There was no preparing her for what type of business her father had left her. She had heard that he was in oil and gas, other type of commodities, but never had Kallie heard about his feed stores. It was a small town one no less, but it was a feed store. Kallie didn’t know the first thing about cattle or horses. She knew about crabs and seafood, things that she seen on the coast.
Pulling up in front of the store, her hybrid felt out of place in the row of trucks and trailers. Getting out, she pulled her hair up with a ponytail and looked at the few men watching her from the docking place where they loaded up huge bags of feed. She found herself staring back for a minute, young hard bodies flexing as they threw down the feed to the waiting truck beds. Maybe there were some perks to the business, she thought to herself.
She surveyed the activity and liked the fact that no one seemed to know who she was. Kallie could observe without anyone knowing that she was there to take over. She was enjoying anonymity until an older woman came out of the store. “Well you must be Mel’s daughter Kallie. You look just like him.”
Kallie was surprised to be called out and she noticed the change in the way a few people looked at her. They must have known that she was taking over. Smiling at the older woman, she put her hand out to shake it. “Yes I am Kallie. Nice to meet you and you are?”
“Edith. I am the accountant and I do some of the management duties like orders, payroll and a few other things.”
“Well nice to meet you Edith. I wasn’t sure what kind of business this was when I got the paperwork.”
“You ever worked in feed before?”
Kallie shook her head that she hadn’t. “No, can’t say that I have ever been in one before.”
Edith grabbed her hand and told her they were going to change that. “Do you want me to introduce you today or when you come in Monday for the staff meeting?”
Kallie hadn’t thought about it and she certainly hadn’t thought about a meeting where she would have to meet them all. What was she supposed to say, Dad died so I am taking over?
“Let’s wait till Monday for all of that. I just want to get a feel for the place if you don’t mind.”
“No problem. We heard that you got the store in the will. I am sorry to hear about Mel Miss, he was loved here.”
She shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in fifteen years and I don’t remember him well, but thank you. I hear good things about him everywhere I go here.”
Edith was not expecting that for an answer and it made her uncomfortable. Mel had always been good to his children and she wondered why he hadn’t been around for his oldest. It wasn’t her place to say anything, especially with her to be their new boss.
As they moved into the store, there was a lot more than then just feed for animals. There were chemicals for gardens, plants, medicines, a little bit of everything.
“So you do the inventory?”
Edith nodded. “It is quite a selection. I was going over the numbers last night and you guys have a great turnover for such a big inventory.”
“We are the only place to go to for feed around here and most customers have been with us since the very beginning.”
“I can see, but why here?”
“It was your father, he was loved by everyone. Always helped anyone who needed it.”
“So he worked here?”
“A couple days a week at least.”
Kallie couldn’t imagine it, from what she had heard, he was a very rich man and working at a feed store seemed out of place. Why would he spend all his time there? It made her wonder if there was a reason, a female there that made him want to be there.
She followed the older woman through the place and she smiled at a few people that looked at her questioningly. Taking her upstairs to the office and then to the loading dock where most of the inventory was there. A few of the men she had seen earlier gave her the eye and she heard a few catcalls. “You got to ignore them. It’s all testosterone here on the loading docks.” Edith gave a few of them a dirty look. She couldn’t say she was the new boss, but she didn’t want them to offend her.
“It’s okay. Is there any other kind of guy?”
Edith kind of chuckled. “Not really.”
Her eyes went to one man with his shirt off and she couldn’t help the assessing look her eyes gave him. He was gorgeous, too young for her, but handsome nonetheless. There were many perks, but being the boss made most of the perks off limits.
“So what do you think? You are very quiet. Your father was quite loud, so you will have to learn to have a voice here. We are used to hollering and fussing.”
Kallie had to laugh. “That I do remember about him, always so loud and jovial. But I take after my mom I suppose, more quiet and reserve. I was always told that you didn’t have to raise your voice to get the point across.”
“No, with a face like that I bet you don’t have to talk very loud. When you get older you have to raise your voice to get a rise out of these guys.”
“Are there any other females that work here?”
“No, it will be just us. Are you going to hire a manager or are you staying here for a while?”
Kallie still wasn’t sure, but she was thinking of staying a while. If this is what he had given her, she had to find a way to make it work. That it was a steady running business helped, as it looked like it was already running pretty smooth.
“I will be staying here a while. I still have to go look at a house a few miles from here.”
“The old one on Johnson Road?”
“Yeah, I think that was the name on the address. How old is it?”
“I’m not sure, but it has been in this town for a long time. There have been people trying to buy that house for a decade now, but Mel wouldn’t sell.”
Kallie didn’t want a property that was going to cause problems. It made her wonder why he wouldn’t sell, business man that he was. If the price was right, you always sell. That is business 101.
“Why not?”
“Because they want to drill there. They will pull the house down and turn those acres into a drilling operation.”
“Sounds like he could have made a pretty penny on that deal, why wouldn’t he take it?”
“He was raised here and doesn’t want to destroy the town. Once an oil rig goes in, a place will boom for a while, but eventually it will bust and most towns don’t make it. All across Texas there are ghost towns because oil was found. Same thing like in California with the gold. They come in and take all the resources, strip the ground and leave. Mel didn’t want to see his hometown done that way.”
Kallie nodded. It made sense and she felt that the last thing she should do is turn around and do the very thing he was trying to avoid. She saw it as a way to honor him and his wishes. “I have no desire to sell either then. If he wants to keep this town the same, I won’t do anything to change that.”
It was a good answer if she went with the way Edith looked at her. “I think you are going to like it here Kallie. You already belong.”