Hardly Working

Hardly Working
Betsy Burke

Dinah Nichols, PR chick for Green World International, knows how to spin a story. She has to, otherwise how else would rescuing loons get the media attention it deserves? But a visit from Higher Management guru Ian Trutch means she'll have to put some spin on the "fabulous work" she and the staff have been doing.Sure, her latest hobby of haranguing a cocky colleague is worthwhile, but it isn't part of GWI's mission statement or anything. So, how to convince the higher-ups she and the others are working hard for their higher purpose? Hmm. Dating Trutch seemed the obvious move, but now she's not so sure he is what he says he is, and the office is turned upside down as acts of local ecoterrorism are suddenly on the rise, and Dinah's famed mother–a bona fide well-known Jacques Cousteau type–makes an unforgettable appearance, putting Dinah's entire career in jeopardy.Will Dinah navigate her eclectic crew to safety, or will they have to swim for it?

Hardly Working

Hardly Working

Betsy Burke

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My heartfelt thanks to Yule Heibel and her family, my Canadian and Italian families, Elizabeth Jennings, Jean Fanelli Grundy, Marie Silvietti, Helen Holobov and Kathryn Lye.

For Brock Tebbutt and Joe Average

Contents

November

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

December

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

January

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

February

Epilogue

November

Chapter One

Friday

“So… Dinah. The big THREE OH,” said Jake.

My mind hurtled back from the dreamy place where I’d been idling. I slammed my hand down on the mouse. The Ian Trutch page closed and up came the brochure I was supposed to be working on for the important December fund-raiser. The event would also be an opportunity to award the year’s most generous donors and present the pilot project we’d been trying to push through for the last two years, the ecological aquatic waste treatment system, affectionately nicknamed “Mudpuddle” by those of us at Green World International.

“Hi, Jake.” I swiveled around to look at him.

Jake Ramsey, my boss and the office’s token male, hovered, filling up the doorway to my tiny office. He hid a nervous laugh with a nervous cough. “So…you’ve got your great big thirtieth coming up in a couple of days. How are you going to celebrate?”

“Shhh, keep it down, Jake.”

“What? What’s the problem?”

“That three oh number. I didn’t expect it so soon.”

“Life’s like that. You just turn around and there you are. Older.”

“Terrific, Jake. So who finked about my birthday?”

“Ida.”

“I should’ve known.” As small, sweet and wrinkled as a hundred-year-old fig, Ida worked the switchboard at the front desk. She was the employee nobody had been able to force into retirement. Well past the average employee’s spontaneous combustion age, she was very good at her job. Irreplaceable really. She took half her pay under the table in the form of gossip. It was, she said, excellent collateral.

“Well, don’t tell anybody else,” I whispered. “I was planning on staying twenty-nine for another couple of years.”

Probably too late. If Ida knew then everybody knew.

Jake looked expectant. “Big party planned, eh? You have to have a big party.” His reformed alcoholic’s eyes brightened with longing.