My Missing Puzzle Piece (Creekside Falls #1) Read online

  © 2014 Kristin Hoepfl LLC All rights reserved.

  No Part of this publication in any form may be reproduced or transmitted without written consent from the author. The scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or individuals is coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 9781497477292

  ISBN-10: 1497477298

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906167

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

  North Charleston, South Carolina

  This is to everyone who ever had a dream. Dreams do come true, believe in the impossible.

  This book goes out to the women who always thought they blended in with the background or weren’t seen when it came to men; everyone deserves their happily ever after.

  Thanks to my family and friends and to my special cheerleaders. I want to thank everyone who helped me on this journey, allowing me to bounce ideas off you and listening to me go on and on about the plot and characters. I appreciate you all. Thanks to Got It Covered Book Designs for my amazing cover. I want to give special thanks to a few people who really went out of their way to give me feedback and advice, my Mom, Aunt, my editor, SJC, and a fellow author, MK. Here’s to the next chapter…..

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  lle Davis was jolted from her thoughts by a sharp snapping sound; she blinked and saw her best friend and business partner, Taylor Dugan, standing in front of her. “Where were you just now?” Taylor asked as she stepped back from Elle’s desk.

  “Just lost in thought,” Elle replied. She couldn’t say where her thoughts were or whom they were about--even if Taylor was her best friend. She went on so much about Trevor Cavanaugh before, she couldn’t start that again; she didn’t even have a reason to think about him again. Well except for the fact that she wanted him. Still. Elle shook her head and asked, “What’s up?”

  Taylor arched her brow in an unasked question before she started, “Do you remember the Burners Corporation from a few months ago? We worked with their Public Relations department to get some brand recognition out there to customers.”

  “Sure, what about them?” Elle asked.

  “Well apparently the CEO left the company for another job, and when they were looking through his files to get things in order, they saw he embezzled some money from the company. He had taken almost fifty thousand dollars. Almost every executive has called here in the past half hour, so it looks like we’re up.”

  “I guess we are. Are we going to see them now or tomorrow morning?”

  “They said today, well actually they said how about yesterday. They want us to find out if anyone else was involved. Also, they need a plan in case this goes public. If not they want to issue a statement and get ahead of the story. But, they also want to reassure their employees and current customers that everything is being handled. Finally, they need help selecting a new CEO or deciding who to promote from within if they go that route.” Taylor said and added, “They said the sooner we get there the better. Let’s move.”

  “Okay, let me grab my stuff and we can get going.” Elle said as she stood from her desk and started gathering her things.

  “Good, I told them we’d be there in the next hour or so.”

  “It should only take about forty-five minutes, we’ll have to go to the corporate offices but they’re not downtown, so we won’t have to drive all the way into the city.”

  Taylor just shrugged, “I forgot about their new office.”

  “Call Dan if you don’t mind, tell him the situation and see if he can meet us tomorrow morning. You were right, we might need to keep him on retainer as a private investigator, if we keep getting clients with situations like this one.” Elle said, her mind going a mile a minute.

  Later, that day Elle sat at her desk staring at the notes she had written from the meeting this morning. She suddenly realized she had been staring at them for the past twenty minutes. Her thoughts had drifted, back to Trevor Cavanaugh, the type of guy she always fell for but who never saw her remotely the same way. She knew this type of man well; handsome, extroverted, self-confident and always her type. The problem was she was never their type. Her last boyfriend fit the description, and she’d thought he would be different, she should have guessed how that would turn out.

  Trevor was 6’2”, he had short, dark brown hair and navy blue eyes, like the night sky after sunset but before it turned pitch black, his skin was light olive. A client of hers from a few months back, he owned his own business, C & C Landscaping. He hired her to help him re-boot his business plan, which didn’t include the growth his company had made. She helped him re-brand his company image, develop a new advertising campaign, hire new employees, create a new employee package, and added various incentives for the ones who were topnotch and for ones who needed to be better. The new plan included present and future goals, and how to achieve them, along with how to build new clients and keep the ones he had.

  Her company, Creekside Consulting, was a small Human Resources and Public Relations consulting firm that helped companies post jobs and fill positions, but they went deeper than most public relations’ firms. Creekside conducted the entire interview process, worked with employees to help them do their jobs correctly, by offering incentives, and going in when issues arose with those employees. She also helped companies create or re-work their business plan, brand or re-brand their image to attract more customers and build a positive image. Or help them make a comeback after something negative about the company became public. Be it clients, employees or both, she was in charge of damage control. She had clients who owned various sized businesses and corporations as well. The company was taking off and busier than ever thanks to referrals from her clients. Elle was so excited that so many wanted her help. Skype and email made it easier to work with a client who lived far away or in another time zone. She never would have thought they would be this busy, she was so excited about it and eager to see what came next.

  When Trevor and Elle had finished working together a few months back, Elle didn’t think she’d see Trevor again because they hadn’t run into each other since, even though they both lived and worked in Creekside Falls, Pennsylvania. The name is ironic since there isn’t any type of waterfall-- that isn’t on a fountain -- anywhere in town, nor was there a creek that Elle had ever seen. The town is about thirty-five miles outside of Philadelphia with a population of around twelve thousand. There is a small town-square, a few strip malls, one indoor mall, a movie theater, enough restaurants to satisfy most tastes, the local grade schools and a community college, various businesses and the typical selection of neighborhoods. The town was very picturesque, like it had been created on a movie set.

  The small and medium sized business
es, like Elle and Trevor’s, were closer to the center of town whereas the larger ones were more on the outskirts, so they could be near the surrounding towns and closer to the city. Elle always thought of Creekside as the perfect place to live and was never able to see herself living anywhere else, for her it was home.

  Elle thought back to the first time that she met Trevor, it was probably a little over a year ago. She was coming out of a lunch meeting with a client at a hotel restaurant located in the center of town. She was looking down at her phone reading an email when she literally bumped into someone. When she looked up she was face-to-face with deep blue eyes, surrounded by dark hair and a man’s smile that could light up any room he was in and steal a woman’s heart in minutes.

  Elle blushed and said, “Oh, I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention. Are you okay?”

  Trevor looked down at her and said, “It’s okay and I’m fine. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She looked at her arm and noticed his hand there keeping her upright. He noticed at the same moment.

  He removed his hand from her arm and stuck it out and said, “I’m Trevor Cavanaugh by the way.”

  “I’m Elle Davis, nice to meet you.” Elle said as she shook hands with him.

  “Nice to meet you too.” He paused for a second as if he was thinking, “Do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar,” Trevor said looking like he was trying to remember how he knew her.

  “I don’t think we’ve met before but you do look familiar to me too.” Elle said, racking her brain to figure out how she knew him, but knowing there was no way to forget a man like Trevor Cavanaugh.

  A minute went by before Trevor said, “I know! You were at that Business Owners’ in the Community dinner a few months ago weren’t you? You have the HR/PR consulting firm right?”

  “I was there and yep that’s me. Wait, I remember you, you have the landscaping business, right?” Elle said feeling her cheeks go pink at the thought of him remembering her of all people.

  “Guilty.” Trevor said with a smile.

  Elle glanced down at her phone and saw the time. “I have another meeting to get to; it was nice to see you again and to officially meet you this time.” She pulled out a business card and handed it to him. “In case you ever need anything, call me.”

  “Nice to see you again too. Thanks.” He took her business card and gave her one of his and said, “in case you ever need anything done.”

  “Thanks. Bye. I’ll see you.”

  “Bye, see you around.”

  It wasn’t the best or most romantic of first meetings but it wasn’t the worst either she thought. Especially since things like that didn’t ever happen to her.

  She never expected to hear from him a few days later asking her if she could help “beef up” his business. He explained that he had under-prepared for growth and now needed to rethink the size of his company and hire some new folks and get some others off their butts. She suggested several ideas off the top of her head and he liked them so they agreed to meet the next morning.

  He showed up at her office ready to go and they worked for several hours on what he needed for the next phase of his company’s life. He was so excited when he left she couldn’t help but get energized for him as an entrepreneur herself. As a woman she couldn’t help but be energized by him period. She let her mind wander to all the possibilities of relationship and, even though she told herself to get a grip and live in reality, not the fantasy her mind was quickly weaving, she was floating the next week when she went to his office to get started putting their plan into action.

  But, when she got there he wasn’t at the office and in the days and weeks to come he was rarely around and when he was he spoke to her in cool, clipped tones and often handed her off to his assistant Becky to “handle”. She felt a little foolish at first and then insulted, and then just down right angry so she started being a bitch to him when he did bother to show up. The professional side of her knew they could handle everything they were doing via email and phone calls and the work got done. The personal side of her was hurt and embarrassed that she had already “gone there” with him in her mind and yet he seemed oblivious to her presence. She knew that acting like a scorned woman toward a client was unprofessional at best; juvenile in the least, but she was like a woman on a mission and felt out of control at times.

  She would lie in bed at night and scold herself but then the next time she saw him she would feel the anger rising inside and would listen helplessly to her own voice as she spoke to him in a rude, patronizing tone.

  It was obvious when they finished the job that he wanted little to do with her and by that time she felt exactly the same way. The only problem was that she knew she was still so damn attracted to him and that she had blown her chance with him, if she ever had one to begin with. That man hated her.

  hen Trevor found out something underhanded was going on at his company, he knew what he had to do, he had to call Elle and hire her again. Just the mention of her name made him think about her hair, skin and eyes, she was beautiful with her long, wavy, brown hair that looked silky enough for him to run his hands through if they were ever intimate. He shook his head at that thought. She was petite, about 5’3 but not too thin, which was perfect to him, with green eyes like emeralds and fair skin. He didn’t know her well, but what he did know from their limited involvement the first time they worked together, was that she was shy and that was so damned cute. He could also tell she was determined, and tough as nails, the type of woman who didn’t give up. The thought of her made his heart beat a little faster and sweat started to form on his forehead at the thought of seeing her again. God he was in over his head but he needed her help. It shouldn’t matter that she didn’t seem to want to give him the time of day when they worked together before, but the thought of it really got under his skin.

  Trevor had a few serious relationships in his past and thought he knew a few things about women until Elle came along. When Elle ignored him or was downright rude to him, even though she was working for him, it put him in a funk because it had been a while since he had an instant and deep attraction, the kind that went straight to your bones, to a woman. Even the woman he was seeing when he met Elle hadn’t attracted him at that deep of a level. Hell he didn’t remember ever having that with a woman but he felt it with Elle. She was also a woman he would be working with again, for who knew how long. Great! This should be fun, he thought sarcastically because inside, he knew otherwise.

  The last time they worked together he had been so swamped he could barely breathe and when he did have a few minutes here and there to catch up with her on the progress she was pretty much a bitch to him. That didn’t change the fact that he thought she was smokin’ hot but it did make him avoid her. It got to where, if given the choice, he’d just email her his questions or problems rather than have to face her. There was no doubt in his mind by the time the work was done; that woman hated him.

  He was painfully aware that if she took him on as a client again she would probably be at his office most days, for as long as it took to figure out this whole mess. He was actually hoping like hell she’d be bitchy towards him, like she was before, then he would be able to move on once and for all. She had been on his mind ever since they met. But he couldn’t decide if he wanted her to be involved with someone else so he wouldn’t have a chance with her and have to move on, or not. He didn’t understand why she had to be the woman that made him feel this way.

  Elle’s phone was ringing off the hook when she walked into the office after meeting with Taylor to discuss the new client. Elle saw Trevor’s name on the caller ID and her stomach plummeted, she couldn’t believe it, what could he want?! It had been seven months since she worked for him and her feelings and thoughts about him still ran rampant. Even when she tried like hell to stop herself he kept coming back to mind; appearing like the perfect man for her, even though she didn’t know him that well. Her history of falling for men who either rejected her o
utright or hurt her was never far from her mind. That history played like a movie in her mind as the phone rang and rang. Finally she answered, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Elle? This is Trevor Cavanaugh. Would you be able to take me on as a client again?”

  “Probably, but tell me what happened so I can be sure.” Elle said as she pulled out her notebook to take notes.

  Trevor explained, “I have noticed a problem with the schedules for my crews, the only logical explanation is that someone is going in and changing them. My teams are showing up for scheduled jobs late or not at all. They’re going to homes and businesses that either don’t have a job on the schedule or aren’t even clients of ours. I don’t know exactly how to fix it especially since I don’t know who is doing it, and honestly I don’t have the time to play private investigator in order to get to the bottom of it. I figured you’re the person I needed to call.”

  “Oh wow. I’m sorry about that. But I should be able to help.”

  “Great. When can you come by?” Trevor asked.

  “Is Monday morning okay, say around at 8:30?”

  “That’s perfect and…thanks for this.”

  “No problem. I have a suggestion though, when you do the schedules next make sure you keep a copy and keep checking them for changes, since I’m guessing others have access to them. Also, change the password for editing them.”

  “Thanks, I’ll go do that now. See you Monday.”

  “See you then,” was all Elle said before she hung up the phone.

  After getting off the phone Elle sat back and thought about Trevor. Her heart started to race and butterflies formed in her stomach at the idea of not just seeing him again but working with him again. This time they would be working closely with each other, which was the last thing she could handle when the attraction was still so strong. She regretted that she was nasty to him on the last job but at least she was getting a second chance.

  She had until Monday to prepare herself; that gave her only four days to suck it up and be as confident as she could manage so it wouldn’t be obvious she had a thing for him. She didn’t want to be a bitch again but that might be her only choice, it worked last time. She had to pretend the best she could, she couldn’t let him see just how much she wanted him to be hers. “What was he a piece of property?” she mused to herself. She started thinking it would be better if he were seeing someone so she could move on from feeling like a fifteen-year old with her first crush. She wanted him to be hers but wondered if it could ever happen and she started to doubt herself again. After all she was sure she wasn’t his type.