“Say what?” Belle frowned at her. “Why me?”
“I agree,” Jasmine chimed in. “You two would be great together.”
She wasn’t too worried about her mom thinking that, since she and Patrick were winging their way off to Australia the next day so Patrick could buy an island or something. Her mom wouldn’t likely follow too closely on this particular train of thought.
Jasmine and Rory, however, were closer to the situation and could make things awkward. But Belle had learned over the course of time that the more she reacted, the more likely they were to push.
So instead, she just laughed it off. “Of course, we’d be perfect together. We’d probably never see each other, so there wouldn’t be any chance of arguments or disagreements. Obviously, the perfect relationship.”
“Maybe he could get you to chill a bit,” Rory said, glancing down at her nails. “Pull you away from the wedding stuff once in a while.”
“Or maybe you need to hire someone to give you a hand.”
Belle looked at her mom, waiting for her to laugh. For the longest time, her mom had always either done everything herself or relied on one of the girls to pitch in. When she’d asked—demanded, actually—that Belle return to work for her, she’d said that she didn’t trust anyone but family to handle the work. So the fact that she was suggesting Belle hire someone was surprising. Shocking, really.
Her mom leaned forward and rested her hand palm up in the center of the table. Belle hesitated then stretched out and rested her fingers against her mom’s. Her gaze was direct as she looked at Belle.
“I want more for you.” Her fingers tightened around Belle’s. “The business has grown so much since you took over, but it’s consuming you. I can see—and your sisters have told me—that you do nothing but work. It’s not good. So hire an assistant. I’ve trusted you with Belles & Beaus, and now, with the move to a larger location, that undoubtedly will expand the business even more, I trust you to choose the right person to help you so that you can have a life.”
Belle appreciated her mom’s words, but she had to admit there was a part of her that was a little reluctant to actually do as she requested. She wanted the help, sure, but to have a life? Doing what, exactly? She’d made the choice to have a life when she’d been nineteen. When she’d chosen to stop working for her mom and instead had, at Andre’s suggestion, gone to work at his business…his wedding business.
Right where he could keep a constant eye on her. Where he could monitor her every move. Where he could make sure she was doing exactly what he’d wanted while he exploited her knowledge and experience from having worked with her mom—someone he clearly viewed as his biggest competitor.
They’d gone to work together. Gone out to movies. Gone to the bar. Gone to hockey games. Gone to football games. Socialized with his friends. Had barbecues at his house—the one she had moved into not long after she’d started working for him.
She had had a life. And it had been more than she could handle.
After giving her mom’s fingers a quick squeeze, Belle pulled her hand back. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You do that,” her mom said then motioned to the others at the table. “I have witnesses. Two of whom have no reluctance whatsoever about hounding you and tattling on you.”
Belle knew that to be true. They had no problem hounding her about all kinds of things. Of course, she did return the favor on occasion.
Not long after that, they got up and wound their way through the other tables until they reached the exit. Patrick held the door open for them as they stepped out into the early evening. The mild air held the sounds of the city as traffic whizzed past them, mixing with the sounds of conversation from the people wandering along the sidewalk.
Belle took a moment to just absorb it all. It wasn’t often she was out without a timely destination in mind. She knew she needed to get her mom and Patrick back to the hotel, then after that, all she had to do was go home. But there was no rush.
“Can I take you and Patrick back to the hotel, Mama?” Rory asked. “I didn’t get to see much of you this trip.”
“That would be lovely, darling.” She turned to Belle. “Thanks for spending time with us. I’ll be in touch. Let me know how things are going with Mitch and the renovations. And please, hire someone.”
Her mom drew her close to give her a kiss. The familiar scent of Chanel N°5 enveloped Belle as she hugged her back. “Love you, Mama. Have a good trip.”
Belle watched as she hugged Jasmine and then the three of them headed for Rory’s car, leaving Jasmine and Belle on the sidewalk beside the restaurant.
“Guess I’m your ride home,” Belle said as she gestured to where she’d parked her car.
“Do we have to go right home?” Jasmine asked as she walked beside Belle. “It’s not that late, and it’s a nice evening.”
Belle unlocked the car doors then opened hers and slid behind the wheel. When Jasmine had settled into the seat beside her, Belle asked, “What did you have in mind?”
“The park?”
“Assiniboine?”
“Yep. Let’s walk through the gardens.”
Belle sat for a moment then nodded and turned on the car. The week ahead was going to be busy. As they moved through May, the business was picking up steam. But that night…for just a little while…she would stop and smell the roses. Literally.
Mitch jerked his ball cap off to run his hand through his hair before sliding it back into place, bill to the back. Anger and frustration ate a hole in his gut as he stared at the shattered window. The beautiful floor to ceiling window that had been in place for only two days now lay in pieces on the bare floor.
“The cops should be here soon,” Bennett said as he joined him.
It was a good thing that they’d had the alarm system installed. As soon as the window had been broken, the alarm had triggered, sending whoever the idiot was, running. They had cameras mounted around the property already, and Mitch knew the police would pull the footage, but it was dark and the likelihood of them being able to recognize the vandal was slim to none.
“I can’t believe this,” Mitch said. “Belle’s going to wonder about the safety of the location after this.”
“We’re going to have to look at a different type of window now.” Bennett walked closer to the opening, peering through it. “We can still use what we have for the second floor, I think, but order the unbreakable glass for this lower section. Let’s get floodlights up at both corners of the building along with the cameras. Make it all as uninviting to vandals as possible.”
Mitch sighed in frustration. “I should have just done that in the first place. Now we’ve got to waste the time and supplies to cover this opening. We’re going to lose time waiting for a new window. What a mess.”
Bennett rested his hand on Mitch’s shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. You couldn’t have known.”
“But maybe I should have. Putting big glass windows on a building in a neighborhood like this was pretty much inviting someone to throw a rock at it.”
“It’s a stellar design. Tristan did a great job.”
“Yeah.” Mitch turned to stare back out the window. “I didn’t mean that Tristan should have redone the design because, yeah, this is really amazing. I meant that I should have realized the possibility of vandalism around here and used the proper materials.”
“Move on, bro. You can’t go back and change that. Just learn and move forward.”
A noise behind them had them both turning. Several of their workers came through the door, pushing sheets of plywood on a trolley. Right behind them were the cops.
Mitch was grateful for the distraction of first, dealing with the cops and then helping the guys put the wood up to cover the gaping hole. All the beauty of the window was now covered with cheap, ugly wood with painted markings on it.
When they were done, Mitch walked around the outside of the building and stared at it.
“C’mon. Let’s go,” Bennett said. “Nothing more we can do here.”
That was true, but the next day, he’d have to call Belle and let her know what had happened. Though the thought of talking to her was appealing, the information he’d be passing on, wasn’t. He hoped that the news didn’t upset her too much. At least he’d be able to give her reassurances of what they’d be doing to avoid the same thing happening again.
It was noon before Mitch climbed behind the wheel of his truck, cell phone in hand. He sat for a moment, trying to put together the words for what he needed to say to Belle, knowing it wasn’t going to be a great start to her week. It wasn’t that he thought she’d get upset with him, but the idea of her being upset at all was what he wanted to avoid.
Unfortunately, short of just not telling her at all, he wasn’t going to be able to avoid that. C&M made a practice of being upfront with their customers and keeping them abreast of any and all issues. Most of the time that practice was appreciated, but in this case, Mitch knew it was just going to add more to Belle’s plate. Even though she didn’t have to do anything to fix the situation, it was going to be one more thing that she’d worry about. Even if it was just in the back of her mind as she took care of all the other things on her to-do list.
Taking a deep breath, Mitch pulled up Belle’s contact information and tapped the screen to call her. He listened as the phone rang, wondering if he should have waited until later in the afternoon to call so that maybe she would have at least been almost done with her Monday.
“Hello?” It was four rings before she answered, and she sounded out of breath.
“Hi, Belle. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“No, not at all. I had forgotten to take my phone with me and I was down the hall when I heard it ringing.” She let out a long breath. “So what’s up?”
“Well, we had a bit of excitement at the building last night.”
“Excitement?” Her voice was wary. “I’m assuming it’s not the good kind of excitement.”
Mitch sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“So what happened?”
“That beautiful glass window on the lower floor was just too much temptation for some idiot. They put a rock or two through it and managed to shatter the window completely.”
“Are you kidding me?” He heard what sounded like a hiss through her teeth. “Who does stuff like that?”
“Well, we’re hoping the police can find out, but to be honest, it’s possible they won’t be able to. However, we gave them the footage from the security cameras we had installed around the place.”
“I thought you were being a little over the top wanting all that security in place before the building was even finished. I didn’t think someone would try to break in for no reason at all.”
“Well, I’m not sure they were trying to break-in, though it’s not unheard of for idiots to try and rip off tools and such from building sites. I get the feeling that this was possibly someone—or someones—who just couldn’t resist a big shiny glass wall.”
“Does this mean it might happen again?” Belle asked.
“We’ve ordered a different sort of window this time. It will be unbreakable—at least from things like rocks. The broken part is covered for now with plywood, but the new window should be installed in a couple of weeks. We’ll still be okay for the deadline since we’ll just keep doing the other work as planned and then install the new window when it comes.”
“It sounds like you’ve got it all under control.”
“We have. It’s not the first time we’ve dealt with something like this which is why we insist on insurance and security even on empty buildings. We’re going to add additional floodlights around the building so that if someone gets too close, the place will be lit up like the stadium.”
Belle let out a little laugh. “Hopefully that will scare them off.”
“Here’s hoping.” Mitch relaxed back into his seat, thankful that she didn’t seem all that upset by what he’d had just told her. “How’s your week going?”
“We’re gearing up for a two-wedding weekend. Both of them are weddings for which we’ve done all the planning.”
“By we do you actually mean you? Or do you have someone that helps you out?”
“Yeah. I do most of the work though Jasmine sometimes helps with phone calls to vendors for confirmations and such. I also have a couple of women who help me out at the weddings where we’re responsible for everything.” Belle hesitated. “Mom told me I need to hire someone to help. A permanent assistant, instead of the women who help me out sometimes, grateful for a bit of overtime. I’d do that…except I don’t really have time to interview people at the moment. That may be something I’ll have to take care of when wedding season slows down.”
“A bit of a catch-22, eh? Need to take the time to find someone to help you because you’re so busy, but you’re too busy to do it.”
Belle laughed. “Exactly. Here’s hoping I survive.”
“Has it always been this busy?”
“No, but each year it gets busier and busier. Mom handed the business to me over four years ago when she married Patrick, and at that point it was still fairly manageable.”
“You’re doing a great job if the business is that much in demand.”
“I’d like to think we give the people who come to us what they want. It’s a heavy weight, trying to meet the expectation of what people want for the most important day of their life. To not just interpret their desires, but also to carry them out.”
“Though obviously we’re not helping people carry out their expectations for the best day of their life, we do have some of the same issues as we help people design and then build their dream homes. Or not even their dream homes. Sometimes their vision for the home they want for their business.”
“Like mine?”
“Yes.” Mitch stared out the front window, rubbing his hand down his thigh. “I didn’t want to have to tell you about what happened with the window. I knew it would just add stress to your day.”
“I appreciate your concern, but from the start, you’ve assured me that you’d take care of everything. From the sounds of things, you are doing just that.”
A warmth spread through Mitch at her words. For some reason, it was important for her to know that she could trust him. That she could depend on him to carry out the plans she’d agreed to.
“We are, and we’ll continue to. I just hope I don’t need to contact you again about something like this.”
“That makes two of us,” Belle said. “But if you do, don’t hesitate to call me. I’m stronger than I look. I can handle hearing about the bad stuff.”
“Oh, I didn’t think you couldn’t handle it, I just didn’t want you to have to. I mean, no one wants to add stress to someone’s life. I’ll just be praying that we have no more situations like this. Only positive stuff, from here on out.”
Belle laughed again. “Well, if you find a way to guarantee that, be sure and let me know because I could definitely use that information.”
“I don’t know how to guarantee anything, but I do know how to build and pray.”
When Belle didn’t reply right away, Mitch wondered if he’d been too upfront. Not everyone was comfortable when he mentioned things about his faith. But surely that wouldn’t be an issue since her step-father had prayed before their dinner at the restaurant and no one had seemed to mind. Still, something had made Belle fall silent.
“Well, I should probably let you get back to work. Just wanted to bring you up to speed on what had happened here at the site.”
“Thank you, Mitch. I really do appreciate being kept in the loop. Hope the rest of your week goes smoothly.”
“Yours too.”
After they said goodbye, Mitch sat for a moment trying to figure out what had caused the weird lapse in their communication. But without knowing Belle better, he really had no clue.
After he checked his emails, he started up the truck and headed for their other major project site. He split his time between the two major work locations with a quick tour of their other sites at the end of each day. Thankfully, he had two other employees like Mark who he relied on to help him keep track of the jobs, but he still felt responsible to track progress at each site.
Most days he felt like he performed well at his job given that he was the only one of the adult children in his family who hadn’t gone to university after high school. Well, that was aside from Kenton, who made millions without having a college degree. There were some days that Mitch struggled to feel qualified for what he did. But he had had plenty of on the job training from one of the best in the business—his dad—and thankfully, it seemed he had a knack for what he did.
Still, at times he wondered when the day would come when there would be a job that he couldn’t handle for some reason. He knew that Bennett or Ethan or even his dad would be more than willing to step in and help him out, but he didn’t want it to ever come to that point.
And on this job in particular—Belle’s project—he wanted to prove that he was definitely the man for the job.