“My father is dead, Jake.”
Her words hung between them as though taking on a life of their own, crowding the small space with sudden emotion.
Jake slowly straightened his slouching position. “Dead?” he repeated. “Brock?” His voice roughened. “When? What happened?”
She bit her lip in an effort to remain composed. Talking about her father’s death was still difficult. “Six months ago.” She paused and took a sip of water. “He died in his sleep. The doctor said it was his heart.”
Jake swung his legs off the seat and turned so that he was facing her. His face had been washed clean of expression. He stared at her blankly, his eyes unreadable.
“Was there any warning?”
“If there was, he never mentioned it. He began working longer hours after you left, rarely getting home before midnight. I tried to talk to him, tried to get him to rest, but he ignored me.” Her voice hardened. “If you hadn’t left the company, he might be alive today.”
Her words were as effective as a slap in the face...or a fist to his gut. Brock was dead. Only now, now that he’d learned that Brock was dead did he realize how he had viewed Brock Adams—as an Olympian figure, an immortal god who could not concern himself with the problems of mere mortals. Concerns about ethics and conscience and accountability hadn’t been as important as other considerations—growth, and returns, and happy stockholders.
Jake had been so angry when he’d left... angry, disgusted and frustrated. He hadn’t cared to listen to more of Brock’s explanations and rationalizations for his decisions. Jake had had enough.
Now Brock was dead and it was obvious from Rebecca’s determined efforts to contact him that the situation had not gotten any better since he’d left.
Now she wanted him to return to CPI. The idea was laughable. However, Jake didn’t feel much like laughing at the moment. After the shock of her news, he wasn’t certain what he was feeling.
Betty’s appearance with two platters of steaming food was a welcome respite from charged emotions.
The appetizing aroma caused Rebecca’s stomach to growl in anticipation.
Jake glanced at the plate in front of him, reminded of his earlier order. “This is a sandwich?”
Betty placed her hands on her hips. “Mel decided you might be hungrier than you thought.” She gave a sideways glance to Rebecca. “You’ve gotta keep up your strength, you know.”
He just shook his head and picked up his fork, knowing there was no winning an argument against the Abbotts. He glanced across the table. Rebecca must have been hungry. She wasn’t wasting any time on conversation, which was just as well. He needed some space to adjust to the information she’d given him.
He waited until she finished eating before he asked, “Who is running CPI these days?”
He watched her carefully blot her lips with the napkin. “As my father’s sole heir, I inherited his controlling interest in the company. I took over as chairman of the board, but at the moment there is no managing director.”
He remembered some of the sharks who were department heads and smiled. “I bet the place is experiencing a real feeding frenzy these days.”
Betty came and removed their plates, refilled Rebecca’s coffee cup and Jake’s water glass and left before she responded. She leaned her crossed arms on the table. “I always thought I was fairly competent at reading and understanding people, until I had all this dumped into my lap. I freely concede that I’m in way over my head at the moment. I don’t have the training, the ability or the personality to take over the helm and run the place, not the way you do. Obviously you can see why I’m here, why I wanted to talk to you, to explain what’s happening.”
“Ambition and greed aren’t difficult to identify, ‘Becca. You can find it in every business endeavor. Hell, it’s part of the human experience.”
“There’s more going on, Jake. Since Dad died we’ve had what I believe to be acts of sabotage taking place in the plant—shipments delayed, bills of lading misplaced, equipment breaking down. Somebody’s working hard to make us look bad. And it’s having the desired effect.”
“What do you think I could do about it?”
“My father had a great deal of confidence in you. He never told me why you left. In fact, he refused to discuss you with me at all, but I well remember how pleased he was earlier with the way you justified the decision he made to hire you. If you had a falling out with him then I think we need to look at the present picture without allowing the past to distort the situation. You are the only person who knows the business well enough to be able to step in and pull it through this crisis. The company needs you.”
Jake didn’t answer right away. Rebecca forced herself to remain quiet, hoping she’d said enough, hoping she hadn’t said too much to turn him off the idea. She was convinced that Jake Taggart was the only person who could help save the company.
When he finally spoke, she was shaken by his response. “I want no part of that life,” he said in a flat voice. “I’m content where I am.”
Rebecca couldn’t afford to accept his decision. She glanced around the room, which had fallen silent with the departure of the other diners. She could hear the couple who ran the place talking in the kitchen. Her gaze went to the grimy windows and, looking past them, to the desolate landscape.
In an effort to buy herself needed time to think of a different approach, she asked, “This is where you grew up?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s rather isolated, isn’t it?”
His small smile was lopsided. “Yep.”
“What is there here for you to do?”
The fact that he’d been asking himself the same question during the past few days didn’t endear her to him. “I don’t need much to survive.”
“My father used to say that you thrived on challenge.”
He nodded toward the window. “There’s challenge enough.”
“Is there?” She tilted her head slightly and looked at him. “Physically, I suppose there is. But mentally? Emotionally? What kind of challenges are you finding here?”
“What is this? A new form of job interview?”
She nodded. “That’s exactly what it is, Jake. CPI needs you and your talents. You must know that. Your leaving was a blow to the company as well as to my father, whether he ever admitted it or not. I don’t think either one fully recovered from your absence. If you’d been there, none of this would have happened. The transition after my dad’s death would have been orderly and without the turmoil we’ve been going through.”
“No one’s indispensable, ‘Becca.”
“True. But some positions are more easily filled than others.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the card he’d placed there earlier. He gave a flip to his wrist, and the card landed between them. “Who’s Woodrow Forrester?”
She didn’t need to read the card. “He’s in charge of accounting. Dad hired him not long after you left. He’s the one who pointed out the urgency of the situation we’re in. When I told him about you and what I felt you could do for us, he volunteered to come looking for you.”
Jake drummed his fingers on the table. Then he ran his fingers through his hair. “It wouldn’t work,” he finally