Right Brother (6 page)

Could they add another salary and afford to stick with that scenario?

Even with Jennifer picking up some managerial duties, the general manager would need to fill a lot of roles, which translated into being able to command a high salary.

So the answer was no. If Trent had to pay Jennifer a salary for a year, he couldn't afford the kind of general manager that would allow him to be an absentee owner.

He'd have to stick around and act as his own general manager. It was the only way they could swing it financially.

Stick around…
God
. The last thing on earth he'd ever wanted to do—run Stenner Autos.

But unless he backed out now, he'd have no choice. He needed to make sure things went well and the place made money. Both so Jennifer and Ashley would be provided for and to protect his investment. And then there was the fact that if Stenner Autos went under while he owned it he'd never hear the last of it. Not from his father. Not from Linc. Maybe not even from his own conscience.

He glanced at Jennifer. She seemed as stunned as he was.

“But—but I have a job,” she said.

“I've talked to Roscoe. There's not enough real estate business to support a flea, much less a grown woman with a growing girl. You need something steady, reliable. After a year, if you want to go back to selling houses, Roscoe will take you back, and by that time there might be buyers, with these Zeke-Tech people coming in.”

“She doesn't know any more about running a car dealership than I do,” Trent objected.

And that brought the whole thing home. He'd have to immerse himself in the topic that had been second only to Eric's accomplishments at every dinner table conversation of his childhood.

“She's got a good head on her shoulders. She'll learn,” the judge said, unconcerned. “Just like you will. So. It's settled. I'll have a side letter drawn up, and if you'd like to look it over…”

“Damn right I would. Sorry, Your Honor,” Trent quickly added at the scowl from under bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “I'd like some time to call my financial adviser in California.”

Judge Dixon looked at the clock, then the open leather-bound calendar on his desk. “Twenty minutes. Then we'll meet here to sign the papers.”

 

Twenty minutes.

She had the judge's office to herself for that time. It was cool and shaded. Serene in a utilitarian, masculine way. The leather chair she sat in was comfortable and pleasant.

Jennifer felt as if she were sitting on ground glass.

Trent had left looking like thunder to talk to his financial adviser.

She wished she had someone to consult, just in case Trent didn't tell Judge Dixon where to put his conditions.

Not a lawyer. She didn't need a lawyer for what concerned her. Not an accountant, either.

Judge Dixon was already doing more than she could have imagined to see that she and Ashley had the security Jennifer had been striving for since Eric left. Even before he left. When she started recognizing the mistakes Eric was making with the dealership, with their finances, with their futures. She'd tried a couple times to broach the subjects. And hadn't that gone great?

The first time, he'd laughed. Not pleasantly. “Like you know anything about business. Like you have a brain in that blond head?”

She sometimes wished she'd pointed out that he was blond, too, as was their daughter.

The second time she'd brought it up, he'd screamed at her before she'd even finished. That's when she knew their financial situation was really bad.

She'd already been saving money in an account Eric didn't know about. For Ashley's college, she'd told herself. Sometimes she wondered if at some level she'd recognized what
would happen. After that screaming episode, she'd escalated her savings. But it had been hard, with Eric spending money faster than it came in.

Those savings and the one credit card she'd opened in her name alone had kept her and Ashley from living on the street until she got the job with Roscoe. Although the job with Roscoe hadn't kept them far off the street.

But maybe Trent was wrong when he'd said she didn't know any more about running a car dealership than he did. Which would mean she was wrong, too, because she'd silently agreed with him when he'd said it.

She did know a little about what
not
to do after watching the business fading under Eric. And she knew about customers who desperately needed transportation, had little money, and were afraid of being taken advantage of. Yes, she knew something about that.

None of that was the problem she wished she had someone to call to consult with about.

The problem was Trent Stenner.

And, truth be told, she did have someone she could call—Darcie. Except she knew what Darcie would say— “Problem? Working with a good-looking, intelligent and generally considerate man? That's no problem.”

But it was.

First, because she wasn't entirely sure Trent was…what? Honest? On the level? Trustworthy?

There was something else going on in this situation that she didn't understand. After all his efforts to stay away—from Drago, from the dealership, from his family ties—he came back now? Why?

Was it to show up Eric? To prove he could succeed at running the dealership where his brother had failed, just as
he'd succeeded at building a career in football when his older brother hadn't?

To win over his father? If so it would be the first time in her knowledge that he'd made that effort. As long as she'd known the family, Trent's coping method had been distance—and lots of it.

Not knowing made her edgy, uncertain. It was like walking on ice in early spring, not sure where or when or if it was going to crack open and plunge you into freezing water, but knowing each step had the potential.

She'd say no, she thought on a quick wave of panic. She'd say she hadn't realized until now that she didn't want to leave real estate, and she would tough out the next year of no commissions. Somehow.

Except Ashley would have to tough it out, too.

Oh, God. She couldn't say no.

She couldn't deny Ashley all that a steady, reliable income would bring. Plus, she'd be involved, making sure the dealership became a success, securing Ashley's future.

She had to say yes.

And she had to pray Trent did, too.

Somewhere, Jennifer thought she could hear Darcie Barrett cackling with glee. But she shivered at the thought of ice cracking under her feet.

 

“Okay to both your conditions,” Trent said as soon as they'd all sat.

It might have sounded curt, but he was not in the best of moods.

“Fine,” Judge Dixon said with a broad smile. “We can sign the preliminary agreement right now. I'll have my clerk—”

“Wait a minute,” Trent objected. “Jennifer hasn't given her decision.”

The judge looked taken aback, but whether at his own oversight or because he hadn't considered that she had a say, Trent couldn't tell.

“Before I give you an answer—” Jennifer cleared her throat, but when she spoke again, her voice was still that husky timbre that felt like someone was touching him “—I have a question for Trent.”

She waited, as if not sure how he would respond to that declaration.

What else could he say but, “What's your question?”

“You…you're buying the dealership?”

He raised one eyebrow. “I thought we'd covered that.”

“I mean, I wondered if you're acting on behalf of your father. If he was buying the rest of it back.”

“No.” He would have liked to have left it at that. She clearly wouldn't. And he supposed he owed her a little more under the circumstances. “My father won't be involved in this transaction. It's my money.”

The judge got into the act then. “Franklin does retain a minority interest, however, the same as he's had since retiring. Will your father be involved in the dealership operations?”

God, no.
He stifled that response. “No, he won't.”

He saw another question burning in Jennifer's eyes, while her mouth remained tightly closed. Judge Dixon clearly saw it, too.

“Do you have another concern, Jennifer?” the judge asked.

“How'd you get the money, Trent?” The words shot out of her, as if she couldn't hold them in. “I mean people say you're doing okay, but this much? You didn't get signing bonuses or the big—”

She stopped like someone had hit her Off button. Or as if she'd remembered where she'd heard those assessments of his contracts.

“No, I never got big signing bonuses or eye-popping con
tracts,” he said without emotion. It was simply a fact. “But you know what they say—it's not what you get, it's what you do with it.”

Her eyes were wide. And so blue.

A memory hit him. Of looking into her eyes in just about this way the first time she'd come to the house. Sitting across the table from her. He'd said something about one of his classes—a rare foray into dinnertime conversation for him—and she'd looked at him. Probably the first time she had. And he'd seen how blue her eyes were and how beautiful and how empty.

At least that's what he'd thought. That's when he'd dismissed her.

Or maybe he'd dismissed her when she'd walked in with Eric.

Her blue eyes certainly weren't empty now. Intelligence and drive filled them. And uncertainty. But that was about him.

“I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow account of my finances.”

She started to protest. “I'm not asking—”

“But I can assure you it's my money, not my father's.”

She looked at him for a long moment. Finally, she nodded.

“Okay.” She gripped the chair arms, as if preparing for blastoff. “Then I accept Judge Dixon's conditions. I'll work at the dealership for a year.”

“S
o, now what do we do?”

Trent stood in the middle of the empty showroom and by his expression he felt a foreboding nearly as deep as Jennifer's while she'd signed the papers at Judge Dixon's chambers.

They'd driven here in separate cars, each of them, she supposed needing those minutes alone to get their bearings. Too bad they weren't in Chicago, where the traffic would have provided plenty of time to get used to the idea of what they'd agreed to do. In Drago, the trip had amounted to eight minutes, including time for her to make phone calls.

“Hire employees. Get more inventory. Get cars,” she started.

He put his head back, looking at the ceiling instead of her. The position emphasized how his hairline curved crisply back at his temples, came to mirrored peaks below the temples before curving again to meet his sideburns, which in turn faded to a stubble down his firm jaw. The effect of that hairline
was to call attention to his eyes, where dark brows and dark lashes provided a stark contrast to eyes more gray than blue.

“I talked to my guy in California about finding a good general manager, but—”

“I'm general manager,” she said with a firmness born of desperation. An outsider wouldn't care the way she would. An outsider wouldn't fight as hard to make this place earn money to go into Ashley's fund.

Still angled, his head came around toward her.

“Whoa. Judge Dixon said you'd be a manager, he didn't say general manager. If we want this to succeed—”

“We can't afford to pay the salary a good general manager gets.” Eric had acted as general manger, but he hadn't been a good one.

“I know. That's why I'll be acting as general manager myself,” Trent said with a hint of wryness.

She eyed him. She wanted to argue. Oh, did she want to argue. What had drawn her to real estate was the idea that her financial well-being was in her own hands. How could she sit back and let him—another Stenner male—control her financial future?

On the other hand, arguing for arguing's sake made no sense. And she saw that nothing she could say would change his mind. Not yet, anyway.

“You're the owner,” she said mildly, then watched his reaction.

God, owner of Stenner Autos.

The thought flashed across his face like a neon sign, even though he tried to mask the dismay. Whether it had been his own work or the fates, he certainly had spent a good chunk of his life getting away from this, and now here he was. Back. What the hell was he doing here?

And then, just as fast, his expression covered all the turmoil.

But she thought she could hear the faint
click
of a crack in the ice she was standing on.

“Yes, I am the owner.” He tipped his head back again. “You're wrong about that first step, though.”

“Paint the ceiling,” she guessed.

“Fix the roof,” he amended. “So it stops leaking. And then paint the ceiling. Then I'm going to have to hire people.”

Her turn to correct him. “
We're
going to hire people.” Having given in on the general manger point it was even more essential that she stake her claim to authority. That didn't mean it was easy. “I know the people to hire. You don't. I researched all that getting the dealership ready for sale.”

He looked at her from under lowered eyelids. “Okay. We're going to have to hire people. How do you propose we go about that?”

Since she'd worked hard on her research, she felt only a shiver of nerves under the confidence. Faked confidence, sure, but she'd learned during her blighted real estate career that well-executed fake confidence could be as good as the real thing.

“I have a list of possible candidates for the most important jobs.” She put a copy on the counter. He reached for it, but if she'd wanted him to have it she would have given it to him. She pulled it out of reach. If he started reading, he'd stop listening—another lesson from real estate. “I made some calls. I've got five people coming in tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Good lord, you don't waste any time.”

“There isn't any to waste. We should open at the end of July, so we're up and running when new models come in. We have a lot to do, and we can't wait.”

“That part is going to have to wait,” he said flatly. “I'm leaving in the morning. I wasn't planning to stay for more than a day or two. Now…well, I've got to get home, make arrangements, get more clothes.”

“Then we'll start this evening,” she said with a calm she didn't feel. This wasn't all that much different from selling a house. Once you had a prospect on the line, you didn't want to let them get away, let them think too much, let them change their minds.

And since she'd sold exactly one house—a whopper of a sale, true, but the seller had been her best friend's mother and the buyer had been her best friend's soon-to-be husband, so it didn't exactly qualify as a compelling feat of salesmanship—she knew about letting buyers get away.

Would Trent change his mind? Renege on the deal?

“I'll call right now to switch the appointments,” she added.

“Nobody'll want to change their plans and come in this evening.”

“Are you kidding? Around here, folks would walk on nails for a good job.”

 

Already thirsty and knowing he had an evening of talking ahead of him when the interviews started, Trent strode across the main drive to get a soft drink from the machine nestled under the trees that divided customer parking from the car wash next door.

You had to give Drago its due. He couldn't imagine many places where a vending machine left outdoors and basically unattended would remain standing, much less operating and—judging from the
clunk-clunk-clunk
resonance of his deposit—with its change intact.

His father had added the car wash to Stenner Autos to ensure every car that left the dealership was clean. It also drew business off the street.

Apparently it had kept operating even when Stenner Autos didn't. Either that, or this soft drink was going to be a year or two old.

He took a tentative swig. Nope, not a day over six months.

Peripheral vision had saved his neck more than once on the football field, now, with his head back to drink, it caught someone approaching.

Ashley.

She appeared headed for the machine, too, probably for the same purpose. She hadn't spotted him.

After lining up the interviews for this evening faster than he could have believed, Jennifer had suggested they meet back here at five-thirty to prepare. “That will give us time to get dinner beforehand,” she'd added.

He'd opened his mouth to say he didn't eat dinner that early, especially since his stomach was still on West Coast time, two hours later.

He hadn't said the words.

She had Ashley's schedule to work around. Was school still going? Those sorts of family considerations weren't part of his experience. So, he would follow her lead for now.

He went to the motel, packed so he could get an early start tomorrow and called for a plane reservation. He decided to call his parents later. After he knew more about how this was going to work.

He stopped at the café to buy a sandwich for later and returned to Stenner Autos with the sun blaring full in the main showroom window. Inside, he'd found Jennifer moving tables and chairs around, while Ashley slouched against a wall with a headset's earplugs firmly in place, eyes shut and one heel tapping time against the wall.

“Stop that.”

He'd said it without any heat, but loud enough to reach through the electronic noise the girl was listening to. Her eyes popped open. But it was her mother who jolted as if she'd had a live wire applied to her skin.

Trent kept his main focus on the girl. “Your mother just washed the walls. You're putting marks on it.”

She looked at him blankly.

“Here.” He grabbed a towel Jennifer had been using to dust surfaces that looked clean to him, and tossed it at the girl. “Clean those heel marks.”

Ashley's eyes narrowed. He could practically see the smart-ass words bubbling up. Then she flicked a look at Jennifer and back to him.

Uh-huh. She was wondering if he'd snitch to her mother that she'd been out when he'd arrived at the apartment last night.

Let her wonder.

Another lesson learned from football. Whenever possible, you didn't commit irrevocably to a play until you knew which way the ball was going.

“Now,” he continued, hefting the table Jennifer had been rearranging by shoving one side, then the other in a laborious zigzag, “where do you want this?”

Jennifer gaped at him for another beat before she went into action, directing him where to put that table, plus two others and about a dozen chairs. All the while Ashley, cleaning the scuffs on the wall with ill grace, had watched him as if he was the snake about to swallow her mongoose.

When Jennifer said there was nothing more for him to do, he'd come out for the soft drink. And maybe a little to get away from his niece.

So, of course, here she was, one hand digging in a pocket for change.

“Oh.” She stopped, startled. Then immediately shifted to sullen. “It's you.”

“Yup. It is.” He took a swallow. “Your mom need any more help?”

“I wiped all those dumb chairs. What more do you want?”

The kid sure did lead with anger.

“To know if your mom needs my help.”

“She said everything's done but putting forms on a bunch of clipboards, and she wanted to do that herself,” she added hurriedly.

“Good enough. What do you want?” He gestured toward the machine.

She teetered for maybe half a second. Then she slid her hand out of her pocket, letting coins clunk back to its depths. “Root beer.”

He put in coins, pressed the button, retrieved the can and handed it to her. She mumbled a syllable that might have been thanks.

In silence, they each took a swallow. He almost felt sorry for her then. She was younger than the kids he'd worked with at the high school he and a couple teammates had adopted, but he recognized the signs. She wanted to leave, but she didn't want to retreat.

She took a second, long swallow. A nearly stifled belch followed.

He smiled. Just a little, but she saw it. In an instant she was an outraged diva, reining in her justifiable wrath with the greatest of self-control in order to deliver a stunning put-down.

“My dad,” she declaimed, “was the best quarterback this town ever saw.”

Trent thought about that. In his memory he saw Eric, only a sophomore but already the varsity starter, dropping back for a pass during a high school game, looking over the field before him, the play developing the way it was supposed to, his confidence complete.

“I suppose that's true.”

“And you—you weren't much of a player at all.”

That same memory continued in Trent's head. Sitting in the
stands, his middle school game, played on a mudflat far from the glory of the varsity field, now long over. In that moment, Trent had seen the potential for the deep defender to intercept the pass Eric was about to throw.

He'd sat forward, watching the play, while also playing it in his head, with him as that defender.
Ignore the receiver's fake, take two quick steps to cut inside, and have a clear shot at the pass.
He didn't need the dazzling skills Eric possessed, he didn't need the impressive size some linemen possessed. He needed quick feet, the ability to see possibilities ahead and the faith that he could turn those possibilities to his advantage.

The defender on the field didn't make that play. Eric's pass reached the receiver and became a touchdown. But from that point on, Trent had honed his quick feet, his ability to see ahead and his faith in his abilities.

“Not then, I wasn't much of a player,” he agreed with his niece. “But I worked and I got better.”

The girl flushed. Blotches marbled her skin. She was too young not to want the fairy tale of her handsome prince of a father, and too old not to recognize some of the truth about him. He felt sorry for her.

“He hurt his knee,” she said defensively.

Someone more accustomed to dissembling would have recognized that by giving her father an excuse, she'd highlighted his failure. By saying the words, she'd acknowledged that, unlike what Trent had just said about himself, Eric hadn't worked hard and he hadn't gotten better.

“He did hurt his knee.” He eyed her. He could let it go. But he wasn't sure that was for the best. “You know how many NFL quarterbacks have played after that same injury? How many college players? They had to do a lot of rehabilitation, but they played.”

“I'm not going to discuss this with you,” she said haughtily. As if he'd started this pissing match.

“Fine. I've got something else to discuss.” He gave her no chance to respond. “You don't leave that apartment without your mother's permission again.”

“You can't tell me what to do.”

“I can tell you what I'm going to do, though. If I find out you've gone out like that again, I will make sure your mother knows.” He tipped his head. “Or I might decide to deal with you myself.”

Her eyes flared wide, but only for a second, then the diva returned. She stalked off.

“We're ready for—Ashley?” Jennifer had come out the door and started toward them. Now that her daughter was making a beeline for the street, she changed her path like the arrow on a magnet swinging around to follow true north and went after the girl. “Where are you going?”

The girl stopped with an air of martyrdom during a brief exchange that Trent heard only part of. It included surly snippets about
Done everything you asked, just want to go home and watch a movie
and
It's broad daylight
from Ashley and
Are you sure you're feeling okay?
and
Be careful,
then, finally,
Call me when you get there
from Jennifer.