Barefoot Brides by Annie Jones

Author:Annie Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2009-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

“Ad revenues? That’s what this is all about?”

“Not all about. It’s not that simple.” He stood and strode across the room and into the hallway. He looked down it first one way and then the next, gesturing with both hands as he said, “Cost of paper is up. Cost of production. Electricity. Water. Gas for delivery.”

“All things the Sun Times newspaper staff would totally understand.” She pushed up off the desk and followed him as far as the doorway. There she stopped, folded her arms and cocked her head and challenged him. “I can’t believe they’d walk out over hearing a few cold, hard facts.”

He scrunched up his face like a kid caught trying to get away with not having told the whole story. “Yeah, well, maybe it wasn’t just the facts that were cold and hard.”

“You have my attention.”

“I just…I didn’t intend to say it. Not the way it came out.” He pretended to pick at something on the paneled hallway wall, then leaned against it, his arm straight and his palm flat. “But the longer we sat in the staff meeting troubleshooting—”

“Troubleshooting?” Moxie held her hand up to stop him right there. “You mean problem solving?”

He let his arm go lax, just a tiny bit. That put his face closer to hers, not in a threatening way but in a way that implied he did not like being corrected and he didn’t plan to back off his original phrasing. “Troubleshooting. Problem solving. Same thing.”

“I beg to differ, Mr. Editor in chief.”

He dropped his hand from the wall and stood with his shoulders back and his expression skeptical but not closed off. “I’m listening.”

“Troubleshooting means you are looking for trouble, usually with a double-barreled rifle loaded with buckshot approach.”

He tipped his head momentarily to the right. It wasn’t a nod of agreement, but it let her know he was on board with her theory and willing to hear more.

“Problem solving, on the other hand, means you know what the issues are and you are looking for resolutions, looking for a way to get out of trouble.”

“I never thought of it that way.” Then he rubbed the bent knuckle of his index finger over his narrow beard and chuckled, his eyes narrowed onto her face. “You always this smart?”

“No.” Moxie didn’t know why she immediately denied it. There was nothing wrong with a girl being smart and Moxie was. Then again, if she kept to the absolute truth, she wasn’t always smart. And frankly, this man could come up with recent and very vivid examples of her, um, lack of intellect. “But I have run my own businesses since I was sixteen years old. I picked up a thing or two along the way.”

“Sixteen. Wow. When I was sixteen…” He stared off into space, shook his head then asked, “So where were your parents then? Were you supporting yourself?”

“My foster mom had just left. Billy J was a wreck—yes, even more so than he is now.” She answered the obvious question before he could even pose it.

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