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“Name your price,” he demanded, an incredibly stupid move for a smart businessman, but he needed that land.
“I don’t have one.”
“Everyone does. What’s yours?”
“Gray, leave my shop.”
“No. Not until you promise to sell to me.”
A frown formed between her dark arched eyebrows, and she edged her hand toward the telephone. “Seriously, Gray, go now or I’ll call the police.”
“No.” He couldn’t, not until she agreed.
She reached under the counter for...what?...a gun? For mace?
He was frightening her. He might be mad to get the land, and she might be the strangest woman he’d ever met, but scaring her was unconscionable. Intimidation to get her to sell? Yes. Outright frightening her? Dead wrong.
He backed away.
“Think about it,” he said, the slightest thread of recklessness seeping into his voice. As a businessman, he was making mistakes left, right and center.
She shook her head, and there was such implacability, such conviction in the movement he knew she would never sell, no matter how high his price.
When he turned and left, desperation wrapped around his throat like a noose. He was going to have to do the unthinkable and have Dad declared unfit.
No. Before he did that, he would drive into Denver and see this woman for himself.
He couldn’t wait—for DNA results, for the woman’s next move, for another damn day. On the heels of that thought, he swore. He couldn’t leave today. He had an appointment with Dad’s accountant that couldn’t be put off.
Tomorrow then. He’d go to Denver first thing tomorrow.
Time for a showdown.
CHAPTER THREE
GRAY SAT IN his car for ten minutes getting his emotions under control, and then started the drive down Main toward Turner Lumber on the end of town opposite to where his parents lived. He couldn’t go home to face them.
Not yet. Not while he considered, let alone actually started, the process toward turning against his father.
He noticed a woman he’d gone to school with walking down the sidewalk. She was one of the descendants of the original founding father, Ian Accord. She carried herself with an elegance and grace, with an air of confidence Gray had often witnessed among the rich. Wealth was a language he himself spoke, and being tongue-tied by his current money problems disheartened him.
Down the street, Audrey Stone stepped out of her flower shop and locked the door behind her, then started in his direction, her pigeon-toed stride oddly endearing.
Full curves moved in different directions. She looked clumsy, but those curves, that walk, the slightly askew pillbox hat—those full red lips—were so insanely feminine, he started to smile.
When she stopped in front of a lingerie shop to look at some feminine froth of satin and lace, Gray imagined it cradling her shapely body. His latent smile spread.
When he realized what his foolish mouth was doing, he made himself stop.
Do not even think about finding this woman attractive. She’s your enemy. If she hadn’t bought that land from Dad, you wouldn’t be in your current predicament.
With a screech of tires, he drove on.
In the parking lot of the massive lumberyard and hardware store that had been in his family since long before Gray’s birth, he threw out the gum he’d been chewing and opened two fresh sticks, chewing hard until his shaking hands calmed and he could breathe easily. Why, for a man who was known as a sharp businessman, did just walking into his father’s business leave him feeling so...afraid? Why did everything these days?
His tension filled the car like dark gas.
He forced himself out of the vehicle and into the building, heading past the large shop to the offices that occupied the second floor. Turner Lumber catered to both contractors and the average man. And woman, Gray reminded himself. There were a lot of knowledgable women out there doing their own repairs these days.
The store covered half an acre of land and served all of the towns for miles around. Even in a city the size of Denver, you would be hard-pressed to find a better-stocked, more efficient supplier. They also rented equipment, a part of the business that used to be a going concern. Since the downturn in the economy, there was less construction. As well, homeowners no longer had the money for renovations.
There had been a spurt of construction when a new ski resort had been built outside of town, but Dad had taken his profits and had invested in risky ventures. When Gray had tried to change them to something safer, Dad had vetoed him. For a man who’d been a smart business owner for so many years, Dad’s actions these days seemed like a textbook case of how not to run a business.
Businesses suffered everywhere, including Turner Lumber. And yet, Dad was giving money away left, right and center. It had to stop. Cauterizing the hemorrhaging of money was Gray’s job.
Upstairs, he found the renovations he’d ordered nearly finished. Part of dragging Turner Lumber into the twenty-first century had been modernizing the office. Gone were the separate cubicles of old, replaced by a huge open space filled with desks and office modules. At the moment, they were squeezed into one half of the space while the floors on the other half were being refinished.
The office kept the idle lumberyard workers busy now that traffic had slowed down there. So far, Gray had managed to keep everyone on the payroll. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold out.
If he was smart, he’d start slashing now, but sentimentality kept getting in the way. Was this what Dad felt when he walked in here?
Gray stopped to talk to the office manager, Hilary Scott. She, like all the employees, wore a cotton mask over her nose and mouth.
“Here.” She handed him a mask. “You should wear it until these guys finish their work.” A frown wrinkled her forehead.
“You don’t look happy,” Gray observed. “What’s the problem?”
“The noise.”
“That’s temporary. It won’t last.”
“The dust. Look at our desks.”
A fine gray film settled over everything.
“I’ll have a cleaning crew come in on the weekend.”
Hilary sighed. “But what kind of chemicals, or even old mold, have you stirred up with this destruction?”
Gray loved language, loved how he could manipulate it to his advantage in business, but hated how it could be corrupted.
“This isn’t destruction, Hilary. This is change.”
She didn’t answer, just stood her ground like a wiry-haired bantam hen.
“In another week, things will settle down,” Gray said.
“Given how hard it is to get work done in this—” she gestured with her chin toward the open space, not the contractors and their work, he noticed “—I fervently hope it gets better.”
He barely held himself back from shaking his head. New ideas were always hard to implement. Hilary and her employees had been working with the same systems for years. “These changes should further innovation and fresh thinking.” Something Turner Lumber could use, he didn’t say aloud.
“The open concept should inspire a more communal sense of the company, and the resultant community should inspire more communication and new ideas.”
Hilary nodded but didn’t look convinced. “We already enjoy plenty of community here.”
“Then you should support an increase in that.” He had enough resistance to deal with from his dad. He didn’t need to face it here at work, as well.
“Listen, Hilary.” He sounded testy. Too bad. He was on edge and tired of facing problems everywhere he turned. “Given that you called me home to help, I expected cooperation from you.”
“I didn’t think you’d be changing everything.”
“What did you think I’d do?”
“Make it the way it was before your dad started making dubious choices.”
Hilary was as naive as Dad was. There was no salvation for the company without upgrading it, not in the current financial environment, not using strategies that were forty and fifty years old.
He entered the office he’d set up for himself in the corner to catch his breath and to prepare for his meeting with Arnold Haygood, Turner Lumber’s accountant. His area had sliding walls that opened to the larger space. Most of the time he left the walls open, keeping himself involved. When he needed to have sensitive conversations or make phone calls that he didn’t want overheard, he could slide the walls closed for the best of both worlds.
Still, that feeling of suffocation, the difficulty breathing, had followed him into the office, and had nothing to do with renovation dust or face masks.
He needed to push the deals through on the sale of the land and finish liquidating more of Dad’s assets, so Gray never had to step in here again, never again had to experience this cloying panic.
Maybe it was time to sell the company. He’d been fighting the idea, keeping it as a last resort. He shouldn’t let emotion get in the way of business, but as much as these were Dad’s people, they were also his.
Despite his current anxiety, his memories of running through this place as a child were good. He knew everyone who worked here. What if the new owners mistreated them?
Before leaving Boston, he’d toyed with the idea of selling his company there and moving here to live, not just swooping in to fix whatever was wrong, but to actually stay and run Turner Lumber. Leaving Marnie behind, though, never being able to visit her gravesite, saying goodbye yet again, this time permanently... He couldn’t do it.
Then he’d come home and all of this weird behavior had started, the panic attacks and anxiety, the suffocation.
So then he’d thought he would hire a good manager to take over. But now, with the letter from this woman, and more and more demands on limited dollars, he had to consider that maybe it was time to just sell.
Panic clutched at him again. If having Dad declared incompetent made him nauseous, the thought of how disappointed Dad would be if he sold the company rather than keeping it and running it himself as part of his heritage made him positively ill.
“Hilary,” he called.
Seconds later she stood in front of his desk. She was nothing if not efficient.
“After the men finish the renovations for the day, have all of the employees gather in the office.”
Hilary waited, but Gray didn’t explain. He knew he needed to make changes and he knew the staff should be told, but he had to confirm everything with Arnie before he spoke. He and the accountant could hash out details this afternoon.
* * *
AT LUNCHTIME, AUDREY closed her floral shop and walked down Main to the Sweet Temptations Bakery and Café, resolutely avoiding thinking about that disturbing incident with Gray. He’d been strange, almost unbalanced, but still so handsome, so smoothly...right.... With those pale gray eyes so striking against his perfectly tanned skin, it almost hurt to look at him.
There’d been that brief moment when he’d let his guard down, when he’d been petting Jerry, his expression tender and almost wistful.
Then he’d turned hard. She disliked that version of the man with all of her heart.
A movement in the window of Enchanté caught her attention, Marceline waving and gesturing toward a black teddy with pink polka dots and pink bows. Oh, so cute. Oh, so sexy.
She couldn’t possibly afford it.
Audrey had dresser drawers that overflowed with basques and silk knickers and corsets. Oh, she loved lingerie. She’d been diligent in her search for amazing undergarments at excellent prices. With her full figure, she needed good support and quality material. So much beautiful French lingerie. So little space, time and money.
And no one to wear it for. She did wear it, though, every day, but, oh, it would be lovely to have someone to whom she could show it off.
She shook her head and mimed drying tears from the corners of her eyes, making Marceline smile, and walked on. Someday she would share her favorites with a special someone.
At the café, she ordered a couple of soups and sandwiches then carried lunch along Main to the Army Surplus.
When she stepped into the store, she breathed deeply of the mothballs and incense that made up her friend’s unique scent.
“Noah?” she called.
He came out of the back carrying a pile of boxes, bobbing up onto the balls of his feet in his signature walk that kept him looking young and boyish, one of the things she adored about him.
He bussed her on the cheek. She didn’t return the favor. Noah didn’t like lipstick. She giggled and thought of doing it anyway, of leaving a big swath of red gloss across his cheek, but suppressed her inner imp.
“What did you bring today?” he asked.
“Tomato garlic soup and pastrami on rye.”
“Hot mustard?”
“You got it, cowboy.”
Noah smiled, cleared off the counter and pulled up a couple of stools. He retrieved their bamboo reusable cutlery from a drawer and handed it to her while she set out their lunch, the routine comforting. They might as well be a married couple.
And don’t think she hadn’t wondered many a time whether she should be marrying Noah. He suited her perfectly. She couldn’t ask for a better friend. Too bad that she wanted more in a relationship than this easy friendship.
“Want to go to a concert in Denver?” Noah asked. He named a date in October when a band they both liked would be performing.
“You bet.”
It was a pair of young Swedish women with old souls, throwbacks to sixties hippies, and their music resonated with Noah. They were also insanely talented and very young.
“How can they be successful at such an early age?” she mused.
“Adolescence lends itself to creativity. You remember how creative you were back then.”
Yes, she did. It had been a magical time.
And so painful.
She’d had no female influence to guide her into womanhood. Mom had already been dead for nearly ten years. Audrey remembered being confused, with a body that was blossoming too quickly, too early. She’d hidden her loneliness under a tough veneer and her burgeoning breasts and hips under big clothes.
