Not in Her Wildest Dreams

by Dani Collins

  “Not true,” Sterling said. “As far as accounting firms go, you could do a lot worse. The firm she works for has lumber accounts all over the Pacific Northwest.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “It’s called the internet.” He held up his phone. Paige kept her privacy settings locked down tight, but he’d found enough to know she’d been certified for five years, worked for the same firm where she’d trained, and had won a couple of industry awards.

  “Jesus, Sterling.” His father’s gaze sharpened. “You’re saying she’s capable, eligible even, of taking an executive role here?”

  “I don’t think she intends to.” Her very lucrative career back in Seattle reassured him she was serious about not moving back to Liebe Falls.

  Although he didn’t feel reassured so much as...remorseful. The more he’d thought about what she’d told him yesterday, the guiltier he felt for letting it happen.

  “Well, if it comes up, we’d rather have Lyle,” his dad grumbled, dragging Sterling’s attention back to the conversation.

  “We don’t have to resort to anything like that,” his mother muttered, fiddling with the cake, but sending a hard glance at her husband.

  Sterling barely tracked it, too floored by what his father had just said.

  “Are you insane? I don’t understand how that waste of skin still works here. There are better millwrights, Dad. It’s time to get one.”

  “Lyle and I have an understanding.”

  “He stank like booze. Did you notice that? You can barely trust him to show up and grease parts and you’re talking about handing him the reins to the company?”

  “He was a partier in the early years. A lot of young men are,” his father argued. “He’s not as bad as he used to be.”

  “He’s worse!” Sterling insisted. “At least Paige has the smarts to do the job properly. No. Lyle isn’t even eligible. Forget it.”

  “Walter, you should talk to Lyle. I think he would understand and be a lot more practical about this than his sister,” his mother said.

  “No, he wouldn’t! He’s a loose freaking cannon.”

  “Sterling, I didn’t know there was still so much animosity between you two. Are you hungry? Have some cake.” His mother shifted the box on the desktop.

  “I’m not hungry, Mom. Or tired. I genuinely think suggesting a derelict run the company is a lousy idea.” She wants you to be the one. That boy was going to pay, one day, some way.

  “One of these corner pieces, I think, with the sugar carrots.”

  “Dad. Be serious. Promise me you won’t let Lyle in here.”

  “I don’t want either of them. I want my damned company back. But they want more money and I don’t know where it will come from.”

  “Mind your blood pressure, Walt. It won’t come to that. Sterling will fix it. We need a knife.”

  “Sterling’s not going to be here,” his father reminded.

  “What was I thinking, not bringing a knife?” Evelyn mused. “Hmm? Of course he’ll be here.”

  “No, Mom, I won’t. Texas. Remember? I’m leaving Sunday night.”

  “Let’s have some cake and talk about it. Perhaps there’s a knife in the break room?” She wrestled the cake out of the bottom of the box.

  His Good Son reflexes urged Sterling to step up and take the cake from his mother, to take the wheel from his dad. He did neither. He had Texas and his own company that might have been built on babysitting money, but it was his and he wasn’t about to sacrifice it so he could stay here playing second string to his father.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said. “Paige isn’t holding out for more money. She wants an audit. Do that and all the pieces will fall into place.”

  “No.” His mother could have carved the cake with the look she sent to her husband. “Do I have to address this myself?”

  His father’s eyes widened in panic. “No.” It would have been comical if it wasn’t so tragically real.

  Sterling got the rolling apprehension in his gut that he always got when he was jammed in the middle of their disagreements. He skimmed a hand over the stiff spikes of his hair—caught a flash of censure as his mother noticed she hadn’t complained about his hair yet this trip.

  “Look, Mom, I’d talk to Paige, but she’s already on the road to Seattle— No, wait. She was going to see Grady. He still in the hospital?” he asked his dad. “I’ll go talk to them.”

  He got a nod that waggled his father’s jowls and felt for his keys.

  Still time for a Hail Mary.

  Chapter Six

  If the definition of crazy was repeating the same useless behaviors expecting a different result, then Paige was certifiable. Although she was sensible enough not to bother checking her father’s room without swinging by the smoking area outside the entrance first.

  And look at that. There he was, sitting behind the windbreak, sneaking a couple of puffs off of Rosie’s cigarette, hair combed, cheeks shaved, color not too bad even though hospital green made everyone look like they had jaundice.

  “Hi Paige,” Rosie said, voice pitched somewhere between surprised and sheepish. She surreptitiously took back her smoke. “Your dad and I were just, um, talking about Palm Springs. I didn’t know you have a condo there.”

  “It belongs to my ex-husband’s family.” She shook her head at her father. It was both admonishment for smoking and a refusal to what she could already hear coming.

  Her father wore a rueful little smirk and his gaze shifted down, telling her he’d already driven way too far down the road of promises he couldn’t keep to make this next few minutes easy.

  “It’s just I have a cousin there. Well, not really my cousin, but—it’s a long story. Anyway, the last time I talked to her, she said she could get me a job at her salon. And since Grady recouped there last time, we thought this would be perfect.”

  Much as Paige would love to help Rosie move out of state, she only offered her a tough-love smile. Rosie was one of those basically nice and decent women who had suffered enough knocks by life that she had wound up floating aimlessly, quick to latch onto anything or anyone that might anchor her. She was the gal whose car was a lemon, whose employer took advantage, and whose boyfriend was a bum. Some guy with big ideas and a small drug problem had brought her to Liebe Falls from an equally rootless life in Tulsa. He had left her with a stolen stereo and no rent money. When Grady had shown an interest, Rosie had attached like a burr to a bear.

  But Paige was not calling her ex to ask a favor. Not this kind. No way.

  “The divorce just finalized,” she reminded her father. “The condo probably isn’t even available.”

  “No, it is—” Rosie looked between them, confused.

  “You called him?” Paige widened her eyes at her father, wondering how she could possibly be surprised.

  He shrugged. “He said I could have a month right now if you gave up your two weeks next March.”

  “Rosie, we’re going to need a few minutes. Can you—actually, you.” She pointed at her dad. “I’ll walk you back to your room. You shouldn’t be out here anyway. And we have to talk.”

  Grady made a pained noise and looked around at the faded gardens visible beyond the plastic wall. “I hate being cooped up in there.”

  Paige bit back the reminder that maybe if he stopped smoking, he wouldn’t keep winding up in the cardiac wing.

  “Not just about Palm Springs. I came from the factory. Let’s go.”

  With a dismayed look and a deep sigh, he heaved to his feet and grasped at his IV caddy.

  “He made it seem like it was okay,” Rosie excused in a small voice.

  He always does. “Just give us a few minutes to work some stuff out, okay?”

  She waited until they were in the elevator to scold, “Don’t go behind my back to Anthony.”

  “I nearly died on top of her. Poor kid was trapped under a spaz.” He patted the one empty pocket on his hospital gown and made a face.
“Now she’s coming here all worried about me. I feel bad for her. A phone call was the least I could do.”

  “I booked that time in March for me and Brit, to celebrate her finishing school.”

  “Yeah, well, you should check in with her because I’m not convinced she’ll make that date.”

  The doors opened and he braced a shaky hand on the sensor to hold it open while he shuffled out.

  Paige faltered. He knew Brit was pregnant? She bit her lip, not wanting to tip her hand if he didn’t, but what else could he mean?

  She followed him in silence to his room then closed the door behind them as he settled himself on the bed.

  “And I figured if I’m cashing out of Roy’s—” her father continued.

  “You’re not,” Paige said firmly. “Not yet.” She told him everything.

  “I wanted you to do it,” he said in answer to her reprimand about not having a proper audit. “Why give the fee to anyone else?”

  “Very loyal. But I don’t actually want to do it.”

  “You should take over for me. Clean house properly.”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll cash out.”

  “No! Dad,” she said between her teeth. So stubborn.

  “He’s not going to agree to an audit, Pidge.” Something dark went across his expression. “And I’m too old to still be scrapping it out with that son of a bitch. He’s right about one thing. It’s time I retired.”

  And just like that he got to her. Most of the time she wanted to wring her father’s neck, he was so self-involved and dense to the consequences of his actions, but then he let her see the real man, the one who was tired and human and fought battles of his own. The one who needed her...

  Don’t fall for it, she could hear Britta cautioning her. Paige had attended enough codependent meetings to know she had a predisposition for enabling, but this was her father.

  His skin felt too smooth and loose when she took his hand. His face was deeply lined with not just weariness, but age and ill health.

  And he might not have been a perfect father, but he’d been there. He might not have been in the house when she got home from school. He might have skipped the dinners she made him more often than eating them, but he’d never wavered in expressing his love and pride in her. He had never screamed at her for no reason or thrown things at her, or told her to, Leave me alone. I can’t be whatever it is you want me to be, or walked out of the house and refused to come back. For all his drinking and womanizing, he’d been the stable, sane parent.

  And he’d never said a bad word about her mother except that she was sick. It wasn’t her fault she acted like that and it wasn’t Paige’s fault either.

  She loved him for that.

  “I want out, Pidge. If you don’t go in there and keep the income flowing, I’ll sign the papers and be done with it.”

  ~ * ~

  Sterling knocked on the door to Grady’s room, glanced through the window to see Paige turn her head. Her expression, already dismayed, grew dark with annoyance as she recognized him.

  He pushed into the room, forcing himself to send her father a nod of greeting even though he’d never forgiven Grady for that beating. Or heard an apology, either.

  What ever happened to a good, old-fashioned, Get your hands off my daughter?

  When a man in his fifties left a teenager with bruised ribs, a cut lip and a black eye, the police ought to be called. His parents hadn’t wanted to go down that road, though. Dad had to work with Grady and, Damn it, Sterling, what the hell were you doing there anyway?

  “Grady,” Sterling said, dead neutral.

  “Sterling.” Grady’s lip curled like he knew things Sterling didn’t.

  How could a man recovering from his third cardiac arrest look better than the one who rarely worked late and ate the high-fibre diet his wife put in front of him? It was those damned Fogarty genes. Like Lyle, Grady had the handsome reprobate look down pat and he was aging it well. Paige had a more Jessica Rabbit femme fatale air with those curves and that sweep of her lashes to hide her thoughts, but the whole damned family was attractive without trying.

  “Paige said you weren’t planning to move into your father’s office,” Grady said.

  “True.” Sterling glanced to where she moved her hand off her fathers to clutch the bed rail.

  She lifted her chin, pretty lips flat, gaze bordering on hostile.

  “She told me you’d like an audit before you finalize a price. I don’t disagree,” Sterling continued. He liked that phrase. It was conciliatory without giving up too much.

  “No, I want her to take over for me,” Grady said.

  The statement kicked alarm into Sterling’s blood stream. He snapped his gaze to Grady’s shit-brown gaze then back to Paige’s pinched nostrils and hollow cheeks.

  She stared slightly to his left, saying nothing.

  “Does Paige want that?” he asked carefully.

  “I’ve promised to quit smoking,” Grady said with a magnanimous smile as his daughter swung her attention back to him. “She wants that. Or I can sign the papers as is,” he warned her.

  “Blackmail. Really,” she charged. “I can’t just leave my job, you know.”

  “Why not? I’m giving you a new one.”

  “Why?” Sterling asked Grady, voice hardening in his chest.

  A smirk skated around the old man’s mouth. “I appreciate the irony.”

  “This isn’t funny,” Paige snapped. “You have debts, Dad. Olinda thinks your selling means she’s winning the lottery. If I take over—”

  “You can administer the dividends as you see fit. You’re the one saying we can do better than the offer on the table,” he chided. “Do better.”

  “I know a white elephant when I see one.” Paige snatched up her purse. “I’m going back to Seattle. Don’t you dare sign anything.” She shook her finger at her father.

  “Make up your mind before I leave for Palm Springs.”

  “You’re hilarious,” she spat over her shoulder.

  Sterling opened the door for her, not so she could escape this conversation, but so they could take it somewhere more private.

  “Before you go...” he said as she came even with him.

  She gave him the look snarling dogs wore, but didn’t try to outrun him. She didn’t talk, either, just floated on a cloud of fury as they left the hospital. He followed her all the way to her hatchback, too damned aware of her feminine gait and the subtle bounce of her breasts when he was supposed to be playing hard ball. She’d gone from Wrong Girl to Declared Enemy. What the hell was his libido thinking?

  When she blipped the fob to unlock her door, he said, “Paige.”

  She threw her purse into the car, then leaned on it, sighing heavily.

  “You know as well as I do that the offer on the table is bullshit.” She flicked a look at him that dared him to argue.

  He pushed his hands into his pockets. “It’s an opener,” he qualified. “Better numbers come through negotiation.”

  “I’m not trying to get more money to be a jerk. Half is half. If the company is worth more, yes, Dad would get more, but the company would be worth more.”

  “I understand basic math,” he said flatly.

  “Has any money gone into that place since we were working there in high school?” She searched his gaze, hers reflecting the same disbelief he was trying to ignore because it would mean he should do something. The eye contact went on a little too long, started to become something else.

  She looked away, blushed a little, and muttered, “It’s like an interactive museum.”

  He snorted, trying to get a grip on whether he was amused or horny or frustrated or annoyed and filling with despair. All of the above.

  “Listen, I think an audit is a good idea,” he admitted. “But you can’t do it if you’re working there, can you? That would be a conflict of interest.”

  “My findings could be questioned in court, but purely for the purposes of
arriving at a figure for a buy out? If your father agrees to my doing it...” She shrugged. “That’s for him to decide.”

  “So that’s what you want to do? Work at the factory, audit the books—”

  “I don’t want to. But Dad’s tired. It’s not the heart attack talking. He’s ready to retire.”

  It would be a lot easier to resent her if she didn’t look so miserable. Or make so much sense when she lifted her clear-eyed gaze to his.

  “That factory has weathered some rough times. It’s solid. It could be a much stronger enterprise with a fairly modest investment. That’s my gut feeling. Selling when it’s declining is dumb. Letting your dad run it further into the ground, while their best salesmen is off sick and we wait out an audit... That’s even dumber. Buying Dad out is quite a cash suck, too. If I were sitting down with clients, I would tell them it’s not in the factory’s best interest to buy out a partner right now. I would suggest getting new blood in there and acting like they want a future. I would tell my Dad to hold onto his investment for at least a year because it’s going to appreciate.”

  Sound advice and pretty much what he would say, too.

  But.

  “That new blood is you?” he prompted.

  She fingered through her keys, mouth going down at the corners. “I don’t want it to be. I really don’t. But Dad will sell otherwise and...” She looked up at him, brow furrowed. “If it was just Dad looking after his own retirement, I’d tell him to do whatever he wants. But that money has to stretch for a lot of people.”

  “So you’re going to do it? Take over from Grady?” Forget throwing a Hail Mary. He was throwing the whole damned game. Fuck.

  “I’m going to go for a nice long drive, then sleep in my own bed. I’ll think about at least doing an audit to settle on a fair price, hopefully come up with a better solution. Let your Dad know I’ll call him Monday.”

  She opened her car door and slid inside as fat raindrops beginning to patter around him.

  Texas, suddenly, seemed a long way away.