Because of Audrey. Mary Sullivan

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      Full curves moved in different directions. She looked clumsy, but those curves, that walk, the slightly askew pillbox hat—those full red lips—were so insanely feminine, he started to smile.

      When she stopped in front of a lingerie shop to look at some feminine froth of satin and lace, Gray imagined it cradling her shapely body. His latent smile spread.

      When he realized what his foolish mouth was doing, he made himself stop.

      Do not even think about finding this woman attractive. She’s your enemy. If she hadn’t bought that land from Dad, you wouldn’t be in your current predicament.

      With a screech of tires, he drove on.

      In the parking lot of the massive lumberyard and hardware store that had been in his family since long before Gray’s birth, he threw out the gum he’d been chewing and opened two fresh sticks, chewing hard until his shaking hands calmed and he could breathe easily. Why, for a man who was known as a sharp businessman, did just walking into his father’s business leave him feeling so...afraid? Why did everything these days?

      His tension filled the car like dark gas.

      He forced himself out of the vehicle and into the building, heading past the large shop to the offices that occupied the second floor. Turner Lumber catered to both contractors and the average man. And woman, Gray reminded himself. There were a lot of knowledgable women out there doing their own repairs these days.

      The store covered half an acre of land and served all of the towns for miles around. Even in a city the size of Denver, you would be hard-pressed to find a better-stocked, more efficient supplier. They also rented equipment, a part of the business that used to be a going concern. Since the downturn in the economy, there was less construction. As well, homeowners no longer had the money for renovations.

      There had been a spurt of construction when a new ski resort had been built outside of town, but Dad had taken his profits and had invested in risky ventures. When Gray had tried to change them to something safer, Dad had vetoed him. For a man who’d been a smart business owner for so many years, Dad’s actions these days seemed like a textbook case of how not to run a business.

      Businesses suffered everywhere, including Turner Lumber. And yet, Dad was giving money away left, right and center. It had to stop. Cauterizing the hemorrhaging of money was Gray’s job.

      Upstairs, he found the renovations he’d ordered nearly finished. Part of dragging Turner Lumber into the twenty-first century had been modernizing the office. Gone were the separate cubicles of old, replaced by a huge open space filled with desks and office modules. At the moment, they were squeezed into one half of the space while the floors on the other half were being refinished.

      The office kept the idle lumberyard workers busy now that traffic had slowed down there. So far, Gray had managed to keep everyone on the payroll. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold out.

      If he was smart, he’d start slashing now, but sentimentality kept getting in the way. Was this what Dad felt when he walked in here?

      Gray stopped to talk to the office manager, Hilary Scott. She, like all the employees, wore a cotton mask over her nose and mouth.

      “Here.” She handed him a mask. “You should wear it until these guys finish their work.” A frown wrinkled her forehead.

      “You don’t look happy,” Gray observed. “What’s the problem?”

      “The noise.”

      “That’s temporary. It won’t last.”

      “The dust. Look at our desks.”

      A fine gray film settled over everything.

      “I’ll have a cleaning crew come in on the weekend.”

      Hilary sighed. “But what kind of chemicals, or even old mold, have you stirred up with this destruction?”

      Gray loved language, loved how he could manipulate it to his advantage in business, but hated how it could be corrupted.

      “This isn’t destruction, Hilary. This is change.”

      She didn’t answer, just stood her ground like a wiry-haired bantam hen.

      “In another week, things will settle down,” Gray said.

      “Given how hard it is to get work done in this—” she gestured with her chin toward the open space, not the contractors and their work, he noticed “—I fervently hope it gets better.”

      He barely held himself back from shaking his head. New ideas were always hard to implement. Hilary and her employees had been working with the same systems for years. “These changes should further innovation and fresh thinking.” Something Turner Lumber could use, he didn’t say aloud.

      “The open concept should inspire a more communal sense of the company, and the resultant community should inspire more communication and new ideas.”

      Hilary nodded but didn’t look convinced. “We already enjoy plenty of community here.”

      “Then you should support an increase in that.” He had enough resistance to deal with from his dad. He didn’t need to face it here at work, as well.

      “Listen, Hilary.” He sounded testy. Too bad. He was on edge and tired of facing problems everywhere he turned. “Given that you called me home to help, I expected cooperation from you.”

      “I didn’t think you’d be changing everything.”

      “What did you think I’d do?”

      “Make it the way it was before your dad started making dubious choices.”

      Hilary was as naive as Dad was. There was no salvation for the company without upgrading it, not in the current financial environment, not using strategies that were forty and fifty years old.

      He entered the office he’d set up for himself in the corner to catch his breath and to prepare for his meeting with Arnold Haygood, Turner Lumber’s accountant. His area had sliding walls that opened to the larger space. Most of the time he left the walls open, keeping himself involved. When he needed to have sensitive conversations or make phone calls that he didn’t want overheard, he could slide the walls closed for the best of both worlds.

      Still, that feeling of suffocation, the difficulty breathing, had followed him into the office, and had nothing to do with renovation dust or face masks.

      He needed to push the deals through on the sale of the land and finish liquidating more of Dad’s assets, so Gray never had to step in here again, never again had to experience this cloying panic.

      Maybe it was time to sell the company. He’d been fighting the idea, keeping it as a last resort. He shouldn’t let emotion get in the way of business, but as much as these were Dad’s people, they were also his.

      Despite his current anxiety, his memories of running through this place as a child were good. He knew everyone who worked here. What if the new owners mistreated them?

      Before leaving Boston, he’d toyed with the idea of СКАЧАТЬ