“It’s up to Jerry if Kate stays there, Amber,” Matt said, gently unwinding her and taking a step back. “But you worked hard last night, and I know you’re sick of Ho=”1e sick bart.”

Who the heck is Hobart? Kate thought, scanning the crew for a guy who looked remotely like he might have the misfortune to be named Hobart.

Matt turned to Kate. “Let’s go to my office. We might as well get the paperwork out of the way. Then you can report to Jerry.”

“So he’ll be my direct supervisor?” she asked as Matt ushered her back the way they’d come.

He nodded. “He manages food services, which will include you for the time being. He’s the guy you met out front during our unscheduled job interview yesterday afternoon.”

“Oops. I sort of bulldozed right past him. I probably didn’t make the best first impression.”

“Jerry can be pretty forgiving, and you’ll like the rest of the crew, too. About half of the people you saw back in the storage room work for me, and the rest are temps who come in for the bottling. We finished up over two hundred cases just a little while ago. Most of the other employees, except the summer staff, you’ll meet today.”

Matt opened his office door. “Come on in. It shouldn’t take long to get this squared away, then we’ll get you a uniform.”

Kate glanced around, taking in the framed photos on the cubicle-style walls, which didn’t quite make it all the way to the ceiling.

“My family, mostly,” Matt said. He waved one hand toward another shot of a pack of helmeted and uniformed men bearing sticks. “And my hockey team.”

She smiled. “That, I’d figured out.”

Kate pulled her driver’s license and social security card from her wallet and handed them to Matt. “You need these, right?”

He settled in behind his desk. From its front, she guessed it was a vintage oak piece that had been left to molder in the closed-down depot. Its top looked as though a file cabinet had disgorged itself onto it. Working in a measure of chaos definitely didn’t throw this guy.