Her Private Bodyguard. Gayle Wilson

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      All she wanted to do was to get this over and go home. Get out of these clothes and into a pair of jeans. Ride out the tension that had grown into an ache between her shoulders. Get the scent of hothouse flowers out of her nostrils and the sound of all these voices and their words of comfort out of her head.

      That wasn’t a lack of respect for her father. He would have been the first to agree that riding over the isolated landscape they both loved was a better idea than standing over his grave. Charlie Beaufort had loved the high desert and the mountains with a deep and abiding passion. Just as he had loved the ranch that sat in a small, sheltered valley in the middle of the tract of rugged land he’d bought more than forty years ago. He had built the main house and most of the outbuildings with his own hands.

      During the past ten or fifteen years, however, when Av-Tech had really taken off, he hadn’t had time—hadn’t taken time, Val amended—to get away and visit it. When she was a little girl, they had gone out to the ranch almost every weekend. Piled in an old station wagon, her mother, father and Val would spend Friday evening driving out there, arriving long after midnight.

      Some of her best memories of her father were associated with the ranch. Those were the memories she wanted to get in touch with. And those were the years she wanted to remember.

      “Val, honey, if you’ve got a minute…” Harper Springfield whispered in her ear. “While they’re finishing up here…” Hand firmly on her elbow, Harp, another of Av-Tech’s founders, applied pressure to direct her away from the grave, where people were still waiting in line to speak to her and her stepmother.

      Constance Beaufort’s perfectly coifed blond hair and beautiful features were covered by a sheer black veil, her slender figure clothed in a black designer suit, black hose and black kid pumps. There wasn’t a spot of color or a piece of jewelry, except for her gold wedding ring, of course, to spoil the image Connie was aiming for.

      The grieving widow, Val thought as she turned away. Who had been grieving in earnest when she’d learned the terms of her late husband’s will. Charlie Beaufort might have been foolish enough, Val thought regretfully, to marry a woman younger than his daughter. But thankfully, his lawyers had been smart enough to make him have her sign a prenuptial agreement.

      There would be a generous settlement for Connie, plenty of money to live on, but she would get no shares of Av-Tech. And there, of course, was where Charlie Beaufort’s real wealth lay.

      Only when Val managed to pull her eyes away from her stepmother’s artful performance did she realized where Harp was leading her. On a slight rise looking down on the grave site, the co-owners of her father’s company were standing in a semicircle, waiting for Harp to bring her to them.

      She had thought the firmness of Springfield’s grip on her arm was an unnecessary and unwanted concern for her bad leg, but now it began to feel like some kind of strong-arm tactic. Although she would much prefer to believe the latter than the former, she couldn’t imagine why her father’s partners would think she needed to be coerced into meeting with them. Most of them had bounced her on their knees when she was a baby.

      They were looking decidedly nervous, however, as she and Harp approached. Because she was now the majority owner of the company that had been their bread and butter for so many years? After all, they were of a different generation. They might have concerns about a woman directing an international company, especially one that specialized in cutting-edge missile delivery systems and the latest satellite technology.

      The first thing she needed to do, Val decided, was let them know she had no intention of trying to run things. She didn’t have the expertise, even if she had wanted to. And she didn’t want to, of course. She had walked away from her father’s money more than ten years ago. She wasn’t going back to that life now. No matter what his will had said.

      “We all thought we needed to talk about what happens next,” Billy Clemens said as she and Harp walked up to the group.

      Trust Billy to cut to the chase, Val thought. The most outspoken of the four men who had been her father’s partners for more than forty years, Clemens was also Val’s least favorite, although she could never quite pinpoint the reason. Billy was fond of saying that with him, what you saw was what you got. He was right. Val just didn’t particularly like either.

      Maybe her father hadn’t, as well, Val thought, although he had never openly expressed any disparagement of Clemens. However, if her dad had arranged for his shares to be divided among his partners at his death instead of saddling her with them, Billy would now be the majority owner, and all the responsibility that went with the position would be his instead of hers.

      “What happens next?” she repeated, although she certainly knew where this was heading.

      “There’s a lot of stuff going on with the company right now. A lot of contracts that have to be met, with some pretty substantial penalties involved if we don’t meet them. I’m just wondering what you’re planning to do about those.”

      “I’m planning to see those contracts are fulfilled,” Val said. “And that the company doesn’t have to pay any penalties.”

      “You’re going to step into your father’s shoes?” Harp Springfield asked bluntly.

      “You all know as well as I do that no one can do that. Av-Tech was my father’s life. If I try to step in, I’ll botch it.”

      “You’re the majority shareholder, Val,” Porter Johnson reminded her. “Somebody’s got to command the ship.”

      “Are you volunteering, Porter?” she asked softly.

      There was little doubt what his answer would be. Johnson was suffering from prostate cancer. He wouldn’t want the responsibility of the company. Of course, neither did she. As a matter of fact, Val doubted that any one of them, with the exception of Billy Clemens, would even consider taking over.

      “You know better than that, Val,” Porter said. “Your dad was the heart and the soul of this company. The last couple of years…Well, even Charlie wasn’t able to see to everything.”

      She was grateful Porter hadn’t made that sound any worse than he had. Her father’s health had been failing for a long time, and she hated to admit she hadn’t even been aware of how much. At least, not until his first stroke two years ago.

      “That’s why we’re going to get someone in there who can tell us what we need to do with the company,” she said reassuringly.

      “You aren’t talking about selling?” Clemens asked. “You can’t do that.”

      “Right now, all I’m talking about is hiring a management consultant,” Val said. “Someone to look us over, examine the books, look at those contracts and make some suggestions. I think that’s what my father should have done when he got sick. If he had been himself, he would have.” There was a small pause, but no one challenged what she’d said, so she continued, thankful they were at least giving her the opportunity to tell them what she’d been thinking. “I’ve already asked our attorneys to locate someone with management expertise specific to our patents.”

      She was a little surprised at how easily those phrases came. Our attorneys. Management expertise specific to our patents. For someone who had spent years professing to have no interest in any of this, she talked a good game. Maybe she was more her father’s daughter than she had realized.

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