Holiday Hideout

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “But—”

  “It’s my family, Cleo. Do you really think I have a choice?”

  “Of course you have a choice! Everyone has a choice.” She sounded desperate, and she hated that, but she wanted so badly to make him understand. He had so much to offer the world, and his plans had been so big and so grand. She hated to see him throw them away.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I do have a choice. And this is what I’m choosing. My family. Our business. Our history and, yes, our legacy. I can’t let it go. Not like this.”

  Five days ago, his father—the president of Goodson Mining, the owner and operator of the largest privately held gold mine in Nevada—had suffered a fatal aneurysm. Paramedics had arrived within minutes, but it was too late. Frank Goodson was gone, along with his passion for the art of mining, his metallurgical skills and his deft hand at running one of Nevada’s major businesses.

  Josh’s mother had been too devastated to even be able to call her son. The call had come from Frank’s brother. Josh and Cleo—both of whom had finished their final exams at the University of Nevada at Reno and were still on campus waiting for graduation day—had hurried to Carlin, Nevada, to be with Josh’s mother. And now Josh had decided that he had to stay.

  Frank’s death had saddened Cleo, and she’d known that Josh’s reaction would be intense. He and his father had been incredibly close. It had been Frank who had urged Josh to get his undergraduate degree in metallurgical engineering but then pursue a political science postgraduate degree. “I’ve made the company strong,” Frank had said the first year that Cleo had joined them for Thanksgiving. “It will be Josh who takes it multinational.” He’d laughed then, and squeezed his wife’s waist. “Marion would never let me out of her sight long enough for me to make the trips to investigate other properties.” His wife had pecked him affectionately on the cheek, her hands tight on his shoulders. Cleo had assumed that Frank was joking, of course. How could Marion not want the business to expand?

  She’d envied Josh that Thanksgiving, though. She had no family—only her mother who ran a small art gallery in Seattle. She adored her mom, and there was no bigger fan of Cleo’s than Elizabeth Daire, but since it was just the two of them, Thanksgivings were never big, boisterous affairs. In Josh’s world, they were, and she’d loved the noisy chaos of his extended family, cousins and nieces and nephews and all the rest, most of whom worked in some capacity at Goodson Mining.

  “He wouldn’t want you to do this, Josh,” she said, meaning Frank. She fought the tears that were determined to flow. “He wanted you to go to Harvard.” He wanted you to go there with me, to be with me, she thought, though she didn’t say it. That was pure selfishness, and she was trying very hard to be pragmatic, even though she wanted to be as selfish as a toddler.

  “He wanted me to be prepared for the politics of growing the business,” Josh said, “and I am.” He sat down beside her and held her hand. “Would the connections and friends I’d make in grad school help? Of course. But what it really takes to expand a mining company is production. And that doesn’t take political connections. It takes engineering skill and that, I’ve got. I can run this company, Cleo. I’ve been apprenticed here my entire life, and now I have the formal education to back it up.”

  The tears she’d been holding in trickled down her cheeks, and he brushed them away. “If I left for grad school, I’d come back with the degree. But the company would be gone. Ruined. I’m certain of it. And the company was the reason I wanted to go away—so that I would come back to it stronger. But it doesn’t matter how strong I am if it doesn’t exist. Don’t you see? I can’t abandon the company, because that means abandoning my dreams. Grad school can wait. Harvard’s not going anywhere. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, because objectively, she did. From the first moment they’d met, he’d shared with her his passion for the company—he’d even spent every summer working at the mines—so had she, for that matter, with Frank giving her temp jobs in the office while Josh went off and worked in the actual field. She’d seen firsthand how much Josh loved his work. And she’d also seen that although his mother and uncle and half a dozen other members of his family all worked at the mines, none had the mind that Frank had—or that Josh had inherited. Those two men had an inherent sense of where and how to work the mines to best extract the gold, and how to process the ore so that the gold shipped from Goodson Mining was considered the purest in the business. Josh was right—without him, the company would surely go under, and the Goodson family would be destitute.

  Josh needed the business, and his family needed Josh.

  So, yes, she understood. For that matter, she understood more than she wanted to. After all, she had her own passion. She was going to law school. She’d been accepted to Harvard, and she knew that practicing law was in her blood. It was the one thing she’d wanted more than anything, and though she’d thought that Josh would be moving East with her, the fact that he’d chosen another path wasn’t going to stop her. But it saddened her. Oh, how it saddened her.

  “I wish things were different.”

  His simple smile needed no words. Even so, he said, “Me, too.”

  The next words were the hardest she ever spoke. “We’re breaking up, Josh.”

  He turned sharply to look at her. “What?”

  “Would you ask me to stay with you? To go to law school in Nevada? Or to quit altogether and marry you?”

  “I—” She saw the confusion flash on his face, then the determination. “No. I know how much being a lawyer means to you,” he said. “And I know what Harvard means to you. Marriage? I’d ask in a heartbeat, but you’d say no, and honestly, I’d want you to, especially if getting married now meant abandoning your dreams. And a long-distance marriage isn’t the way to start out. Not for anyone.”

  She cocked her head. “You want me to follow my dream, but you won’t follow yours?”

  “I am,” he said passionately. “I already told you. Goodson Mining is my dream and my life. Going away now would kill it. I’m following my plan, Cleo, just a bit differently than I’d thought.”

  “Than we’d planned,” she said sadly.

  “We don’t have to break up.”

  She shook her head. “We do, and you already said why. A long-distance marriage is no way to start out. If we don’t break up officially, then we’re still together. Not married, but together. And, Josh, that just isn’t right.” She drew in a breath to bolster her courage, because she knew she was right. “We both have to focus,” she said. “We can’t be worrying about what’s going on across an entire continent.”

  “And in 1865, I would have seen your point,” he said. “But these days, you can get from coast to coast in the same amount of time it takes to have dinner and a movie.”

  “It’s not fair to try to win an argument by making me laugh!”

  “I’m not trying to be fair.” He knelt down in front of her and took her free hand, the one without the crumpled tissue. “Four years, Cleo. We’ve been together since the second week of school. And we’re just going to blow that off?”

  “We’re not,” she said, determined to be determined. “But from the first moment we met, we’ve both talked about our careers. It’s been the Holy Grail for each of us. And I’m not willing to let either one of us get distracted. You need to focus all your time and energy on putting the pieces of the business back together, and I need to focus on learning the law.”

  “And after that?”

  She cocked her head, hearing something unspoken in his words. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, just because it won’t work right now doesn’t mean I want to lose you forever.”

  “Josh, you’re making this harder.”

  “Trust me when I say I’m not trying to make it easier.” He moved closer, the smell of his soap tickling her senses.

  “Five years,” he said. “All I ask is that we meet again in five years. We meet. We reevaluate. We spend a few days tog
ether catching up, sharing our adventures. We have a bit of fun. Maybe we’ll rekindle something special.”

  Special. The way he said the word made her entire body tingle. It was what they’d always believed. That they—Josh and Cleo, the couple—were special.

  But she couldn’t let herself think about that. Not now. Not when she was going away. Not when they were breaking up. She met his eyes. “Maybe we’ll realize that we’re destined to just be friends.”

  He nodded, as self-assured as always. “We might. We owe it to ourselves to find out. And I can’t think of a better friend to spend a weekend with. Can you?”

  “I’ll be a big-shot attorney by then,” she hedged. But she was smiling as she said it. “I might be in trial.”

  “Then we meet on December 30. You won’t be in trial over the holidays. We’ll spend one night catching up, and the next night celebrating a new year. At the Tahoe Oasis,” he added, referring to the little motel he’d taken her to on their six-month anniversary. A dive, but oozing with nostalgia.

  “I don’t know,” she said, but her tone said absolutely.

  He grinned. He’d caught the tone. He knew her that well.

  “Then just don’t think about it,” he said, a tease in his voice and a spark in his eye. “Don’t think at all.” He tugged her to him, his lips pressing against hers, pulling her closer, making her wish that she was the kind of girl who could give up law school and Harvard and just stay with him. But she’d known who she was for too long, and she wouldn’t be Cleo if she stayed.

  “Josh,” she whispered when they broke the kiss.

  He eased back, shaking his head. “Five years,” he said. “Promise me.”

  “Yes, yes. Five years.” She met his eyes. “We’ll be different people.” She sat up a little straighter, not liking what she was about to say. Not liking the truth of it. “It might be hard to see each other again. A lot can change in five years.”

  “A lot can,” he agreed, taking her hands and pulling her close. “So you’d better come here now and give me something to remember us by.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Five Years Later…

  “I’M BREAKING THE CARDINAL rule against praising young associates,” Leon Parker said, leaning back against the rich leather of his desk chair. “But in your case all the partners thought an exception was called for. You’re quite an asset to Jameson, Parker and Lowe, Ms. Daire. I want you to know that I take full credit for recruiting you to the firm.”

  She laughed, hoping that she looked cool and casual, and that her face didn’t reveal that she was mentally turning cartwheels around the senior partner’s office. “I enjoy my work,” she said. “I’m glad it shows.”

  “You enjoy it, and you’re extremely good at it.” He turned to his computer monitor and started scrolling through something on the screen. She couldn’t see it, but she was certain that he was reviewing the billable-hour reports for all the junior associates. Cleo had joined the firm fresh from Harvard two years ago, and Leon had become both her cheerleader and her mentor. That she’d lived up to his faith in her made her flush with pride—and made her wonder what new responsibility she’d earned.

  Don’t ask, she told herself. There may be nothing. This was the end-of-year review, and associates in their second year did not get handed cases. Not at a major Washington firm. Not so soon.

  But maybe taking a deposition? Arguing a motion? Maybe…

  Leon stood and walked to his window. The blinds were open, and the view of Capitol Hill was magnificent and awe-inspiring. She was exactly where she wanted to be, and sometimes the wonder of that was so intense it made her feel as if she was as light as air, and she’d fly as high as the sun with joy. “—Consolidated Mineral?”

  She jumped, realizing that she’d missed part of what he’d been saying, and there was no way to cover except the truth. “I’m sorry. I— What did you say?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her, his indulgent smile telling her that he knew exactly where her thoughts had been. “I was asking if you were familiar with Consolidated Mineral Corporation’s current litigation.”

  “Oh.” She dug into her memory and found a mention of the litigation in the Wall Street Journal. It wasn’t a case that the firm was handling. “Well, yeah. Consolidated is suing one of its subcontractors. Breach of contract, negligence, a slew of claims.”

  “But what makes the case truly intriguing is that the subcontractor is wholly owned by Argentina.”

  “Really?” Her mind was spinning. “Suing a government entity. That’s messy business.”

  “Very,” Leon said. “From both sides. Do you happen to know which firms are handling the litigation?”

  “Sure,” she said, her eyes narrowing since this entire conversation seemed pointless, and yet Leon didn’t make idle conversation. She named off the two firms, both competitors of Jameson, Parker and Lowe.

  “As it happens, Gimble and Cleary has asked us to come on as cocounsel. In particular, they want us to focus on the causes of action that address the quality of the ore. Our first task will be to decide if summary judgment is appropriate, and on which claims. After that, we’ll take it one step at a time. I don’t think I need to tell you how big an opportunity this is for the firm.”

  “No, sir,” she said. Gimble and Cleary represented Argentina. And having a nation among the firm’s clients would definitely be a feather in their cap. “Do you want me to start briefing the key issues?”

  “I want you as my second chair.”

  It was a good thing that she was sitting down, because Cleo wasn’t certain her legs would have supported her. Second chair was literally the copilot in a trial. And, sure, it was only a section of a bigger litigation, but still. She’d be right there. Sitting at counsel table. Possibly examining the witnesses.

  This was far and away the biggest step forward she’d taken in her career.

  “Unless you’d like to stay on your current docket?”

  “No, no,” she said. “I’m good. This is good.”

  He laughed. “As I mentioned at the start of the meeting, the partners are all very impressed by your work.”

  “Are the files here? Can I review them?”

  “I’ve already had Ellen copy the key portions of the case file for you. She messengered them to your apartment this afternoon. The package is with your doorman.”

  “My apartment?”

  “Cleo, tomorrow’s Christmas. And I believe you’re scheduled to be off next week?”

  “I am, but—”

  “No buts. We’re going to get very busy, very fast. Enjoy the time off while you can. Read the file. Learn the case. Spend a couple of hours on the internet and see if you can track down some potential expert witnesses. We’ll need both consulting experts and testifying experts in a number of related fields, and be sure to do a Lexis search to see where they’ve testified before. Is that enough to keep you busy over the holidays?”

  She stood up and met his grin. “I think that will do it. And thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. You’re the one who’s been working hard.”

  “Right. Thanks,” she said again, because she was flustered, but she knew he’d forgive her. “I’ll just go.”

  He chuckled as she slipped out his door and closed it behind her. She made it all the way to her office before she shut her own door, clapped her hands over her mouth and screamed with joy.

  She was on her way—she was really on her way!

  She was pacing her office—more like skipping, actually—her mind going into overdrive as she thought about what she needed to do, to read, to organize—when Perry walked in. As soon as the door closed behind him, she threw herself into his arms. His arms tightened around her automatically, but they didn’t stay that way long. He released her and pushed her back, his eyes taking in her face, his expression curious.

  “Good review?” he asked. “Jameson told me I was getting a raise, but other than that it was pretty dry. But he’s
not as much of a talker as Leon.” Perry shrugged. “Then again, he knows that the law’s only a stepping stone for me.” Perry made no secret of his political ambitions, and it had been that single-mindedness that had first attracted her to him, though their romantic relationship hadn’t lasted.

  Cleo stepped away and leaned against her desk. “It was a good review, but it was also much more than that.” She knew she had to look ridiculous—like a balloon about to explode with good news. She’d dated Perry for almost a year, and they were still friends, though he wanted to be more. With all that between them, she should want to blurt it out to him, but somehow the words weren’t quite coming.

  “Well, go on. Don’t leave me in suspense.”

  That was enough to open the floodgates, and she told him everything Leon had shared with her about the case. She didn’t tell him what it could mean for her career—he was a second-year associate just as she was; he knew. “The workload is going to be incredible,” she said. “But the legal issues at the core are fascinating.” And, of course, there was the faith in her that Leon was demonstrating. The kind of faith that made all her hard work over the years worth it.

  “Sounds great,” he said. “See if you can assign me to it, too. An international case like that? Can you imagine the political connections I could make?”

  “I can imagine,” she said, hoping that she’d kept the dryness out of her voice. She’d been drawn initially to the fact that he was so focused on his political dreams. But as she watched him, she’d realized that she was frustrated by how he intended to get there. He seemed more interested in furthering the career he didn’t yet have than focusing on the one that he did. A shame, too, because as far as the law went, he was brilliant. But his eyes were set on politics, for reasons he’d never been able to articulate to her.