The Job Offer Read Online Free PDF Page B

vacation home that could rival any of the great plantation homes found in the
South.  The house took five years to build and cost a couple of million back
when it was completed in 1897.  It was reported that several heads of state and
wealthy industrialists had stayed at the home back when the shipbuilder, Thomas
Rhodes, owned the place.  The house and lands were sold in the 1950s when the direct
family line died out and descendants of Mr. Rhodes from California decided that
keeping the home was not worth it to them.  After the house was sold, several
cabins were added along the water's edge, and the place was turned into a vacation
and fishing resort.
    The place changed owners several times
over the years until Jim Petrovic and her mother bought it when Anne was two
years old.  Jim and Anne's mother were just married, and using all of their
savings and any capital they could scrape together through loans and private
investors, they turned the run down building and cabins around into a thriving
inn and vacation resort.  When Anne was eight, the inn expanded adding the events
center, and she and her family moved from their suite in the main building into
the remodeled caretaker's house.  Over the years, the inn also added a swimming
pool, a spa, tennis courts, and an art gallery-gift shop combination that featured
the works of local artists.
    Now, rounding the corner of the wrap
around veranda, Anne walked back down the trail to the family's house to
retrieve some money from her purse.  The inn listed Eastsound as its address,
but the inn and resort were actually two miles outside of Eastsound village
limits along the northwest shore of the island.  She could see Waldron Island
off in the distance with the expanse of the blue waters of President Channel in
between.  She also saw several kayakers out enjoying the calm water and a
fishing boat off to the right.  Further down the channel on the left, she could
make out a sightseeing boat on its way north looking for a pod of orca whales
for which the island was famous.  She could imagine the surprise and awe of the
faceless tourists when a pod was spotted.  It never stopped thrilling her, and
she had seen them countless times.
    After grabbing a twenty dollar bill and
stuffing it in her back pocket, she headed back to the main building to check
out one of the inn's mountain bikes.  She decided to take the back staircase
that led up the southern elevation of the veranda instead of walking around the
pool area and cutting across the patio to the back entrance into the building. 
As she walked, she became lost in her own thoughts recalling every nuance of
that morning’s interview.  Surely, they would not have given her the tour if
they were not seriously looking at hiring her?   Research companies guarded
their research as if they were Fort Knox.
    Smack.
    Lost in her thoughts, she did not watch where
she was going and bumped into a man on the veranda who was rounding the corner
to head to the back staircase.  The force of hitting him would have knocked her
down if not for his quick actions to stop her from falling.  Immediately after
the collision, strong arms enfolded her in a hug before they moved away.  She
felt strong hands grab her arms to steady her.  After the initial hard bump, her
fuzzy brain registered warmth, power, and the scents of the great outdoors and
a male body.  She stepped away from him quickly and put a distance of about a
foot between their bodies, surprised by the sudden awareness she felt being that
close to him.
    "Whoa, sorry," the man said.  He
had a deep voice that made Anne’s toes curl and stomach flutter.  The best way
to describe his voice was that he had a bedroom voice, kind of like that
singer, Barry White.  What a voice!  Her nerve endings came alive just at the
sound.
    She looked at the line of the man's
tanned throat and his brown chest hairs that peeked out from above the open
collar of his red polo shirt.  Looking