TOML SW 2015-04-09 (2 page)

He took a deep breath.

“Not in a while. Is everything all right?”

An accident, or maybe illness. I should have been nicer to him. Made more of an effort.

The guilt gathered again and he pushed it back down. Jed had gone over every word of that conversation with Edward in his head, and he couldn’t find a single thing he’d said that wasn’t true. Jed had a thousand reasons to dislike his father, and only one to give him another chance.

He loved him.

So far, it hadn’t been enough.

Gabe laughed. “You’re not going to believe this. He’s getting married.”

Relief and irritation flooded Jed in equal measure. “Why wouldn’t I believe that?”

“Swears he’s in love, that this is the one. Some woman from the Finger Lakes he met while they were on vacation out in Tahoe.”

“Wonderful. I hope they’re very happy together for a year or two, until he divorces her and runs off with a younger version.”

“She’s in her fifties.”

Edward Trainor marrying a woman close to his own age? Surely that must be one of the signs of the apocalypse.

“And Jed, he wants you to be his best man.”

Jed’s jaw dropped open. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Guess he’ll tell you that himself. But he spent twenty minutes trying to let me down easy before he told me last night. I figured you might want a heads-up to prepare your response. I know you two aren’t exactly close.”

I’m not exactly close to you either, brother-boy.

At least not anymore.

The memory of his brother’s betrayal was like bile in the back of Jed’s throat. “I’ve got to go. Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Jed, are you going to come to the wedding?”

“No.”

“We need to talk.”

“Why, have you slept with someone else I was supposed to marry?”

Gabe sighed. “I deserved that.”

“You deserve worse. I’m hanging up now.” A whopper of a headache throbbed in Jed’s left temple by the time he replaced the receiver.

His mind shifted back to Henry.

A hostile freaking takeover. What a day.

He knew it was a possibility from the moment he put up more than half the stock, but he’d had no choice at the time, needing the capital to expand the company overseas. He thought his board was more loyal than they were turning out to be, and that was far too familiar a bell to be ringing just before the news of his father’s impending vows.

Best man. No way. He felt a little sorry for his father, like he would feel for any man who lived his life in a way he later came to regret. The man had no true friends to stand by his side, and had to resort to asking his estranged son to do it.

Jed had spent years learning how to get past his childhood, to believe he was capable and smart and worthy, even if his own father thought he wasn’t worth the time of day. And he’d done it, succeeding with flying colors, making his own fortune to rival the one he’d been denied a piece of.

He would tell Edward no.

There was no question.

Jed was a terrible liar, and he was anything but his father’s best man.

Suddenly, his office was too small, too cluttered, too closed in. He gazed out the window at the sunny day beyond. He needed to get out of this room, clear his head, figure out what to do. He buzzed his secretary. “Bridget, clear my calendar. I’m leaving the office early today.”

“But you have an important meeting…”

He laughed without humor. “It’s not important anymore. Cancel it. And Bridget, if my father calls…”

Tell him to go to hell.

Tell him I got hit by a bus.

He scrunched his eyes tightly shut. “Go ahead and give him my cell phone number.”

~~~

Tori Henderson carefully lined the carved wooden box with purple satin, her hands lightly shaking. “I don’t know why I’m nervous.”

Her friend Melanie stepped closer, peering over Tori’s shoulder. “Because that’s a boatload of cash you’re loading into that box, and you’re going to go bury it in the ground.”

It was crazy when you thought about it, which Tori was trying hard not to do. She picked up a gold pendant with a wide green stone, pausing to stroke its edge before laying it gently down. “Seed money,” she reminded herself. “It’s going to grow into a money tree.”

“Amen to that.” Melanie picked up a pair of earrings, their delicate filigree highlighted with turquoise, and whistled appreciatively. “I love these. You do such nice work.”

“Thanks.” She’d worked for days on those alone, and knew Melanie was right, they were beautiful. The workmanship and design would have commanded a high price at her shop—if she wasn’t giving them away for free.

She’d deliberately had to miss her last student loan payment to afford the gold she needed for these pieces. A wave of anxiety went through her as she remembered slipping the bill into a drawer and closing it away, with a silent promise to pay it as soon as she was able.

And she would be able.

She must.

Her stomach turned and flipped over. It was so hard to spend money on this promotion when she desperately needed it for other things. She thought of the creditor who called her home at nine o’clock last night, and the hours she had lain awake afterward in a nervous sweat. This contest was her last chance to save her shop, and everything had to be perfect.

Reaching into a drawer, she withdrew three small velvet bags and emptied them one at a time into her palm. Each contained a gold ring, the first a sapphire, the second a ruby and the third an emerald, but it was the unique metalwork that really made them sparkle.

Tori placed them in the chest, consoling herself that the value in materials was hardly enough to pay back even one of her loans, and she had several outstanding. No, her best chance to save her business was to increase sales for the entire season, not to hang on tightly to these baubles.

“Tell me where you’re going to hide it,” said Melanie. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“Your mouth leaks like an old sink. I’m not telling you anything.”

Melanie huffed and pouted for a moment. “When are you going to bury it?”

“Tomorrow.”

“And when is it going to be on TV?”

“New clues will be on the six o’clock news every day.” She was more than a little nervous, given that she’d written the press releases herself, starting with an open invitation to participate in a real live treasure hunt for more than ten thousand dollars in jewelry from Tori’s Treasures.

Every part of the treasure hunt had been carefully planned, coordinating the event to tie-in with the peak tourist season and the town’s annual grape festival. She even worked with local real estate agents and rental agencies to be sure a flyer for the treasure hunt hung in every rented cabin for a hundred-mile radius.

If this went well, it could turn everything around. The sheer number of people who rented cabins on Moon Lake and the surrounding Finger Lakes was enough to make her sole-proprietor mouth drool with anticipation.

She raised her eyes to those of her dearest friend. “What if it doesn’t work, Melanie? What if I have to close the shop?”

“Oh, you stop that negative thinking right now, or I’m going to smack you upside the head. Nothing good is going to come of thinking like that. The treasure hunt is an awesome idea. Everyone around here’s going to play. You’ll be the talk of the town.”

Tori nodded. Melanie was right. It was a good idea, and she knew it.

I just have to stay positive. Focus on success.

A bell rang, signaling the entry of someone into the shop, the fifth person today and it wasn’t even eleven. From the outside looking in, Tori’s Treasures was thriving. Melanie was the only one who knew Tori was struggling to make ends meet, and she didn’t even know the full extent of Tori’s debt. It was a secret that grew heavier on Tori’s shoulders with each passing day.

Tori mentally ticked off the sum total of her debts. The staggering student loans. The mortgage on this beautiful house, an old Victorian with gingerbread trim, and the second and third mortgages she’d had to take against it. Worse yet, she lived here. If she lost the house, she’d be losing her home, too. Carefully she folded the satin over the last of the rings and secured the lid of the wooden box with a silent prayer.

Melanie scooted past Tori and grabbed a diet soda out of the mini fridge. “I can’t believe your mom’s getting married.”

“I know. Crazy, right?”

“Good for her. She’s been by herself for a long time.”

“I know. I just hope she’s not rushing into this.”

“Speaking of rushing into bad relationships,” said Melanie. “Where has Jason been lately? You chop him up into little pieces and bury him in the backyard?”

Tori cringed. “We broke up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you didn’t like him.”

“Exactly. You were deliberately withholding information that would make me happy.”

“Well, it didn’t make me happy.”

“Ah. So this was not a mutual agreement to stop seeing each other.”

“No.” She was pouting and she knew it, but the very last thing Tori wanted to deal with was a breakup on top of everything else. It was embarrassing. It was stressful. It just plain sucked.

“Did you love him?”

Tori shrugged one shoulder. “No, but I didn’t like being dropped like a sack of potatoes, either.”

“If you didn’t love him, you shouldn’t be with him. Good riddance.”

Everything was black and white for Melanie, with no gray in between. Tori pursed her lips. Was it her fault if she lived in a world full of grays, that so little ever seemed truly clear, or easy?

Tori eyed her warily. “Mel, do you think it’s possible that someone you dated a long time ago might still remember you, and think about you sometimes?”

“You just met him.”

“Not Jason.” Tori sighed. “The guy my mom’s marrying is Gabe Trainor’s father.”

“Why does that name sound familiar?”

“His family rented a cabin next door to mine in high school.”

Melanie’s eyes went wide. “Your first kiss? That guy?”

Tori nodded. “That’s the one.”

“Your mother’s marrying Gabe’s father?”

“Yep.”

Her friend laughed maniacally. “Oh, this is too good to be true.”

Tori checked her watch. “I’m meeting my mom and Edward at the Grill. Want to come?”

“Is Gabe going to be there?”

“No.”

Melanie grabbed her coat off a hook. “I’ll come anyway. Your life is a lot more interesting than mine.”

~~~

Chapter 2

Jed rested his elbows on the bar and rubbed his eyes, trying to adjust to the darkness and the surreal turn his life had taken today.

He’d driven for miles without a destination, ending up at the deserted beachfront, standing in a cold, whipping wind. Then the rain began to fall, soaking his clothes and chilling him to the core. He made his way back to his car and called his lawyer Kevin Lambert, prepared to tell his old friend he was about to lose one of his biggest clients, Trainor Enterprises.

There would be more phone calls like this one, more people out of work because of him. Bridget and the rest of the office staff. People who relied on him for a paycheck. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat and said what he needed to say.

Kevin didn’t miss a beat. “Disappear. An urgent matter out of town that requires your immediate attention.”

Jed ran his fingers through his hair. “What are you talking about?”

“Before you sold off that last block of stock, I modified the charter. You approved it while you still had majority control, remember?”

A memory came floating back to Jed. “You said it was for my protection.”

“Exactly. We can’t keep them from taking control, but we can stall them. Buy you some time. You’ve got two weeks’ grace. They have to try to contact you for two weeks before they can hold a vote without you present.”

“In the meantime, I can try to buy some more stock.”

“Exactly.”

Hope rose up within him, and he worked to bank it down. This was not a reprieve, merely a stay of execution, but it was time he could use to his advantage. As a privately-held company, it wouldn’t be easy to find shares of Trainor Enterprises for sale. Still, the lightest smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You are my new favorite person.”

“You got somewhere you can go?”

“I’ll just lay low at home.”

“No. If they think you’re being evasive, that won’t fulfill the requirements of the clause. It can’t look deliberate.”

Jed thought of his father’s unwelcome invitation and frowned. “My father’s getting married in the Finger Lakes in two weeks.”

“Perfect. Make it an extended holiday.”

That was last night. Now he sat at the Moon Lake Bar & Grill, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. When he phoned his father and told him he would be at the wedding after all, Edward assumed Jed would be his best man. When Jed tried to clarify, his father put his foot down, refusing to take no for an answer.