Because they mattered to Willie Jay. Mattered more than anything else in his life. And maybe, just maybe, if she could keep that legacy alive, she could feel as though she’d mattered to her father, too.
“I’ll find a way to make this all work out, Dad,” she whispered. “I promise.”
His smile seemed to waver, but maybe that was just the tears in her eyes. She swiped them away, drew in a deep breath, then pulled a soda out of the fridge and headed back to the fifth floor.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the glass on the stairwell door. Good Lord, she looked the way she felt. Trying hard to be a sharp, sophisticated executive and failing miserably. A nice, neat suit, topped by a head of hair that looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed. At some point today, her long hair had gotten in her face while she worked, and she’d tied it back in a ponytail without a second thought. Just as she had a hundred thousand times on a job site. But here, with Mac Barlow, she’d wanted to be taken seriously, to be seen as a determined and capable CEO.
Nothing about that messy ponytail screamed force to be reckoned with. No wonder Mac kept saying she was in over her head. That was exactly the look she was sporting this afternoon.
She tugged out the ponytail and ran a hand through her long blond curls. She tugged the wisps of her bangs over her forehead, then did a quick glance to make sure the rest of her was shipshape. She wasn’t flirting with the guy, she reminded herself. Even if he did look like a cross between a bad boy and a millionaire. It would help her make her case. That was all.
On the short flight up to the top floor, she’d decided two things—she wasn’t going to sell to Mac Barlow no matter what he offered her. But before she told him that, she was going to see if she could find a way to get ideas from him as to what she could do. Somehow turn the conversation into one that gave her much-needed advice. Maybe then, if she could implement his thoughts, she could turn the company around herself. And send Mac on his way.
She needed a mentor, and she had one right here. The trick was getting him to give her concrete advice without realizing he was doing it.
She pasted a smile on her face, then strode across the office. Her steps faltered when she saw Mac sitting in the chair her father had always occupied, his attention riveted on the computer screen before him. Her father’s computer, the one she had been sitting at just moments before because it made her feel close to her dad, who she still missed as though she’d lost a limb. She wanted to yank Mac Barlow out of the chair. Instead, she forced that smile to stay in place and hoped it didn’t look as fake as it felt.
Okay, play nice. Try to engage him in a conversation that gives you what you need.
“We got off on the wrong foot, Mr. Barlow,” she said as she approached the desk. She held the soda in her hand toward him. “And I wanted to give you a...peace offering.”
He flicked a glance at the bottle. “I don’t drink soda.”
“Oh.” She took the bottle back, unscrewed the top and screwed it back on again. So much for that peace offering. “I’d like to talk to you about the company a little more.”
He kept clicking through the bookkeeping program, hardly giving her the time of day. “Miss Hillstrand, if this is another attempt to talk me out of—”
“Of course not,” she lied. Best to find a way to get him chatting about what he did, how he had become so successful, or at the very least, how he envisioned making Hillstrand Solar a good investment for his enterprise. Surely, running one business was like running another, and from that conversation, perhaps she could extract a few secrets to success, if there was such a thing. Give her a bathroom to restore or a kitchen that needed to be gutted and reconfigured, and Savannah was in her element. But here, at her father’s desk, with dozens of people looking to her for leadership and answers—she might as well have been running blind into a wall. Well, it was time for her to find her focus. “I merely thought you’d want an insider’s perspective. I’ve worked here practically since I could walk, and I’d love to give you some feedback. To help you make...a better decision.”
“And what decision would that be?” He swiveled in the chair. “Are you trying to talk me out of the purchase again?”
“Certainly not.” She screwed and unscrewed the bottle cap again, then chided herself for showing her nerves. A strong CEO never wavered, never showed doubt. Maybe if she played the part, it would eventually suit her. “I just wanted to get an idea of what you planned to do with the company, how you thought you would get it back on its feet if you bought it. Because we both know you can’t just flip it if it’s struggling.”
Mac returned to the computer and moved on to the next screen, peering down the list of receivables. “I rarely share my plans with other people.”
“I’m not other people. I’m the owner. And this company is like—” damn the catch in her throat “—family to me. I want to make sure it is taken care of and that everyone will be okay. That the family, so to speak, will remain intact.”
It wasn’t the company that was family, Savannah realized as she said the words. She knew the people who worked at Hillstrand Solar, of course. It was that the company, every last chair and slip of paper, was a part of her father. Willie Jay and Savannah had been like two peas in a pod, her mother had always said. He’d been her protector, her mentor, her hero, and without him in her life, a yawning cavern had opened in Savannah’s heart. Along with the sense that she’d never quite made him proud, never quite shown him what she could do. Taking care of the company filled that cavern. A little.
Mac scanned the list of jobs in production, then returned his attention to the receivables, probably doing the math to see if their monthly sales were up to snuff. She waited.
Finally, he let out a breath and pushed back from the computer. “I understand that need to want to protect everyone’s jobs, but sometimes that isn’t feasible.”
“But many of these employees have been here as long as my father was here. They depend on their paychecks. They’re honest and trustworthy and hardworking—”
“I’m not interviewing them, so save the résumés.” He waved toward the computer screen. “I’m looking at the bottom line. I make all my decisions based on the numbers. And the numbers are clear. You can’t support the amount of overhead you have.”
The sinking feeling in Savannah’s gut told her that Mac was right. Her father had been a great leader, but he had also been a softy, reluctant to fire anyone. “There must be a way to bring in more revenue.”
“There is. More sales. But your sales staff is already stretched pretty thin, and your biggest accounts have gone to your competitors. It takes time to woo them back, time to build up the sales again, time to get that money rolling in.”
“It’s easier to keep the bees you have with a strong hive than to go out and capture more.” She gave him a sad smile. “Something my dad used to say.”
His gaze met hers. She swore she saw a softening in his eyes, a connection between them. “My parents are big on sayings like that. Must be a Southern thing.”
“You don’t hear those sayings much up in Boston?”
He scoffed. “Not at all. Sometimes I miss...” He shook his head and the moment of connection, if there had really been one at all, disappeared. “Anyway, your hive right now is...weakening. It’s not completely fallen apart, but it’s got some structural damage from the last few months.” He brought up the accounting program and started leading her through the reports she’d already pored over herself. Every percentage he gave her, every figure he pointed to, told her the same thing.
She drew up a chair and perched on the edge. The numbers on the screen blended together, a confusing jumble that she barely understood on her best day. There were so many working parts to a business this size. Too many, it seemed, for one person to control. At least this particular person.
But if she di
dn’t sit in her father’s chair, then who would? Certainly not Mac Barlow, who would sell it off in pieces, dismantling the last remaining bits of Willy Jay Hillstrand. She was the only one who loved her father enough to keep it moving forward, to keep the legacy going.
When Mac had finished reviewing the reports with her, and thus depressing Savannah even more, she pushed back and let out a sigh. “Then what would you do if you were me?”
A grin quirked up the side of Mac’s mouth. It was a nice grin, made his eyes light up, softened everything about him. He went from being the evil corporate raider to...a guy. Just a guy. Okay, just a very handsome guy.
Which was the last thing she needed in her life. She’d fallen for more than one Southern charmer, only to realize charm didn’t equal gentleman. Savannah had sworn off dating, at least for the foreseeable future.
“I see what you’re doing.” The grin widened. “Are you asking me to help you rebuild your company so that you can keep it running?”
“And out of your evil clutches.” She smiled. Maybe if she asked him nicely he’d help her. Be the mentor she needed. Okay, so maybe she was being way too Pollyanna here, but Savannah was desperate for some guidance. Might as well be honest. “Yes, I am doing exactly that.”
“And why would I help you?”
“Because there is more to life than tearing down companies, Mac Barlow.” She leaned toward him and caught his blue-eyed gaze. She wanted to believe the nice guy she had glimpsed really existed. That he could be persuaded to help instead of destroy. “How about building one up instead?”
“You are reading me wrong, Savannah. I am not in the business of building things. I make money, plain and simple. As quickly as possible. I don’t nurture struggling firms along,” he said. “I buy, I sell, I make a profit and I move on.”
Yet he hadn’t sold the three firms he’d bought in the past six months. Nor had he said he was going to. And then there was the one tiny company he’d bought several years ago and restarted, a company he still owned as far as she could tell. She’d done her research on him, too, and she’d found it interesting that Mac was shifting gears. Why, she wasn’t sure, and he clearly wasn’t about to explain. But the information opened a tiny window of trust and hope for Savannah. Maybe there was a chance—a teeny one—that given enough time, she could convince Mac that his relentless pursuit of Hillstrand Solar was a waste of time. “Wouldn’t you like to do a good deed for the day?”
He chuckled. “Do I look like the Boy Scout type to you?”
“Maybe the renegade Boy Scout.”
That made him laugh again. She liked it when he laughed. It seemed to ease everything about him, and make an already-attractive man ten times more attractive. Not that she was interested in him, of course. Just his brain.
Uh-huh.
Amusement lit his features. “And what is this good deed you want me to do?”
“Just offer me some business advice.”
“That undermines my intentions.”
She shrugged. “Call it corporate goodwill.”
He scoffed. “You haven’t been a CEO for very long, Miss Hillstrand. In business, there is no such thing. Everything is driven by—”
“Money, yes, I know. You said that already.” She took a sip of the soda. She may be too late for all this, and in the end forced, as her father used to say, to sink the ship in order to save the passengers. But she had to at least try, or she’d hate herself for letting the company fall apart. “You already own several other green companies. Maybe those could partner with mine and—”
“That...wouldn’t be a good idea. I’m not trying to build a green empire here, just do what I do best. Buy and sell.”
She worried her bottom lip. “Okay, then how about this? While you are here in town, you meet with me, talk about the business, give me advice I can implement, and I will give it one month. If at the end of the month the business is still sinking under my direction, I will sell it to you at a very fair price.”
He considered her, his face dark and unreadable. Mac should have been a poker player, because nothing in his eyes or set of his mouth gave away what he was thinking. A long moment passed while she stood there trying not to fidget with the soda bottle.
“Help you. This week.”
“Yup.”
“I am supposed to spend time with my family while I’m here in Stone Gap.”
So Mac Barlow was from Stone Gap. His corporate bios she’d found on the web had mentioned the state, but not town he hailed from. She hadn’t lived in Stone Gap very long—only the past couple of years—but never had she thought that corporate raider Mac Barlow could be related to the nice Barlows she had met, including Luke, who ran the local auto-repair shop. “I didn’t realize you were related to the Barlows who live here.”
“Let me guess. You thought there was no way my charming brothers could have anything in common with someone like me, a coldhearted bastard who is all about the bottom line.”
A mind reader, too. “Well...if the description fits.”
He laughed. “I assure you, we are related. And as much as I love my family, I’d rather limit my time with them. My family is perfectly great, but there are some...issues I’d rather not address right now and my brothers have a way of ferreting out anything I don’t want them to know.” A ghost of a smile whispered across Mac’s face.
For a moment, that smile made him look handsome, desirable. The kind of guy you’d sit down with at the end of a long day with a glass of wine and a view of the water. The kind of guy who would decorate the Christmas tree with you, then turn off all the lights in the house so you both could lie underneath it, bathed in the glow.
Good Lord. Now she was waxing romantic about the corporate raider who wanted to destroy her family’s pride and joy. She really needed to focus on something other than his quick smile. Because even a lion could smile—right before it devoured you whole.
She wanted to hate him. She really did. And a part of her sort of did. But the part that had been intrigued by that smile wondered if perhaps a beating heart lurked beneath the button-down shirt and leather jacket.
She perched on the edge of the desk. “You know, if you agree to my plan, people might start to call you nice and charming, too.”
He chuckled. “That’s your best reason for why I should help you? To change public perception?”
“That and earn a chunk of good karma points. Everyone needs those, even evil tycoons.” She grinned, softening her words.
His gaze locked on hers. “I’m not evil.”
She leaned in, closing the distance until she caught the scent of his cologne, something dark and mysterious like the man who wore it. “Then prove it.”
A long, hot moment passed between them, his stormy eyes unreadable. He got to his feet and put out his hand. “Okay, Miss Hillstrand, you have a deal.”
She took his hand. He had a warm, firm grip. It had been a long time since she had been touched by a man—clearly too long given the undeniable jolt of electricity she felt at the contact. “Great. We can start tomorrow morning, bright and early.”
“Why wait? Let’s grab something to eat and I’ll give you my CEO 101 talk.”
“Are you asking me on a date?” She said the words as a joke, but a part of her—a crazy part—hoped he’d say yes. That part was disappointed when he released her hand.
What was she thinking? Why would she want to date the man who wanted to dismantle her father’s dream? Okay, yes, Mac Barlow was handsome and had that smile—and it had been a long time since she’d been on a date—but still, he wanted her company, not her.
“Lesson number one—multitask as much as possible,” Mac said. “I wasn’t planning on leaving here and wasting time at a restaurant. Multitasking means eat at your desk, take meetings over lunch, skip breakfast to—”
/> “Skip breakfast? Now I know you’re insane.” She laughed. “If you want to get on my good side, bring me pancakes and bacon.”
“I’ll have to remember that.” He smiled again, and she wondered for one crazy second if he was remembering that because he was interested in her or because he was going to make his next offer at an IHOP. “So, do we have a deal? We start tonight. Order in some takeout, clear a space on one of these desks and see where it goes from there? With the company, of course.”
“Of course.” She paused a second. “Actually, if it’s okay with you, I’d love to meet anywhere but here. I’ve been in this office pretty much all weekend.” Outside her window the sun had begun its descent, dropping over the Stone Gap landscape like a blanket of gold. How long had it been since she’d been outside instead of chained to a desk all day? “It’d be great to get out and breathe some fresh air for a little while.”
“I don’t like to waste time, Savannah—”
Goodness, she liked the way her name rolled off his tongue. “Work can wait a bit. At least for a little while.” She reached for her purse and slung it over her shoulder. She had been here too many hours and had forgotten what was important. Maybe by being around the places her father loved, she’d find some of what had made him tick, what had made him such a great leader. She’d forgotten all that in these past few harried months, and in her gut Savannah knew that the key to turning things around started with getting back to the basics.
“Work never waits for me,” Mac said. “So I’d rather—”
“Listen, you’ve had a long day of travel already. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a quiet meal in a relaxing spot?” she said. “My father believed in enjoying life. Leaving at five, taking the weekends off and, most of all, working a little fun into your day. I’ve forgotten all that these past few months, and it’s time I did just a little of that. It’s called refilling the well.”
Harlequin Special Edition October 2015, Box Set 1 of 2 Page 41
