Page 9 of A Christmas Bargain
Yet you’ll let me have to take the brunt of the fall?
“I gave you both this company with good faith that you’d both manage it wisely.”
“What that means is you want to turn Claire against me when she gets sick of fixing my mistakes.” She sniffled, shaking her head.
“No. It means you work together.” He looked at me. “Which means you shouldn’t enable her with this behavior, either.”
“Hey.” I smiled. “Let’s, um, let’s take this down a notch. No one’s enabling anyone. Lessons can be learned from mistakes.”
Dad raised his brows. Grace scowled.
“I’ll figure something out.” I glanced at Dad again, almost sad to make eye contact. I really had hoped he’d be more open to stepping out of retirement even slightly. This was his namesake, after all.
“I left the rat race to enjoy my life, girls. I’m not that young anymore. I deserve to relax. To get ready for grandkids to spoil someday.”
Grace groaned. I laughed once, nervously. “Dad, that’s not on the radar anytime soon, you know.”
“Because you’re only getting younger with each day?” he teased back, smiling.
“Well, I’m focusing on my career,” I replied.
“Me too,” Grace said quietly. “I mean…” She shrugged. “Yeah. Me too.”
I wasn’t going to comment on that. She was too busy gambling in the form of seeking “investments” and taking risks with damn near everything to focus on her job.
“Then maybe this ‘mistake’ is a blessing in disguise. You’ll throw the company away on a lousy gamble and then you’ll both be free to start families.”
“Dad!” I huffed, forcing a quick smile. “Don’t talk like that.” It wasn’t like we could swap roles or goals on the flip of a coin. I loved my job. I enjoyed being productive and successful. Having a family was one of those back-burner goals, but not prioritizing that didn’t make me a bad daughter.
He shrugged, lifting his hands in an indifferent manner.
“I will fix this.” I cleared my throat, wishing I could feel as confident as I made myself sound. I hoped I could, but dammit, that was a ton of money to bring in somehow. The holidays were upon us, and sometimes that could absolutely kill this quarter’s profits. The market could be seasonal like that.
“How?” he asked.
I licked my lips. I wouldn’t panic. I wouldn’t cringe. That wasn’t my style. “Any ideas?” I asked carefully. “Before I drove here, I looked over moving some things around…”
He nodded. “But that wouldn’t be enough.”
“So…” I winced at Grace, who looked near tears. “Any ideas?” That wouldn’t be asking him to step out of retirement and handle this, to broker any deals or anything. Asking him for advice was just seeking a favor.
“You need to bring in new deals. New properties.” He twitched his lips, a tell of his thinking deep. “Different deals with multiple avenues of development.”
That all sounded great. I nodded.But where? How?“Do you know of anyone I could contact?”
He shook his head. “No, but I have a suggestion of where you should look.”
I sat up, perkier and all ears. “Where?” I personally hadn’t thought of anyplace that could equal a potential boon for me. I could close a deal rather well, but I had to have something to offer or look into.
“Preston.” He smiled slightly, as though he felt silly to never have mentioned it before.
I dipped my chin as I raised my brows. “Preston? As in the… town next to us?”
“Yes. Preston. There is a significant amount of land that you could check out.”
Huh.I was so used to looking further from the small town area where I’d grown up. Denver felt more like home than here. My portfolio of real estate that I’d bought or sold included a variety of locations. Colorado was where I preferred to work, but I was licensed in other states with a varied degree of success.
“O… kay.” I smiled quickly, not entirely sure what I’d find in the quaint small town of Preston, or if anyone would be interested in selling or talking about property now so close to the end of the year, but I wouldn’t sleep on his suggestion. “Preston.”