One Way to Succeed (Casas de Buen Dia Book 1) by Marjorie Pinkerton Miller

I’ve done or what I want to do?”
    “I think I know as much as I need to,” he said, shaking his head but still smiling. “So, are you interested?”
    “Well, it’s not what I’ve been looking for, but it will be a step in the right direction anyway.”
    “Yes, the café thing just wasn’t going to work out, was it?” he said, smiling and folding the paper back up. He handed it to her. “How much notice do you have to give?”
    Amy slowly calmed down as they talked through more details of the job. By the time he left and she sat back with a loud sigh, she had begun to believe she could learn to manage her attraction to her new boss. She just had to keep her mind on work and the bigger goal: finally getting somewhere with her life.
    ~
    Rick’s small office building was south of downtown, just down the street from Builders Supply, a couple of blocks north of the wash. Amy hadn’t expected it to look like much, but although it was modest, it was also impeccably well-kept. Not a chunk of granite was out of place in the small, cactus-studded landscaping in front of the building. The large picture windows facing the street were sparkling clean, although it was impossible to see through them. The miniature blinds between the panes of the insulated glass panels were closed, keeping the morning sun from getting inside.
    “Hi!  I’m Sandra.  You must be Amy!” The receptionist jumped to her feet the second that Amy walked through the front door two days later.
    “How did you know?”
    “Who else would you be?” Sandra laughed, reaching out to encircle Amy in a surprisingly warm hug. “Not a lot of women breach this threshold. We are few and far between!”
    “Oh.” Already Amy felt off balance, unsure of how to respond to Sandra’s cheerful declaration of what Amy considered bad news.
    “Here, let me show you where the coffee is and then I’ll show you your office.” Sandra grabbed Amy’s arm by the elbow and pulled her deeper into the building. “Rick will be here soon. He usually arrives between nine and ten. But he works late, for sure. I get here early so I can answer the phones. Most contractors get started as soon as the sun comes up. Are you and early riser too? I hope so; it can be a little too quiet around here in the morning.”
    Sandra kept up a steady monolog as she led Amy back to a small, neat kitchenette, no different from the dozens of office coffee rooms Amy had seen over the past decade, except that it, too, was spotless.
    “And, here is your office!” Sandra flung open the door to a small room surrounded on two sides with large windows. Two walls were built out with deep wooden shelves that reached the ceiling. Architectural plans were stuffed into diamond-shaped dividers on two shelves. A few more shelves were lined with building codes, business textbooks, and coffee-table-worthy design books. The rest of the shelves were empty, as if someone planned the space with the expectation that the company would continue to grow.
    A long, plain plank of finished maple served as a desk and held a large monitor hooked up to a laptop in a docking station at one end. A couple of two-door filing cabinets held up the desk, and a bright, block-dyed rug provided the only color in the room. It was restful, but businesslike. Immediately, Amy knew she was going to like it.
    “As soon as Rick gets here to handle the phones, I’ll show you how to log into your computer and get to Outlook and the other programs you’ll need,” Sandra said.
    “Oh, if you give me the password, I can show myself around,” Amy said. “I’d love to get comfortable with it right away.”
    “Oh, sure,” Sandra said. She seemed a little disappointed. Perhaps she had been looking forward to spending some time with another woman in the office. Nonetheless, she walked back to her desk in the lobby and returned with a sheet of paper.
    “Here’s everything you’ll need. If you can’t figure something out, just let me