by Sarah Hegger
Walking through the open-plan office, Eric flipped on lights as he went. Their dad had started the business before Matt had been born. Back then it had been only one floor of one building. Under Matt’s guidance, the business had grown and swallowed up the two neighboring buildings.
A couple of years ago, he’d come back to Ghost Falls and talked Matt into expanding the traditional domestic construction business into real estate development with him. Matt had sacrificed enough for their family, and it had been way past time Eric stepped up and shared some of the responsibility of their mother, their younger siblings, and the business. As a tribute to Dad, they’d kept the name of his business, but they did way more than construction now.
Eric let himself into his office. Outside his window, the sun turned the horizon above the mountains into a gaudy painting. All the years he had lived in Denver, he hadn’t known how much he’d missed Ghost Falls.
Fresh out of college, he hadn’t been able to wait to shake Ghost Falls like a bad habit.
Being back had given him the chance to take his place as a member of the Evans family, and also to reconnect with his angry, heartbroken inner teen who he’d been running from for most of his adult life.
Blythe had been one of two who’d understood that broken boy. And he’d been a total dick to her this morning. They may not have been heading for love and marriage, but they had been lovers for enough years for her to deserve his respect and consideration.
He dug out his phone and pulled up her contact info listed under Sweet Thing.
She’d hated that name when he’d first come up with it. Eric chuckled at the memory of her horrified face. Over the years, it had become a joke they shared. Now the nickname was who she was to him, one of the sweetest parts of his day.
Sorry for being a dick, he typed. Had a lot on my mind this morning.
The message stayed dormant, without the three dots indicating she was typing a reply.
She was mad, and he didn’t blame her. His meeting wasn’t for another two and a half hours. He could have taken a few minutes to cajole her out of her mood. He should have taken the time to make love to her. Making love with Blythe only got better every time.
Let me make it up to you???? For insurance he added a series of emojis, and then laughed as he imagined her face when she saw them. Blythe loved emojis. A row of them appeared on any text she sent him. He teased her about it. About how sometimes her texts were more like deciphering hieroglyphics.
They had a history, and that history was made up of a series of great moments.
Still, she hadn’t read the message.
So, she was really pissed. This would take an in-person intervention and some fancy footwork. Flowers were too meh. Only a clueless asshole sent flowers when he wanted to climb out of the hole he’d dug for himself. Same with chocolate, and Blythe didn’t eat it anyway.
His libido hummed to life at the thought of Blythe’s body. Genetics had been kind to Blythe, and she worked hard to keep it that way. He still got hard thinking of those long, toned legs that flowered into the full curve of her hips. A woman’s hips, not the shape of a preadolescent boy. He could almost span her waist with his hands. The full curve of her breasts turned her into a pinup.
A man didn’t let that kind of awesome stay mad at him for long,
Eric pulled out his laptop and fired it up. He would talk with Blythe later. Right now, he had the most important meeting of his life to get through. The Denver and SLC big boys had their coils around Ghost Falls and were snatching up any new contracts. The squeeze was on for smaller operations like theirs. Evans Construction needed to bulk up to take them on, and merging with Gunning Contracting offered a potential lifeline. But not at any cost. Relinquishing control of the company needed to be worth it.
Eric had been eighteen when Dad died. None of them had had a clue how much trouble Evans Construction had been in. In a desperate silence, Dad had almost run it into the ground.
Eric got up and went to the kitchen in search of coffee.
Thinking about his dad always brought with it that anger so old it no longer flared, but the embers still smoldered.
In the kitchen, the coffeepot sat empty. He filled it with water and found the grounds but drew a blank on filters.
Matt had taken over the company at nineteen, turning down a full ride football scholarship to shoulder the burden. Eric would owe his older brother for that for the rest of his life. Matt had these touches of nostalgia around the office, and the ancient coffee filter machine was one of them.
He opened cupboard door after cupboard door. At this rate, he was going to have to make the trip to the coffee shop.
Screw it. When she got there, he was going to tell Mrs. Cameron to get a Keurig or something like it. This old school crap might make Matt happy, but it wasn’t doing much for him that morning.
Footsteps pulled him out of his head.
“There you are.” Grayson poked his head around the kitchen doorjamb. “I knew you had to be here already.”
Eric smiled at his assistant. “What are you doing here so early?”
“If you’re here”—Grayson spread his hand over his chest—“then my place is by your side.”
Jerking his head at the coffee maker, he asked, “Can you?”
“I can do you one better.” Grayson held up a takeout tray with two coffees on it. “You don’t pay me enough, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” Eric grabbed the coffee and took a sip. Grayson had followed him from Denver. Despite Eric’s attempts to promote him, Grayson resisted. He liked what he did, and Eric was painfully grateful he did. Over the years, Grayson had learned to read his mind. Like this morning. Grayson knew he would be keyed up about the meeting.
Grayson followed Eric into his office. “I did some more research on Gunning last night,” he said and took the visitor’s chair opposite Eric. “Personal stuff.”
“And?” They’d done their due diligence on Gunning Contracting as soon as Gunning had approached them. Chase Gunning ran a rock-solid business. A business that lacked the flair Evans Construction brought to everything they did. Evans took more risks and sometimes that cost them.
The merger would work for both companies. Like a lot of people, Gunning was looking for an in at Ghost Falls. Evans understood the market. Hell, they’d almost created the market. Eric had first seen the potential for growth in the area and brought that proposal to Matt. But the bigger outside companies were winning bid after bid as investors saw the potential for safer returns. Bigger companies raised more capital, and could afford to take on higher project risk. Size meant using fewer subcontractors, which gave them better quality control. Gunning and Evans together had the assets and weight to keep the big dogs from eating them alive.
Grayson put his laptop on Eric’s desk and flipped it open. “Gunning is a bit of social media dinosaur,” he said. “No surprise there. It fits everything we know about him.” Grayson grinned at Eric. “Strictly LinkedIn and Facebook.”
“Not even Twitter?” Eric played along.
“He has an account, but he barely uses it.” Grayson tapped on his keyboard. “Three wives, last one Terri, now divorced. Seven kids.” Nothing Eric didn’t already know. “He likes blondes.” Grayson slid the laptop around. “Several pictures of Chase with interchangeable blondes. He likes them young and hot and happy to selfie.”
“The man has an ego.” Eric shrugged. He had worked that out within minutes of meeting Gunning. Egos weren’t a problem. Eric had a healthy one of his own. He looked at a picture of an early twenties hottie cuddled up to Gunning. “And a bit of a midlife crisis going on.”
“Right!” Grayson raised his eyebrows. “He doesn’t post pictures of his kids though. Not much of a family man. More of a trophy man.”
Now that Eric could use. Once you understood the person across the boardroom table from you
, it gave you that missing edge. Gunning had a reputation for being a hard-nosed businessman, a bit old school. He liked to wrestle for as much control as he could. Eric wasn’t going to hand over controlling interest in Evans Construction, or allow Gunning to run operations. Evans Construction couldn’t afford to walk away, but neither could they afford to roll over.
Game on. God, Eric lived for this shit.
* * * *
Matt arrived an hour later, looking exhausted. He stumbled into Eric’s office, sucked back a coffee, and then looked disconsolately into the bottom of the cup.
With a laugh, Grayson filled it up. “Late night?”
“Early morning.” Matt grimaced. Both Eric and Matt had inherited their tall and dark genetic stamp from their father, but Matt’s eyes were lighter. Nate, the next brother in line, was the pretty one. “Jasmine decided three a.m. was a great opportunity to spend time with her dad.”
Eric adored his new niece. Six months, and with the lights just coming on behind her green eyes, an exact replica of her gorgeous mother’s, Jasmine had them all wrapped around her chubby finger. “How’s Pippa doing?”
“Great.” Matt always got this part goofy, part smug smile on his face when he spoke of his wife. “She’s been doing most of the nights. Last night she was so wiped she didn’t even hear Jasmine.” He took the seat beside Grayson. “Okay! Chase Gunning. What’s the play?”
* * * *
Gunning arrived five minutes before their meeting was due to start. Being late and making the other party wait for you was strictly for amateurs. Eric would have done the same as Gunning, which was a plus for this potential deal. They had similar values.
He and Matt went to reception to meet Gunning.
Fifty-one, about six one, two hundred pounds, Gunning was in great shape. He worked out every morning, didn’t touch caffeine and only drank in moderation. Mostly martinis, but he would occasionally have an amber ale.
“Chase.” Eric held out his hand and got a firm shake in return.
Gunning smiled at him, and then greeted Matt. “How are you?”
A young woman accompanied Gunning. In a severe black jacket and tight skirt, with sky high heels, she worked that whole clever, scary and fucking sexy thing.
Gunning motioned her. “This is Miranda Patel. She’s working with me on this.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Her dark hair was pulled to her nape and highlighted the delicate precision of her cheekbones. Red lipstick drew attention to her full mouth.
Gunning had brought a secret weapon to the meeting.
Eric didn’t need to look at him to know that Grayson would get right on the mystery of who, where and what concerning Miranda Patel. If another player entered the arena, they became fair game.
Patel was exactly the sort of woman Eric would have dated. Smart, successful and driven with a body that didn’t quit. Clearly, Gunning had also done his homework.
Smiling, Eric shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
Her dark gaze did a lightning fast sweep of him, assessing him, rating him, deciding who he was. She smiled with a touch more warmth. “And you.”
Ten minutes later, personal considerations had been shoved aside as negotiations began.
Matt sat back and let him take the lead. He and Matt worked well together. They understood and respected each other’s strengths. Matt ran the operations side and did it damn well.
More comfortable in his construction boots than a suit, Matt had the normal guy touch on site that kept everyone working to budget and on schedule.
With Jasmine’s birth and Pippa needing Matt around more while she recovered, Eric had been taking up the slack of Matt’s role recently. But the boardroom was where Eric shone. This is what he brought to Evans Construction. Negotiation. Finessing the deal.
Gunning knew it too and addressed most of his remarks to Eric.
Next to Gunning, Miranda Patel was making the same assessment. Over the boardroom table, her dark gaze sent him the clear message: she liked what she saw.
Chapter Three
Blythe had picked her day to shatter her own heart carefully.
She’d deleted Eric’s messages without reading them. He had that big meeting today about a possible merger and would be focused on that.
After leaving Eric’s house, she climbed into her secondhand Prius and drove home. The house that would no longer be her home after today, that is.
She’d also chosen a day on which she would have enough distraction to keep the heartache at bay.
Today Blythe was moving out of the house she’d grown up in, and despite the persistent tightness in her chest, that thought still gave her a thrill. She’d always be a Barrows, and in a town as tiny as Ghost Falls, that name stuck like dog shit to the bottom of her shoe and stank up anyone who heard it.
She accepted that it was too late for her to be anything else in the eyes of Ghost Falls. Blythe Barrows was no good, the town slut, just like her whore of a mother. No better than her petty criminal of a father, and those dreadful brothers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She got it. She’d heard it often enough for the sting to lessen, but there was still time for Will, and sweet little Kim. Blythe meant to make it that way. It had taken her far longer than she’d have liked to get where she could offer her youngest siblings the stability they deserved.
She passed the center of town with its quaint Victorian lampposts. Rumor had it Philomene St. Amor had decreed the old ones to be too ugly and upsetting to her artistic constitution. Blythe didn’t know the diva well, but anyone who lived in Ghost Falls had heard of her. Will worked for her from time to time, and he really liked her. Of course, the diva like everyone else, still called Will that ridiculous name their father had saddled him with.
Out his mind drunk, ostensibly celebrating the birth of another kid, Pat Barrows had thought it hilarious to call the new baby Wheeler. Hardy-har-har, with the joke on Will for the rest of his life.
God, Pat was a dick. He drifted in and out of their lives when it suited him. He’d been blessedly absent for eighteen months this time, but that didn’t mean they’d seen the last of him. And, of course, Mom would take him right back again.
As much as Blythe resented the brush Ghost Falls had painted her with, her family had earned it.
As Blythe drove past, Bella Erikson, now Evans, was opening her high-end clothing store. Despite the gorgeous clothes, Bella’s was the last place on earth Blythe would shop. Most of the town behaved like Bella was a cross between Mother Theresa and Tweety Bird. Only Blythe had seen the bitchy side of Bella.
Bella liked to stare down her nose at Blythe and do her best to make her feel like trash. It had worked all through elementary and then middle school. In high school Blythe had gotten her back by taking all the male attention away from Bella.
Of course, she had sacrificed her reputation for her efforts, but being a Barrows gave you a strike out in that department from birth.
Blythe took a left on Elm street. Neat patches of garden fronted pretty homes on either side of her. One day she would buy a little patch of paradise for herself along Elm street. With her business taking off, getting new clients every day, it was starting to look possible.
In one of the front yards, two kids were chasing each other with piles of leaves and shrieking with delight.
The pain in her chest eased a mite as she watched them. That could be Kim one day, playing with a kid from next door.
Blythe didn’t need one of the palatial houses on the top of the hills surrounding Ghost Falls. The sort of homes Eric and Matt built for people who often had more money than brains. That sort of affluence didn’t appeal to her. All she wanted was there on Elm street. A nice, tidy little house behind a pretty patch of green. A place she could plant some flowers and maintain easily. A place in a good school district with lots of families all around th
em where Kim could grow up away from the Barrows stench. A place for Will to come home to between his college semesters. A place they could all call home.
From Elm, she made her way farther from the town center. The homes grew smaller, and the green grass gave way to overgrown patches of weeds and dirt. The houses seemed to glare at her, daring her to pass judgment on them.
She left the residential neighborhoods behind and followed a rural road deeper into the patchy brush. Sherman’s gas station hadn’t opened yet. As soon as Mandy had slept off her hangover and crawled out of bed, it would open. As kids, Blythe and Blake had walked down there when they could get a few coins for candy and magazines. Most of the time, Brett had been the source of those coins.
Pat didn’t have any money and Mom kept what she had for booze. Since she’d been old enough to earn money, Blythe never brought it into the house if she could help it. Her brothers regarded her money as theirs. For Kim and Will’s sake, however, she had been buying all the groceries and keeping the lights on. The free ride ended today.
Hanging drunkenly on the truncated remains of a dead tree was the number seven twenty-two. Home sweet home. She slowed over the rutted drive. Weeds grew so high in the front yard that she might have to fight her way out of her car.
A rusted-out car husk had found some friends, and they made a skeletal junkyard to the left of the house. The house itself didn’t look so bad. Between her and Will, they’d managed to keep the worst of the decay at bay. Even managed to give it a coat or two of paint a couple of years ago. Keeping a decent house for Will and Kim was one reason it had taken so long to be able to afford her own place.
Blythe parked, took a deep breath and stepped out of her car.
Beneath some scrub oak, two motorbikes gleamed in the morning light. Two of her older brothers were home it seemed. It amazed her that they could take such care of those bikes and live like pigs.