Part 2 (2/2)
”Yeah,” he says. Not sure what to say other than that. She's got her hand out. He takes it reluctantly. It's supposed to be a professional gesture, and he doesn't want to take it any other way. There's no reason to take it any other way.
But his body knows that it's touching a woman's hand, and it reacts accordingly, in spite of his best intentions to the contrary. He gets an unpleasant pleasure out of their contact.
”Do you mind if I show you around?”
”I don't know what good it's gonna do you, but go right ahead. Lead the way.”
She strikes off at a brisk pace. Nothing like the pace that he would have used at the ranch, tour or not. There's no reason to hurry, unless someone's about to get hurt. That doesn't seem to be how Miss Lowe sees it.
She takes a hat from a bin and tosses it back to him. Philip catches it. ”Put that on. Could be dangerous. You probably have nothing to worry about, but it's better to be safe than sorry.”
”Yeah,” he says. He puts the hard hat on. It's a snug fit right out the gate, which is a comfort at least. She heads up a couple of steps into an aluminum box that might have been an office. Inside, a guy with two days of growth in his beard sips on a cup of coffee.
”Mr. Callahan, this is my crew chief, Brad Lang. Brad, this is Mr. Philip Callahan, he owns the Callahan ranch.”
Brad puts a hand out. He's got a firm grip, and he looks Callahan in the eye. ”Mr. Callahan. Good to meet you.”
”You always hanging out inside when your boys work, Mr. Lang?”
His face goes a little red. ”Was waitin' for you, sir.”
Philip looks over at the girl beside him. She's got an impa.s.sive expression, looking up at both of them. ”Well, don't wait for me. I can walk. Already a long way off my ranch, you might as well make me walk ten more feet to get your job done.”
”Yes, sir.”
Now she's got an expression on her face. It's not one that says 'thanks for setting that straight.'
He looks over at Miss Lowe like he's waiting for permission, or something. If he needs permission, then why the h.e.l.l did she hire him?
”You heard the man, didn't you? Go on.”
”You got it.”
He heads off. Morgan waits until the door slams behind him to turn to Callahan.
”You think you're more qualified to tell my guys what to do than I am? That it?”
He hadn't meant to step on any toes, but now that he's in the situation, it's fairly obvious that he's managed it anyways.
”I didn't mean any disrespect, Miss Lowe.”
”No, of course you didn't.” Her face is hard and angry. It makes her look cute. ”You just thought maybe I couldn't handle him, that it?”
There's a point where an edge becomes frustrating, and she's approaching it fast. But at the same time, it's hard to fault her. Callahan could imagine the explosion he'd have if someone were marching around giving orders to his boys. So he swallows his frustration.
”You're right. I shouldn't have stepped on your toes like that.”
She shuts her eyes and takes a breath. ”Yeah. Thanks. You're right. You shouldn't have. I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it.”
”Not a thing, ma'am.”
”Don't call me that.”
”What?” He heard her just fine, but it seems strange. Just manners, isn't it? Or would she prefer 'miss?'
”Don't call me 'ma'am.'”
”Sorry. Miss?”
”Look. Just don't patronize me.” She slips the hard hat off finally. Her hair's cut a little short for Philip's taste, only to the jaw. Any longer and it might not be safe for the job site, though, and it's good that she's taken that into consideration. ”Woman in construction, I get enough of that as it is.”
”I didn't mean anything by it,” he says.
She smiles with a resignation that says that either she already knew that, or it didn't matter in the first place.
”Shall we continue?”
Chapter Six.
Morgan Lowe's heart is pounding in her chest. She's got to impress him somehow, and she can't see a single way that she's going to do that. Not after the colossal screw-up that she just got to walk in on.
First they'd walked right in on one of her guys, slacking on the job, and then, as if to make matters worse, Philip had decided to step in.
If she calls him on it, she's a b.i.t.c.h. If she lets it go, she's a wimp who lets outsiders talk down to her employees. Well, one of those is a quality she can live with. So she called him on it.
But that immediately puts them on the wrong foot. Immediately and irrevocably. And that's a whole mess of its own.
”This area here is going to be where the line starts,” she begins. The sun's s.h.i.+ning just wrong on them, getting in her eyes no matter where she looks, it seems. She starts walking back, the entire routine practiced. ”It opens up into a few different areas, next. You get a few pieces of machinery that handle jobs that are too dangerous. Too hot, too big a risk of getting crushed by something heavy falling...”
”If there's such a big risk, couldn't you find another way? You don't need machines to do it where a person can't.”
Morgan stares at him dully. Sure, they could completely retool their entire line. They could do everything by hand, double their costs, and for their clients, knowing it all had the human touch might be worth an extra dollar per unit.
They'd think it was a real big deal, too. They'd be bragging about how they ate the ma.s.sive over-cost of human labor, when in fact that only goes to cover maybe a third of the difference.
Two more dollars per unit just comes out of profit. And while she's always been pleased with how well the company does for itself, two dollars per unit takes it from 'narrow margin' to 'razor-thin margin.'
If the price of a single item on the line went up, they'd have to raise prices, or they'd have to go out of business, because they wouldn't be able to eat the price of aluminum going up like the price of, say, copper had the past decade or so.
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