Not in Her Wildest Dreams(10)

She began to work the top off the box, lifting her head, proud.

She froze with the box top above the cake while her gaze dropped to Sterling's boots. Her smile faded.

Sterling looked down, expecting her frown had been prompted by a fleck of mud or a loose shoelace.

The check Paige had torn up lay in pieces at his feet.

"Walter." His mother's voice cooled. She set aside the box lid with more  annoyance than ceremony. "And look. The wrong cake. It was supposed to  be black forest, but this is carrot. I can't seem to count on anyone  today."

Here. We. Go.

"What happened?"

"They're not ready to sell," Sterling said.

"She's holding out for more money? No." She shot a look at her husband that made his mouth shrink to the size of a pinhole.

"Actually-" Sterling began, but his father spoke over him.

"We could lease the lake house. Or sell some stocks. Maybe sell your  mother's house." He raised his brows at his wife, a request for her to  give serious consideration to the last suggestion. "That's what we ought  to do. Sell that house."

Her hand fisted where it rested on the desktop. "You know my feelings on that."

"Granny's house isn't saleable," Sterling said, trying to forestall what  he could see was a rising power struggle. "I saw it yesterday. I doubt  you'd recover the property taxes you've paid to hold onto it. What  happened to it?"

"It's perfectly sound, but your father refuses to take care of it."

"If you'd let me rent it so there'd be some cash-"

"You find the worst people! Rosalee Bodnar was the last and look how that turned out."

"The house isn't the issue." Sterling diverted their attention since the  house was making things worse. He hated when they fought. Hated it.  "Paige asked for an audit. Which is a reasonable request." He gave his  father a pointed look. "Seriously? Seven years since the last one?"

"That's an excuse. Lyle showed up. They were scrapping like gulls," his father said in an aside to his wife.

Evelyn lifted her pearl necklace off her collarbone. "They didn't talk  about the option clause, did they?" She darted her gaze between them.

"Not seriously." Walter glanced at Sterling, silently urging him to back  him up. "And it doesn't matter. The arrangement set up for Sterling-"

"Well, of course Sterling can step in." She tucked in her chin so she  gazed over her glasses at her son, expectant. "The Fogartys aren't  supposed to be able to take advantage of the option, though."

"Actually..." Sterling picked up the partnership agreement Paige had  reviewed. "Okay, yeah, this is what I thought it said," Sterling said as  he found what he'd skimmed past the first time, as he'd stood over  Paige's shoulder trying to read through a haze of uncomfortable male  awareness. "It allows for transfer of the partnership to a child with  the proviso that the candidate be suitably trained and educated. So Lyle  can forget it. Paige, however, is a CPA."

"Since when?" His father's cheeks went loose. "I thought she was a bookkeeper." He glanced at his wife.

She shrugged. "So did I."

"It surprised me, too," Sterling admitted. He was even more impressed now that he'd stalked her current employer online.

"Shit, is that why Grady was always yammering at me to let her at the  books? That's why we haven't had an audit. He wanted her in here and  wouldn't hear of anyone else. Having Lyle on the payroll was enough. It  doesn't matter anyway. Aside from one summer, she's never worked here.  She knows squat about the industry." His father sat, making his chair  squeak.

"Not true," Sterling said. "As far as accounting firms go, you could do a  lot worse. The firm she works for has lumber accounts all over the  Pacific Northwest."

"How the hell do you know that?"

"It's called the internet." He held up his phone. Paige kept her privacy  settings locked down tight, but he'd found enough to know she'd been  certified for five years, worked for the same firm where she'd trained,  and had won a couple of industry awards.         

     



 

"Jesus, Sterling." His father's gaze sharpened. "You're saying she's capable, eligible even, of taking an executive role here?"

"I don't think she intends to." Her very lucrative career back in  Seattle reassured him she was serious about not moving back to Liebe  Falls.

Although he didn't feel reassured so much as...remorseful. The more he'd  thought about what she'd told him yesterday, the guiltier he felt for  letting it happen.

"Well, if it comes up, we'd rather have Lyle," his dad grumbled, dragging Sterling's attention back to the conversation.

"We don't have to resort to anything like that," his mother muttered,  fiddling with the cake, but sending a hard glance at her husband.

Sterling barely tracked it, too floored by what his father had just said.

"Are you insane? I don't understand how that waste of skin still works  here. There are better millwrights, Dad. It's time to get one."

"Lyle and I have an understanding."

"He stank like booze. Did you notice that? You can barely trust him to  show up and grease parts and you're talking about handing him the reins  to the company?"

"He was a partier in the early years. A lot of young men are," his father argued. "He's not as bad as he used to be."

"He's worse!" Sterling insisted. "At least Paige has the smarts to do  the job properly. No. Lyle isn't even eligible. Forget it."

"Walter, you should talk to Lyle. I think he would understand and be a  lot more practical about this than his sister," his mother said.

"No, he wouldn't! He's a loose freaking cannon."

"Sterling, I didn't know there was still so much animosity between you  two. Are you hungry? Have some cake." His mother shifted the box on the  desktop.

"I'm not hungry, Mom. Or tired. I genuinely think suggesting a derelict  run the company is a lousy idea." She wants you to be the one. That boy  was going to pay, one day, some way.

"One of these corner pieces, I think, with the sugar carrots."

"Dad. Be serious. Promise me you won't let Lyle in here."

"I don't want either of them. I want my damned company back. But they want more money and I don't know where it will come from."

"Mind your blood pressure, Walt. It won't come to that. Sterling will fix it. We need a knife."

"Sterling's not going to be here," his father reminded.

"What was I thinking, not bringing a knife?" Evelyn mused. "Hmm? Of course he'll be here."

"No, Mom, I won't. Texas. Remember? I'm leaving Sunday night."

"Let's have some cake and talk about it. Perhaps there's a knife in the  break room?" She wrestled the cake out of the bottom of the box.

His Good Son reflexes urged Sterling to step up and take the cake from  his mother, to take the wheel from his dad. He did neither. He had Texas  and his own company that might have been built on babysitting money,  but it was his and he wasn't about to sacrifice it so he could stay here  playing second string to his father.

"There's nothing to talk about," he said. "Paige isn't holding out for  more money. She wants an audit. Do that and all the pieces will fall  into place."

"No." His mother could have carved the cake with the look she sent to her husband. "Do I have to address this myself?"

His father's eyes widened in panic. "No." It would have been comical if it wasn't so tragically real.

Sterling got the rolling apprehension in his gut that he always got when  he was jammed in the middle of their disagreements. He skimmed a hand  over the stiff spikes of his hair-caught a flash of censure as his  mother noticed she hadn't complained about his hair yet this trip.

"Look, Mom, I'd talk to Paige, but she's already on the road to Seattle-  No, wait. She was going to see Grady. He still in the hospital?" he  asked his dad. "I'll go talk to them."

He got a nod that waggled his father's jowls and felt for his keys.

Still time for a Hail Mary.





Chapter Six

If the definition of crazy was repeating the same useless behaviors  expecting a different result, then Paige was certifiable. Although she  was sensible enough not to bother checking her father's room without  swinging by the smoking area outside the entrance first.

And look at that. There he was, sitting behind the windbreak, sneaking a  couple of puffs off of Rosie's cigarette, hair combed, cheeks shaved,  color not too bad even though hospital green made everyone look like  they had jaundice.         

     



 

"Hi Paige," Rosie said, voice pitched somewhere between surprised and  sheepish. She surreptitiously took back her smoke. "Your dad and I were  just, um, talking about Palm Springs. I didn't know you have a condo  there."

"It belongs to my ex-husband's family." She shook her head at her  father. It was both admonishment for smoking and a refusal to what she  could already hear coming.