Married In The Morning. SUSAN MEIER

good as he got. “And the cleaning crew for that room will be made up of everybody whose prints I find.”

      That brought another spurt of laughter, followed by another round of applause and Gina breathed a long sigh of relief. Her father looked a little tired, but he was essentially back to normal. At least as normal as he could be until he had his bypass surgery. In fact, she suspected his upcoming surgery was the reason he had returned prematurely. He probably wanted to clear up everything he could before he had to take off another long span of recovery time. Specifically, he had to officially appoint Josh as head of Operations and give him temporary power to run the company.

      “Anyway, you’re here for two reasons. First, I want to thank you for the cards, flowers, gifts, fruit baskets, homemade cookies and phone calls.” His eyes misted and his throat sounded tight. “Thank you.”

      The employees again applauded exuberantly, and Hilton took the opportunity to compose himself. When the commotion died down, he said, “The second reason I brought you here is to tell you that I have decided to retire.”

      “What?”

      Gina wasn’t the only person who had said that out loud. Beside her, Ethan McKenzie and Josh Anderson both said the same thing. It wasn’t unusual for her fun-loving father to dramatically make surprise announcements that even upper-echelon staff didn’t know about. But this wasn’t a surprise. It was a disaster. She, Ethan and Josh knew they weren’t ready to take over. They might have done well in the short-term, but they couldn’t run the company indefinitely.

      “Now, hear me out. I didn’t mention to anyone that I was thinking about retiring,” he said, glancing apologetically at Gina, Josh and Ethan, “because I wanted to be sure the person I picked to replace me could take the job before I announced I was leaving. And I got a phone call early this morning indicating my replacement would be here today so I decided there was no reason to wait to make the transition.”

      Everyone in the room appeared dumbfounded. Gina simply stared at her father realizing she, Ethan and Josh didn’t have to take over. Actually, the change wouldn’t affect Ethan and Josh at all. Ethan already headed his department and Josh had had no choice but to assume the leadership position in Operations when Gerrick left. Both of them were in place. But for Gina, her father’s leaving the company was staggering. It meant it would not be her dad who trained her to run the business. A stranger would show her the ropes, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.