Leaving Necessity

by Margo Bond Collins

  Mac reached down to pull his laptop out of its case on the floor, ready to start cluing in the new owner. Petroleum prices might be down—hell, they were lower than Mac had ever seen them in his lifetime—but he was absolutely certain that with careful management, he could keep Aerio going.

  If he could keep Aerio going, then he could keep a lot of people in Necessity employed.

  Though Gavin Graves hadn’t discussed it much, Mac knew that the town was a big part of why the older man had invested in the small oil company in the first place. Set back from the interstate as it was, Necessity was a dying community. When the manufacturing plant had relocated to an easier shipping location, at least ten local families had needed someone to find work.

  Gavin Graves had offered that work.

  Clara’s next words froze Mac’s hand on his computer, her tone as cool as the icy stare she turned toward him.

  “I’m not interested. I simply want to know how quickly I can either close or sell the company.”

  *

  Although she wouldn’t have admitted it aloud to anyone, the stricken expression on Mac’s face actually pleased Clara a little bit. It was fine with her if he felt a touch of panic at her comment. It was the least she owed him.

  She hadn’t intended to announce her intention to sell quite so quickly. Initially, she had planned to go through the entire farce of a company inspection, if only to try to figure out what Uncle Gavin had been thinking when he made that a condition of selling or shutting down the business.

  As soon as she saw Mitch, though—it’s Mac now, she reminded herself—she had known precisely what her uncle had intended.

  He wanted her to spend time with Mitch.

  Mac.

  Whatever his name was.

  Changing his name didn’t change his basic personality flaws.

  More to the point, it didn’t mean that she was going to be tricked into wasting her time on this stupid scheme.

  Even if it was her uncle’s last wish.

  “Here,” she said, pulling a manila folder out of the messenger bag she had slung over the back of her chair. Flipping through it, she handed a sheet of paper to Mitch. “Just sign this for me, we can go over all these…assets…and then I can be on my way.”

  The suspicious look Mitch gave Clara suggested that he wasn’t likely to be buffaloed as easily as she hoped—as easily, say, as someone who didn’t know her at all.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  And if she still knew Mitch, he wouldn’t let it go. Blowing out an irritated breath, she explained. “This certifies that you have shown me all of the relevant information about the company. You can sign that, we’ll get it notarized, and then I’ll be out of here.”

  Mitch leaned back in his chair, leaving the computer in the bag on the floor, after all. “I can’t sign that.”

  “Sure you can. We can go across the town square over to Mr. Pritchard’s office, his secretary can notarize it, and we can call it a day.”

  As Mitch shook his head, Clara saw a few glints of silver mixed in among the dark strands. Even now, she could remember the feel of it under her hands, silkier than it looked. His skin had always been tanned, but now it was so darkened from working in the sun that she could no longer see the tiny freckles across his nose. She used to trace lines between those freckles with her fingertips, fascinated by everything about him.

  Now, she realized, she was staring as if she were drinking him in, as if her eyes had been waiting for another chance to see him, to trace every added line, remember every lost freckle. When she glanced up from his nose, she found his gaze intent upon her, his hazel eyes serious.

  God. Now she couldn’t remember what they were talking about.

  Selling the business.

  Right.

  “All you have to do is say that you showed me everything,” she insisted. “Then I can sell this company sooner.”

  “There’s only one problem with that.”

  “Yes?” Clara didn’t try to hide the irritation she was certain came through in her tone. Mitch needed to know how much she hated the fact that she was stuck in Necessity until she dealt with her new inheritance.

  “I don’t want you to sell the company at all.”

  Chapter Five

  I was afraid of that.

  Clara didn’t say it out loud, but as soon as she had seen Mitch sitting there, she had expected him to try to stop her from selling Aerio.

  The premonition didn’t make any logical sense. After all, he had been the one who had wanted her to leave all those years ago. He had been more than ready for her to go, as she recalled. After all, Clara leaving had meant that he could get on with his own life.

  The image of Sarah Barnes’s arms wrapped around his neck intruded into her thoughts, and it was all she could do to keep from snarling. It had taken her a long time to wipe that picture from her mind after she had left—at least, she thought she had erased it. Apparently all it took was one look at Mitch’s face and she was right back where she’d been at eighteen, devastated.

  But she was older now.

  Wiser.

  So what if she had never met anyone who touched her heart the way he had?

  She didn’t have the emotional connection to Mitch that she had back then.

  Nothing he says can shake me.

  Now if only she could bring herself to believe that.

  At any rate, she didn’t have to show him that he still affected her. She had spent years in advertising in New York City. She knew how to deal with cranky clients. And more to the point, she knew how to convince people to do what she wanted them to.

  It’s all about attraction and intimidation.

  She wasn’t about to try to use attraction on him. That left intimidation.

  Tilting her chin up, she gave him her best cold stare, the one she used when faced with a client who thought her Texas accent meant she was stupid, or a pushover. “That’s not your decision to make, Mitchell. It’s my company to sell or not, as I please.”

  He leaned his elbows on the table, tenting his hands and resting his chin on his fingertips. “I go by Mac now. And although you’re perfectly correct, of course, it is my decision whether or not to lie about fulfilling the terms of the will. I won’t do that.”

  She had really hoped he wouldn’t point that out. Drawing in a deep breath, she let it out slowly, counting to ten in her head before answering. Mitch just watched her through narrowed, hazel eyes, with the same calculating look he’d always worn when preparing to do something he knew she wouldn’t like.

  Something was missing, though—the glint of humor that used to underlie all his comments had disappeared. Despite that last week, most of her memories of him were of someone who smiled, a lot.

  The lines on this Mitch’s face weren’t smile lines.

  If she had been forced to mention it aloud, she would have said this Mitch carried some heavy, underlying sadness.

  She would never say so out loud.

  Instead, she did what she had done back then, and buried any other feelings she might have in a deep, burning anger. “You’re going to make me go through this farce of learning about the company? Seriously?”

  Mitch slowly folded his hands together until his hands were clasped, his fingers interlaced. “I am. Seriously.” He paused, a muscle in the side of his jaw jumping as he considered his next words.

  Dropping his forearms to the tabletop, he bent toward her, his voice low and intense. “In fact, I’m going to do more than that.”

  Clara waited until he spoke again, trying to ignore the flutters that his nearness set free in her stomach.

  Finally, his mouth quirked up in something that she might have called a smile, if it had been less predatory. “I am going to convince you not to sell at all.”

  *

  Clara’s mouth dropped open and she stared at Mac, speechless.

  But only for a moment. Then she plastered on a bright, fake smile. “Like hell you will.”
>
  That fire in her eyes, right there. That was the Clara he remembered. Not the ice-queen who had calmly handed him the implement of his entire town’s destruction and demanded he sign it.

  This was the Clara he knew—the one he knew how to deal with. Fiery and passionate and emotional.

  The thought turned his smile genuine, but only for as long as it took him to remember what happened the last time he had decided to ‘deal with’ Clara.

  His smile crumbled as if it had turned to ash and fallen away.

  No. Mac needed to remember that he had hurt Clara—hurt her badly, even if he had believed it was for her own good. Anything he did now was only to save the company. He had made certain she left Necessity when they were teenagers, and nothing had really changed.

  Clara would be returning to her life in New York soon.

  Mac simply needed to make sure that when she left Necessity this time, she didn’t take all hope of the town’s survival with her.

  “Want to take a bet on that?” he asked, mostly to forestall her as she began gathering her belongings to leave.

  Clara, who had been stuffing her folder of papers back into her oversized leather bag, stopped, then slowly set the folders back on the table. “I’m listening.”

  Mac’s mind spun as he sat back in the chair again, working to look calm even as he worked frantically to come up with a plan in the few seconds he had.

  How long can I get her to stay? How long will I need to show her how much this town needs Aerio? How much will she need to learn about the business to really recognize what her uncle did for Necessity when he brought Aerio in?

  “Two weeks,” he said aloud.

  “No.” Clara raised one eyebrow. “One week. That’s all you’ll get of my time.”

  “Then one week.” He raised his own eyebrows and held his hands open. “If I can convince you in one week not to sell, then you will keep Aerio and agree to let me run it for you for one year. At the end of the year, we can reexamine the agreement.”

  “And if I choose to sell?” Her voice was cool, again. Mac preferred the other version of her.

  The real Clara.

  “If I can’t convince you in a week that you shouldn’t sell the company, I will sign your papers and you can walk away.” He clasped his hands loosely on the table to keep Clara from seeing the tremor running through them. He couldn’t let her see how much this meant to him. Not yet.

  “And if I don’t agree to any of this?”

  Mac shrugged. “I won’t sign your papers at all, and you’ll potentially be stuck with some costly legal fees.” Technically, he didn’t even know if that was true. For all Mac knew, a judge could invalidate that particular provision of the will.

  Then again, Judge Quincey Anselm had grown up in Necessity, and his cousin Alfred was Aerio’s engineer.

  Clara might not know all the details of the various power connections any longer, but she knew how a town like Necessity worked. She didn’t weigh her options for long before she spoke. “Fine. You have one week. At the end of the week, I’m putting the company up for auction and going home.”

  One week was better than nothing. Mac would take what he could get, and use every weapon in his arsenal to convince Clara not to sell. “Agreed.”

  She stuck her hand out across the table. “Deal, then.”

  As quickly as she had taken the bet, perhaps he should have held out for a full month. Or at least two weeks.

  But it was done.

  Now he had to figure out how to show her everything in only a week.

  Mac reached out to take her hand without thinking about it first. He should have known better. Clara’s touch had always had an electrifying effect on him, and the passing years hadn’t seemed to dim his response to her.

  For just a moment, as they clasped hands over the table, their eyes met, and it was as if no time at all had passed. Her skin still felt the same, some part of him noted absently. Her grip was sure, not timid like some women’s handshakes, but her skin was satiny and soft.

  By the way she froze and stared at him wide-eyed, she felt something, too.

  Suddenly, the next week stretched out in front of him, an endless torture of soft skin and huge brown eyes, of whole days filled with Clara’s presence.

  What have I done?

  Chapter Six

  Why did I agree to that?

  Throwing the pickup into park in her uncle’s carport, Clara drooped in the driver’s seat, thumping her forehead lightly against the steering wheel.

  An entire week in Necessity.

  Worse, an entire week in Mitchell MacAllan’s company.

  When she had arrived, she hadn’t planned to spend more than a few days here. In fact, she had planned to pick out a few mementos for herself, things that she knew Gavin would want her to have. And then she was going to hire someone to clear out the house. All she would have to do after that is find realtor to sell the old Craftsman for her, and Clara’s final ties to Necessity would be severed.

  Instead, she was going to have to live here for a while.

  She began clicking off to-do items in her head.

  Her suitcase didn’t have more than a couple of changes of clothes, one of them the dress she had worn to the funeral. The laundry room at the back of the house held the same creaky old washer she remembered from her childhood. No dryer. Gavin had still hung his clothes out on a line in the back to dry.

  I guess it’s lucky I already ruined my jeans. They wouldn’t survive the Necessity washing process, anyway.

  She would have to go grocery shopping at some point. Uncle Gavin’s fridge hadn’t had much in it other than condiments—and she had thrown most of those away.

  With a sigh, she got out of the truck, pulled her bag out behind her, and trudged partway up the front steps.

  Suddenly a week seemed almost overwhelming. Dropping to the top step, she rubbed her eyes.

  “Clara, honey, you okay?” Mrs. Jordan’s thready voice interrupted her self-pity-fest.

  Guess I should have chosen someplace other than the front steps to crumple.

  With a final sigh, Clara rubbed her temples and lifted her head off her hands, dropping them to dangle between her knees. “I’m fine, Mrs. Jordan,” she said, but her words didn’t ward off the incoming attack of old-lady solicitude.

  She hadn’t really expected them to.

  Still, a girl can hope.

  Using her cane for balance, Mrs. Jordan slowly lowered herself to sit on the steps next to Clara, then reached over to pat the younger woman’s knee. “Anything you want to tell me about?”

  Unexpected tears prickled at the back of Clara’s eyes and her shoulders slumped. “Thank you, Mrs. Jordan, but I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  The older woman reached up and patted her face with gnarled hands, her eyes searching Clara’s face from behind her thick glasses. “You’re all knotted up,” she observed.

  Clara rolled her head from side to side, rubbing at her neck. “There’s more going on here than I expected.”

  And Uncle Gavin wasn’t here to help her with any of it.

  Again, she shoved tears back.

  “There always is.” The two women sat in oddly companionable silence for a long moment before Mrs. Jordan spoke again. “You know what you need? You need to go see that horse doctor over there in Santo.”

  The sudden shift in topic made Clara’s head spin. Was the old woman more senile than she had realized? “A vet?”

  Mrs. Jordan paused. “Now that you mention it, I don’t know if he was in the military. Never thought to ask.”

  Clara could feel her headache returning. “I don’t have a horse.”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “Then why should I go to a horse doctor?”

  “For stress.” Mrs. Jordan waved her hand, presumably in the direction of the horse doctor. “This old guy’s a chiropractor.”

  A frown creased Clara’s face. “For horses?”

  �
�Well, no. Why on earth would I send you to a horse chiropractor?”

  “I have no idea,” Clara muttered.

  “Don’t get sassy with me. He’s a good chiropractor. But he doesn’t advertise or anything.” Mrs. Jordan thumped her cane on the steps for emphasis. “He’s not in the phone book, either. Now, what was his name?” She drifted off into a low-voiced muttering as she tried and discarded various name.

  Yep. That was definitely the headache returning.

  “Doctor Hay!” Mrs. Jordan suddenly crowed triumphantly. “That’s his name. You need to go see Dr. Hay over in Santo.”

  Clara made a noncommittal noise.

  “Oh, wait a minute.” Mrs. Jordan tilted her head to one side. “You know, come to think of it, I don’t believe he’s a horse doctor at all. He’s just got a horsey kind of name.”

  From somewhere deep inside her, a snort escaped. Clara tried to hold it back, to push the laughter back down to the same place she had shoved the tears, but this time she couldn’t hold it in. Within moments, she and Mrs. Jordan were hanging on one another, laughing so hard that the tears she had denied earlier were flowing down her face.

  *

  Everything about Gavin Graves’s house was exactly the same as it had been when Mac had come by to see Gavin two weeks before—except, of course, that Gavin was no longer in it.

  But Clara was.

  It had been a long time since Mac had pulled up in front of the house and pictured an eighteen-year-old Clara slamming out the front door and skipping down the stairs, blonde ponytail bouncing behind her as Gavin opened the door again to call out some last-minute instructions.

  Now, though, he couldn’t help but compare that girl’s joyful skip to the sedate step of the woman who rose from the white wicker porch swing and made her way to the company truck. This Clara’s gaze was wary as she opened the passenger door and climbed in.

  The ponytail hadn’t changed very much, but Mac suspected that had more to do with pragmatism than style. In fact, Clara had bowed more to the pragmatic needs of walking around the oil patch than he had expected her to, given everything he had seen her wear up to this point.