“Because they worked. You want to change things for the sake of it.”
“I have no idea who rattled your cage, Walter, but you need to calm down or you’ll be getting chest pains again.” Sending her father-in-law a reproving look, Elizabeth O’Neil placed the large casserole in the center of the table. “As for Kayla, she’s probably starving hungry, and no one can think on an empty stomach. She had a long journey and traveling always makes a person hungry. Do you like pot roast, Kayla?”
They were looking for excuses for her fumbled, inadequate performance, and there were none. Or at least, none she could offer.
Kayla couldn’t make her brain or her limbs work.
She glanced at the casserole as if a spaceship had landed in the middle of the table then stood up, graceless and flustered.
They didn’t want her here.
Jackson reached out and caught her arm, his fingers like steel. “Where are you going?”
Why don’t you eat in your room, Kayla?
“You’re having a family meal. I’m interrupting.” Shaking him off, she stuffed the notebook and computer into her bag without bothering to switch off the power.
“You’re not interrupting.” Elizabeth sounded confused. “We’re having pot roast. Élise, our French chef, gave me the recipe. It’s the perfect comfort food for a snowy day, and we have plenty of those around here. I’ll give you the recipe, then you can make it when you’re back in New York.”
She wished she were in New York now, back in her soulless glass apartment sealed away from the world.
Coming here had been a bad idea. She was running away, but you couldn’t run from something that was inside you.
“I’ll leave you to your meal.” Kayla stumbled toward the door and grabbed her coat. “Have a good evening.” Her coat half on and half off, she yanked open the door.
A young girl stood there. Pale-skinned and thin, she wore a thick Fair Isle sweater and was holding a puppy in her arms.
“I found her outside.” She put the puppy down, and it immediately ran over to Kayla and raced in circles around her, leaping up and leaving paw prints on her favorite black suede shoes.
“Oh, she’s making a mess of your beautiful shoes, I’m so sorry—” Elizabeth brandished the serving spoon. “Go to your basket, Maple.”
Maple paid no attention and Kayla heard Jackson sigh.
“Down!”
Responding to the voice of authority, Maple sank to her belly and turned wounded eyes to Kayla.
Kayla was willing to bet the look in her eyes was pretty similar.
I’m in much deeper shit than you are.
While the O’Neils were focused on the puppy, she seized the moment to escape.
“Kayla—”
“I’m fine. Enjoy your meal.” She took a last, wild look around the room and shot out of the door, slamming it shut behind her.
WHAT THE HELL had just happened?
Jackson closed his eyes and spent thirty seconds mentally running through every swearword in his vocabulary while Maple leaped out of her basket and barked at the door as if she wanted to go after Kayla.
Everyone was talking at once.
“She seemed flustered.” Alice put her knitting down. “Something was wrong.”
Elizabeth took plates from the oven. “Of course something was wrong. She had Walter barking at her and on top of that she was hungry. No one can concentrate when they’re hungry. You need to take her something to eat, Jackson. And, Walter, you need to show tolerance when we have a guest in our house.”
“She wasn’t a guest. She was here to make us change things that don’t need changing. Things she doesn’t understand.” Walter pointed his fork at Jackson. “I told you it was a mistake to employ someone from New York.”
“You didn’t give her a chance.” Jackson hauled in his temper. The fact that Kayla hadn’t performed as expected intensified his feelings of frustration. She’d made his battle harder, not easier. “If you’d let her talk, you might have discovered she’s good at her job.” Except that she hadn’t been. Not today. Not when it counted. She’d crumbled in front of his eyes and he had no idea why.
True, Walter had been difficult, but no more difficult than the senior company personnel Kayla Green spoke to on a daily basis in her role as associate vice president. And yet the ballsy, gutsy woman who had manipulated her tough boss like modeling paste had allowed his eighty-year-old grandfather to walk all over her as if she were yesterday’s snow.
And Walter hadn’t finished. “I don’t care if she’s from Alaska. If you put all your savings into her you’re even more of a fool than you look. Might as well back a moose to win the Kentucky Derby.”
“Better legs than any moose I’ve laid eyes on.” Tyler’s attempt to defuse the tension had the opposite effect on Jackson.
He was trying not to think about those legs, just as he was trying not to think about her mouth and her smooth blond hair. Most of all he was trying not to think about the panic in her eyes.
What the hell had happened to her?
He’d known it would be a difficult meeting, but not even at his most pessimistic had he expected her to actually walk out. If he hadn’t witnessed it himself, he wouldn’t have believed such a competent businesswoman could crumble so completely.
Had he underestimated the impact of taking her out of a minimalist corporate boardroom devoid of personality or character and transplanting her here, in the O’Neil kitchen?
He looked at his grandmother, knitting steadily, a ball of yarn at her feet and several more on the table, his mother stirring the casserole and his grandfather scowling from his favorite chair at the head of the table.
Jackson rose to his feet as his mother put a plate in front of him. “I’m not eating, thanks. I need to talk to her.”
“Don’t bother,” Walter grunted. “She doesn’t have anything to say worth listening to.”
The comment snapped the leash on his temper. “That’s enough.” He saw his grandfather blink. “Once, just once, it would be helpful if we all acted as if we’re on the same side. Do you think I’m doing this for fun? For my own entertainment? Because I could find other more exciting things to keep me awake at night than the state of the Snow Crystal finances.”
Walter’s mouth tightened, but his face turned a few shades paler. “Then you should do that. I ran this place before you were born. I can run it again with my eyes closed. It’s what I want.”
“I know you do. And your eyes are closed. As closed as your mind.” Speaking through his teeth, Jackson strode to the door. “Unless you want to lose this place it’s time you opened both of them. And the sooner you accept that I’m the one running it and I know what I’m doing, the sooner we’ll be back in profit.” Grabbing his coat, he strode out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
Walter’s shoulders sagged.
The food in front of Elizabeth sat untouched. “I’ve never seen him so angry. And she’s going to slip on the ice in those pretty shoes.”
“She’ll