An hour later, Luc and Meg walked into the offices of Alpha Wolf Tech. The phone was ringing and Ginny had a look on her face that would have sent clients running for the nearest storm shelter. Luc grabbed the phone and answered it.
Ginny gave Meg a look of sheer joy. She motioned Meg off towards her office. When the two women reached the office, Ginny shut the door behind them and leaned against it.
“Thank god you got here when you did. That phone has been ringing off the wall, and I needed three hands today just to keep up,” Ginny said.
“Has it been this bad the entire time Luc was down?” asked Meg. Thinking back, she didn’t remember it being that busy last week when she was in.
“No, it is like the customers knew Luc was planning on being here today. Oh, and we have three contracts waiting for outside work,” said Ginny.
“Outside work?” asked Meg.
“Trenching,” said Ginny. “All the stuff that Duke use to do and now can’t.”
“Oh shit. Who else can do the work?” asked Meg.
“Sandy, Luc and maybe a few others, but the first two are not available,” said Ginny.
Meg understood why Luc wasn’t available, but not Sandy. “Why not Sandy? Or George for that matter?” Meg asked.
“George doesn’t fit in the cab. Sandy on the other hand has work. He’s helping me with the kids and running that grocery at night,” said Ginny.
“Oh, I had completely forgotten about the kids. Are they coping okay?” asked Meg.
“Yeah, Joe and Sara asked for their dad, but he’s been gone so much of their life, that him being gone now isn’t anything new. The big issue though is that Bitty has a new boyfriend, and I don’t trust them as far as I can spit,” said Ginny.
“Oh?” asked Meg.
“Most shifters are a horny lot. Teens are worse. Two sets of biology both striving for the same thing,” said Ginny. The frustration was bleeding through.
“I never thought of that. Is she on the pill?” asked Meg.
“Like those things work! She’s had the shot and carries condoms, but still…” Ginny trailed off.
“Have you talked to her about it?” Meg asked.
“Oh yeah. Gave the lot of them the talk. Enough so that the pre-school teacher called me and asked why Sara was trying to show her classmates about ‘comdumbs’,” said Ginny.
Meg started giggling. Ginny joined in and the two of them were still laughing when Luc walked in the room after bumping Ginny off the door.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Sara talking to her friends at school about ‘comdumbs’ during recess,” gasped Ginny.
Luc blinked, thought and then he started to giggle as well. After a moment, they all caught their breath. Luc sat down on the edge of Meg’s desk and just shook his head.
“Condoms eh, who’s gone into heat?” he asked at last.
“Bitty, and ‘Solda isn’t far behind,” said Ginny.
“Oh, and with Duke gone,…” Luc trailed off thinking of the various ramifications. “Who’s watching the kids?”
“Sandy. He works nights and has the time to do it,” said Ginny.
Luc just shook his head. His first day at work was turning out to be more than he expected.
“Well, we have to hire someone to do trenching and some other rough out work,” he said.
“I know, three jobs at last count,” said Ginny.
“Make that five. You walked away from the desk for ten minutes,” said Luc. “Do we have anyone in the family capable?”
Ginny thought for a moment. A few came to mind, but most were either too old or not experienced enough. “Not off the top of my head. Let me call Ysabel and see if she has any ideas,” she said.
“Okay, because we both know that Jeff would have a fit if I climbed in the trencher,” said Luc.
“Not just Jeff,” said Meg. Ginny nodded in agreement. As far as they were concerned, the only place Luc was allowed was under their observation.
“Fine. Ginny, find me someone. Human, shifter, I don’t care. I have to have someone to get these jobs done. And yes, I took a look at the board. Not bad really, but we are at least two weeks behind where I’d like to be at this point in the month. At this rate, we will need one tech and one outside man,” he finished.
Ginny nodded and headed back to her desk to start making calls.
“So, what are you going to do with your day?” asked Meg.
“I’m going to attempt to straighten my office up and stay out of Ginny’s way. And you?” he asked in return.
“Well, from the looks of it, I’ve got two clients to send information to and then crunch data for one of your jobs. I got caught up last week with most of the backlog. Oh, and there is a new client to contact on Wednesday,” she finished.
“A new client?” he asked.
“Yeah. One of the universities in the area needs employment data cross referenced to businesses in the area and the availability of employees,” she said.
“How long will that take?” Luc asked.
“Depends on how many variables there are. Maybe a week, or maybe ten minutes,” she said. “However, nothing is getting done with you sitting on my desk.”
Luc sighed, blew her a kiss and headed for his office.
*
“I have three interviews for you starting at 2pm,” said Ginny as she walked into Luc’s office. He had papers piled all over and tools stacking up in a corner. She didn’t think she’d caused this big of a mess, but…
“Okay, but could we use the conference room rather than here?” he asked.
“Sure. What’s with the grand shuffle?” she asked pointing to all the piles.
“Well, I started filing bits and pieces and then realized that certain things didn’t make sense, so I started to re-arrange things,” he said. “Then there were all the tools and,…”
“You got carried away?” Ginny asked with a smile.
“Guilty. I’ve had way too much time to think, and now that I can actually do something, I’m trying to do it all at once,” he admitted.
“It’s okay. I’m headed to the Quick Stop. Do you want a Dr. Pepper?” she asked. It wasn’t even lunch time yet, but she could see he was dragging.
“I’d love one. Oh, and some beef jerky bites too,” he said fishing in his pocket for his wallet.