Authors: Robyn Neeley
“I’m really sorry about your loss. Jack was a great leader,” she said, her tone losing its earlier edge.
“Yes, he was. I learned from the best.” His throat tightened. Picking up his gin and tonic, he took a long drink. Now was not the time to get emotional. He needed to focus. “Becca, I want to buy your shares effective immediately.” Nodding to the card, he added, “Inside you’ll find my more than generous offer.”
She opened it, staring down without a reaction. “That’s a lot of money you’re offering me, Mr. Cooper.”
“You’ll be set for life. Could even quit the factory if you’d like. Hang out more with your mother?”
Becca looked up, her eyebrows knitted. “What do you know about my mother?”
“Nothing. Scott mentioned earlier you spend a lot of your time with her.”
She cast a look of disdain in the bartender’s direction. Turning to face Grayson, she handed him back his offer. “Thank you, but I decline.” She stood and grabbed her purse. “Thanks for the drink. I think we’re done here.”
“Ms. Nash, you can’t be serious.” He pushed back his chair and stood. Did this woman really turn down his offer? Yeah, the shares were worth so much more, but she couldn’t know that.
“I am serious. Your father gave me the shares.” She crossed her arms. “He wanted me to have them.”
The hairs on his back began to bristle at mention of his dad’s intentions. “About that. Why on earth would my father give them to you? Can you explain that to me?”
She ran her hands through her hair, conceding, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” he repeated, his eyes narrowed.
“There has to be a reason why he gave someone working in the plant shares intended for me. I’m sure you do a fine job running the production line, but you don’t have any corporate management experience. You’ll be in way over your head. There’s no way you can contribute at that high level.”
“Why, you arrogant, cocky son of a—” She stopped the name-calling and adjusted her purse strap along her bare shoulder. “I don’t need this.”
“Neither do I.”
She started to leave but then spun on her boots. Coming right up to him, she ran her finger up and down his tie. That act sent a signal to his lower region. He gulped.
What was happening? The woman had looked like she was about to slap him only seconds ago. Now her hand was on him—definitely no pain involved. “Becca …”
“I can make important decisions, and I think my first act as the new shareholder with the majority vote is to get rid of these.” She patted his tie and then brought her fingers to her mouth, letting out a loud whistle. “Gentlemen,” she called out around her. “This man is wearing something that clearly violates the Silver Spurs’ dress code and it needs to be removed immediately.”
The crowd erupted in a chant.
Shit
. He’d forgotten to take off his tie. Grayson shook his head as Scott came over with the infamous scissors.
“I warned you, man.”
Grayson gazed at Becca, cocking his head. “Get it over with.” He smirked at his opponent to show her that cutting off his tie didn’t symbolize anything. Those shares belonged to him.
As Scott sliced into the satin fabric, the crowd erupted in applause and a couple of young cowboys came up to give Becca a high five. He sat back down and finished his drink, watching as she flirted with one of the fellas, trying on his cowboy hat and laughing all the while.
Why, Dad, would you leave this simple woman your shares? How did she talk you into it?
He stood and walked over to her, touching her arm. Their conversation was not finished.
“You’re still here?” she asked. Her tone had a hint of boredom.
“You had something on him, didn’t you? Were you blackmailing my father?”
“You think I tried to blackmail your dad?” Becca’s face twisted in disbelief. She stepped closer, her voice rising. “Jack Cooper was a caring, decent man. Do you really think I—or anyone else in this town would have anything on him?” She motioned to the patrons around them. “Well, do you?”
The crowd went silent, no doubt curious to hear his response.
“There’s no way he would leave this huge responsibility to a college dropout who hasn’t worked a day of her life in a corporate office. That I know.”
Becca stepped toward him, eyes blazing. If she came any closer he could easily scoop her up in his arms. Not that he even wanted to do that, but he could.
“You can take your fancy clothes and your elite business degree and shove it. You’re not getting
my
shares.”
Before he knew what was happening, she’d gone back to their table and grabbed the bowl of guacamole, dumping it over his head. “Maybe the better question is, why didn’t he leave
you
the shares?” She spun around, grabbed her smock, and marched out of the bar.
Grayson closed his eyes, feeling the chunky dip drip down his face. He took the napkins Meg offered and reached for his wallet.
“It’s on the house.” The waitress handed him more napkins. “You’ve had quite the night.” She leaned in. “I don’t know much when it comes to relationships, but if you’re going to woo her, you might not want to accuse her again of blackmailing your father. Just sayin’…”
“Thanks for the advice.” He shook his head. How did this evening go so wrong? He should be calling his lawyer by now and celebrating his control of the company. He wiped the last bit of guacamole off his neck. Getting his shares back from this woman was going to be much harder than he’d thought.
Grayson pushed back in his leather office chair and adjusted his royal blue tie. Last night’s turn of events had caused him to schedule an emergency meeting with Gavin and Gage, in which he’d share his vision for the future of Guac Olé. A solid plan that was going to put his late father’s company on the map as the clear leader in the production of premade guacamole, shattering their bottom line.
So what if it was 7 a.m.? Gavin and Gage needed to realize that their no-nonsense middle brother meant business. Grayson also wanted this private stakeholders’ meeting to take place before business hours so no one in the office would notice that one soon-to-be shareholder was conveniently missing.
And after last night, Becca Nash would never have a seat at the table.
He’d waited for two months while the dust settled after the reading of their father’s will, but after the Silver Spurs’s confrontation with the feisty brunette, now was the time to strike.
Grayson stood and faced the wall where his dad’s picture hung in the recently remodeled Legacy conference room, a portrait of the late Jack Cooper wearing both his signature smile and his favorite black felt cowboy hat.
Had his father known back then what he’d planned to do with his legacy? Grayson eyed his dad’s mischievous grin. It appeared so. “Thanks a lot, Dad. You could have at least left me your hat,” he scoffed and reached into his pocket, staring down at the small strawberry charm keychain his father did, in fact, leave him. At least the hat he could wear.
It wasn’t that he was angry with his dad, or what he’d done with his birthright—okay, that was a lie. He sat back down and fisted his hand around the charm before flinging it across the mahogany board table.
He was pissed.
Both his brothers, who had also been given small trinkets and not what they’d expected to inherit, had felt the same way he did—at first.
While Gavin had been promised the house they grew up in and Gage was to receive land his father had held on to all these years, Dad had called Grayson into his corner office at Guac Olé shortly after his terminal cancer diagnosis, made him CEO, and promised him 50 percent shares in the company.
Like his brothers, Grayson had been gutted to learn the doctors had given his father only a year to live, but he had also been honored his dad had faith in him to lead the company and further his legacy.
And Grayson had been up to the challenge. It’s all he’d ever wanted. While neither Gavin nor Gage had shown an interest in working for Guac Olé, after high school, Grayson had headed off to the University of Texas at Dallas and then East to obtain his MBA with one goal: return and work his ass off to one day lead the company.
He never imagined it would be handed over to him at thirty-two, but he’d worked here for ten years and had been a part of his dad’s senior team for the last five. With a 50 percent stake, he’d planned to take the premade dip industry by storm.
What had possessed his dad to will away the shares he’d promised to a
factory worker
in the Guac Olé plant?
Grayson had asked himself
that
question every day for the last two months.
At least he had given the other 50 percent to Gavin and Gage like he’d said he would, keeping half of the control in the family.
Grayson grabbed his pen and tapped it on his black portfolio. His dad—for whatever reason—had stipulated in the will that her paycheck would immediately increase to reflect her new role, but her voting rights wouldn’t take effect until September 1.
He had thirty days to 1) find out why his father had given away his inheritance to Becca Nash, and 2) somehow get it back.
And that started today by taking the proverbial bull by the horns and moving full steam ahead with his plans. If he was going to get the shares that rightfully belonged to him, he needed to act like he already had them.
“So, please tell me why I’m here for a mandatory meeting this early in the morning?” Gavin strolled in with a white box in one hand and a leash attached to his black lab, Merle, in the other. As the town’s popular veterinarian, Gavin always took Merle to work with him. The black lab was quite the celebrity around Sweet Ridge and was known for sporting a wide variety of bandannas.
“I see he’s wearing the Guac Olé uniform.” Grayson grinned and bent down to pet the happy canine, gently tugging the green bandanna with small avocados all over it.
“He was a big hit this morning at the diner. Betty Lou filled him with dog treats.” Gavin glanced up at their father’s portrait. “Howdy, Dad. Can you haunt Grayson’s dreams and tell him never to call a shareholders’ meeting this early?”
“Whatever. By now, Dad would have been on his third cup of coffee while waiting for you boneheads, and you know it.” Their dad had, indeed, been an early worm throughout most of his career. “What’s in the box?”
Gavin sat down, opened the lid, and pulled out a salted caramel glazed donut, handing it to Grayson on a light blue napkin. “Betty Lou says these are Becca’s favorite.”
“So?” Grayson passed on the donut that his washboard abs didn’t need. “Why should I care?”
“No reason.” Gavin set the donut back in the box, his smirk a dead giveaway. Grayson knew exactly what his big brother was thinking because, for the last two months, the entire town had been giving him the same look.
Both Gavin and Gage had fallen in love with the women whom their dad had willed away their inheritances to. Gavin and Macy were now shacked up in the Cooper homestead, and Gage was already married to Charlotte, for Christ’s sake. The gossip train had left the tracks full steam ahead for the Guac Olé plant, with the juicy news that Becca and Grayson were next.
Well, if his dad was watching from up above, he’d have to be satisfied with his matchmaking for two out of three sons, because dating that factory worker wasn’t going to happen. Even if he had time for more than an occasional fling when he had an itch, he liked to think he could find a woman he’d have more in common with than one who peeled avocados.
He realized how hypocritical that thought was since those avocados were his livelihood, but he was 100 percent certain Becca Nash was not the woman for him.
“Okay, let’s get this meeting started. Gage’s butt better be in his computer chair.” Grayson turned on the flat-screen television mounted on the wall, and with a few quick keystrokes, Skyped in his younger brother.
Within minutes, a disheveled Gage appeared on screen wearing a white T-shirt. “This better be good.” He rubbed his eyes and cracked his neck. “I mean, good morning.”
“I’m sorry to wake you,” Grayson said unapologetically, reaching for his coffee and taking a sip while Gavin made himself comfortable next to him, attacking one of the donuts. “So, I’ll get right to it. I wanted us to meet because I’d like to move forward with my plans to begin pushing our dip into restaurants.”
“This is what I got up early for?” Gage asked, leaning closer to his screen while whispering, “You do realize I have a naked woman in my bed.”
“And you can go back to your wife when we’re done.” This time he’d use his brothers’ lack of focus to his advantage to get what he wanted. “I know it’s little interest to you both, but we’ve got a real opportunity here. In addition to grocery stores, we should be in every Tex-Mex restaurant and not just south of the Mason-Dixon line. We need to be everywhere. The West Coast, the East Coast, hell, the Great Plains.”
He rose from his seat and began to pace. “Over the history of this company, we’ve concentrated most of our effort on supermarkets, which has been great and what we needed to do to build our brand. But being the number-one supplier of guacamole to restaurants across North America will make us the leader in premade dip. I’m ready to get our research team on it and then start making calls and doing some deals. Our revenue will skyrocket.” He saved his best line for last while pointing to their late father’s portrait, “It’s what Dad would have wanted.”
Gavin nodded his agreement. “Dad would have loved to see Guac Olé dip in restaurants, that’s for sure. What do you need from us?”
“Just your vote of confidence.” Grayson couldn’t help but grin as he took his seat. Maybe having his brothers as shareholders wasn’t a bad thing if he could sell them on his ideas so easily. “So, do I have your blessing to move forward? I’ll set up meetings with leadership personnel of Mexican chain restaurants this fall. If we get any early bites, it’s possible we can be incorporated into menus just in time for next year’s Super Bo—”
“Not so fast,” Gage interjected. “Shouldn’t Becca be included in this conversation?”
Grayson waved his hand, dismissing his brother. “Her voting rights don’t start for another thirty days, so right now it’s up to you two.”