It was Dakota with a text. I’m leaving the hospital by three.

Do you need anything?

Xanax for my mother. She’s already driving me crazy.

Mary grinned. You’ll have to ask your husband for that prescription.

The symbol of a heart and the letter U appeared, which Mary sent back before tossing her phone back in her purse. She set the money on the counter for her lunch, the same amount she always did, and twisted out of her chair.

Kent seemed disappointed she was leaving. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” she told him.

He wiped his face. “Maybe I’ll see you here again?”

She felt the need to move quickly . . . like if she didn’t, this stranger, who wasn’t hard to look at and hadn’t given her one red flag during their brief conversation, was going to ask for her number . . . or something . . . if she didn’t run away. On any other day, or week, she might linger and see where things went, but since Glen had just asked her out, her insides twisted with the thought of juggling two men.

“I am a regular,” she reminded him.

His eyes did that connecting thing again. “I’ll look forward to it.”

She was blushing. Felt the heat in her cheeks and tried her best to stop it. “Have a nice day.”

“Good-bye, Mary.”

She shuffled a little too quickly and felt his eyes follow her as she walked out of the deli.

Chapter Seven

Glen sat in a meeting with all the senior brokers for Fairchild Charters. Because he’d called a meeting, the men wore suits and ties, where on most days they’d feel free working in more casual attire.

“As you all know, our bookings are down from last year.”

“Damn recession.” Chris was his number two when it came to sales. The man had been with the company for close to fifteen years and had lost most of the hair on his head to prove it. He’d been on the team longer than Glen had held the position of CFO.

“Even our regulars are holding back on their flights this year,” Scott said.

Glen leaned forward on his elbows. “Last year we offered the two-thousand-dollar recession coupon and our flights increased by eight percent over the holidays.”

“Are you suggesting another coupon?”

Glen shook his head. “I think we need new promotions.”

The half a dozen men sitting at the table stared at each other.

“Nothing?”

“We’ve been here before, Glen. Discounts, empty leg incentives, it’s all we have outside of giving away free flights.” Scott probably had the most lucrative broker clientele. He pulled in over seven figures annually even with the recession.

“There has to be more ways to pull in new clients.”

Jay, a thirty-five-year-old previous Wall Street stockbroker, was the newest addition to their senior team. “If you don’t mind me saying, Glen . . . I think you’re asking the wrong group of brokers.”

All eyes turned to the newbie. A few men instantly protested.

Glen stopped them. “Who should I ask?”

“The guys on the floor . . . those putting out cold calls in an effort to find the next rock star, the next basketball player who signed a big contract and doesn’t want to fly commercially anymore. The new guys are listening to the excuses as to why someone with the means says no. All of us are in the black. We don’t hustle like we once did.”

“Speak for yourself, Jay,” Chris scolded.

“Do you even know where to find the cold call list?” Jay asked.

Glen knew cold calls were taken off of the Contact Us page on their website. But even he had no idea how to access it.

Chris started to argue. “I’m beyond cold calls.”

“Exactly my point.”

“I do my job.”

“Damn, Chris . . . let it go. Jay has a point.” This came from Gerald, another onetime stockbroker who made the switch to selling private charters after the market crash. And like Jay, he’d made a name for himself in a short amount of time. That seemed to be the case with Fairchild Charters. Their brokers circulated quickly because of the stress of the job. It was all high sales, not something Glen could remove. The incentive his brokers had to fill more flights was what kept his birds in the air.

Glen stopped the arguing with his words. “Here’s what I want from you. I need a list of names from the floor. Guys who have been with us long enough to taste what they want, know the system, but haven’t hit the point where their client list pays them enough to work less than five days a week.”

“I don’t know that many of the newbies,” Scott confessed.

Glen leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe we need to start up a mentorship incentive.”

There was one thing Glen had learned about the brokers. They were a competitive lot who didn’t take a ton of shit from their coworkers.

Glen pushed back from the table. “I want a list of three names minimum from each of you by Monday.”

He left the men muttering to themselves with thirty minutes to spare before meeting with his brother for lunch.

He waltzed past the secretary of his chief operating officer with a simple point of his finger. “Is he with anyone?”

“Nope.”

Glen smiled and noticed the flush on the secretary’s cheeks. Cute, but he didn’t mix work with pleasure.

The door was open to the corner office that had been held by Chuck Nielson almost since the inception of Fairchild Charters. The older man had been one of Glen’s father’s best friends in addition to one of his most valued employees. “Gotta minute?” Glen asked as he let himself in.