Not Quite Perfect (Not Quite Series Book 5)

by Catherine Bybee

  By the time she’d made it through half of her sandwich, Carla had already dropped off a small box for the other half along with the bill. As often as she tried, getting through the whole meal proved impossible. Besides, lunch the next day or dinner that night was instant.

  Her phone buzzed in her purse as she finished boxing her lunch.

  It was Dakota with a text. I’m leaving the hospital by three.

  Do you need anything?

  Xanax for my mother. She’s already driving me crazy.

  Mary grinned. You’ll have to ask your husband for that prescription.

  The symbol of a heart and the letter U appeared, which Mary sent back before tossing her phone back in her purse. She set the money on the counter for her lunch, the same amount she always did, and twisted out of her chair.

  Kent seemed disappointed she was leaving. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” she told him.

  He wiped his face. “Maybe I’ll see you here again?”

  She felt the need to move quickly . . . like if she didn’t, this stranger, who wasn’t hard to look at and hadn’t given her one red flag during their brief conversation, was going to ask for her number . . . or something . . . if she didn’t run away. On any other day, or week, she might linger and see where things went, but since Glen had just asked her out, her insides twisted with the thought of juggling two men.

  “I am a regular,” she reminded him.

  His eyes did that connecting thing again. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  She was blushing. Felt the heat in her cheeks and tried her best to stop it. “Have a nice day.”

  “Good-bye, Mary.”

  She shuffled a little too quickly and felt his eyes follow her as she walked out of the deli.

  Chapter Seven

  Glen sat in a meeting with all the senior brokers for Fairchild Charters. Because he’d called a meeting, the men wore suits and ties, where on most days they’d feel free working in more casual attire.

  “As you all know, our bookings are down from last year.”

  “Damn recession.” Chris was his number two when it came to sales. The man had been with the company for close to fifteen years and had lost most of the hair on his head to prove it. He’d been on the team longer than Glen had held the position of CFO.

  “Even our regulars are holding back on their flights this year,” Scott said.

  Glen leaned forward on his elbows. “Last year we offered the two-thousand-dollar recession coupon and our flights increased by eight percent over the holidays.”

  “Are you suggesting another coupon?”

  Glen shook his head. “I think we need new promotions.”

  The half a dozen men sitting at the table stared at each other.

  “Nothing?”

  “We’ve been here before, Glen. Discounts, empty leg incentives, it’s all we have outside of giving away free flights.” Scott probably had the most lucrative broker clientele. He pulled in over seven figures annually even with the recession.

  “There has to be more ways to pull in new clients.”

  Jay, a thirty-five-year-old previous Wall Street stockbroker, was the newest addition to their senior team. “If you don’t mind me saying, Glen . . . I think you’re asking the wrong group of brokers.”

  All eyes turned to the newbie. A few men instantly protested.

  Glen stopped them. “Who should I ask?”

  “The guys on the floor . . . those putting out cold calls in an effort to find the next rock star, the next basketball player who signed a big contract and doesn’t want to fly commercially anymore. The new guys are listening to the excuses as to why someone with the means says no. All of us are in the black. We don’t hustle like we once did.”

  “Speak for yourself, Jay,” Chris scolded.

  “Do you even know where to find the cold call list?” Jay asked.

  Glen knew cold calls were taken off of the Contact Us page on their website. But even he had no idea how to access it.

  Chris started to argue. “I’m beyond cold calls.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  “I do my job.”

  “Damn, Chris . . . let it go. Jay has a point.” This came from Gerald, another onetime stockbroker who made the switch to selling private charters after the market crash. And like Jay, he’d made a name for himself in a short amount of time. That seemed to be the case with Fairchild Charters. Their brokers circulated quickly because of the stress of the job. It was all high sales, not something Glen could remove. The incentive his brokers had to fill more flights was what kept his birds in the air.

  Glen stopped the arguing with his words. “Here’s what I want from you. I need a list of names from the floor. Guys who have been with us long enough to taste what they want, know the system, but haven’t hit the point where their client list pays them enough to work less than five days a week.”

  “I don’t know that many of the newbies,” Scott confessed.

  Glen leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe we need to start up a mentorship incentive.”

  There was one thing Glen had learned about the brokers. They were a competitive lot who didn’t take a ton of shit from their coworkers.

  Glen pushed back from the table. “I want a list of three names minimum from each of you by Monday.”

  He left the men muttering to themselves with thirty minutes to spare before meeting with his brother for lunch.

  He waltzed past the secretary of his chief operating officer with a simple point of his finger. “Is he with anyone?”

  “Nope.”

  Glen smiled and noticed the flush on the secretary’s cheeks. Cute, but he didn’t mix work with pleasure.

  The door was open to the corner office that had been held by Chuck Nielson almost since the inception of Fairchild Charters. The older man had been one of Glen’s father’s best friends in addition to one of his most valued employees. “Gotta minute?” Glen asked as he let himself in.

  “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.

  “Perhaps if you gave her a couple days to cool off she’d talk to you.”

  Jacob kept shaking his head no. “This is making me nuts.”

  Obviously.

  “One of Nina’s concerns in counseling is that you don’t communicate effectively.”

  “I can’t communicate at all if she won’t pick up the phone or tell me where she is.” He spat out the word communicate as if it left a sour taste in his mouth.

  “She told you her needs, Jacob. Time to think. If you are listening to her and trying to meet her needs, which you tell me you want to do, then you’ll give her some space.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “Space. Fine.”

  “Good.”

  Jacob turned a full circle before twisting toward his car on the other side of the lot.

  Mary scrambled a little quickly inside hers and locked the door. She knew a conversation about her personal boundaries was in order, but she didn’t dare have it while standing alone in a parking lot.

  The drive home helped clear her thoughts. It would have been nice to drive by her favorite beach spot, but the text from Dakota had pushed her to get home before the in-laws made a frazzled time even worse.

  Mary made quick work of dropping off her car, her notebook, her briefcase holding her laptop, and the leftovers from lunch at her place before heading across the street.

  After a single knock, Mary let herself in as she had for years.

  Something savory cooked in the oven, filling the house with a scent Mary had never experienced in Dakota’s place.

  “Biscuits are about the easiest thing to cook, JoAnne,” Elaine was scolding the other grandmother.

  “Mine come from a box.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  Mary poked her head into the kitchen. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Mary. I didn’t hear you knock.” JoAnne was one for propriety.

  “She doesn’t have to knock.” Dakota sat perched on the couch, her cast leg elevated on several pillows on the coffee table.

  Mary did a quick head count. She saw the men outside in the backyard. A tiny bassinet sat beside the sofa. Inside, a sleeping Leo puffed with pink lips. She moved beside Dakota and sat next to her. “So how is Grace doing today?” She stared at the cast as she spoke.

  “It feels better now that I can’t move it.”

  “Blue suits you.” The baby blue cast looked like Leo’s blankets.

  “I thought it worked.”

  Mary ran her thumb under Dakota’s left eye. “You’re exhausted.”

  “He’s up every two hours needing a boob.”

  “Then you should try sleeping now.”

  Dakota glanced toward the kitchen. Both Elaine and JoAnne were huddled around the stove, their backs to them. “Need I say more?”

  “What is Walt saying?” she whispered.

  “That it will only be a couple of days. But they keep talking like they will be here for weeks.”

  Yeah, but Dakota needed her rest now. “Where is Monica?”

  “She and Trent went to visit Monica’s mother today. She’s going to stop by tomorrow before flying home.”

  “This should be ready in fifteen minutes,” JoAnne said.

  Dakota’s strangled smile told Mary she was more tired than hungry.

  “When will Leo wake up?”

  “I don’t know. Seems like he was just feeding.”

  Mary stood and pulled the blanket up around Dakota’s legs. “I’ll be back.” She didn’t offer an explanation and walked out the back door to the men.

  They stopped talking and greeted her in unison.

  She did the rounds and got straight to the point. “Walt, Dr. Eddy . . . Mr. Laurens. I have a favor to ask.”

  They waited.

  “I need one or two of you to help get Dakota up to her bed so she can sleep.”

  Walt looked over his shoulder inside the house and stood. “I knew she was pushing herself.”

  Mary stopped him from opening the door. “Dinner is almost done, but my guess is Dakota would covet an hour of sleep and she can eat later. Which means you men need to help your wives understand it isn’t personal.”

  Dr. Eddy followed his son’s lead and stood. “C’mon, Dennis, it’s time to remind our wives what it was like those first weeks after our kids were born.”

  They filed into the room together.

  Walt beelined to his wife and whispered in her ear before removing the blanket from her lap.

  She offered a tired nod and buried her head in his shoulder.

  “Dinner’s not quite ready,” Elaine told them.<
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  Everyone spoke in softer tones than normal and occasionally glanced over at Leo to see if they woke him.

  Walt lifted Dakota off the couch and carried her.

  “Don’t drop me,” Dakota teased.

  “Have some faith.”

  Walt was walking Dakota up the stairs before the conversation in the kitchen began. “She’s exhausting herself, JoAnne. Keep a plate for when Leo wakes up.”

  JoAnne had an expression of shock before pulling it in. “Bless her heart, she should have told me. I could have waited to put the roast in.”

  “Sleep when the baby sleeps, remember?” Elaine said, wiping her hands free of the biscuit mixture.

  “I understand there is some debate on who is staying around to help.” Mary glanced at both women.

  “Well, I should,” Elaine said first. She left the notion that Dakota was her daughter unsaid.

  “And you drive her a little crazy, Elaine,” Mary said flat out.

  Elaine sucked in a deep breath, and for a moment Mary thought she’d deny the truth.

  “She’s right, hon,” Dennis calmed his wife before she could respond.

  Mary leaned against the counter and offered her advice. “You know what I think will be the most helpful thing right now?”

  The collective silence in the room kept her talking.

  “Spend the next two days cooking meals for Walt and Dakota so all they have to do is pop stuff in the microwave or oven. Walt isn’t going back to the ER for at least a month. He even took himself off the call list for Borderless Doctors. I’m across the street for emergencies, and I’ll come by every day to do laundry or shop, or whatever they need.”

  “But—”

  “Just listen, Elaine.”

  “Give them a couple of weeks to figure this parent thing out. Dakota has enough hospitality genes in her to not want to offend you by saying she’s too tired to eat. Imagine keeping that pace for the next few weeks. I promise to call you back if they’re struggling or need another set of hands.”

  Elaine and JoAnne exchanged glances. “Two more days with the baby.”

  JoAnne painted on a properly insincere smile. “Why do our children live so far away?”

  Mary mentally patted herself on the back.

  An hour and a half later she received a text from Dakota.