Straddling the Line. Sarah M. Anderson

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      If Josey turned left, she’d make her own tea in the morning and eat a knockoff brand of cereal for breakfast. She’d spend the next several days working on the school. Her back would try to kill her, her manicure would be shot to heck and she’d be face-to-face with the unavoidable fact that the school—the legacy her grandfather left her to complete—would not be ready for the grand opening and some members of the tribe would hold that against her. Things would be crazy. Messy. Unfinished.

      Just like things with Ben were unfinished. If she turned around, she’d be back at the bar in less than five minutes. She could find Ben, pick up where she’d left off—God help her, she had no idea a man could kiss like that—and then …

      No. She couldn’t go back. She’d done the correct thing, leaving the bar before the last set had ended. Correct, because Ben Bolton wasn’t arrogant, domineering and heartless like she’d first thought. Well, maybe he was all of those things, but underneath that, there was more to him—something lost, something lonely. Something that didn’t fit, no matter how hard he tried. That was the something Josey recognized.

      Ben Bolton was a dangerous man because he was someone she could care for.

      She couldn’t let herself get involved with him. It didn’t matter how good the kiss had been. The last time she’d followed her heart instead of her head, she’d gotten it trampled into small, unrecognizable bits. Plus, a lot of people on the rez didn’t look kindly upon interracial dating. She’d worked so hard for so long, trying to prove her bona fides to the tribe. No white man, not even Ben Bolton, was worth risking that kind of pain.

      A horn honked behind her, startling her out of her thoughts.

      Left or right?

      The horn blared, the driver’s impatience obvious.

      Josey turned left.

      Three

      Ben took a deep breath. He hated this quarterly meeting with his father. Actually, it was the quarterly report from the chief financial officer to the chief executive officer, but Ben could never shake the feeling that he was in sixth grade, marching to his doom to explain the two Cs he’d gotten. Despite the fact that Ben had graduated as the valedictorian, Dad had always held those two Cs against him. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if the old man threw them back in his face today.

      Ben was getting ahead of himself. Maybe this would go well.

      And pigs might sprout wings, he thought as he knocked. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could go back to running the business.

      “Dad?”

      “Come in.”

      Ben swung the door open and, just like he did every time he went into Dad’s office, he grimaced at the piles of paper that covered every available surface. Although it hadn’t been an official reason for moving to the new building, Ben had hoped that relocating would help Dad pare down the pit of paperwork.

      It hadn’t. Bruce Bolton was the kind of old school that believed “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was a battle cry in the war against technology. Bobby had gotten Dad on a computer and set up email, but the old man still insisted on printing out every single piece of electronic communication and then “filing” it according to a system that no one but he understood. Hell, the last time Ben had ordered a new printer, Dad had ranted about how that old dot-matrix printer that fed the green-and-white-striped paper on reels was the best piece of technology he’d ever owned. That printer had been a dinosaur twenty years ago—just like Dad.

      But facts were facts, and the facts were, Crazy Horse Choppers was still Bruce Bolton’s business. Sure, Billy made the bikes, Ben balanced the books, and Bobby … well, he did something. Bruce was still the sole owner, and he still insisted on approving every single expenditure. Hence the quarterly meeting, where Ben tried to beat some sense into Dad’s head and Dad’s head only got harder.

      “Quarterly report,” Ben said, trying to find a place on Dad’s desk where he could set the file. He’d given up on emailing the report a long time ago.

      “Still in the black?” That was all Dad cared about. His world was black and white—or, more specifically, black and red. He didn’t care about what it took to keep those numbers in the black, and he didn’t even care how much black there was. He only cared that the bottom-line number was black. It seemed to Ben that Dad set a pretty low bar for success.

      “Yes, still in the black. We shipped thirty-seven units, took in orders for forty-five bikes and have our delays down to twenty-eight days.” Of course, Ben had had to get several loans to bridge the gap between delivery and payment, but those facts bored Dad.

      This was no way to run a business in today’s world. If Ben could get Dad to sign off on some modern investment strategies—the same strategies Ben had used to build his own financial portfolio—then they’d have the capital to float their own loans. That was what Ben needed to move the company forward—capital to invest in newer technologies, to hire new workers, to build the company. Ben had a good head for numbers, and he had the well-balanced portfolio to prove it. He’d made millions by being careful.

      Not that any of that mattered to his father.

      Unfortunately, Dad would have none of it. Financial instruments weren’t things Dad could touch. They were not to be trusted. Ben understood those financial instruments. Therefore, Ben was not to be trusted.

      Still, it was part of the ritual to try. “Dad, we need to invest some of the—”

      “Damn it, Ben, you still think I’m going to let a bunch of corrupt bankers take my money on a rigged crapshoot?” He slammed his fist into the desk, sending papers flying in all directions. “Hell, no. That’s no respectable way to run a business. We do things the right way around here, or we don’t do them at all, so stop asking me!”

      “I know how to keep our money safe,” Ben protested, trying to keep his tone professional. “Look at how well my investments have done. Bobby and Billy let me manage their investments, too—and we’re all doing really well.” Which was sort of an understatement—Ben knew not to get sucked into the next big thing, and he avoided the panic that had sunk the economy a few years back.

      “We’re in the black. The business is doing fine.” Dad didn’t so much say it as growl it. “We don’t need any of that—” he waved his hands around “—money hocus pocus, or whatever you call it.”

      Ben refused to let his father’s derogatory attitude get to him today. “It’s called investing.” He bit back the smart-ass “Everyone’s doing it.” Smart-ass never worked on Bruce Bolton. “The business is fine only because Billy, Bobby and I floated the company money to pay for this building.”

      “Your money? Ha! You wouldn’t have any money if it weren’t for your brothers. They do things. What do you do? Add, subtract. Mess around with numbers. I could get a fifth-grader to do your job. Your money …” Dad’s voice trailed off in a chuckle. “My money is real. I can go to a bank and get cold, hard cash. Where is your money, huh? You can’t even say it’s on paper—it’s all zeros and ones floating out there.” He waved his had toward his computer.

      Ben sat there, his face burning. He was so tired of this fight. No matter what he did—including paying for this fancy building—he couldn’t get the old man to look СКАЧАТЬ