Harlequin Special Edition October 2015, Box Set 1 of 2

by Christine Rimmer

  Truthfully, his father was the last person Mac wanted to see. He had no idea how to approach him—let alone face him—after the whopper of a surprise he’d run into last week. Dropping a bomb such as, Hey Dad, I met my secret sibling, wasn’t likely to make him the favorite son at Sunday dinner.

  Pushing thoughts of family out of his mind for the moment, Mac opened the heavy steel stairwell door on the fifth floor and walked into a boring, dull gray space. Faux carpeted cubicles blended so well with the gray carpet that it looked more like a boring ocean than an office. He had seen hundreds of offices like this, each about as exciting as watching paint dry. His own offices in Boston were bright, expansive, open. He’d designed them to encourage creative thinking, for his team to be able to collaborate freely and feel energized. Hillstrand Solar felt a lot like walking into a prison.

  “Mr. Barlow. We meet in person finally.”

  He spun around and saw a tall, beautiful blonde standing behind him. No bun, no granny glasses. In fact, Savannah Hillstrand was the exact opposite of what he had pictured.

  She wore a tailored pantsuit in a slate gray with a silky pink shirt beneath the jacket. Her hair was in a loose ponytail with a few escaped tendrils curling along her neck and a pencil sticking upwards out of the elastic like a forgotten ornament. She wore a minimum of makeup, just a little mascara and a glossy pink lipstick that kept his gaze riveted on her mouth for far too long.

  “Miss Hillstrand.” He strode forward, his hand outstretched, his voice businesslike and unemotional. But inside his chest his pulse was skipping a little. Had to be the meal he’d missed or the long hours on the road. “You aren’t quite...uh...what I had...expected.” He was stammering. He never stammered. What was up with that?

  She shook with him, her grip firm and warm. All business. “Well, you sure aren’t what I expected, either. I thought you’d be more...corporate.”

  Corporate—translation: stiff and dull. He didn’t know why it bothered him that she’d thought that was who he was. Of course, he’d thought she was a dour librarian, which probably made them even. “You caught me on a weekend,” he said. “Come Monday, it’s all suits and ties again. Or my version of a suit and tie, at least.”

  Her gaze raked over him, taking in the leather jacket, the riding boots, the dark jeans, the white button-down peeking out from under the jacket, the only concession Mac made to conventional dress on the weekends. “And what is your version of a suit and tie? Leather chaps?”

  He chuckled. “Not at all. Usually dark jeans, a button down and a tie. And a jacket if I’m forced to meet with a lawyer.”

  She laughed, a nice, rich sound that sent a ribbon of heat through his veins. The leather chaps comment told him Miss Hillstrand had spunk, that was for sure, and that was something Mac found...intriguing. “So, shall we have a seat and talk about my offer?” he said.

  “I’m happy to talk to you, but first I want to reiterate what I told you on the phone. Even though I was amenable to an in-person meeting, I’m not interested in any offer you have. I’m not selling.” Now the friendliness dropped from her face and she went all cold. “I made it clear that coming here would be a waste of time, but you insisted and I thought maybe face-to-face you would see how serious I am about not selling you Hillstrand Solar. Not now. Not ever.”

  Mac had rarely met a mountain he couldn’t climb or a challenge he couldn’t win. Savannah was just one more mountain—well, maybe a few curvy hills—and one who simply needed to see that she wasn’t going to be able to keep this company running much longer. Profits had slipped as her longer-standing customers began to question the younger generation’s leadership abilities. “I am sure I can provide you with an equitable offer. You’ll be wealthy enough—”

  “I don’t care about money.”

  He scoffed. “I’ve never met anyone who didn’t care about money. Everyone has a price, Miss Hillstrand.”

  “I don’t.” She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin, as if daring him to disagree. “So you can come in here and try to charm the pants off me with this offer and that offer all you want, but I’m not selling.”

  “I have no intentions of charming the pants off you.” His gaze flicked to said garment. The gabardine curved over her thighs like a second skin, dark and soft and tempting. For a second, he imagined those pants off, nothing but white lacey panties underneath, and her long, long creamy legs...

  Holy hell. Where had that come from? Mac shook his head to clear the unbidden image, then directed his attention back to Savannah’s face. This was business, not personal, and he had no intention of mixing the two. Nothing good could ever come of that.

  He cleared his throat. “I merely want to make you see the wisdom of selling while you can still fetch an equitable price for the company.”

  “I am not selling. Period. End of sentence.”

  “Then why bother to meet with me? That’s something you have made abundantly clear already in all your emails.”

  “Because you refused to give up. I told you. If we met in person, then maybe you would finally see that I am dead serious about this. And I am. Dead serious.” She eyed him, her green eyes flashing, then took a step back. “Now that I’ve made my position clear, I have to get back to work. Good day, Mr. Barlow.”

  She sat down at her desk—if he could call it a desk. It was really just a hoarder’s home away from home, one of those gray spaces in the sea of gray spaces, topped with a computer and a thousand pieces of paper scattered around the surface like crumbs. Chaos, that was what he’d call it. Definitely not the neat and tidy librarian he had imagined.

  His own desk was usually close to spotless, the offices of Barlow Enterprises filled with little to no clutter, because it seemed the best thinking and ideas came in spaces that weren’t overstuffed. He almost wanted to suggest Savannah do a little tidying as a first step to helping her father’s company, but that would be helping her save the business, and his intention was to buy it.

  Savannah pulled her chair into the desk, then turned away from him.

  Well. Seemed Miss Hillstrand was going to be a tougher nut to crack then he’d expected. Mac leaned a hip on the desk across from hers. “You’re over your head here. You know it. I know it.”

  “Are you saying you don’t think I’m smart enough to run this company?”

  “I’m saying you don’t have the experience. You worked here summers during high school, then went off to college for a degree in history. Should we want to execute a repeat of the Napoleonic Wars, you’d be the first one I’d put in charge. But this is business, Miss Hillstrand, not a textbook, and that requires a certain level of...skills.”

  “Skills you assume I don’t have.” She raised her chin.

  “Skills I know you don’t have.” He’d researched her—well, his people had—and issued him a report. A report he could quote almost verbatim. Savannah Hillstrand had worked part-time in the factory throughout high school and college, filling nearly every role in production at one time or another. In between, she’d started a small remodeling business, restoring local homes to their former glory. She’d had a modicum of success at that business, but still returned to Hillstrand Solar in between projects.

  It was possible that Daddy had financed her hobby of home flipping and just asked her to put in an appearance from time to time to keep up the family-owned business image. Either way, Willy Ray should have made his daughter at least get an MBA before he dropped the company into her lap.

  “You don’t know anything about me,” she said. “Or this company.”

  “I know plenty,” Mac countered. “And the numbers don’t lie. Profits have dropped thirty-five percent since you took over. You’ve lost two of your biggest customers in the last month alone. Your line of credit was yanked by the bank after you were late on your last—”

  She wheeled around
. The pencil tumbled from her hair and landed on the carpet. “Are you spying on me?”

  “Merely doing my research. I like to have all the facts before I buy a company.”

  “Well, go dig up dirt on someone else.” Her cheeks flamed. “Hillstrand Solar is not for sale to your...chop shop.”

  He arched a brow. “Chop shop?”

  “Isn’t that what you do? Buy up companies and sell off the pieces? Regardless of how many people lose their jobs because you had to swallow one more little fish in your quest to be the biggest fish in the ocean.”

  The truth stung a little, but Mac shrugged it off. Many of these companies were better off once he was done. And many of the owners were grateful to walk away with some money in their pockets. Soon, Savannah Hillstrand would be one of them. It was a matter of time before she agreed with him. “You are a fan of the simile, I see.”

  “I just call it like I see it. Like my dad did.” She waved toward the door. “See yourself out. I don’t have time to argue with you.”

  “You don’t have time not to listen to me.” The pencil lay on the carpet, a bright slash of yellow against slate gray. It seemed...lonely somehow. “Every day you insist on running this place is another day you are losing money. Let me guess...about twenty thousand a week?”

  She stiffened and he knew he’d guessed correctly. “I have work to do. Work that pays the salaries of the people who work here, people who depend on me to keep that income rolling in.”

  “Last I checked there was a classified section in the back of the newspaper. They’ll find other jobs.”

  She jerked out of her chair and marched up to him now, her green eyes on fire. “Are you really that cold and callous?”

  “I’m neither, I assure you. I’m a realist.”

  “A realist.” She scoffed. “Another word for a corporate shark.”

  He put up a hand. Her barbs weren’t anything he hadn’t heard before—and from his own father, at that. But for some reason it bothered him that Savannah thought he was that cold. “Before you condemn me as the devil incarnate, let me make this clear. This isn’t about your family legacy or some romantic notion of keeping a company afloat just because you inherited it. This is about business, plain and simple. My business is buying and selling. It’s smart financial sense for me to buy and for you to sell. You know that, deep in your heart. The company is struggling and it’s going to sink if you don’t climb in the lifeboat I’m offering.”

  “But it’s my father’s legacy. Part of our family history.” Her voice wavered a little, her composure wobbled, a momentary break in the businesslike facade of Savannah Hillstrand. “He would be heartbroken if I sold it off.”

  “And like I said, this isn’t personal.” He said the words, but there was something in him that was bothered by the tears welling in her eyes, that forlorn pencil on the floor. It had to be being back in the Stone Gap, because never before had Mac been so bothered by the decisions he made. Or the condemnation of one stubborn CEO. Stubborn and beautiful, he amended.

  “The best time to sell is before the company runs itself into the ground,” Mac said, his tone growing gentle. “I understand you are trying to keep it afloat, and I admire you for that. I really do. But it’s better for you to give it a chance to keep on going with me than to watch it dissolve in the next few months.” He hesitated. “Look, I’d like to make you a fair offer based on the financials. Why don’t we go over the books together?”

  Then he could deal with columns and numbers, instead of this heartbroken woman who wanted to hold on to an already-fading family legacy.

  Her face fell, and Mac felt like a jerk. “I’m not saying you’re right, because I don’t think you are. But...” The fight had gone from her shoulders, the fire in her eyes extinguished. For a second, Mac wanted to take it all back, get on his motorcycle and leave town. But then he remembered his own mantra about this not being personal and steeled himself against that look in her eyes.

  “Maybe it would be worth at least hearing you out,” Savannah said. “In case—and I mean that as a very slim just in case—I have a change of heart in the future.”

  “It’s always better to be armed with information before you make a decision.” He was winning the argument but it wasn’t giving him any kind of satisfaction. Why? This was what he lived for—the pursuit, the capture, the success. But this time he didn’t want to win so much as he wanted to...

  See Savannah Hillstrand smile again. Crazy thoughts.

  She nodded. Then her gaze cut away. “My father’s computer is this one.”

  “That mess is your father’s workspace?”

  She smiled ruefully. “It’s organized chaos.”

  “You got one word right,” he muttered. “He doesn’t have his own office?”

  “My father never liked offices. He wanted to be with the people who worked so hard for him. So he opted to have a cubicle just like everyone else.” She ran a hand over the back of one of the chairs, almost as if Willy Jay were sitting in it right now. “He said he did it so he never forgot what was important.”

  “And what was that?” Mac asked. Because, for some reason he couldn’t fathom, the answer to that question was impossibly important to him right now.

  Savannah lifted her gaze to his, her deep green eyes reminding Mac of the dark, mysterious woods of North Carolina, where everything was lush and full. “That none of this was about business. It was personal. It was...family.”

  Chapter Two

  Savannah took the elevator down to the fourth floor, then went into the break room and stood in the darkened space for a long time beside the picture of her father, taken years ago at an employee picnic, before he’d gotten sick.

  She had known this day would come, known it from the moment she had sat in her father’s chair and realized she had no idea what she was doing, but a part of her somehow had kept thinking maybe Mac Barlow would give up and she would find some miracle CEO knowledge in the back of her brain.

  Not that she hadn’t thought about selling the company. Every time an offer came in from Mac Barlow, and the couple others that she had fielded from her competitors, she’d weighed it against the worries on her shoulders. From the day her father died, Savannah had been grieving and overwhelmed. Stepping into her father’s shoes had been a Herculean task. She’d loved her father dearly, but he had been the one person who knew how this company ticked. He’d always promised to take her under his wing and show her the ropes, but the heart attack that killed him had come while he was still relatively young and not ready.

  Not that Savannah had ever really planned to be a part of the company. Her father had asked her time and time again to be a part of his dream, but her heart had led her in other directions. Savannah had worked in all facets of the company at one time or another, but had never been the one in charge; never wanted to be the one in charge. It wasn’t until she’d actually sat at her father’s desk that she’d realized how many millions of decisions had to be made on a daily basis. Tiny decisions that could alter the course of the profits, and big decisions that could send the business off a cliff.

  And it was too late to ask him how to handle it all.

  Now, four months later, she still hadn’t really found her groove. She was trying, but it was far harder than she’d expected to live up to her father’s example. To keep his Hillstrand Solar family together.

  And that was what it was—her father’s family. Not hers. His dream—not hers. But she’d made a promise, and whatever it took, Savannah would keep that promise.

  Now Mac Barlow wanted to break up the family. And he refused to give up, no matter how many times she told him no.

  The problem was he had a point. When he’d talked about the company sinking and the lifeboat he was offering, she’d finally admitted the truth to herself. Her four months of floundering aroun
d like a fish out of water had done their damage to the bottom line. Thus far she’d held off laying off any employees, but truth be told she was losing money and customers at an alarming rate, and she wasn’t sure how to recover.

  Maybe Mac was right. Maybe the company would be better off in his hands. But the people who worked here...

  She leaned against the counter and took in several deep breaths. She needed a plan. Some time to think. She hadn’t taken off so much as an afternoon since her father died—hence being here on yet another Sunday—and that had left her feeling even more snowed under by a growing workload.

  What she needed was a trip to the old house. A few hours along the water, where the air was clear and the worries seemed far away. Some time sanding down the damaged deck or scraping off the old paint on the dining room wainscoting. In those moments when she was deconstructing and rebuilding, uncovering and restoring, she found a kind of Zen. There was something calming about taking a house that was ready to crumble at the slightest gust of wind and bring it back to its former glory. Even now she itched to be there, to take a few minutes or a few hours to breathe life into those old, familiar walls. There she knew she could make some decisions. Maybe even come up with a plan to save everyone’s job going forward.

  Except how was she supposed to do that? She could save historic homes, but she had no idea what to do when it came to saving her father’s legacy.

  Promise me, you’ll keep it running, Willie Jay had said before he died. Those people depended on me, and now they’re gonna depend on you.

  She touched the picture of her father. “Oh, Dad, I wish you were here.” She desperately needed a mentor, someone to help her navigate the choppy waters. Someone who had turned around companies before. Someone who knew how to make their profits grow.

  Her father smiled back in the perpetual image of him standing in the center of a long line of Hillstrand Solar employees on a bright summer day. The photo had been one of his favorites. He had his arms stretched over the shoulders of the employees closest to him, all part of the circle. He had loved this company, every single inch of it, and loved every one of the people who worked here. No matter what decision she made, she had to make sure the employees kept their jobs.