All for a Cowboy

“Way to take surprise vacation days,” Gerald Bruffett muttered as he crossed in front of her carrying a presentation board.

“It couldn’t be helped,” Shae replied.

“Floral emergency?” he called back to her as he disappeared into the conference room. Shae ignored him and walked on. Her part of the presentation had been completed before she’d left for her sister’s wedding—and the worst day of her life—exactly one week ago. She was prepared. Sort of. The fine-tuning she’d hoped to do the past week hadn’t been done, but if there was one thing Shae was good at, it was winging it. Heaven knew she’d done it enough over the past year.

“What happened to you?” Melinda Brody asked as soon as Shae walked around the cubicle wall. So much for red dresses and chunky jewelry—or sunglasses, for that matter—distracting anyone.

“Allergies.”

“Since when have you had allergies?”

“Last Sunday,” Shae said darkly as she shoved her purse into the bottom drawer of her desk. Mel had known her for far too long to be fooled by a lame excuse. She’d also been her only friend to decline the invitation to become a bridesmaid, because she spent every moment of her free time studying for a law degree. Shae sat and pulled off the sunglasses, surprised at how shaky she was—she who breezed through situations ordinary people hung back from.

She who had to tell her colleagues that the wedding was off.

“Allergies, my ass,” Mel muttered as she returned to her keyboard. Shae swiveled her chair toward her friend, who was now focused intently on the screen in front of her, and moistened her lips.

“Mel?”

“Yeah?” her friend asked, still studying the screen.

Reed called off the wedding.

The words stuck in her throat. She was gearing up to try again when Gerald stuck his balding head around the wall, somehow looking both harried and smug. “Wallace wants to see you,” he said.

Mel, who answered directly to the division manager, started to get up, but Gerald shook his head. “He wants to see Shae.”

“Thanks,” Shae said with a frown and Gerald disappeared again.

“Any idea?” Shae asked Mel. She hated going in blind if there was something she needed to know.

Mel shook her head, her eyebrows drawn together in a faintly perplexed expression. “Not a clue.”

Risa Lewis, Wallace’s associate, who, as usual, was wearing way too much makeup, smirked at Shae as she walked by. Risa always smirked at her, so that was no big deal, but this smirk seemed particularly self-satisfied, making Shae’s stomach tighten as she approached the open door of Wallace’s office. Something about this felt off, and when the division manager glanced up at her, all business, Shae’s midsection tightened even more.

“Close the door, Shae, and have a seat.”

Shae smiled, hoping it actually looked like a smile. “Thank you, Wallace.” She sat on the other side of the cluttered oak desk, smoothing her skirt.

“Shae, there’s no easy way to do this, so I’m just going to lay it out. We have to let you go.”

For a moment Shae simply stared at him, very much as she’d stared at her ex-fiancé less than a week ago, trying to wrap her mind around what he’d just said. This had to be a joke, something he’d cooked up to drive home the point that she’d taken vacation days at an inopportune time for the company.

“I have a marketing presentation today for the new acquisition,” she blankly.

Wallace gave his gray head a firm shake. “Risa has a marketing presentation today.”

Shae’s eyebrows shot upward. “You gave her my part of the project?”

“No. You did that.”

“I don’t understand.” And the numbness spreading through her insides as she realized just how serious Wallace was about firing her was making it hard to breathe.

“For the past eight months your mind has not been on the job.”

“I—”

He raised a hand. “You have been immersed in planning and executing not company business, but a wedding instead.”

“I’ve done my job—”

“Not with your full attention.” He leveled a hard stare at her over the top of his glasses. “You could have done better.”

Shae swallowed drily, desperately trying to come up with a strategy, but her brain, which always came up with a solution—except with Reed—seemed paralyzed. Do. Something.

She cleared her throat and said in her most reasonable voice, “If you’d given me some warning...a chance to redeem myself... If you would perhaps consider this a warning?” She smiled at him hopefully. Wallace had always liked her; surely he’d change his mind. Give her just one more chance. After all, she was good at what she did—especially when she was focused on it, and damn it, she would focus on her job, and only her job, in the future.

“Miranda is adamant that we need to cut back.” One corner of his mouth tightened ominously at the mention of the company owner’s name. She was a woman people tended to tiptoe around, but Shae had always prided herself on getting along well with their demanding boss. So why had she now been singled out?

“I’ve spent the past four days going over employee performance,” Wallace continued.

The four days she’d been gone. Things started to fall into place. “I took legitimate vacation days,” she protested.

“With very little warning.”

“I had a personal emergency.”

Wedding related? He didn’t need to say it. Shae could read it in his face. “I’m sorry about this, Shae.”

“Reed called off the wedding,” she blurted. “I needed a couple days to deal with it.”

A look of dawning comprehension crossed Wallace’s face. “I can understand that,” he said after a few silent seconds. “But it doesn’t change things.” His voice softened as he said, “I know this is a shock, but it’s not negotiable.” He pushed a packet toward her. “I’d like to go over the severance package with you.”

Shae didn’t hear a word he said about the packet, but she must have nodded at the right times, because he continued to explain while she tried desperately to think of some way to save herself. She’d always been able to save herself. Finally he said, “Vera will escort you from the building and be in contact in case you have any questions regarding severance.”

That got through to her. Shae’s head snapped up. “Escort me?” As in, she’d have to walk past Risa and out the door with Vera dogging her?

“Company policy.”

“I need my purse.”

“Vera has already collected your things.” And sure enough, when she walked out of Wallace’s office, the older woman was waiting near Risa’s desk with a cardboard box, Shae’s Dooney & Bourke purse balanced on the top of her other belongings. Shae reached for the box, but Vera stepped back.

“I’ll carry it, dear.”

Shae tilted up her chin, inhaled as she focused on the exit thirty feet away and started walking, wincing a little as her phone began buzzing from inside her purse. Last week it would have been a caterer or florist. This week it was probably her family, checking up on her.

Well, now she had more bad news for them and she had no idea how to tell them.