He looked good. Really good. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, revealing tanned forearms. The laugh lines that fanned out from his eyes were carved a little deeper now. His hair, thick and dark brown with golden highlights from the sun, was a little long and windblown. She grinned. She’d bet anything he’d ridden to work on his Harley. That bike had been his first major rebellion way back in high school, and the possibility that he’d never given it up gave her an unexpected sense of hope. That was the Trace she remembered, not a man who’d turned into a by-the-book banker like his dad. She could deal with that man, challenge him to bend the rules.
When he finished the call, he swiveled around and caught sight of her for the first time. Something dark and dangerous flashed in his eyes, but he kept his expression neutral. “Well, look who the cat dragged in.”
“Hello, Trace.”
“I’ll bet you didn’t expect to find me here,” he said.
“It was a pleasant surprise, all right.”
“Pleasant?” he inquired doubtfully.
“For me, yes. We were friends, Trace. Why wouldn’t I be glad to see you again?” she asked, though she knew the answer. She’d just hoped to finesse her way past the awkwardness. The simmering anger in his eyes suggested that wasn’t likely.
“Friends?” he echoed with a lift of one brow. “That’s not exactly the way I remember it. Maybe my memory’s faulty, but I thought we were more than that.”
Heat stained Abby’s cheeks. “It was a long time ago, Trace. A lifetime, in fact.”
He hesitated for what seemed like an eternity, his gaze level, then finally he looked away and reached for a folder with an ominous red sticker on the front. “I imagine you’re here about this,” he said, his tone suddenly abrupt and very businesslike. “Jess has gotten herself into quite a mess.”
Taking her cue from him, Abby opened her briefcase. “We’re aware of that, and we’re prepared to give the bank every reassurance that things will change from here on out.”
“You’ll have to do quite a bit of tap-dancing to pull that off,” he said. “She doesn’t have any management skills. I think that’s plain. I have no idea why the bank approved these loans in the first place. I imagine they did it as a courtesy to your father.”
Just then the door to his office opened again, and Jess stepped in. She frowned at his words. “You couldn’t be more wrong, Trace. They did it because it was a sound investment. That’s exactly what your father said when he called me to tell me the mortgage and the loan had been approved.” She regarded Trace unflinchingly and added, “It still is.”
“Not according to these papers I have in front of me,” Trace countered. “It’s time to cut our losses, and that’s exactly what I intend to recommend to the board tomorrow.”
“No,” Abby said fiercely. “Not until you’ve heard us out.”
She tried not to notice the alarm on Jess’s face or the brick-red color that flamed in Trace’s cheeks. Instead, she plunged on, throwing diplomacy to the wind. “If you have even an ounce of business savvy in that rock-hard head of yours, you’ll see that this plan makes sense.”
“Why should I believe anything you tell me?” he asked.
Abby swallowed hard. This was all going to blow up just because she and Trace had a history. Why hadn’t Jess warned her? If she had, Abby would have stayed far, far away from the bank. But since she was in the thick of it now, she refused to let him goad her into backing down.
“Don’t make this about us, Trace,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t reflect well on you or the bank.”
Trace scowled at her. “Well, aren’t you full of yourself? Trust me, you had nothing to do with my decision. It’s all right here in black and white. People might lie, but numbers don’t.”
Abby knew he was right about that, but she wasn’t giving up without a fight. She’d seen the flicker of guilt in his eyes when she’d accused him of letting his feelings for her get into the equation. She intended to use that to force his hand and make him reconsider.
She tempered her tone. “Will you at least hear me out? You owe us that much.”
“Really?” he said quizzically. “How do you figure that?”
“You want to prove that you’re making a totally unbiased decision, don’t you? Then you have to consider all the facts. Otherwise I’ll have to insist on meeting the board myself, and you’ll wind up with egg on your face after barely a week on the job.”
Again, he gestured toward the file. “The facts are in here.”
“Not all of them,” she insisted. She handed him a set of the papers she’d spent all Sunday afternoon preparing, partly because she’d wanted them to be strong enough to make her case and partly as a way to steer clear of Mick. “Take a look. As you’ll see, there’s a new investment partner. Jess has more than enough cash now to make good on the loan payments and to capitalize the running of the inn for the first six months, longer if she’s careful. There’s a solid business plan on pages two and three. And on page four there’s a plan for refinancing that egregious interest-only mortgage that should never have been offered in the first place. I think we could make a case that the bank was hoping she’d get herself into financial trouble just so they could foreclose and lay claim to the inn once she’d poured a lot of money into renovations.”
Trace stared at her incredulously. “You can’t be serious. You think this was the bank’s fault?”
She smiled. “I do.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Want to test my theory in court? I think people are furious over the kind of lending practices that turned the whole industry upside down. I think we could make Jess into a very sympathetic victim.”
Trace regarded her with a glimmer of new respect. “Not bad. You almost had me going there for a minute.”
“I wasn’t joking,” Abby assured him. “My next stop will be a lawyer’s office unless I can make you see reason.”
He looked taken aback. “I’ll have to take this proposal of yours to the board,” he said eventually.
“Of course. They meet tomorrow?”
“At ten o’clock,” he told her.
“Then you should have an answer by noon?”
He nodded. “I’ll meet you at the yacht club at twelve-fifteen and fill you in over lunch.”
Abby hesitated. She could stay, had planned to stay, in fact, but with Trace involved it was too complicated. “Jess will be there, but I can’t be. I have to get back to New York tonight.”
His gaze clashed with hers. “You’ll be there if you expect this to be approved.”
“Why? This is Jess’s business, not mine.”
“You’ll be there because I intend to recommend that the board approve this on one condition only.”
Jess sat up a little straighter. “What condition?” she asked suspiciously.
Trace looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was even in the room. “That your sister take over as manager of the project.”
“No!” Abby and Jess said at once.
“It’s my inn,” Jess protested. “You have no right to dictate who manages it.”
“I do when this bank’s money is involved and you have a history of failing to make your payments,” he said, his gaze unrelenting. “Abby stays or it’s a deal-breaker.”
“But the plan,” Abby began.
“Isn’t worth the paper it’s written on unless you remain involved,” he said. “There’s no assurance it won’t be fritter
ed away on who knows what before the next payment’s due.”
“Come on, Trace, be reasonable,” Abby pleaded. “I need to get back to New York. I have a job. Jess knows what has to be done. I trust her.”
“You’re her sister. I’m her banker,” he said. “Unless you agree to my terms, we’ll proceed with the foreclosure.”
He looked from Abby to Jess, then back again. “Well, what’s it going to be? Will I see you tomorrow?”
Abby bit back the sharp retort on the tip of her tongue and nodded slowly, afraid of what she might say if she spoke. She held her breath, praying that Jess would be as diplomatic. When she glanced at her sister, she discovered Jess looked furious, but at least she remained silent.
For the moment, he had them both over a barrel and they all knew it. Once the board went along with this insane plan of his, though, Abby was convinced he’d be satisfied with the victory. After that, she could make him see reason. She was sure of it.
Then again, she’d learned a long time ago that a man whose pride had been damaged could turn into a fierce and stubborn adversary. For now, anyway, Trace Riley held all the cards, so she and Jess were going to have to play the game his way…at least until she could come up with a new set of rules, and then make him believe that he’d come up with them all on his own.
Outside the bank, Jess stood on the sidewalk, trembling. She whirled on her sister.
“What the hell just happened in there? I thought you were on my side.”
“Of course I’m on your side,” Abby said, looking genuinely bewildered by Jess’s attack. “This was all about keeping you from losing the inn.”
“I might as well have lost it,” Jess snapped. “He’s put you in charge. Way to go, sis!”
Abby frowned. “Jess, calm down. Let’s go to Sally’s for a cup of coffee and talk about this. We need to plan our strategy.”
“Strategy for what? Getting your name on the deed?”
“Jess!”
There was a flash of hurt in Abby’s eyes, but Jess didn’t feel like relenting. She was spitting mad and she needed someone to take it out on. Her sister was the most obvious choice, since Jess couldn’t go back inside the bank and start pummeling Trace. Even in her fury, she knew that would be counterproductive.
“I should have let Mick handle it,” she said. “He’d have made a couple of calls and the bank would have backed down. I might have had to listen to his I-told-you-so’s from here to eternity, but that would have been better than being stabbed in the back by you.”
Temper flared in Abby’s eyes, and Jess knew at once she’d gone too far.
“That’s it,” Abby said, her tone icy. “I came down here because you asked me to. I didn’t create this mess, but I found a way out of it. I convinced Trace to go along with it, so you could keep the inn.” Her scowl deepened. “And now you want to blame me because Trace put a condition on his terms for not foreclosing? Did you hear me ask for this? Didn’t you hear me tell him no? Do you honestly think I want to be tied to Chesapeake Shores for who knows how long, when my life is in New York?” She shook her head. “It really is true—no good deed goes unpunished.”
With that, she turned and walked away. Guilt flooded through Jess. Abby was right. She hadn’t asked for this outcome. And maybe, just maybe, if Jess hadn’t kept the fact that she was going to be dealing with Trace from her, Abby would have expected something like this and could have come up with a different strategy. As it was, she’d been blindsided, exactly as she’d warned Jess she didn’t want to be. And Trace had clearly gone back on his promise not to let his personal feelings interfere with the bank’s decision. No way had this been about anything except getting even, forcing Abby to remain in contact with him, just so he could…What? Humiliate her? Date her? She hadn’t figured that part out yet.
Jess drew in a deep breath, then ran after her sister. “Abby, wait!”
Abby didn’t even slow down. In fact, she was in such a fit of temper that she’d just stormed right past her rental car. Jess finally caught up with her in the next block.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault. I know that. He just made me so furious.”
“Join the club,” Abby said dryly. “Why didn’t you tell me Trace was working at the bank and that he was involved in this? You knew, didn’t you?”
“Not when I called you,” Jess swore to her. “He hasn’t lived here in years. Right before you got here, he came by the inn to look things over. That’s the first I knew about him being back in town, much less working at the bank. I was afraid if you knew, you’d bail on me.”
Abby lifted a brow. “Don’t you know me better than that?”
“I had no idea how deep the bad blood ran between the two of you. You never said why you broke up with him. Everyone in town knew you broke his heart. What no one seemed to know was why, or if maybe he’d broken yours, too. You never wanted to talk about it. Remember, I asked about a million times until you told me if I mentioned him one more time you were going to stop calling home?”
“You really were a pest,” Abby said, but her lips quirked at the reminder. “Okay, I suppose I understand why you didn’t want to tell me I’d be dealing with a man I’d dumped.”
“Let’s not forget that I did try to tell you,” Jess reminded her. “Dad arrived home, remember?”
Abby nodded. “I remember.”
Jess extended an olive branch. “Want to go have that coffee, after all? I’ll treat.”
“With what?” Abby retorted. “Every penny you possess has to go into the inn. I’ll treat.”
Jess grinned. “Fine by me, but just so you know I’m ordering two eggs, bacon and waffles, too. My stomach was too queasy for me to eat breakfast before the meeting. Now the whole infuriating discussion has left me famished. How about you?”
“If Sally served liquor, I’d have a double shot of something, but since she doesn’t, waffles sound good,” Abby replied.
They were silent until they got to the café in the next block. When Abby reached out to open the door, Jess put her hand on top of her sister’s, then waited until Abby met her gaze. “I really am sorry for what I said.”
Abby sighed. “I know.”
Jess studied her sister, then grinned. “Bet I know something you don’t know.”
“What’s that?”
“Trace Riley still has the hots for you.”
“You’re crazy.”
Jess shook her head. “Know something else? I’m almost a hundred percent certain it works both ways.”
Abby drew herself up until her back was ramrod-straight, her expression regal and dismissive. “You could not be more wrong.”
Jess wasn’t impressed by her sister’s performance. “We’ll see.”
In fact, watching the two of them trying to deny what was obvious to any observer, might be just about the only amusing part of this entire messed-up situation.
Abby was in no mood for the interrogation that awaited her at home. Gram and Mick were going to insist on hearing every detail about the meeting, and she wasn’t sure she had the stomach for filling them in. Of course, it had occurred to her more than once that one sure way of extricating herself from the situation would be to let her father step in. Even Jess had mentioned that possibility, though she’d looked thoroughly defeated when she’d said it. Abby had known right then that she couldn’t do it.
When she got to the house, she found Mick on the porch looking more frazzled than she could ever recall seein
g him. There were unidentifiable stains on his shirt, his complexion was pale and he was leaning over the railing drawing in deep breaths.
“Dad?” she asked, alarmed. “Are you okay?”
Color flooded his cheeks.
“Dad, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“With me? Nothing. It’s the girls. Both of them started complaining of headaches and looked glassy-eyed right after you left here this morning. I figured they didn’t get enough sleep last night, but your grandmother seems to think they both have the measles. She said you didn’t get them vaccinated.”
“That’s right—at the time the thinking was that the MMR vaccine might overwhelm an immature immune system, and there was even a theory it caused autism. I didn’t want to take the risk. How are they now?”
“They’re asleep, so I came out here for a couple of minutes.”
“You probably ought to shower and change your clothes,” she said, astounded by the obvious signs that he’d pitched in and helped. “I’ll go up and take over from Gram. I’m sure she could use a break, too. I wish you’d called me.”
“We agreed that the meeting at the bank was too important to be interrupted. Besides, we’ve both had plenty of experience with sick kids before. They weren’t in any danger,” he said defensively.
“I know that. Thanks for taking care of them.”
“Part of the job,” he said with a shrug. “You want to tell me how the meeting went?”
“I really want to check on the girls first.”
He nodded. “Of course you do. You need anything, holler.”
Inside, she was on her way upstairs when she met her grandmother coming down. “I’m so sorry you had to deal with all this. If I’d had any idea they’d even been exposed to measles, I wouldn’t have brought them down here to visit.”
“Pretty hard to keep children from getting sick when they’re around other kids. Tricky with two of them, especially. It’s a good thing your father was here. Did you see him?”
The Inn at Eagle Point Page 7
