Hadley bit her lip. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Acknowledgment? She hadn’t gotten it, but then again she never had when it came to her family. “All right, goodbye.”
With a click, the line disconnected.
“I love you, too,” she whispered.
Packing normally appealed to Hadley’s sense of order. A place for everything and everything tucked tidily in its place. This time around she mostly had the urge to stretch the process out as much as possible, because when it was done she had to leave her little lair and go to Cortland House.
Which meant finally facing Gabe Trask.
So? It wasn’t like facing a firing squad, she thought impatiently, pulling her suits, each swathed in dry cleaner’s plastic, from the closet. It wasn’t a big deal. It had only been a kiss. They’d discussed what needed to be discussed that night in the sleigh. Now, they just moved ahead with business as usual.
If there were any such thing.
She tugged at the zipper of the garment bag. The bright clothing disappeared and then the only things in the room were her purse, her two black bags and her. Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she headed out to the elevator.
“You’re not leaving us, are you?” There was real regret in Lester’s tone as he helped put her bags in the car.
“No, I’m just taking a management flat in Cortland House. I thought I’d leave my room for the paying customers.”
Lester closed the accordioned doors and took hold of the control lever. “Real nice place, Cortland House. Wait till spring.”
“I may not be here then.”
“Oh, there’s tulips and crocuses and a whole slew of hyacinths and daffodils. It greens up real nice. I’d hate to see you miss it.”
“You’re in the minority,” Hadley said, and cursed herself the minute the words were out.
“Oh, don’t take these folks too seriously. They just get worried when the boat gets rocked. They’ll warm up to you. You just give ‘em time.” Lester stopped the elevator at the ground floor. “Now, do you know how to get where you’re going?”
She hadn’t a clue, she realized. “Through the employees’ exit?” she hazarded.
“You got it. Follow the corridor past the shop and cold storage and you’ll come out at a little loading dock with a railing. There’s a granite-paved path that leads to Cortland House.” He looked at her bags. “You want me to send for a bellhop?”
“I can get it.” She paused. “And Lester, thanks for the good words.”
He winked at her. “I thought you might need them about now. Seems like the least I could do for Whit.”
The walk down the concrete corridor of the employee’s area netted Hadley a few more tight-lipped nods. It only made her square her shoulders and keep going until she found herself on the deck where she’d first met Gabe. Only a week before, she realized with surprise. It felt like ages ago.
Gritting her teeth against the knife-sharp wind that blew into her face, Hadley hauled her bags over the granite-block path that led to Cortland House. She understood that management needed a little privacy from the hotel, but it seemed like an unnecessarily long walk in the cold. Then she rounded a small stand of trees and the old farmhouse came into view and a smile spread over her face.
For no good reason, it felt like she belonged there.
Gabe stood with his bare feet apart and then stepped into a tae kwon do kata. This was practice, repeating the moves again and again, drilling them into his muscle memory until he could react without thinking. Though he’d only been taking classes for six months, he’d been moving through the belts rapidly, mostly because he loved the movement. It was as much about grace and speed as strength, as much about philosophy as about force.
Spin and step, kick and spin. He ran through the kata over and over, slowly at first and then faster and faster until his breath rasped and his sweatshirt stuck to his back.
He was preparing to start the sequence again when he heard a loud clunk at the door, followed by cursing sufficiently inventive to have his eyebrows raising. Opening his front door, he saw Hadley struggling up the stairs with a pair of bulky bags. Her purse lay on the landing at the bottom of the stairs where it had fallen.
“You get points for creativity,” he told her, picking up the purse and mounting the stairs behind her two at a time to take what he judged as the heavier of the two bags out of her hand. “Why don’t we trade?”
She stopped on the landing and turned to face him. “I don’t need…” Her eyes widened.
“You don’t need?” he echoed helpfully, handing her the purse and taking the other bag just as it dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers. “I’ll just get these upstairs for you while you work out the details of what you don’t need.”
Sex. It vibrated in the air around him, from his damp hair to the Sunday-morning beard darkening his jaw. A line of sweat trickled down his neck. His gray fleece shirt had lost its sleeves somewhere along the line, all the better for showing the hard swell of biceps and shoulders as he carried her bags the rest of the way up.
Hadley just stood for a second, then her mouth shut and she scampered after him. “I can get those myself.”
“No need to.” Gabe set them down in front of the door. “Consider it a hand from a friendly neighbor. Got your keys?”
“Uh, yes.” She dug into her purse and unlocked the door. “I’m sorry I interrupted you.”
“It’s all right, I was pretty much done.”
So was she. Put it in a box, hell. She’d speculated what he’d look like outside of his suits or chunky sweaters. She had no idea he’d look like this, all hard and rangy and utterly, undeniably male.
“Where do you want these, in the bedroom?”
“Here is fine,” she said hastily. The last thing she needed was the image of Gabe Trask in her bedroom looking like sex on a stick.
Amusement danced in his eyes as though he knew exactly the effect he was having on her. “Well, let’s see, the heating register is in the living room. There’s a washer-dryer in the basement in case you need to do laundry. We also have wood down there if you want a fire. Just don’t forget to open the flue. Anything else you need?”
You. Naked. On your back. “Nothing, thanks,” she said hastily. Wanting and letting herself have were two different things. “Well, um, thanks for the help.”
“Sure.” He walked to the door and winked. “Welcome to the neighborhood.” Whistling, he turned and headed down the stairs.
Chapter Ten
Montpelier was unassuming at first glance, stacked up on the opposite side of the river from the highway that threaded up the south side of the Winooski Valley. Only the golden gleam of the capitol dome hinted that the town was anything more than a backwater. Then Gabe drove across the iron bridge into town and Hadley saw the shape of it emerge, all gracefully aged brick and stately buildings from the turn of the last century.
They parked in a municipal lot and began to walk toward Roderick Miller’s office. Hadley hunched her shoulders and tried to ignore the icy wind whisking up under her skirt.
“Want to stop and get a cup of coffee and warm up?” Gabe asked, nodding at a café. “We’re still a little early.”
“Sure. We can figure out our strategy.”
It was an old-fashioned lunch joint with a serpentine steel counter and a broad, sizzling grill. It didn’t look as if it had been built to ride on the nostalgia craze, it looked like the real deal, complete with Thirties-era Coke posters on the walls that had probably been put up when they were new.
Hadley and Gabe slid onto a pair of fixed stools.
“What’ll it be?” asked the counterman, a burly guy with forearms like Popeye.
“Coffee,” Gabe said.
“For me, as well.”
He served them with quick, economical motions and turned to the grill, where eggs and a mountain of hashed browns sizzled.
Gabe raised his mug and took a cautious sip, then reached for the cream a
nd sugar. “So how do you want to handle this?”
“At this point, we’re just trying to find out if we’ve got cause for further dialogue. Friendly discussion. We make a starting offer, see what they come back with.” Taking her cue from Gabe, Hadley didn’t bother to taste the coffee but added cream right off. “We won’t really know anything until we go through the letter of intent and a confidentiality agreement. That’ll be when the real work begins—we look over the facility, review their financial and legal records.”
“Something concrete to show to your board.”
“Exactly. I want to hold off on sending the proposal to them until we can speak authoritatively.” And, she crossed her fingers, convincingly.
“How autonomous are we? Can we execute the buy without their go-ahead as long as we hit our numbers?”
She stirred her coffee and braved a sip. “At this point, I need the board’s buy-in. Anyway, now’s not the time for dickering about specifics. We just want to demonstrate that we’re serious and we’ve got a basis for discussion.”
“Don’t forget, they tried to unload it five years ago and couldn’t find a buyer.” Gabe abandoned his coffee, pushing it across the counter. “It’s not like the resort’s been lighting the world on fire since, so I think we can assume they’re in the same spot. The right offer will get them moving.”
“And the lower the offer, the better our chances of getting the board to go for it.” And she hoped to God they did or else she was sunk. “I think you should do the talking. You were the one who talked with Miller initially. You know the history. You can come in from a position of strength.”
“And it’s a way to downplay the Stone Enterprises link.”
“Well yes, there’s that as well. If they think big money’s behind the hotel, they’ll try to push it. Let them think it’s just a quiet little property.”
“Works for me.” Gabe glanced at his watch and threw a few dollars on the counter. “Okay, we ready to go do this?”
Hadley took a deep breath. “Lead the way.”
“So you’re interested in buying the ski area.” Roderick Miller, head of Crawford Notch Partners LLC, leaned back in his chair a little. “What makes you think we’re interested in selling?”
“The fact that you took this meeting, for one,” Gabe said.
“It never hurts to listen. I might learn something useful.”
Hadley had disliked him on sight. Well-upholstered and well-padded, his brown hair just beginning to gray artistically at the temples, Miller was a little too sleek and self-satisfied, like a well-fed cat who savored toying with mice. He clearly saw himself as a money man, conveniently ignoring the small stage he operated on. She got the feeling status and control mattered more to him than dollars. She got a very strong feeling that he was a petty despot when the opportunity arose.
He folded his hands and gave a slight smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “So you’re here. Tell me what you have in mind.”
“You had the property on the market five years ago and again three years ago,” Gabe began. “No sale, in either case. Presumably you couldn’t find a buyer or couldn’t come to terms.”
“And you’re prepared to make an offer?”
“If the property looks right. Obviously, we’ve only been able to do a limited inspection of the facilities. We’ll want to go through full disclosure, due diligence and so on.”
“Of course, before going to the trouble of that, we really need to make sure that we’re thinking along the same lines.”
“Of course.” Gabe pulled a sheet of paper toward him and wrote a figure on it. “We’re thinking something like this.”
Miller snorted. “Before we’d be prepared to go much further, we’d need to see something more like this.” He wrote a second, higher figure.
Gabe’s mouth curved a little as he shook his head. “No way. Not until we see more information.”
“Why should we disclose to you if the offer isn’t high enough to be serious?”
“Oh, the fact that we’re opening with an offer forty percent higher than your asking price of three years ago?”
Miller snorted. “You noticed real estate prices lately?”
“The property values have held steady and there have been no capital improvements in the facilities. The increase reflects both of those facts. Clearly the resort isn’t a viable business proposition for your group or you’d be putting more money into it. We’re ready to take it off your hands.”
“Don’t think you’re going to come in here and steal it from us. That property is a good fit with your hotel. You want it.”
Gabe stayed cool as ice, Hadley noticed admiringly. “Perhaps. That’s what we’re here to investigate.”
“And if it improves your business, you stand to make a tidy profit. Maybe we should really be talking about a merger.”
“No merger,” Gabe said flatly. “A simple transaction to augment our holdings—if the price is right. You’ll make a profit, trust me.”
“We won’t make a profit with your offer,” Miller blustered. “The place is worth much more than that.”
“Show us the books. Give us a concrete assessment of the property and we can talk about perhaps changing the terms.”
“I want to see a letter of intent with a higher offer first. If we take your number, we’d still be upside down.”
Gabe gave a smile Hadley didn’t recognize. It wasn’t affable, it wasn’t people-centric. It was the smile of a predator. “Your group has owned the resort for ten years and you’re still upside down on it? You’re a smarter businessman than that, Rod. I know what the resort went for at the time you bought it. I know what you’ve put into it and I know to a pretty good accuracy what you take out.”
“Who’ve you been talking to on my staff?” Miller demanded.
“No one. I do my homework and I’ve been watching your operation closely. Now you can be reasonable and we can cut a deal that will benefit both of us, or you can keep chiseling for cash and we’ll just walk away.”
Doubt flickered in Miller’s eyes. “You won’t pass on this.”
“Trust me,” Gabe said evenly, “we will. The resort represents a guest services opportunity to us but it’s not a make or break. And we can easily run our shuttle to another ski area in future if you still have problems.”
Miller evidently didn’t like being pushed. But he clearly wasn’t prepared to take the chance that the deal might evaporate. He cleared his throat. “We’ll need a confidentiality agreement before we can disclose anything, of course. And a letter of intent.”
“Of course. I’ll have a letter of intent off to you this afternoon. Send the confidentiality agreement over and we’ll have our people review it.”
“And then we’ll get you some information.”
“A lot of information, Miller.”
“Send the letter,” Miller said brusquely.
“This afternoon.” Gabe and Hadley rose. “We appreciate your time and we’ll be in touch.”
They walked across the parking lot toward the car, Hadley in high good humor. “That went well.”
“It pays to be informed.”
“How long have you been watching the resort?”
“Since they bought it ten years ago. I talked with Whit about it at the time but he was still paying off the note and I wasn’t really in a position to pursue it much.” Gabe opened the Explorer’s passenger door for her. “I had an idea the information would be useful someday, though.”
“You were good in there,” she said as he got in himself. He grinned. “I watch a lot of movies.”
“I’m sure. So how well do you know Miller?”
“I’ve met him at a few business receptions.” His seat belt clicked into place. “I made it my business to be where he was a few times. Never knew but what it might be useful.”
“You make Machiavelli look like a piker,” she said admiringly.
“It pays to be prepared. I really want this to come thr
ough. I think it would be good for the hotel.”
“And it’s kind of fun, admit it.”
His eyes gleamed. “Time of my life,” he said, and started the engine.
Gabe drove out of Montpelier along the highway that looped and curved along the river. On their left, water rushed along loose and wild, tumbling between snow-covered, tree-lined banks. Hadley was so busy looking at the scenery that it took her a moment to realize they’d strayed from their outbound path.
“Wait a minute, weren’t you supposed to turn back there?” She craned her neck to stare at the stop sign where the highway to New Hampshire peeled off.
“Nope.”
“What do you mean, nope? That’s the way back to the hotel.”
“We’re not going back to the hotel, at least not yet. There’s someplace I want to show you.”
Trask Family Farm and Sugar House read a white sign decorated with maple leaves in fall colors. A post-and-rail fence surrounded the rolled gravel parking lot currently populated by handful of cars. A broad porch ran along the length of the long, low gift shop, which connected to a high-peaked sugar house. In summer, she guessed, people sat outside and ate the maple creams advertised on a sign by the door. Just now, with snow covering the ground and broad patches of the graveled parking lot, all of the picnic tables were stacked off to one side.
Gabe’s family. Just the idea made her uneasy. She wasn’t big on making conversation with strangers at the best of times. Oh, she could do it for business when she had to, but in a social setting she looked forward to it with about as much enthusiasm as she would a root canal. “Are you here to do an errand or something?”
He gave her a curious look. “No. We were in the neighborhood. I figured I’d stop in and say hello.” He got out of the truck.
“It’s the middle of the day,” she protested as he opened her door. “Aren’t they busy making syrup or whatever?”
Under The Mistletoe (Holiday Hearts #2) Page 12