A Small-Town Temptation. Terry Mclaughlin

payments. “Thirty,” she said again.

      Red ranted a while longer before disconnecting. Charlie slowly, carefully lowered the receiver into its cradle, her fingers shaking. The comment about her father had stung. “Comparing that man to dirt does dirt a disservice.”

      “Well,” said Gus with a sympathetic shrug, “we’ll make up the difference on the Hawthorne pour.”

      “That job bid already?” Charlie checked her watch. Pinch-hitting as a driver had thrown her day out of whack. “Who got it?”

      Gus’s homely face cracked with a wide grin. “Bradford.”

      “Yes.” She punched the counter with her fist, already figuring the profit in her head. Bradford Industries was efficient, cooperative, paid on time and was a rock-solid customer. If Bradford got the bid, Keene would do the pour. A big one, with plenty of deep, wide surface area and a minimum of the kind of detail work that kept trucks idling while pump operators and concrete finishers filled and smoothed every nook and cranny.

      “David seems happy enough about the news,” said Gus.

      “Yeah. Right.”

      Charlie regretted the sarcastic remark the moment it flew from her mouth. Her younger brother meant well, most of the time. Well, some of the time, anyway, but his heart simply wasn’t committed to the family business. Never had been, though their father had struggled for years to find some aspect of Keene Concrete that might engage his only son’s interest. Nothing had worked.

      David claimed he had a talent for metal sculpting and ambitions to make his mark in the art world, but he’d sold only two pieces and hadn’t completed the application for the San Francisco art academy he hoped to attend. Instead, he’d complained his responsibilities were holding him back, and he’d launched a campaign to sell the business the day after they’d put their father in the ground, two long and difficult years ago.

      Charlie sighed. “Is he in his office?”

      “Yep.” Gus stared at the mug in his hands. “Been on the phone most of the morning.”

      “Could be woman trouble.” David hadn’t yet figured out the math: dating more than one woman at a time didn’t mean his problems would multiply, it meant they’d increase at exponential rates.

      “Yep.” Gus turned the mug in one circle, and then another. “Could be.”

      Watching Gus spin that mug knotted up Charlie’s guts. She knew her dispatcher was aware of the arguments behind the scenes. David had stormed out of the office more than once lately, threatening to force the issue. To force her to sell.

      Bad enough her employees had to deal with a female boss who, at twenty-nine, was younger than most of them. Bad enough they had to deal with the rigors of the job itself, with the long, grueling hours when the weather cooperated and the uncertain hours when it didn’t. She didn’t want them to have to worry about whether they’d keep their jobs on top of all that.

      There were few secrets in a town the size of Carnelian Cove, and no secrets when it came to Keene family business, thanks to David’s indiscretion. Their father had split the company stock equally among his three heirs: his wife, his son and his daughter. Once David convinced their mother to let him put it up for sale, Keene Concrete would go to the highest bidder, and Charlie would likely be looking for another steady job along with some of her current employees.

      Unless she could convince both her mother and David to help her buy BayRock, which might provide her mother with enough security to soothe her worries and give David a big enough raise to either purchase his loyalty or pay for his tuition. And unless she could make Keene Concrete too big for the hungry conglomerates down south to swallow without getting a bad case of heartburn.

      Just last week she’d heard that a Continental Construction rep had been prowling among the sand and gravel suppliers in the neighboring county. That was entirely too close for comfort.

      She turned her back on the reception counter and started down the short hall that led to the back offices and storage areas. Avoiding the bookkeeper’s attempt to flag her down and the view of her messy desk piled high with invoices and mail, she stopped at David’s door. It was closed, as usual. She stared at the shiny new brass name plate covering the lettering still visible in the wood below: Mitch Keene, Owner.

      Not President or CEO, like the puffed-up titles on David’s nameplate. Owner. Their father had been a plain, quiet man, with a plain, quiet pride in the business he’d built from one delivery truck and a two-year lease on a river bar. He’d taken a simple satisfaction in what he’d been able to provide for his family and offer to his employees, and a quiet pleasure in what he’d contributed to his community. Keene Concrete had earned a reputation for solid dealing to match the solid foundations it poured.

      How could David want to auction off that legacy?

      She sucked in a deep breath, raised her hand, prayed for patience and knocked on the door.

      “Yeah?”

      “It’s me,” said Charlie. “I’m coming in.”

      Chapter Two

      CHARLIE IGNORED DAVID’S SCOWL as she dropped into one of his plush visitors’ chairs.

      “Why don’t you ever make ‘coming in’ a question instead of a fact?” he asked.

      “Because it saves time.”

      He leaned back in his tall leather swivel chair and bounced the eraser end of a freshly sharpened pencil against his tidy desk calendar. The weak winter sun sneaking through the window behind him picked out strands of copper in his well-mannered chestnut hair, a head of hair that Charlie, with her out-of-control carrot curls, never ceased to envy. Just as she never ceased to envy the way his clothes neatly outlined his long, rangy frame, while hers simply buried what little there was of her figure.

      Today he wore a dress shirt and tie, and she spied a new leather jacket hanging from the mirrored wall rack behind him. “Going somewhere?” she asked.

      “Already been.” His expression brightened with the trace of a smile. “I stopped by that new hotel going up south of the marina—you know, Quinn’s job. He liked my sketches. He’s going to show them to the architect, see if he might be interested in using my design for the water feature near the entrance.”

      Charlie didn’t respond to David’s smile with one of her own. Quinn was one of the busiest contractors in Carnelian Cove, a dour, hard-working man who probably didn’t appreciate David traipsing around his job site, artwork in hand.

      Her brother cleared his throat, and then he flipped the pencil in his hand and drew a box around a calendar item. “And then I’ve got a business appointment.”

      “Here?”

      Obviously annoyed, he flicked an impatient glance in her direction. “This is a place of business.”

      “Yeah. Right.” She tossed her chin at the jacket. “Where did you get that?”

      “The city.” He took a deep breath and blew it out with a martyred sigh. “Is that why you barged in here? To comment on my wardrobe?”

      Charlie shifted forward. “You loaned out two of our trucks this morning.”

      He shrugged. “Earl called me at home last night and asked for them.”

      And she’d just made sure Earl would never pull that stunt again. “How many times have I told you not to make a move without checking with Gus first?”

      David jammed the pencil into a bristling mass of writing tools corralled in a slick chrome cup. “Gus isn’t the boss around here.”

      “He’s the dispatcher, and when it comes to which truck goes where, and when, that’s more important than whose name is on whose check.”

      “Damn it, Charlie—”

      “Just