“I came to share a voice mail with you.” Mac pulled out his phone and pressed the Play button beside the message from Colton. A second later, his brother’s voice filled the speakers, sounding surprisingly a lot like Jack and Luke. “Mac, this is Colton. I’m coming to town in a few days and stopping by to finally meet our dad. I know you don’t want me butting in your life, but it’s my right to know who my father is. Maybe we’ll get to meet. In fact, I hope we do. I’d really like to know my brothers, too.”
The message ended and Mac tucked the phone back in his pocket. He gave his father an expectant look.
Bobby cursed and pushed off from the bench. “He really wants to do this?”
“Sounds like it.”
Panic flooded Bobby’s eyes. Everything was about to hit the fan in a very big way. “Did he say when?”
“Dad, you heard the same message I did.” Mac let out a breath. “What does it matter? Whether Colton is arriving Tuesday or next Sunday, you still have to tell Mama, and then Luke and Jack.”
“Tell Mama what?”
Damn. Mac closed his eyes and cursed. He’d left the door to the shed open. He turned, hating himself for not thinking, and saw Della’s face, a little wary, a little curious. “Tell you—”
“Mac, don’t.” Bobby got to his feet and put a hand on his son’s arm. “Don’t.”
He wheeled back to his father. “You can’t keep pushing this under the rug, Dad, and you need to deal with this now. Not a week from now. Not thirty more years from now. Right this minute.”
“Tell me what?” Della asked again, her voice smaller now, her words quaking.
Silence thickened the air in the shed. Bobby stood there a long time looking at his shoes. Mac shifted his weight, wishing he hadn’t come here now, not when his mother was home. The last thing he wanted to see was his mother’s heart broken.
“Aw, hell, Della.” Bobby sighed. “I have to tell you something. Something I should have told you years ago.”
“Tell me what?” The third time the words were just barely a whisper.
“Remember that trouble we went through a couple years after we got married?” Bobby said to his wife.
“Yes.” Her gaze darted from her husband to her son. “It was a long time ago.”
“Thirty-three years, to be exact.”
“We’d been married such a short time,” she said. “We were so young and foolish, and Lord knew we should have been smarter and waited because neither one of us was much ready to be married.”
“No, we weren’t. And some of us didn’t act like we were married, either. And it turns out there were...repercussions to the stupid choices I made.”
Mac watched his mother take in those words, turn them over in her mind. He could see her processing it, hoping it meant something other than what she thought, then as the realization hit her, he saw the hurt and anguish fill her face.
“What are you talking about, Robert?”
“I...I should get out of here,” Mac said. No way could he stand here for one more minute and watch his mother’s world get destroyed.
“No, you stay,” Della said, her voice firm now. “Because apparently everyone knows something I don’t know.”
Bobby toed at a pile of sawdust on the floor. He didn’t say anything.
“Robert? Tell me.”
He raised his gaze to his wife’s, and in his father’s eyes, Mac saw genuine regret. “You knew about Katherine.”
The name was like a verbal slap, and Della’s eyes welled. But she held her ground, chin up and gave a short nod. “Yes, yes, I did.”
Bobby turned to his son, apology written all over his features. “I told your mother years ago that I...I stepped out on her. I was young and stupid when we got married, and as much as I thought I wanted to settle down, the actual settling-down part scared the hell out of me. So I kept on acting like I was a single man. I was working in Atlanta at the time, running parts for one of those auto-supply chains, and I met this woman named Katherine.”
Mac’s mother stood like a rock, her face as unreadable as granite. “We went through an awful time after I found out about that,” she said. “I left your father. Moved back in with my parents for six months.”
“While I got my head screwed on straight.” Bobby looked at his wife again. “And realized I had already married the best woman in the world.”
The sweet words didn’t soften Della’s features. Her lips thinned and she met her husband’s gaze head-on. “So what don’t I know?”
More silence. In the world outside the converted shed, a dog barked, someone started a lawnmower. Life went on. Mac waited. Della waited. Bobby ran a hand through his hair, then finally realized the words had to be said and he started to speak.
“Katherine... She had a son.” Bobby cleared his throat. “My son.”
In that moment Mac felt just as bad for his father as he did for his mother. He knew his parents loved each other—that he’d never doubted—but he could see the fear and guilt in the hunch of Bobby’s shoulders, the tremble in his voice. Mac’s mother just stayed where she was, swaying a little.
“A...a son?” The words squeaked out of her.
Bobby nodded, his eyes downcast. “His name is Colton. And he wants to meet me, meet the boys.”
Della’s lips thinned again. She didn’t say anything for a long, long time. Mac wished he had left before this. That he didn’t have to watch pain flicker across his mother’s face, or hear the regret and guilt in his father’s breaths.
Della turned to Mac. “And you knew about this?”
“I just found out a few days ago. Colton somehow found his way to Uncle Tank,” Mac said, because he wasn’t about to add more to the story with telling his mother that her brother-in-law had known for years, “and Tank called me. I didn’t know what to do, so I talked to Dad and...” Mac put out his hands and didn’t finish the sentence.
“I see.” Those two words chilled the room. Della looked from her husband to her son, then back to her husband. “It is best that you meet your son, Robert. He deserves that.”
“And—” Bobby drew in a breath, let it out in one long shaky exhale “—where will you be when all this happens?”
Della’s eyes welled, and her hands trembled at her sides. Instead of answering him, she turned on her heel and walked out of the shed.
* * *
The next day, Savannah sat at her father’s desk and went through the motions. She’d tried to fill his shoes—had for months now—but they never felt quite right. She looked at the list of recommended changes and cuts that Mac had left her, and decided the only way to get the hang of this job was to do it. And keep on doing it, day after day, like she had been. But this time with more commitment to the job. No more running out to repair something on the beach house. No more distractions. Just putting her nose to the proverbial grindstone.
Maybe then if she spent enough time in the offices and on the plant floor, being the CEO at Hillstrand Solar would become second nature. It had to—because her only other choice was to sell and watch the company be parceled out like cake at a wedding.
She headed down to the plant floor, found Betty at her usual station and pulled her aside. “Hi, Betty. Do you have a second?”
“Sure, sure. Oh, wait. Let me show you the cutest picture of my grandson. He was blowing bubbles on the back deck and it was just the sweetest thing ever.” Betty pulled out her phone and started scrolling through the photo app.
Every second you spend talking to them is a second they don’t spend earning money for the company.
Savannah glanced down at the plan in her hands. A plan that would surely fail if the CEO failed to implement all its strategies, too. Yet another piece of advice Mac had given her—that the road to success started at the top, which meant she needed to be
a better role model and act like a boss, not a friend. “Actually, Betty, let’s save that for break time. I need to talk to you about relocating a few things in the shipping department. If we bring the packing table closer to the box storage and set up a better-designed mailing station, we should be able to get packages out the door faster. I also want to set up a pallet right beside shipping so as soon as an order is packaged, it can be loaded with the others and be ready to be brought to the trucks.”
Surprise lit Betty’s eyes. “Sure, sure. I can get Jeremy to help me move that table and set up the pallet.”
“Thank you. And please do it today. We are trying to make every step of the operation leaner and faster.”
Betty gave Savannah a long, assessing glance. Savannah expected some resistance, a little anger at the change in tone, but instead a slow smile curved across Betty’s face. “Your daddy would be proud, Savannah.”
The words caught Savannah off guard. “He would? Why?”
“You’re acting like a boss. I think that’s awesome.”
“Thank you.” The unexpected praise warmed Savannah and for a moment, she wished her father were here to see the company beginning to take shape again.
“By the way,” Betty went on. “That Mac Barlow that you brought in as a consultant or whatever, he’s doing a great job, too. All of us were talking, and he’s a pretty sharp tool in your toolbox. He’s a little hard to get to know at first, but once he loosens up, he’s downright pleasant. And easy on the eyes.” Betty grinned, then gave Savannah a little salute. “Right. Back to work. I’ll get right on moving that table, Miss Hillstrand.”
As Betty walked away to accomplish the tasks Savannah had given her, a small measure of hope filled Savannah. Maybe she could do this, after all—turn the company around and lead it the way it needed to be led. It was only one task, but it was a big step in the right direction.
The door to the plant opened. Savannah turned and saw Mac lit from behind by the midday sun. It outlined his tall, lean figure, made the jeans and boots look even more dangerous. His dark hair was a little mussed from the ride, and she ached to run her fingers through the wavy locks.
Damn. Why did he have to look so good? And why did her heart still skip a beat at the sight of him? He was all wrong for her—even if her body disagreed.
Instead of heading toward him, she took the coward’s way out, spinning on her heel and ducking into the staircase. With any luck, he hadn’t seen her.
Before she reached the second floor, she heard a heavier tread coming up the staircase behind her. Mac. Damn. He had seen her.
He took the stairs two at a time and caught up to her a few seconds later. “Hey, you have a second?”
She turned and stopped on the staircase, one hand on the cold metal railing, her back against the concrete block wall. A part of her wanted to say no, she had no time for the man who had broken her heart the day before, but the other part, the masochistic part, wanted to see what he had to say. If he was going to say, I’m sorry, I was an idiot, let’s try this again. “Sure.”
“I, uh, need to talk to you about the ordering process for the brackets. I think I found a supplier who is much cheaper, but requires more lead time for production. What’s your drop-dead turnaround on something like that?”
Work. That was all he wanted to talk about. Why was she surprised? Everything she’d read or heard about Mac Barlow had said he worked nonstop and had almost zero personal life. Those brief snippets of time working at the beach house and then again in the bedroom must have been a blip, an anomaly. Her heart fractured a little more.
“You know, this really isn’t a good time,” Savannah said. At least she’d said it without dissolving into a crying mess. “I’m just heading out for lunch.”
“Great. I’ll go with you and we can—”
“No, Mac, we can’t. You may be able to easily divide work and personal, but—big surprise—it turns out I can’t. So, let’s just work separately today. I need...time and space.” She turned and headed up the next flight, then pressed on the door to the fourth floor. She didn’t need anything to eat or drink, she just wanted to get away from him and took the closest exit toward that.
Instead of reading her mind, Mac followed her into the break room. It was the middle of the workday, so the room was empty, dim, quiet. Leaving the two of them alone.
“Listen, Savannah, I know I didn’t end things in the best way yesterday.”
She spun around. “Didn’t end them in the best way? That’s an understatement.”
“Business is separate from personal to me,” he said. “And, yes, maybe that wasn’t the best time to bring up buying the company, so I apologize for that.”
“Your mind is always on work, Mac. I’m surprised you didn’t try to apply lean manufacturing to our lovemaking. Maybe work on your laptop while we were together.” The sarcasm whipped off her tongue at a record pace. But she didn’t care. She just wanted him to back away, leave her alone. Quit breaking her heart.
“You really think I’m that bad?”
She took two steps closer to him. “I think you’re a whiz at business. That all your success is right within those spreadsheets and reports and plans you love so much. But I think when it comes to personal relationships, you’ve struck out, and so instead of actually forming a relationship, you retreat to work. Your safety zone.”
He shook his head. “That’s not true.”
“Oh, yeah? Then tell me, how long did anything personal last between us? Twenty minutes? Thirty?”
“This is different, Savannah. We are working at saving this business together, and that is not personal. Not at all.”
She shook her head and cursed the tears that sprang to her eyes. “That man over there—” she pointed to the picture of her father, the one that seemed to stare back at her with hope and trust that she wouldn’t screw this up “—believed that business was personal. He had hundreds of friends. Dozens of people who loved him. Who mourn his passing. And even if I sell Hillstrand Solar to you and you tear down the building and wipe away any trace that it ever existed, people will still mourn. Because they loved him, not a business.”
Mac took in her words, spent a second digesting them. “Then why are you trying so hard to save this place?”
“Because this business was a part of him and it’s—” she sucked in a shaky breath “—it’s the only way I have to hold on to him. To keep the promise I made to him before he died.”
“I understand promises,” Mac said quietly.
“Do you? Do you really? Because it seems to me all you understand is dollars and cents.”
“Before you start condemning me,” Mac said, taking a step closer, invading her space, “ask yourself this. Are you running this place because you want to, because it’s the right thing to do, or because you’re too afraid to let it go and strike out on your own?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Those houses. I drove by a couple of the ones you restored. They were absolutely beautiful. You did an incredible job, and it showed in every shingle, every windowpane. Because you were passionate about that—because that was personal to you.”
“What do you care?” Why was he driving by the houses? Giving her such a hard time? He wasn’t part of her life or her future. He’d made that clear. “None of this is personal to you, Mac. None of it. And is that what you want to leave behind? A bunch of bottom lines and lean manufacturing reports? Or do you want to make a difference in people’s lives, really get to know them? Make it personal?”
He shook his head. “That isn’t part of business.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “It’s part of everything. Or it is for me.”
Then she walked out of the room before the tears spilled over and onto her cheeks, and let him know how very personal all this had become in a
few short days. How she had fallen for him in a big, big way. It was those silly baby birds and the moment on the roof and that kiss—all those moments that had stacked up in her mind and in her heart and told her she was dangerously close to the edge of falling in love with the man who ultimately wanted to take away her father’s dream.
Instead of going back to her office, Savannah got in her car and headed for her mother’s house. It was a sunny day, and as she turned the corner to the small house where she’d grown up, she expected to see the same sight she had seen for the past few months—the flowers on the walk wilting in the sun, the house buttoned up and shades drawn, her mother somewhere inside that darkness.
Instead, she saw Grace Lee on her hands and knees, her floppy straw gardening hat shading her face, while she dug in the earth of the front yard and planted annuals in the beds. Her mother turned at the sound of the car in the drive, then got to her feet to welcome her daughter. “Savannah! What a lovely surprise.”
She drew her mother into a tight hug. It had been a couple weeks since she’d been here, because she’d been so caught up in work. But now she noticed her mother’s eyes were brighter, her skin flushed with color. “You look good, Mom. I’m glad you’re outside today, working in the yard.”
“I thought it was about time,” Grace Lee said softly. “Don’t you?”
Savannah hugged her mother again, and this time, let the tears in her eyes spill over. All those months her mother had withdrawn from life, mourning the husband who had been her best friend. For months, it had been as though Savannah lost two parents. No matter what Savannah said or did, Grace Lee had stayed in her darkened house. That had been a big reason why Savannah had started working on the beach house, thinking if that was fixed, maybe she could get her mother interested in going back there. But now her mother had pulled herself out of that pit. It warmed Savannah’s heart. “Yes, yes, I do.”
Grace Lee drew back and swiped away the dampness on Savannah’s cheeks. “Oh, honey. Don’t cry. Come on inside. Let’s have some cookies and milk.”
Savannah rolled her eyes. “Mom, I’m not five anymore.”
Harlequin Special Edition October 2015, Box Set 1 of 2 Page 52
