“Hey, I never said I wasn’t interested.” He grinned and took a jelly-filled.

“You doing ceramics today?” she asked.

“For a bit. Then I’ve got stuff to do.”

He often had “stuff to do,” which was code for picking horses at Del Mar, or playing cards at one of two local gaming houses. He and Tina actually met at one of them, though they no longer played together. This was because Tina mostly lost, and Bill didn’t. Tina would come by and pull from his winnings, which was the only thing that ever made his temper surface. Tina thought it was funny; the man had helped her raise her three girls without a rise in his blood pressure, but she couldn’t mess with his winnings until he got up from the gaming table, or he’d lose it.

“You’re going to want to hurry,” he said, with a nod of his chin toward inside. “Staff meeting’s going to start before they split up to handle both stores.”

Summer looked at the new building. It seemed so big and roomy in the light of day, and she couldn’t figure out what had panicked her so much last night. “What’s the mood like?”

“Excited. Tense too.”

“Wish me luck.” She went inside and opened the box of doughnuts on the employee table. Everyone promptly ditched Camille’s offering of herbal iced tea and dove into the box to grab their favorite sugar rush.

Camille refrained from the box with a worried little frown as Socks wound through her legs, purring loudly. “Too much sugar in the morning isn’t good for—” She sighed when everyone practically inhaled theirs. “Well. Okay, fine. Kill your arteries.”

Summer surreptitiously wiped the sugar off her fingers.

Camille noticed anyway, and just rolled her eyes. “As I was saying, make sure you all familiarize yourself with the new stock. We’ve just received quite an impressive shipment from Tina and Bill’s spring shopping trips, so that will help with what we lost at the warehouse. More stock is stuffed in every corner of the storage rooms of each of the two stores, in my house, and also Tina’s, so if people are looking for something specific, make sure you check the list.”

Diana was pretending to take notes but was really reading a manila file-covered Cosmo. Madeline was making little smiley faces on a pad of paper, completely lost to the group. Stella and Gregg sat together, silent but attentive.

“Call Braden to verify a product hasn’t been sold,” Camille continued. “Or to get a price.”

Braden hoisted his laptop. His eyes were dark and unreadable as he looked around with a cool, brooding calm.

Chloe was staring at him dreamily as she stuffed herself with an old-fashioned chocolate glaze. “He’s hot,” she mouthed to Summer.