“Remove some bias—or perceptions of bias.”
“How?”
“Redo the interviews… with Angie present. The shift supervisors won’t like it, and it’s no guarantee Josh will withdraw his potential complaints or grievances. But it’ll help.”
“I’ll talk to Dad and Angie about it.”
“Good.” She wraps her arms around me and squeezes me tight. “Now keep your head up and go back to work.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I tell her.
“Nothing’s without risk in the world of HR… Kind of like love.”
She’s so right about that.
21
Savage
This is all my doing, but if I could do it over again, I wouldn’t change a damn thing.
Except maybe tell Ben earlier.
The seeds I sowed in my secret relationship with the boss’s daughter, my best friend’s daughter, they’ve have taken root, grown to full size, and I’m about to reap them way sooner than I thought.
Morgan, a more senior union rep, approaches me at the end of my shift to inform me that I was named in two different grievances about to be put forward by the same employee. Josh of course. One is a standard individual grievance. The other is a policy related complaint. The paperwork isn’t ready yet, but I won’t be the only employee named in it. I ask the union rep who else is named, but I know it has to be Ben and Jane. I wish that weren’t the case.
“This can’t stand,” I tell Morgan, my blood boiling.
“We’ve seen less serious ones go forward, and more valid ones denied. The best thing to do is wait for the papers and we’ll all go from there. Don’t worry too much. This union represents you too.”
“What if you didn’t?” I ask.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t need this job. What if I quit?”
He runs his hand through his wavy gray hair and gives me a hard look. “Don’t. It won’t help this company for so many good people to be casualties when the grievances can end up being turned down by the union.”
“What do you mean so many good people?”
“Didn’t you hear? The HR intern quit today. Ben was on the verge of signing his early retirement papers too, but the other shift supervisors talked him out of it.”
Fuck. My gut does a flip. It can’t go down like this. I need to make things right. No fucking way am I letting Ben or Jane take the fall for me.
“I have to go,” I say to him and haul ass in my pickup truck up the mountain.
I find Ben out on his cabin porch when I roll onto his driveway.
“Jane’s busy,” he barks at me, but his eyes don’t look near as venomous as they did this morning.
“I’m not here for Jane. Not this time. I’m here to see you. I want to have a conversation about Jane and me, but I can tell you’re not ready to hear it. So let’s talk about the Josh situation for a minute. You and Jane don’t need to leave the mine. I’ll quit. It’s me Josh has a problem with. I’m the issue at the job. If I leave, it all goes away. “
He shakes his head dismissively. “You’re not leaving the mine. Jane’s starting college next month. She’s going anyway, and her mother will help her figure out her next career move after she graduates. Probably at the bank. As for me, I’ve been thinking of retiring for a while. These assistant manager jobs would help shape the next generation of operations managers. Why do you think I was so invested in having you apply? This company needs employees like you moving through the ranks. People who work hard, pay attention, and care about the men you stand side by side with. I don’t see any character in that boy, and neither do the other supervisors. That’s why I won’t accept your resignation. Don’t even think about going anywhere.”
I step up onto the porch and lean against the wooden railing. “All right, we can keep fighting about this later, but I need to say a few things about Jane and me.”
“Go on,” he grumbles.
“I started the mining job and kept working there because it gave me something to do. Because you were there. So I’m there for muscle memory and for you… my friend. You’re my family. I hate the way you found out about us. I hate that I lost your trust, your respect, even for a second. But I don’t regret falling for Jane. I love your daughter, Ben. I didn’t plan or ask for it to happen but it did, and she’s my heart now. Please don’t ask me to walk away from her. It’ll sadden me to lose your friendship over this, but it’ll break me to let Jane go.”
His eyes soften. He leans back in his chair, searching my face.
“Jane’s my little girl. She’ll always be too good for anyone. And you... you’re like a son to me. Finding out about the two of you like I did, on the job, from some idiot troublemaker, it was the worst… But I had a few hours to think about it. Rachel and I snuck around for three years during high school and a bit of college before our parents knew. Couldn’t hide anymore when her baby bump with Jane inside got too big to cover up with my shirts and football jerseys.” He chuckles low and rubs the shadow of a beard forming on his face. “But you and Jane, it was a month. I think I can forgive you for keeping it from me for that time.”
“That means a lot to me.”
“Son, if I had to choose someone for Jane, forgetting the age difference for a minute, I couldn’t pick a better man than you. You just make sure my daughter’s happy, and we won’t have a problem.”
“You have my word.”
Our talk is so intense that I don’t notice the movement at the front door until Jane and her mother emerge.
Rachel rests her hand on Ben’s shoulder and Jane comes to my side. She takes my hand and laces her fingers through mine. There’s a tense moment where all four of us are all staring down at our clasped hands, seeming to adjust to the newness of this reality: Jane is mine. My heart is made whole again. We’re all one family. And I couldn’t be happier.
22
Epilogue - Jane
One Year Later
Five minutes before my lunch break, Savage walks through the bank towards my office. I have a new job now, one that I earned by completing my local community college HR program. I love that it was practical and one hundred percent relevant to the work I now do. I guess I could’ve gone to a full college, but it’s not for everyone. I meet my husband at the door and wrap my arms around his waist. Savage kisses me fiercely. I moved in with him about six months ago, right after our wedding, yet every time we see each other, it still feels like the first time. I see my bank colleagues smiling as he pulls from our kiss. We must look a pair, with me dressed in my black power suit as an HR consultant, Savage in his dusty olive-green work pants and plaid lumberjack shirt. I don’t care what they think. He’s my guy and that’ll never change.
“How was your morning?” I ask.
“The usual… well, Josh stopped by hoping I’d hook him up with a job.”
“Josh?” I say, surprised. The last I’d heard of Josh, he crossed the wrong union rep and they stopped backing his petty grievances. Eventually, about a month before they hired Savage as the daytime shift supervisor, Josh was terminated from the job for cause. Before that, he had been moved to the night shift, but then butted heads with that shift supervisor too. “Of all people, he wants you to hire him back?”
“Yeah, but that’s not happening. Not a chance. But I’m not here to talk about work.” He steps us both into my office and kicks the door closed behind him.
“Everything okay?” I ask. Looking up into his lust filled eyes, it all makes sense.
“Close the blinds,” he whispers at my ear, his voice laden with arousal as he presses the thick, meaty bulge of his erection against my lower belly. “I need you.”
I do as he says, and click the door locked so we’re not distracted, stripping off my office suit and blouse for him.
“Turn around and put your hands on the desk,” he says in a gruff order that makes my clit throb and my panties drench in an instant. “I want you from behind.”
L
eaning over the desk, I inch up my skirt, slowly revealing my thighs little by little. I hear the growl he makes in response as his hands push the skirt the rest of the way. He gets in position behind me, the sound of his zipper filling the air. I hold my breath in eager anticipation when I feel his fingers slip beneath the silky material of my panties. I don’t know if he’ll rip these to shreds or tease my clit, or push the fabric aside to fuck me, but no matter what he does, I know I’ll love it. All I can think of is how great it’ll feel to have his hands on me. Sure, he fucked me hard and fast last night, and made love to me soft and slow this morning, but I can’t ever get enough.
He lowers my panties to my knees, but must get impatient because before I know it, he has ripped them off of me. He uses one foot and pushes my legs wide, angling my hips to line up my ass with his swollen dick. I can hear the need in each groan, the desire on his breath, and right away my pussy is ready. He’s going to give it to me good and hard, quick and rough, and I can’t fucking wait.
“Take me,” I say over one shoulder.
He sinks his thick cock deep into me, all the way, and I cry out from how sweet it feels. He grips my hips more tightly and soon he’s pumps his entire length in and out of me, pounding me hard, taking what’s his, driving me to the edge of insanity. Every thrust brings me more pleasure. Every move pushes me closer.
“Come for me,” he demands, and buries into me deeper than ever, so deep that he could make me pregnant if I weren’t already.
That’s right.
My man has put a bun in my oven and in less than five months, we’re going to have a baby. Hopefully the first of many.
“Fill me, Savage,” I beg him in a whisper as I feel my body going over the edge. “Oh God, I’m going to come… come with me.”
His nails bite into my hips as he pistons harder and deeper. My inner walls clench around him so tight, milking him as he spills his seed deep in my womb. His body jerks and when he’s finished, I feel the softest kiss between my shoulder blades and he mutters the words, “I love you.”
I love him too. So much.
When we’ve caught our breaths, I clean up with the box of tissues on my desk, and reach into the bottom of my file cabinet for spare panties that I stash there for visits exactly like these. Savage gets himself together, then kisses my cheek.
“Can’t wait to see you tonight,” he tells me, heading for the door but he turns back and is back in front of me again. He drops to his knees, wrapping his arms around my hips, and presses a kiss on my belly. On our baby.
“You too, little Savage,” he says against my stomach. “Be good.”
I giggle at his comment, but God, my heart is so full of love. I can’t wait to meet our little one, to see Savage take his child into his arms, to see our family blossom in our own fantasy-filled happily ever after. For me, I know I’ll always be wild for my mountain man.
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