LITMIR.BIZ

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Chilled to the bone, Hayden shoved his hands in his pockets. Sleet drizzled past the upturned collar of his old leather jacket and dripped from his bare head and nose.

      He stared at the final resting place of his father, strewn with roses and carnations and lilies, and he whispered under his breath, “I hope you got what you deserved, you miserable bastard.”

      A lump filled his throat and his eyes burned with tears he refused to shed. Hayden Garreth Monroe III had been a pathetic excuse of a father. He’d shown his son no love, nor kind words—only strict discipline and upper-crust values.

      From his pocket, Hayden withdrew a leather baseball, autographed by Reggie Jackson, and hurled it into the soil. The ball wedged deeply, nearly buried with the old man. Fitting, Hayden thought bitterly. His father had paid a fortune for that baseball, given it to Hayden and never once played catch with his only son. He’d never had the time, nor the inclination.

      “Rest in peace,” Hayden muttered, before turning and never once looking over his shoulder.

      His old Jeep was idling at the curb, and Hayden slid into the torn driver’s seat, wrenching the wheel and gunning the accelerator. Leo, a battle-scarred Lab and his best friend in the world—perhaps his only friend—was seated in the backseat. “One more stop,” Hayden informed the dog. “Then we’re history around here.”

      Driving through the gates of the cemetery, he headed into the city for yet another ordeal—a meeting with William Bradworth, of Smythe, Mills and Bradworth, his father’s attorneys.

      * * *

      BRADWORTH’S PRIVATE SUITE fairly reeked of blue blood and big bucks. From the mahogany walls to the leather club chairs situated stiffly around a massive desk, the rooms were meant to invite conversation about money, money and more money. Even the view of San Francisco Bay didn’t disturb the Wall Street atmosphere that some high-priced decorator had tried to transfer from East Coast to West.

      The phony ambience made Hayden sick.

      Shifting restlessly in his chair, he glanced from the balding pate of William Bradworth to the window where sleet was sluicing down the glass and the sky was the color of steel.

      Bradworth’s voice was a monotone droning on and on. “...so you see, Mr. Monroe, except for the money that’s been set aside for your mother, her house, her car and jewelry, you’ve inherited virtually everything your father owned.”

      “I thought he cut me out a few years back.”

      Bradworth cleared his throat. “He did. Later, however, Garreth had a change of heart.”

      “Big of him,” Hayden muttered.

      “I think so, yes.”

      “Well, I don’t want it. Not one damned piece of rough-cut lumber, not one red cent of the old man’s money, not one stinking oil well. You got that?”

      “But you’ve just been left a fortune—”

      “What I’ve been left, Bradworth, is a ball and chain, a reminder that my father wanted to control me when he was alive and is still trying to run my life from the grave.” Hayden gave a cursory glance to his copy of the last will and testament of Hayden Garreth Monroe III, lying open on the polished desk. He slid the damned document toward his father’s arrogant son-of-a-bitch of an attorney. “It won’t work.”

      “But—”

      Standing, Hayden planted both of his tanned hands on William Bradworth’s desk and leaned forward, his gaze drilling into the bland features of a man who had worked for his father for years. “I didn’t want the company when the old man was alive,” he said in a calm voice, “and I sure as hell don’t want it now.”

      “I don’t see that you have much choice.” Always unflappable, Bradworth leaned back in his chair, putting some distance between himself and Hayden’s imposing, aggressive stance. Tenting his hands under his chin, like a minister ready to impart marital advice, he suggested, “You can sell the corporation, of course, but that takes time and you’ll have to deal with your uncle—”

      Hayden grimaced at the mention of Thomas Fitzpatrick.

      “Tom owns a considerable amount of shares. Meanwhile the employees will want to keep getting paid and, unless you want to close the doors and put those people on the unemployment rolls, Monroe Sawmill Company will keep turning out thousands of board feet of lumber from the mills.”

      Hayden’s back teeth ground together. Even from the grave, the old man seemed to have him over a barrel. Hayden didn’t have much love for Gold Creek, where the oldest and largest of the mills was located, but he didn’t hate the people who lived there. Some of them were good, salt-of-the-earth types who’d worked for the corporation for years. Thrown out of work, they’d have no place to turn. A fifty-five-year-old millwright couldn’t be expected to go back to school for vocational training. The whole damned town depended upon that mill one way or another. Even the people who worked at Fitzpatrick Logging Company needed a sawmill where they could sell the cut timber. The banks, the shops, the cafés, the taverns, even the churches depended upon the mill to keep the economy of that small town afloat. It was the same with the other small towns around the smaller mills he now owned.

      With the feeling that he was slowly drowning, Hayden said, “Look, Bradworth, I know about selling companies. I just got rid of a logging operation in Klamath Falls, Oregon. So there must be some way to get rid of the mills around Gold Creek.”

      The attorney drew back his lips in what Hayden surmised was supposed to be a smile. “Your Podunk logging operation in Klamath Falls—what did it consist of? A few trucks, maybe a mill or two and some timber? Handling a small-time business is a lot different than running an operation the size of Monroe Sawmill, son.”

      “Doesn’t matter. I just don’t want it. I don’t care if I ever see a dime of the old man’s money.”

      Bradworth’s eyebrows raised a fraction. “So you want to donate the corporation, lock, stock, barrel and green chain to—whom? The homeless? The Cancer Society? Needy children?”

      Hayden’s lips flattened against his teeth. “That’s a start.”

      “How?”

      “You’re the attorney—”

      “Right. So that’s why I’m telling you. We can’t go out and donate a wood chipper to the Salvation Army. You know, most people would jump at a chance to own a company like this.”

      “I’m not most people.”

      “Obviously.” Bradworth’s gaze raked down Hayden’s body, taking quick appraisal of his soggy jeans, flannel shirt and battered running shoes. His wet jacket had been cast casually over the back of one of the attorney’s stuffed leather chairs. Water dripped onto the expensive burgundy-hued carpet. “As for the charitable organization of your choice, I’m sure the board of directors would be more than happy to take your money—but not in the form of the corporation, so you can sell Monroe Sawmill Company to a rival firm, if there is one that wants it, or raffle it off piece by piece to some corporate raider who’ll close up shop and put the employees out of work. Your choice. But for the time being, you are, whether you like it or not, the majority stockholder and CEO of the firm, and the next board meeting is scheduled for January 15.” Bradworth glanced meaningfully at his desk calendar. “That’s barely two months away. I doubt that anyone will buy the company from you by then.” He reached behind him, opened a sleek walnut credenza and pulled out several binders. “These,” he said with quiet authority, “are copies of the company books. I suggest you study them. As for the town house in the Heights, here are the keys, along with a key to the Mercedes, BMW and Ferrari. There’s also the summer place at—”

      “Whitefire Lake,” Hayden supplied, thinking of the remote house on the shore, the only place he remembered from his youth with any fondness. He’d enjoyed his few years on the lake and the summers thereafter...until his entire life had been turned inside out. “I know.”

      Bradworth’s

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