hear them.”
She felt color starting to rise in her face. “I don’t have anything formal put together.”
He set the wrench down on the seat of the forklift. “I’m good with informal.”
“All right. Well, I thought we might put in a small coffee bar for the regular patrons.”
“Because people like to hang around a feed store.”
“They might.”
“I’m kind of interested in bringing in paying business.”
“Well, I’ve thought about a theme day.”
His dark eyebrows came together. “Such as?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Western Day? Hawaiian Day?” Okay. That was a wild stab and a bad one, but she wasn’t backing down, although she was very aware now that she should have prepared something before broaching this with Dylan the Detail Guy.
“Hawaiian Day?”
“Tiki lights? A luau?” She spoke as if she believed in what she said while knowing she was beat. It was time to back down, to get real, or he would never take any of her ideas seriously. “Okay. Feed store luau isn’t such a great idea.”
“Maybe we can give a kitten away with each purchase?” Dylan said.
“Like I said. I don’t have anything formal, but we’ve got to do something.”
“We?”
Jolie blew out a breath and pulled the keys to her trusty GMC pickup out of her pocket. “You are impossible to work for.” And with that, she headed to the door.
* * *
DYLAN WIPED THE smears of oil and grease off his hands with a paper towel. What had started as a seeming quick fix had rapidly escalated into a full-blown overhaul. He hadn’t finished because he needed parts, so hopefully no one would want a pallet of wood or anything like that tomorrow. He wadded up the towel and tossed it in the trash. He’d enjoyed his afternoon, which was something considering the way his day had started. Working on engines made him think of his dad—the happy times.
From outside the warehouse he heard Jolie’s old GMC fire up. Even it sounded as if it was in a huff over him refusing to consider theme days at the store.
Theme days. Right.
Well, she had been correct about one thing—they’d had a decent day sales-wise, made even better by the fact that he’d been able to load everything by hand.
The business definitely wasn’t as good as it had been when he’d been a teen, helping Mike out in every way he could since his dad had been too ill. Finn had brought him up to speed in that regard, but by cutting one full-time position and doing the loading himself, Finn had gotten the place to where it was making a marginal profit—enough to support himself and his grandfather.
Dylan intended to trim even more off the budget. He couldn’t get rid of the only other full-time position—the counter person/bookkeeper, aka Jolie—but he was going to look at doing something different with the janitorial side and maybe cut some of the items that didn’t turn over as rapidly as the feed. Stock that sat around without selling was money not earning interest.
He studied the forklift for a moment, then, decision made, he set down the wrench. Tomorrow he’d continue the battle. Right now he was tired and hungry.
After rolling down the warehouse door, he went to lock up the store. Jolie had already done that, so he let himself in, grabbed his coat and the lunch pail with his untouched lunch and headed out the door to his empty house. His grandfather had his weekly poker game at the lodge hall, so he’d be eating alone.
He got into his truck and leaned his head against the headrest before starting the engine. He didn’t mind being alone, but he hated walking into an empty house. It reminded him too much of what home had been like right after his father died—what he’d been like after his father had died. Alone, more afraid than he’d wanted to let on. Not quite twenty and still in need of some serious guidance, it’d been a rough time to lose his only parent.
He’d rallied then and he’d rally now. You rode life or life rode you. Even though there’d been times over the past months when he’d felt as if he was barely in the saddle, he was going to ride life.
“DID YOU GIVE Dylan his prescribed dose of pain today?” Dani asked as she plopped down a basket of laundry fresh off the line.
“He was too busy causing his own pain,” Jolie said, gathering up a sheet and burying her nose in it. She loved air dried sheets.
“How so?”
Jolie gave her a rundown of how Dylan had attempted to kill himself changing a lightbulb.
“Actually,” she said in a musing voice after she’d finished, “it made me like him more—for about a minute.” Until he’d shot down her impromptu ideas for attracting new business. “I never dreamed he was a cut-corners kind of guy.”
“I don’t think you know him very well.”
“Are you kidding? We spent about two hundred hours together during our junior year.”
“And talked about?”
“The many ways in which I was failing him?”
Dani shrugged and shook out a bed sheet. “You don’t know him.”
“I know how he made me feel.” Jolie reached out to take her side. And how he’d made her feel today, but she wasn’t going into that with Dani, so she simply said, “But you’re right. I never got past the surface. Something about his attitude toward me put me off.” She brought two corners of a sheet together before glancing up at the clock. “Cripes. I gotta get going or I’ll be late, and you know how Jim feels about that.”
She ran upstairs, slipped into her cowboy boots and threw on a white Western shirt over a rose-pink camisole. The jeans, well worn and just a little on the tight side—thank you, Lycra—were perfect for a night pouring drinks. She pulled her hair into a ponytail, slapped on some lipstick and headed for the door.
Working two jobs and trying to make some headway putting the ranch back together put a crimp in her social life, but she had a dream and student loans. She couldn’t pursue her dream and pay back loans without making a few sacrifices. Her social life had been the first thing she’d put on the chopping block.
“I’m out of here,” she called to Dani as she passed the utility room.
“Try not to scare Gus when you come home.”
The big dog lifted his head and Jolie leaned down to pet him as she passed by. “I think he’s getting used to the idea of me coming home late a couple times a week. Last time he only barked a little.”
Unfortunately one booming bark was enough to bring anyone up out of bed.
Jolie ran out to her truck, tossed her purse onto the seat and got inside. Thursday nights weren’t bad. Tonight—Friday—the place was usually hopping, making her glad that Culver’s was only open for half a day on Saturday. If people wanted feed, they needed to get there before noon, and sometimes after working until two in the morning, closing the bar and getting up at six o’clock to go to work, Jolie found it challenging to stay awake until noon.
But maybe tonight would be the rare quiet Friday night.
* * *
DYLAN