Worst Week Ever (A Long Road to Love) (10 page)

Evidently,
seeing the cop had left her station, his dead beat workers had jumped to
work—stealing his supplies.

He really
wanted to fire them all tomorrow, but judging by the panic in Carrie’s eyes,
she did not believe they could run the business without them, so he’d do it her
way. They would hire an HR person first, and go from there.

As normal,
nothing was easy.

A bright ray
of sun burned through Carrie’s closed lids and woke her with a start. Daylight!
She scrambled out of bed. The sun a quarter over the horizon indicated disaster.
To make it to work by six, she needed to have left in the muted light of five
at the latest.

She frantically
dressed, grabbed a toothbrush and brush to put in her purse, and rushed
downstairs. A yelp burst from her chest at the sight of a man cooking breakfast
in her kitchen.

Sam turned and
smiled. “Good morning. Breakfast is almost ready.”

How could he
work for Trent and not know her boss’s anger issues with late employees? “We
don’t have time! Trent will kill us for not arriving at work hours ago.”

He shook his
head and smiled. “Master Trent changed his mind and had the butler call me with
a new time. So sit at your ‘no longer dusty’ dining table and I’ll serve you
breakfast.

She stared at
Trent’s driver for a few moments as his words filtered through her panic. They
weren’t late. Trent changed the time. Taking in a deep breath, she calmed and
retreated to her room-with-no-purpose. When she’d bought her house, she’d
dutifully purchased a dining table and chairs for the room next to the kitchen.
But eating at a table by herself depressed and bored her, so she always ate in
the living room while watching TV.

Sam brought
her a plate of eggs and turkey bacon. He placed it on the dining room table
before disappearing back into the kitchen.

“Is this all
mine?” she called out when he didn’t immediately return.

After a
moment, he spoke, sounding as if his mouth were full of food. “Yes, it’s yours.”

Curious as to
why he remained in the kitchen, she rose to investigate. Sam stood at the
counter, eating his breakfast.

“Sam, why
aren’t you eating at my table?”

“That wouldn’t
be proper.”

“You cooked
our breakfast; you cleaned the table. That gives you the right to eat sitting
down.”

“Master Trent
wouldn’t approve.”

“God, do rich
people live in the dark ages? Master Trent isn’t here. Bring your food to the
table you cleaned. Otherwise, I’m bringing my food in here to eat.”

He sighed and
carried his food into the dining room.

By the way he
stabbed his eggs, she classified his state of mind as either angry or deranged.
Since he slept in her house and she woke alive, she leaned towards angry. She
didn’t have the energy to deal with another angry person. She’d just spent a
month with a whole company of angry little Taiwanese men.

What had she
done to piss him off? She knew very little about Sam other than he could get
them out alive when caught in a warzone. The few times she’d driven in Trent’s
limo before yesterday, she hadn’t paid any attention to the driver. She always
focused on the business issues requiring her to visit a customer on those
stressful occasions. She felt bad she’d never bother to even learn his name
before. “So how long have you driven Trent?”

“For an eternity,”
he muttered.

She laughed.
“Know the feeling.”

Finally, a
faint smile came to his lips and he stopped torturing his food. That gave her
the courage to try again. “Do you live at the estate?”

“Yep.”

“What’s it
like?”

He frowned and
studied her for a moment. “You really want to know?”

She nodded.

“It’s a bit
like Big Brother, Survivor, and The Bachelor all combined into a never-ending
show.”

Carrie
laughed.

“Seriously.
You live in this wing with thirty other people you'd never speak to if you had
a normal job. You’ve got over twelve nationalities and multiple ‘levels’
struggling not to kill each other.”

“Okay, I see
the Big Brother comparison, but Survivor?”

He snorted and
crammed a forkful of eggs into his mouth. “Surviving is all the household
thinks about. ‘Who’s gonna be fired next?’ And there’s always someone looking
to make it happen. In my case, it’s the mechanic. He has a son he wants to slip
into my job. Always putting slow leaks in the tires so I’ll strand Master Trent
somewhere.”

She grimaced
at the potential dangers. “A blown tire could have serious repercussions. Have
you told Trent? Because to me, it sounds like someone should fire the
mechanic.”

He shook his
head. “We never go to the master with problems. The butler would not only fire
me from the Long Island Estate, but he’d see me blacklisted, so I never drove
for anyone again.” He consumed a bacon strip in two bites and smiled. “And I
love driving power cars.”

“I’m quite
certain Trent wouldn’t fire you for letting him know someone is risking his
life just to make you look bad.”

“The master
wouldn’t fire me, but the butler would. We’re supposed to take all our problems
to him.”

She nibbled
her toast as she tried to think of a way to help with this very serious
problem. “Have you mentioned it to the butler?”

“No. His job
is hard enough without a bunch of whiners working for him. Complaints get you
replaced with someone who can ‘get along’. If the mechanic ever succeeds, I’ll
lodge a complaint, but I probably won’t be able to prove it. I just have to
hope Mars has picked up on the problem during our dinner table conversations.”

“What do you
mean?”

“Well, when I
find a nail pushed into the tread of a wheel, I’ll mention it at dinner and ask
the mechanic to spend his evening taking off the tires and checking them just
to be safe.”

“Yes!” Carrie
replied with enthusiasm. God, she wished she could do something as clever with
certain people at work.

He stopped
eating and looked up in surprise at her outburst.

“Sorry, I just
thought your solution brilliant. I’ve my own difficult co-workers.”

He nodded,
then frowned. “Except you
do
go to the master.” His stern eyes met her.
“You cannot tell him about this conversation, or even that I ate at the same
table as you.”

“I won’t. You
have my word.”

He nodded. “I’m
trusting you, because you aren’t one of them.” After taking in the room, his
gaze leveled on her. “My parents have a bigger home than this.”

“Yeah, well
your parents probably had children.” She cringed. Could she possibly sound more
ridiculous? Clearly, they had children; she was conversing with one of them.
“Beyond you, that is. There’s just me. I don’t need a bigger house. Honestly,
until today, I’ve never even used this room.”

He smiled. “I
didn’t mean it as a criticism. I actually like your house. It fits your happy,
unpretentious personality. But it clearly states you’re not one of them.”

She
appreciated his kind words about her house, but remained a bit confused on one
point. “Who is ‘them’?” Hadn’t they been talking about Trent?

“The
self-absorbed mega-rich.”

Her thoughts
immediately went to Trent’s friend Gary and his contempt. “No, I’m definitely
middle-class.”

“Nothing wrong
with that.” He glanced at his watch. “We best get going.”

She collected
their plates and put them in the dishwasher, to join the other dishes waiting
for a wash.

“Aren’t you
going to start it?”

“No, it’s not
full yet.”

He laughed
softly and opened the door for her.

She grabbed
her purse. “What?”

“Nothing.”

For some
reason he thought her amusing for waiting until she had a full load of dishes
before turning it on, but she couldn’t imagine why.

He stopped and
stared at her front yard. “Shit!”

“What?” she
asked.

“I thought
these were weeds last night.”

She chuckled.
“Well the Queen’s Anne Lace probably qualifies as a weed, but the phlox,
daisies, lilies, Echinacea, bachelor buttons and English lavender are all
legitimate flowers.”

“It’s
beautiful. I doubt you’d be happy if someone dug them all out and planted
grass.”

She shivered
at the idea. “No, I wouldn’t.” She caressed a rose as they headed to the black
limo taking up her entire driveway. Her neighbors had to wonder why it had
spent the night there.

He opened the
back door and waited for her climb in.

Having just
determined he might be higher middle-class than her, she didn’t feel
comfortable being in the back. She met his gaze. “I could sit up front with
you.”

He didn’t
respond for several seconds, then said, “No, that would get me fired.”

She sighed and
slipped into the back. She'd known Trent had money from early on, but other
than having a poor concept of the value of a dollar, he’d always seemed a
normal person. Seeing him from Sam’s eyes made her realize how fundamentally
different Trent's life was from hers.

And how
impossible anything but a professional business relationship would be.

A wave of
sadness washed over her. Discovering Trent a better man than she’d thought just
meant now she wanted the impossible. The reality was she could never live in
Trent’s world anymore than he could live in hers.

Her focus
turned to the darkened glass between the front and back. It had kept her from
seeing Sam all these years. She checked the control panel above her head and
pushed the lever for privacy panel. As the glass lowered, Sam’s angry voice became
audible.

“No. Do not
come! The lady does not want her flowers pulled out.” He hit the phone against
his temple. “Why didn’t I learn Spanish?”

She shifted to
the seat facing backwards and leaned into Sam’s space, causing him to jump a
couple of inches. “I speak Spanish, and if those are my flowers in danger, I’d
really like to clear this up.”

He sighed and
handed her his phone.

She introduced
herself in Spanish. “Who am I talking to?

“I’m Carlos. I
work for Master Trent as a gardener. I’m supposed to fix a lady’s yard. She has
been away for a long time and her garden is full of weeds now. Sam says not to
go, but I’ll be fired if I don’t do what Master Trent wants.”

“I’m the lady
with the garden, and there are
some
weeds among my flowers. But as a
gardener you know the difference between a flower and a weed, true?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She listed all
the flowers in her garden and verified he could identify them.

“Yes, ma’am.
It sounds like a pretty garden.”

“It’s a bit
wild because the flowers have seeded into each other, but I like that, so don’t
pull out any flowers even if they are in another flower’s bed.”

“I won’t touch
any flowers.”

“Well, in that
case, I would greatly appreciate your help.”

The young man
sighed with relief. “Then I can come and do my job.”

“Yes.”

After wishing
him a good day, she hung up and handed the phone back to Sam. “He’s going to
come and weed my flower beds.”

Sam sighed
with relief. “This is why we never should talk to the master directly.”

“You called
Trent about my garden?”

“In the dark,
I thought your front yard had grown to three foot weeds, which would be an
invitation for vagrants to break into your house.”

“Is that why
you stayed last night?”

He nodded.
“But I had to ask the master’s permission first. He decided to send his entire
garden staff over to fix your front lawn. I assured him one gardener would be
sufficient, but he would need to bring grass and cultivating equipment.”

She laughed
and pressed her hand to her chest. “Thank God Trent changed the time I had to
be at work or we’d have left in the dark and you wouldn’t have discovered your
mistake.”

He stared at
her through the mirror as he flew up Route 80. “So you aren’t pissed?”

“No. I would
have been distraught if I came home and found a boring lawn instead of my
flowers, but once I understood the good intentions behind the disaster, I
wouldn’t have been angry.”

He smiled. “I
see why the master likes you, but…”

“But what?”

He sighed and
met her eyes in the rearview mirror again. “There’s nothing in this for you. He
won’t marry outside of his class, and honestly, you’d be miserable if he did.”

“I know,” she
stated and moved back to the other seat.

Why was she
angry at Sam? He’d just told the same thing she’d concluded. It didn’t matter
if Trent became the nicest man in the world, they still would be different species.

Running off
and becoming a groupie of Tall and Tiny would give her a better chance at
happiness.

Neither spoke
for the remainder of the drive. As he pulled to the sidewalk outside of the
office, he finally spoke. “If the master knows what I said to you, he’ll fire
me in a second.”

“I’m not
saying anything.” Instead of waiting for him to open the door, she let herself
out and hurried through the sliding glass doors, past the empty security guard
desk, and into the elevator.

She glanced at
her watch. 8:47 a.m. At least she’d arrive early. Trent had time issues, which
his current staff exacerbated like fingernails on a chalkboard.

When she
entered Trent’s outer office, a.k.a. ‘her’ office, her temper flared as she
stared at the empty space behind her desk. Someone had once again stolen her
chair. She'd purposely chosen the color purple so she’d be able to find it when
it mysteriously went on a walk-about and ended up at Miss Payroll’s desk.

Walking down
the aisle one across from the probable thief, she glanced over the cubicles to
see Miss Schnell sitting in a purple chair. “I heard someone put donuts in the
coffee room. Are there any left?” she asked to no one in particular.

She’d barely
finished her question before the stampede began. She smiled at her success.
Tiny would be proud of her ability to make a staff disappear. But more
importantly, one old crotchety vermin in charge of payroll no longer squatted
on her chair. Reaching under the seat she found her name etched into the chair.
No one could call her out for stealing a chair that just looked like hers.