The Takeover Bid. Leigh Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ doubted the Baritsa man would put it quite that clearly, of course. But it was the only thing she could think of which accounted for everything—including his unwillingness to go after Jackson now. It wasn’t that sort of agreement…

      “Do you have a name?” she asked abruptly.

      “Oh, you can just keep calling me Bub. Bub and Mel’s Used Cars—it has a certain ring to it.”

      Maybe he was delusional, Melanie thought wildly, and none of it had happened at all. “I don’t suppose you have proof of this transaction.”

      His eyebrows lifted inquisitively, and Melanie couldn’t help noticing that they had a natural aristocratic arch that was very unlike the practiced curve of Jackson’s brows. “After watching your former partner ooze out of here on a wave of guilt that would fill a swimming pool, you still think you need proof that his share of the business changed hands last night?”

      She couldn’t argue with his point. How could she have forgotten for an instant the pathetic way that Jackson had crept out of the shop, refusing even to look at her?

      No, there was no question the two men had agreed to some kind of a deal. The question was what she was going to be able to do about it.

      Play along, she told herself. Don’t agree to anything. Just get him out of here and then you can call a lawyer and find out where you stand.

      He pushed himself up from his chair and started to look around the office. “You have a very interesting philosophy of decorating, Ms. Stafford. Why take down expired calendars when you can just hang this year’s at the end of the row? Of course, eventually you’ll run out of wall space. May I call you Mel, now that we’re partners?”

      “No,” she said, a little more sharply than she intended. “I mean, I prefer to use my full name. It’s Melanie.”

      “Interesting.”

      She was puzzled. “My name? I’m glad you think so, but—”

      “I mean the idea that Jackson would ignore your wishes about your name as well as the business. At least I assume you don’t approve of him selling his half.”

      “Perceptive, aren’t you?”

      “The question is why. I can think of several possibilities.”

      The phone rang. She put a hand on it and looked up at him. “Hold it right there till I finish with this call. I don’t want to miss a word of your logic.”

      The caller was a regular customer, looking for a part for a car he was restoring. She put the phone down and reached for the intercom. “Robbie, when Fred has time, ask him to pull the driver’s side door off the blue Mustang that’s sitting out by the back fence. Bill Myers wants to pick it up this afternoon.”

      Robbie’s voice came back, tinny and distant. “Sure thing.”

      She released the intercom button. “Now—you were saying?”

      “Do you know every piece you have in inventory by heart?”

      “Of course not. There’s a whole corner of the junk-yard we’ve hardly gotten into yet. But don’t let me distract you from figuring out why I don’t want Jackson to sell.”

      He held up a hand and began to tick off points on his fingertips. “You like having him around and wanted him to keep his share so you’d see him regularly.”

      “Don’t make me laugh.”

      “Really? Then if you weren’t gung-ho about having Jackson as a partner, what’s so bad about him selling out?”

      Melanie opened her mouth and closed it again. He had something there, she realized. Jackson had been a liability as a partner, a constant drag on the business. His unwillingness to reinvest any of his share of the profits had slowed the growth of Classical Cars, preventing Melanie from taking advantage of opportunities on more occasions than she could count. But since she couldn’t do anything about Jackson’s attitude, she’d concentrated on the things that she could control.

      Now that he was gone, however…things were certainly going to be different.

      “Another possibility,” he went on, “is that you wanted to buy his half yourself.”

      “Not especially.”

      “But the two of you must have talked about it, because you had a figure in mind.”

      “Lucky you,” Melanie said dryly, “to get there first and beat me out.”

      “I could be persuaded to sell, you know.”

      “I just bet you could—Bub.”

      “Wyatt Reynolds,” he said, almost absently. “In fact, I’d like to sell.”

      “No fooling. And I’m sure all you want out of the deal is a teeny-weeny little bit more than you paid.”

      “I am a businessman, Melanie.”

      “If you say so—though if you regularly go around buying things sight unseen, I have my doubts about your judgment. Of course,” she conceded, “even a few thousand would be a tidy little profit, considering you’ve owned it for just about twelve hours. I wonder what the interest rate would add up to on that investment.”

      “Would you care to talk about a price?”

      Melanie looked him over thoughtfully. “Only if you’d be willing to buy my half at the price you’re asking for yours.”

      “No, thanks.”

      “That’s what I thought.” Something was nagging at the back of Melanie’s mind. “Reynolds—Do you mean as in the Reynolds family?”

      “That was my father’s name, yes,” he said dryly.

      “You know perfectly well I’m talking about the Reynolds family that started off with a mill on the banks of the Missouri River, selling flour to pioneers heading west in covered wagons, and ended up with a wheat empire that stretched all the way across Kansas.”

      “You know your local history.”

      “Seriously? You’re part of that family tree?”

      “A twig,” he admitted.

      “A good-size twig if you can afford to go around buying things without paying any attention to what you’re getting. So what’s the problem? You thought you’d bought the whole business last night. Why not finish the job and buy my half now?”

      “You seriously want to sell it?”

      Melanie started to nod, and then paused. Did she want to sell out?

      It wasn’t as if it had been her childhood dream to be in the old-car business. It had just happened, almost accidentally. She’d taken the lemon that life had handed her and tried not to dwell on the fact that she’d never liked the taste of lemonade.

      But now that the possibility of getting СКАЧАТЬ