Instant Attraction

Chapter 2

Sinclair Shipping Offices and Shipyard

            “Miss Sinclair!” Donald Treeman shouted as he jumped up from his desk in surprise as Cheyenne and Haa’estahetane entered the offices of Sinclair Shipping bright and early the next morning. “It’s good to see you again. Your uncle isn’t in the office yet this morning.”

            “It’s good to see you again, too, Mr. Treeman,” Cheyenne told him. “The reason my uncle is not here is he is no longer employed by this company. Please bring all the records pertaining to the company into my father’s old office as soon as possible. I also want everyone employed by the company who is presently here in town in the meeting room after lunch. I think that should give you enough time to notify everyone.”

            “Yes, ma’am,” Treeman answered as Cheyenne’s other cousin Ma’xehetane Collins entered the building.

            “It was just as we thought once your uncle knew you were in town he came here and I politely informed him he was no longer allowed inside the shipyard or office building. I took his keys from him before he left,” Ma’xehetane informed her as he handed her the keys. “He was a very unhappy man when he departed.”

            “He gave you no trouble?” Cheyenne asked her cousin. Ma’xehetane Collins was as large a man as his brother was but at five and twenty, he was five years younger than Haa’estahetane was. Just their size alone was intimidating and that they looked full-blooded Indian, which they were not. Their mother was full-blooded Cheyenne Indian and niece to her grandmother, their father was Irish.

            “No he was rather dumbfounded to find me here. I gathered he thought you would return  alone,” her cousin replied with a large grin on his face. “No one has taken anything from here since you arrived in town. With our arrival after dark and unannounced as we did, it took them by surprise.”

            “Why don’t you go to the house and get some rest,” she told him “We have a dinner engagement tonight at the Duchess of Warrick’s house. I told Amanda we would be there around six.”

            “I’m not sure you should leave this place unguarded,” Haa’estahetane told her. “What if your uncle returns tonight or sends some men to disrupt things.”

            “I intend to hire new guards to add to those we already have for the office building and shipyards,” she informed them. “Mr. Treeman do you have a problem working for me and giving me your loyalty?”

            “No, ma’am,” he answered her. “I want to work for you and you have my complete loyalty. Could we speak in your office in private after I accomplish what you requested me to do? There are some things you should be appraised of before you meet with everyone.”

            “Yes, we will speak once you have completed the other tasks,” Cheyenne told him before she and her cousins left for her father’s old office.

            Once inside they shut the door for privacy.

            “I wonder what he wants to inform you of. Do you think he is trustworthy?” Haa’estahetane asked her.

            “We will have wait and see. I’m not trusting anyone until they prove themselves,” she answered him as she unpinned her hat and removed it. Along with her reticule, gloves and hat she placed the items on a credenza along one wall of the office. She was dressed today in a high-necked long sleeved dark green dress with lace trimmings. Her hair done in an intricate array of twists at the back of her head secured with beautiful pearl combs. Cheyenne hated dressing up because she had to wear a corset and attach her knife to her thigh but she felt today that she needed to be in a dress and not her buckskins she dearly loved since her move west.