Her Private Bodyguard. Gayle Wilson

in earnest when she’d learned the terms of her late husband’s will. Charlie Beaufort might have been foolish enough, Val thought regretfully, to marry a woman younger than his daughter. But thankfully, his lawyers had been smart enough to make him have her sign a prenuptial agreement.

      There would be a generous settlement for Connie, plenty of money to live on, but she would get no shares of Av-Tech. And there, of course, was where Charlie Beaufort’s real wealth lay.

      Only when Val managed to pull her eyes away from her stepmother’s artful performance did she realized where Harp was leading her. On a slight rise looking down on the grave site, the co-owners of her father’s company were standing in a semicircle, waiting for Harp to bring her to them.

      She had thought the firmness of Springfield’s grip on her arm was an unnecessary and unwanted concern for her bad leg, but now it began to feel like some kind of strong-arm tactic. Although she would much prefer to believe the latter than the former, she couldn’t imagine why her father’s partners would think she needed to be coerced into meeting with them. Most of them had bounced her on their knees when she was a baby.

      They were looking decidedly nervous, however, as she and Harp approached. Because she was now the majority owner of the company that had been their bread and butter for so many years? After all, they were of a different generation. They might have concerns about a woman directing an international company, especially one that specialized in cutting-edge missile delivery systems and the latest satellite technology.

      The first thing she needed to do, Val decided, was let them know she had no intention of trying to run things. She didn’t have the expertise, even if she had wanted to. And she didn’t want to, of course. She had walked away from her father’s money more than ten years ago. She wasn’t going back to that life now. No matter what his will had said.

      “We all thought we needed to talk about what happens next,” Billy Clemens said as she and Harp walked up to the group.

      Trust Billy to cut to the chase, Val thought. The most outspoken of the four men who had been her father’s partners for more than forty years, Clemens was also Val’s least favorite, although she could never quite pinpoint the reason. Billy was fond of saying that with him, what you saw was what you got. He was right. Val just didn’t particularly like either.

      Maybe her father hadn’t, as well, Val thought, although he had never openly expressed any disparagement of Clemens. However, if her dad had arranged for his shares to be divided among his partners at his death instead of saddling her with them, Billy would now be the majority owner, and all the responsibility that went with the position would be his instead of hers.

      “What happens next?” she repeated, although she certainly knew where this was heading.

      “There’s a lot of stuff going on with the company right now. A lot of contracts that have to be met, with some pretty substantial penalties involved if we don’t meet them. I’m just wondering what you’re planning to do about those.”

      “I’m planning to see those contracts are fulfilled,” Val said. “And that the company doesn’t have to pay any penalties.”

      “You’re going to step into your father’s shoes?” Harp Springfield asked bluntly.

      “You all know as well as I do that no one can do that. Av-Tech was my father’s life. If I try to step in, I’ll botch it.”

      “You’re the majority shareholder, Val,” Porter Johnson reminded her. “Somebody’s got to command the ship.”

      “Are you volunteering, Porter?” she asked softly.

      There was little doubt what his answer would be. Johnson was suffering from prostate cancer. He wouldn’t want the responsibility of the company. Of course, neither did she. As a matter of fact, Val doubted that any one of them, with the exception of Billy Clemens, would even consider taking over.

      “You know better than that, Val,” Porter said. “Your dad was the heart and the soul of this company. The last couple of years…Well, even Charlie wasn’t able to see to everything.”

      She was grateful Porter hadn’t made that sound any worse than he had. Her father’s health had been failing for a long time, and she hated to admit she hadn’t even been aware of how much. At least, not until his first stroke two years ago.

      “That’s why we’re going to get someone in there who can tell us what we need to do with the company,” she said reassuringly.

      “You aren’t talking about selling?” Clemens asked. “You can’t do that.”

      “Right now, all I’m talking about is hiring a management consultant,” Val said. “Someone to look us over, examine the books, look at those contracts and make some suggestions. I think that’s what my father should have done when he got sick. If he had been himself, he would have.” There was a small pause, but no one challenged what she’d said, so she continued, thankful they were at least giving her the opportunity to tell them what she’d been thinking. “I’ve already asked our attorneys to locate someone with management expertise specific to our patents.”

      She was a little surprised at how easily those phrases came. Our attorneys. Management expertise specific to our patents. For someone who had spent years professing to have no interest in any of this, she talked a good game. Maybe she was more her father’s daughter than she had realized.

      “Your daddy didn’t believe in consultants,” Porter said.

      “My daddy’s dead, Porter. And up until the last couple of years he knew exactly what he was doing as far as Av-Tech was concerned. I don’t. However, as the majority owner, I have a responsibility to the other shareholders—that’s all of you, by the way—as well as a responsibility to the people who work for us. I’m going to get some help figuring out what’s best for the company. I may not have taken an interest in all this before, but it’s my responsibility now. I am Charlie Beaufort’s daughter,” she reminded them.

      “And I’m not going to let the company he loved go down the tubes,” she continued. “I want to get someone who knows what they are doing in place there as soon as possible. I hope you’ll all be willing to cooperate with him.” As her gaze circled their faces, she didn’t see anyone who looked upset by that plan. Not even Billy Clemens.

      “I think your dad would have been proud, honey,” Emory said. “That makes a lot of sense to me. And frankly, it’ll be a relief to know that what we started will be in good hands.”

      Now that Hunter had broken the ice, there was a polite murmur of what sounded like agreement. At least no one objected openly. It wouldn’t have mattered if they had, of course. She had the shares to do whatever she wanted. Still, it was nice not to have a mutiny on her hands over her first decision.

      “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a long way to travel to get back home. I’d like to make it before nightfall,” she said.

      She didn’t give them time to protest. She turned and retraced her steps down the rise. Her knee had begun to ache, and she was overly conscious of her limp. Of course, she always was when she knew someone was watching her.

      As she passed by the tent, her stepmother was still holding court. Two of the men from the mortuary were beginning to take the flowers off the casket in preparation for lowering it into the ground. Ashes to ashes, she thought, turning her blurring eyes quickly away and examining the smoothly rolling green lawn with its dotting of trees and crosses instead.

      And dust to dust. Goodbye, Daddy, her heart whispered.

      Deliberately she wiped the scene from her mind, picturing him instead behind the wheel of that battered old station wagon, driving them out to the ranch for the weekend. Still young and happy, with all of life ahead of him, and her mother at his side. That was the way she wanted to remember him.

      Behind her, she could hear the screech of the crank as it turned, lowering his casket into the ground, and her stepmother’s voice, exclaiming to someone about the depths of her grief.