Gentle Persuasion. Cerella Sechrist

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      When he finally looked back up from his task, he saw Masters frowning at him critically. He wondered if the man disapproved of his tenacity in planting more trees when his farm was on the verge of bankruptcy.

      “I thought we had agreed to six months on the loan,” Dane finally said as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.

      “Well, as I’ve said, it’s been a difficult year.”

      Dane sighed and leaned his weight wearily against the support of his shovel. “You know I was waiting until I harvest to pay you back the first installment.”

      “I hate to put you in a tough place, Dane. I know you’ve been trying your best with this plantation. Perhaps your reach has exceeded your grasp, hmm? Coffee trees aren’t the same as corporate marketing. I have our contract in writing. There is a clause that states I can call in the loan at any time. My lawyer has all the necessary paperwork.”

      Dane held Masters’s gaze until the other man looked away. He then straightened, took his shovel and began driving his spade into the earth once more, directing all his anger into the movement. He knew the clause Masters had mentioned. He hadn’t noticed it until the deal was already done. At the time, he’d been distracted—another recruiter had shown up on his doorstep, this one more obnoxious than most. Coupled with his growing concerns over the farm’s finances, he had been sloppy in his final review of the loan contract with Masters. The clause had not appeared until the last revision of the document, and he’d overlooked it in his haste to finalize the deal. When he had found the clause later, he’d hoped it was merely a formality. Now, he knew better. And he was angry at both himself for his carelessness and Masters for his underhanded trickery.

      “Maybe we can come to some other sort of arrangement?” Masters suggested.

      “I’m sure you already have something in mind,” Dane remarked as he continued forcing his shovel into the soil, sweat beading on his brow.

      “Why not a partnership? I’ll provide the funds to carry you until the harvest, and in turn, you use your reputation and business contacts on the mainland to advance our joined operations.”

      Dane stopped digging but gripped the shovel handle tightly. “What was that?” He turned slowly, every line of his body tense at Masters’s suggestion. “We could do what?”

      Masters didn’t even have the grace to look abashed. If anything, his smirk seemed even more pronounced than when he had first arrived and sought Dane out, forcing him to forego his afternoon tour with Ophelia and leaving his guest in Leilani’s hands. He was sure Ms. Reid had been anything but happy about the handoff. But now, his pesky recruiter lingered in the corner of his mind. The $10,000 incentive would go a long way in repaying his loan to Masters, even if the other debts still piled up in the interim.

      “Come now, Dane. We both know this is a tremendous undertaking for you, especially given your background.”

      “I was raised on a farm,” Dane pointed out. “In the Midwest. I’m not a stranger to the manual labor or the long hours.”

      “Perhaps during your boyhood...” Masters trailed off. “But now? So many years later?” He clicked his tongue. “You’re in over your head, man. If you’re half the genius they claim, surely you can already see that.”

      Dane only knew one thing—success was a lot of hard work and a healthy helping of luck. The hard work wasn’t the problem—he just hadn’t stumbled into the luck bit yet.

      “Why not let me help you out? By merging your name with mine, we could go far, Montgomery. Especially given your reputation in the corporate world—why not use that to our advantage?”

      In that moment, Dane wanted very much to command Masters to leave his property, but he knew that such a reaction would gain him nothing but the satisfaction of Masters’s indignation. It seemed everyone wanted a piece of his past and reputation, wishing to use his previous successes to their own benefit. He kept silent following Masters’s suggestion, considering the best response to buy him more time without surrendering to the other man’s demands. He was just thinking how desperately he needed some sort of miracle when he raised his head and saw Ophelia Reid striding toward them.

      * * *

      THOUGH OPHELIA HAD found Leilani to be an excellent guide, Dane’s absence had chafed more and more as they’d continued her tour of the plantation. Granted, the rows of coffee trees laden with green orbs waiting to ripen into red coffee cherries had proved an impressive sight, but Ophelia had continued to calculate the minutes as lost opportunities to speak with Dane personally. Still, she’d occasionally found herself absorbed by Leilani’s descriptions of wet processing, which resulted in a Kona coffee’s clean, bright acidity, and the technique of sun drying the beans on decks called hoshidanas. She’d found herself asking questions and then clarifying each step of coffee cultivation, harvesting, processing, roasting, packaging and finally, distribution.

      And despite her irritation over Dane’s disappearing act, she had to admit his small operation was pretty impressive. She and Leilani had emerged from the plantation’s roasting room and begun walking back through the orchards as Leilani summarized the seasons on the plantation and the cycle of life on a coffee farm. But Ophelia had begun tuning out the words as she’d once more wondered exactly where Dane had hidden himself away.

      Had that been his intention, to simply hide from her throughout the remainder of her stay? Clearly, his word meant nothing if he planned to avoid her, hoping she would go away. What about the $10,000 incentive? And if he thought, for even one second, that she would lack determination then he had certainly underestimated her!

      The longer she’d thought about it, the higher her anger had risen so that by the time she and Leilani had rounded the corner of a row of coffee tree saplings, she had worked herself into an internal lather of righteous indignation.

      And when she’d seen Dane Montgomery, standing at ease with a shovel in his hand, she’d muttered a triumphant, “Aha!” under her breath and barreled toward him.

      She sensed Leilani’s gasp and the girl’s struggle to keep up with her, but she kept up a clipped pace down the row of trees until she came abreast of her quarry.

      “We had a deal.”

      “Ms. Reid—”

      “Ophelia,” she snapped. “And you broke our bargain.”

      Dane cleared his throat. “I apologize if you misunderstood—”

      “Misunderstood?” She placed one hand on her hip. “Misunderstood? I hardly think I’m the one in need of clarification here.”

      She noticed Dane’s jaw tighten. He seemed to have something to say, but she sensed he was desperately trying to hold his tongue. Then she became aware of the man beside Dane—a deeply tanned, silver-bearded gentleman who put Ophelia in mind of Long John Silver from the book Treasure Island.

      “I don’t believe we’ve met,” the would-be pirate announced. “Kenneth Masters.” He extended a hand. “Dane’s neighbor.”

      Ophelia stuck her hand into his automatically. “Ophelia Reid, executive recruiter. From New York.”

      “Ahhhh.” Masters’s face lit up with what seemed to be approval. “So you’ve СКАЧАТЬ