you’re already spending all our money!”
“Second Chances hasn’t begun to capitalize on the kind of money that’s available to organizations like this. A charity, for all its noble purposes, is still a business. A business has to run efficiently, this kind of business has to make an impression. Every single person who walks through the front door of this office has the potential to be the person who could donate a million dollars to Second Chances. You have one chance to make a first impression, to capitalize on that opportunity. One. Trust me with this.”
Molly suddenly felt like a wreck, her attempt to be assertive backfiring and leaving her feeling regretful and uncertain. Trust him?
Good grief, was there a job she was worse at than choosing whom to trust? She wished Miss Viv was here to walk her through this minefield she found herself in—that she hated finding herself in! Second Chances was supposed to be the place where she didn’t feel like this: threatened, as if your whole world could be whipped out from under you in the blink of an eye.
Molly, there are going to be some changes.
“I’ll be ready in half an hour,” she said with all the dignity she could muster. She was very aware that it rested on her shoulders to save the essence of Second Chances. If it was left to him the family feeling would be stripped from this place as ruthlessly as Vikings stripped treasures from the monasteries they were sacking!
The consultant, thankfully, was gone from her office, and Molly sat down at her desk, aware she was shaking from her heated encounter with Houston, and determined to try to act as if it was a normal day, to regain her equilibrium. She would open her e-mail first.
Resolutely she tapped her keyboard and her computer screen came up. She was relieved to see an e-mail from Miss Viv.
Please give me direction, she whispered to the computer. Please show me how to handle this, how to save what is most important about us. The love.
Aware she was holding her breath, Molly clicked. No message—a paperclip indicated an attachment.
She clicked on the paperclip and a video opened. It was a grainy picture of a gorgeous hot air balloon, its colors, purple, yellow, red, green, vibrant against a flawless blue sky, rising majestically into the air. What did this have to do with Miss Viv?
The utter beauty of the picture was in such sharp contrast to the ugly reality of the changes being wrought in her life that Molly felt tears prick her eyes. She had always thought a ride in a hot air balloon would be the most incredible experience ever. Just last night she had toasted this very vision.
She squinted at the picture, and it came into focus. Two little old ladies were waving enthusiastically from the basket of the balloon. One of them blew a kiss.
Molly frowned, squinted hard at the grainy picture and gasped.
What was Miss Viv doing living Molly’s dream? If this video was any indication, Miss Viv had complete trust in Houston Whitford being left in charge! Apparently she wasn’t giving her life back here—or her Second Chances family—a single second thought.
In fact, Miss Viv was waving with enthusiasm, decidedly carefree, apparently having the time of her life. It made Molly have the disloyal thought that maybe she, Molly, had allowed Second Chances to become too much to her.
Molly’s job, her career, especially in the awful months since Chuck, had become her whole life, instead of just a part of it.
What had happened to her own dreams?
“Dreams are dangerous,” she reminded herself.
But that didn’t stop her from envying the carefree vision Miss Viv had sent her. She wished, fervently, that they could change places!
She hit the reply button to Miss Viv’s e-mail. “Call home,” she wrote. “Urgent!”
HOUSTON regarded the empty place where Molly had just stood, berating him, with interest. In terms of the reins of this place being handed over to her one day, it was a good thing that she was willing to stand up for issues that were important to her. She had made her points clearly, and with no ultimatums, which he appreciated.
He would be unwilling to recommend her for the head spot if she was every bit as soft as she looked. But, no, she was willing to go to battle, to stand her ground.
Unreasonable as it was that she had chosen him to stand it with! And her emotional attachment to the dress thing was a con that clearly nullified the pro of her ability to stand up.
Unreasonable as it was that the fight in her had made her just as attractive as her sweetness in that wedding dress yesterday.
Maybe more so. Fights he knew how to handle. Sweetness, that was something else.
Still, for as analytical as he was trying to be, he had to acknowledge he was just a little miffed. He had become accustomed to answering to no one, he had earned the unquestioning respect of his team and the companies he worked for.
When Precision Solutions went in, Houston Whitford’s track record proved productivity went up. And revenue. Jobs were not lost as a result of his team’s efforts, but gained. Companies were put on the road to health, revitalized, reenergized.
There was nothing personal about what he did: it purely played to his greatest strengths, his substantial analytical skills. Except for the satisfaction he took in being the best, there was no emotion attached to his work.
Unlike Molly Michaels, most people appreciated that. They appreciated his approach, how fast he did things, how real and remarkable the changes he brought were. When he said cut something, it was cut, no questions asked.
No arguments!
They thanked him for the teams of experts, the new computers and ergonomically designed offices, and carefully researched paint colors that aided higher productivity.
“Maybe she’ll thank you someday,” he told himself, and then laughed at the unlikelihood of that scenario, and also at himself, for somehow wanting her approval.
This would teach him to deny his instincts. He had known not to tackle the charity. He had known he was going to come up against obstacles in the casually run establishment that he would never come across in the business world.
A redheaded vixen calling him down and questioning his judgment being a case in point!
But how could he have refused this? How could he refuse Beebee—or her circle of friends—anything? He owed his life to her, and to them. In those frightening days after his father had first been arrested, and his mother had quickly defected with another man—Houston had been making the disastrous mistake of trying to mask his fear with the anger that came so much more easily in his family.
He’d already worked his way through two foster homes when suddenly there had been Beebee. He had been in a destructive mode and had thrown a rock through the window of her car, parked on a dark street.
She had caught him red-handed, stunned him by not being the least afraid of him. Instead, she had looked at
