LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER TWO

      PARTNER?

      For a few seconds, Melanie was afraid she’d forgotten how to breathe—because when she tried it was like inhaling icicles. Take it slowly, she told herself. A little bit of air at a time.

      The entire situation was perfectly clear—at least to her—and the appropriate response was obvious. But apparently the man sitting across the desk from her didn’t see it the same way, or he wouldn’t have blithely announced that he was going to be her new partner.

      How on earth, she wondered, could anyone have actually agreed to buy a business without realizing that he was purchasing only half of it? Without checking things like a balance sheet or a profit-and-loss statement?

      And even if for some incredible reason the deal had gotten that far, then why hadn’t he gone storming out of the office to find Jackson and get his money back the instant he’d found out that he’d been taken for a ride?

      Melanie had been absolutely certain of her ground. As soon as the Baritsa man had announced that he was the new boss, she’d known exactly what had happened. What must have happened.

      So all she had to do, she’d thought, was to straighten out this flaw in his thinking. Once she had corrected his mistaken impression that he’d bought the entire business, the rest would take care of itself.

      Or, rather, he would take care of it. Exactly how he chose to clear up the mess was none of her business. If he chose to settle matters with Jackson by beating him to a pulp, that would be too bad for Jackson, of course. But if Jackson was idiot enough to mislead a prospective buyer, he deserved whatever he got. It wasn’t up to Melanie to interfere.

      But now it seemed that the prospective buyer wasn’t even going to try to straighten out the mess.

      It wasn’t that sort of agreement, he’d said. You’ve got a new partner.

      Which made no sense at all. Why would he sit still for being taken like that?

      Of course, it was becoming increasingly clear to Melanie that Jackson hadn’t been the only fool involved in the deal. Agreeing to buy a business without even knowing for sure what kind of merchandise it carried, without looking over the stock, without checking out the bottom line to be certain the seller was telling the truth—

      “That’s the sort of thing my father would have done,” she muttered.

      “Pardon me?”

      “Nothing.” But at last a little light had dawned in Melanie’s head.

      Nobody would make a deal like that, blindly and without investigation, if he thought there was a chance he was being cheated. But the only kind of person who wouldn’t have a healthy dose of skepticism over an offer of that sort was one who thought he was getting a sure thing. Or maybe one who’d been doing a little double-dealing of his own.

      If he had believed he was the one doing the cheating, he wouldn’t have been on guard against Jackson.

      She doubted the Baritsa man would put it quite that clearly, of course. But it was the only thing she could think of which accounted for everything—including his unwillingness to go after Jackson now. It wasn’t that sort of agreement…

      “Do you have a name?” she asked abruptly.

      “Oh, you can just keep calling me Bub. Bub and Mel’s Used Cars—it has a certain ring to it.”

      Maybe he was delusional, Melanie thought wildly, and none of it had happened at all. “I don’t suppose you have proof of this transaction.”

      His eyebrows lifted inquisitively, and Melanie couldn’t help noticing that they had a natural aristocratic arch that was very unlike the practiced curve of Jackson’s brows. “After watching your former partner ooze out of here on a wave of guilt that would fill a swimming pool, you still think you need proof that his share of the business changed hands last night?”

      She couldn’t argue with his point. How could she have forgotten for an instant the pathetic way that Jackson had crept out of the shop, refusing even to look at her?

      No, there was no question the two men had agreed to some kind of a deal. The question was what she was going to be able to do about it.

      Play along, she told herself. Don’t agree to anything. Just get him out of here and then you can call a lawyer and find out where you stand.

      He pushed himself up from his chair and started to look around the office. “You have a very interesting philosophy of decorating, Ms. Stafford. Why take down expired calendars when you can just hang this year’s at the end of the row? Of course, eventually you’ll run out of wall space. May I call you Mel, now that we’re partners?”

      “No,” she said, a little more sharply than she intended. “I mean, I prefer to use my full name. It’s Melanie.”

      “Interesting.”

      She was puzzled. “My name? I’m glad you think so, but—”

      “I mean the idea that Jackson would ignore your wishes about your name as well as the business. At least I assume you don’t approve of him selling his half.”

      “Perceptive, aren’t you?”

      “The question is why. I can think of several possibilities.”

      The phone rang. She put a hand on it and looked up at him. “Hold it right there till I finish with this call. I don’t want to miss a word of your logic.”

      The caller was a regular customer, looking for a part for a car he was restoring. She put the phone down and reached for the intercom. “Robbie, when Fred has time, ask him to pull the driver’s side door off the blue Mustang that’s sitting out by the back fence. Bill Myers wants to pick it up this afternoon.”

      Robbie’s voice came back, tinny and distant. “Sure thing.”

      She released the intercom button. “Now—you were saying?”

      “Do you know every piece you have in inventory by heart?”

      “Of course not. There’s a whole corner of the junk-yard we’ve hardly gotten into yet. But don’t let me distract you from figuring out why I don’t want Jackson to sell.”

      He held up a hand and began to tick off points on his fingertips. “You like having him around and wanted him to keep his share so you’d see him regularly.”

      “Don’t make me laugh.”

      “Really? Then if you weren’t gung-ho about having Jackson as a partner, what’s so bad about him selling out?”

      Melanie opened her mouth and closed it again. He had something there, she realized. Jackson had been a liability as a partner, a constant drag on the business. His unwillingness to reinvest any of his share of the profits had slowed the growth of Classical Cars, preventing Melanie from taking advantage of opportunities on more occasions than she could count. But since she couldn’t do anything about Jackson’s attitude, she’d concentrated on the things that she could control.

      Now that he was gone, however…things were certainly going to be different.

      “Another possibility,” he went on, “is that you wanted to buy his half yourself.”

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