MissManaged

My phone rang,interrupting me from putting the final touches on a draft promotional flyer and price sheet for Daniels’ Family Farm. Tobin’s plans included trying to get their organic dairy products into more local restaurants, so we decided a mail campaign would be the way to get their name out there. Email was my initial suggestion, but like everything else in Walker’s Grove, time moved slower around here, and I quickly found that most local places barely had a website, let alone an email address publicly available. Once he started gaining customers, I’d build him an email database so he could do a monthly newsletter, but that would take time.

“Hello?” I hit speaker and answered without looking to see who it was, so I was completely unprepared for Tobin’s silky-smooth voice to fill my living room.

“Hello, Charlotte. How are you today?” Even though he’d stuck to his promise and kept things totally professional, the way he spoke to me still gave me full body tingles.

“I’m fine, Tobin. How are you?” I took a sip of coffee to steel my nerves. I shouldn’t let this man affect me like this, but I was powerless to stop my reaction, and I wasn’t even physically near him!

“I’m doing well. I was wondering if you’d made progress on the mailer we talked about? My mother wants to get her cheese out into the world now that it’s ready.”

He chuckled and I joined in, now having met his mother, Allison, and experienced her passion for the cheese they produced. She took pride in their products and wanted them to be successful.

“I’m just putting the finishing touches on the first draft. I still need some of the pricing information, but we can fill that in at the last minute,” I assured him.

“Perhaps we could meet for lunch today and take a look at it? I have to go into town to pick up a few things from the hardware store.”

His suggestion caught me off guard. I’d gone out to the farm a couple more times over the last two weeks for meetings at Tobin’s insistence but going out in public together seemed like too much.

“I can just email it to you, Tobin,” I replied, sounding slightly panicked. “You’ll have it within the hour.”

“I have to leave shortly and it’s already eleven. Unless you have other plans?”

I wanted to lie to him, I really did, but I just couldn’t do it. Even though my brain told me to stay away from Tobin, my heart said otherwise.

“Noooo, I don’t have plans,” I admitted.

“That’s settled then. Is noon at The Mountainview Diner good?” His cockiness was shining through, irritating me with his bold assumptions, and I couldn’t resist the urge to push back ever so slightly.

“Twelve-thirty would be better.”

There. Now he would know that he couldn’t push me around.

“Great. Thanks for agreeing to have lunch with me, Charlotte,” he replied, oozing self-satisfaction, making me realize what I’d just done.

I’d voluntarily agreed to lunch. With Tobin Daniels. When I swore we’d be nothing but business colleagues.

“This is a business meeting, Tobin,” I reminded him. “Strictly professional. Don’t make it into more than it is.”

“Of course. Strictly business,” he parroted back to me. “I have to get changed out of my work clothes. I’ll see you soon.”

He hung up before I could say anything else, but really, what could I say? I’d walked right into the trap he’d set.

I arrived at the restaurant at exactly twelve-thirty, only to find Tobin standing just inside the door waiting for me. It was the first time I’d seen him out of his work clothes, and he looked scrumptious. Dark-washed jeans that hugged his thighs and the curve of his ass I could see from my side-angle view. A crisp white untucked button-down shirt, open at the collar to show the white t-shirt he wore underneath. Classic casual. Not too dressy, but still nicely put together. He’d gotten a haircut last week but didn’t take too much off. Just enough to not look homeless. The messy style suited him and gave him a rakish look.

Not that it mattered to me in the least.

Nope. I did not care.

I didn’t know who I was trying to kid, but I wasn’t even able to fool myself.

I took a step toward him, but as he turned to greet me, I spied my current nemesis sitting at a booth about twenty feet behind Tobin.

My eyes narrowed as I glared over his shoulder, not even pausing for a second before I altered my course and began stomping towards Pastor Brown.

“Hey, Charlotte,” Tobin said, then noticed my angry face. “What’s going on? That’s not a good look.”

“Get out of my way. I have a bone to pick with Pastor Brown.” I tried to step around Tobin, but he grabbed my elbow, stopping my forward momentum, and quickly pulled me into the restaurant’s vestibule where no one could see us.

“Hey! What are you doing, Tobin?” I demanded as quietly as I could. Thankfully, I still had enough sense not to cause a scene.

“Growling at people and pushing them out of your way isn’t nice, Charlotte,” Tobin said as I let him lead me out the door.

“Neither is stiffing me on a bill for the website design services I provided him and ignoring my calls and letters,” I retorted. “And I tried to step around you. I didn’t push you.”

“It felt like you were shouldering me out of your way so you could go lay into the good pastor in the middle of the lunch rush,” he replied, bending down so we were eye to eye. “That wouldn’t have been a very good look for you. Half the town was in there. I thought you were trying to grow your business?”

As much as I disliked being lectured like a child, he had a point. So, I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.

“You’re right, Tobin. He just makes me so mad. I haven’t heard from him in months, and I need that money.” I slammed my mouth shut as I realized what I’d just revealed in my agitation.

“You need money, Charlotte?” he asked, his steel-blue eyes fixed on my face. I wanted to get away from him and his question, but his gaze held me in place.

“I’m okay,” I replied, but it was a fib. “I just wanted to get ahead on my bills.” Total lie. I needed that money to catch up on the two months I was behind on my utilities.

“I can advance the rest of my payment for your services,” Tobin said, still peering intently at me. Studying me. Probably seeing through me. “And I can loan you money if you need it until you get paid.”

“No, no. I’ll be fine.” I stepped back to get away from his knowing stare. “Do you still want to get lunch here?” I waved toward the door but didn’t look his way again.

He didn’t respond for a long minute as I pretended to be very interested in the traffic on Main Street. For some reason, I felt terrible for lying to him, and he almost certainly knew I wasn’t being truthful. But I reminded myself, my financial situation was none of his business. We were business associates. I provided a service that he paid me for. That was all.

“I think we might be better off going to Grove Pizza and Subs,” he finally replied. “It might be full of bikers, but they’re probably better people than Pastor Brown.”

He waved his arm to the left, indicating I should walk that way, and fell in next to me as we headed the few blocks down the street.

“What makes you say that?” I asked, latching on to the change in topic. “Not that I don’t agree that Pastor Brown is not a nice person, but that’s from my own interactions with him.”

“He arrived in town about a year ago and took over the Baptist church. I knew some people who went there, and they said he changed everything about it—what they claimed to believe, what was expected of the members, everything.”

“That must be why he wanted the website redone. From what I saw, their beliefs are pretty misogynistic and restrictive.” I chose my words carefully, interested in gauging Tobin’s reaction.

“They definitely are. A lot of people left because of the changes, including all of my parents’ friends who went there.” He opened the door to the pizza place and held it so I could go in first, which left him directly behind me, and close. So close he was able to whisper in my ear. “Just because I want to be in charge in my personal relationship doesn’t mean I think women are less than me and need to wear dresses and do nothing but stay at home and have babies. That’s not at all what I want out of my partner in life.”

The hostess greeted us and led us to a table, and as I walked away, I prayed he couldn’t see the shiver his words caused run through me.