Crazy Ever After (6 page)

As Samara’s career at Cedar Mill grew into management roles, she was aware that Travis was highly powerful in the company, but still, since her father carried the title of CEO, she’d always assumed he was the leader. She nibbled her bottom lip.

“Anyway, you can’t go to the office,” her mother was saying. Samara focused on her. “We’re going to the funeral home today.”

Her stomach clenched at the reminder of that. She did not want to plan this funeral. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help. It was more of a feeling that planning the funeral meant it was really true―Dad was dead. It just seemed so...final. She looked at her mom gazing anxiously at her, and sighed inwardly. She had to help her. It couldn’t be that complicated, but she couldn’t leave her mother to deal with it on her own.

* * *

A few hours later, Samara’s head was spinning. There were so many decisions to make that she’d never anticipated. Music, flowers, prayers, pallbearers, obituary... Good lord, how were they supposed to write her father’s obituary? She felt like she was operating in a dazed fog, and yet, her mother seemed incapable of making decisions, so she had to choose all these things. What kind of flowers would her father have wanted? She had no clue.

Samara was usually completely confident in her decision making, taking charge of stores, and now even an entire division, and running them effectively, but when it came to these decisions, she felt lost and uncertain. The grief was bad enough, never mind having to deal with all this. Perhaps that was the reason funerals existed—to keep grieving family members so busy they didn’t have time to think about their loss.

Her friend Gia was very understanding. It still seemed funny that she’d chosen this occupation. Gia’d been a cheerleader in high school, with shiny blonde curls and a big smile, bouncing around with pompoms. Now she wore a tailored gray suit and her hair pulled back in a neat bun. Her smile had become more subdued but she had a gentle, sympathetic manner that made the ordeal much easier. She was very flexible, willing to go along with whatever they wanted.

“How long will you be in Portland?” Gia asked. “We have to get together. Maybe with Liz and Bailey.”

“I’m not sure,” Samara said. “I don’t think I’ll be staying long. Just for the funeral.” She felt a pang of wistfulness and regret for the friendships she’d let lapse when she’d run away all those years ago. She really hadn’t made any good friends in San Francisco. She’d been too busy working, going to school, and now building her career at Cedar Mill.

“Well, if you have time, you know where to get hold of me. I know Liz and Bailey would love to see you.” She tipped her head to one side. “And so would I. You just disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Hey, we talk on Facebook.”

“It’s not the same as seeing you. You look great, by the way. San Francisco must be fun.”

“Yeah, I like it there.”

“Any man in your life?”

“Um...no. Not right now.”

Gia nodded. “That’s okay. Brent and I got married way too young.” She grinned that beaming smile from high school and shrugged. “But it seems to be working out okay so far.” She hugged Samara. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

When they got home, Travis wasn’t there, but it was too late for Samara to go to the office. Samara went into her bedroom and lay down on the bed. She was so tired she couldn’t even see straight. Weariness and sadness sapped the last bit of energy from her body. She would need all her energy to deal with Travis.

* * *

Travis rubbed the back of his neck as he walked into Parker and Dayna’s home. He wasn’t sure if staying there was such a great plan. Unbelievably, the attraction he still felt for Samara still sizzled between them, although she made no attempt to hide her contempt for him. Their conversation that morning still replayed through his mind. Surely to god Parker hadn’t told her about what had happened and why he’d moved to L.A.? They’d all tried to put it behind them and forget about it, but Samara had sounded like she somehow knew what had happened.

He still believed Parker would have wanted him to look after his two girls, despite the promise he’d made to Parker all those years ago that he would never touch his daughter. He’d just have to be more...like an uncle to Samara. Keep his distance. He’d go stay in a hotel if it weren’t for the fact that he felt leaving her and Dayna alone might be even more risky.

He walked into the den, knowing that’s where Dayna spent most of her time. She sat on the couch, sipping a drink, staring into space.

“Travis,” she said, rising. “I’m just having a drink. Would you like one?” Her face drawn with fatigue, she gave him a tiny smile.

“What is that?” He eyed the glass in her hand.

“Sherry.”

“Uh, no thanks. Don’t suppose you have a beer?”

The corners of her mouth tipped up. “We might have some.” She opened the small refrigerator behind the bar. “You’re in luck.” She handed him the cold bottle of pale ale. “Would you like a glass?”

He shook his head, popped the cap and drank thirstily. “Thanks.”

“How was your day? How are things at the office?”

“Nuts.” He dropped down onto the leather sofa. “Everyone is totally freaked out. Nobody knows what to do.”

“I’m sure you took charge.”

He met her eyes and gave a small smile. “Yeah. I did.”

She smiled back. “Parker would have approved.”

He sighed. “I’m not so sure.”

Her brows dipped, and the corners of her mouth tipped down. “Travis. Things were better between the two of you recently.”

Travis looked down at the bottle in his hand. “Yeah. He was getting over it.”

She sat down on the sofa beside him. “Was there more to it than...?” She stopped.

Hell. There was no way he could tell Dayna what else had happened. It was bad enough that it had almost cost him Parker’s friendship, their business partnership, and the only family he’d ever really known. “No,” he lied, dropping his eyes. “That was enough.”

For the first time he wondered how he was going to move forward with the company without Parker there. Notwithstanding his firm statements to Samara about his and Parker’s partnership, the truth was they’d each had their own strengths and relied on each other for many facets of the business

He felt a glimmer of the same uncertainty that had gripped many of the people who worked for them. Would the company survive the loss of their charismatic CEO? Would they all lose their jobs? Who was going to take over for Parker?

He knew damn well who he wanted it to be.

“How about your day?” he asked, shifting gears. She was the one planning a damn funeral.

Dayna sighed. “It was hard. So much to think about.”

“How’s Samara?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“Oh. I don’t know.” Dayna rubbed one eyebrow with an index finger. “I appreciated her help today. I felt so...lost. I was glad to have her there. But even though she tries to be so tough and together on the outside, I can see she’s...” She paused. “She’s really hurting.”

Hell. He’d been so pissed off at her earlier. She knew exactly how to push his buttons, and he really should be better able to deal with that. But Dayna was probably right. Samara was hurting as much as the rest of them, despite the tough girl act she put on.

“Dayna?”

“Yes?”

“Did you know why Parker was in Matagalpa?”

A small furrow appeared between her brows. “No. He didn’t really discuss that with me. Why?”

“I’m kind of worried...we haven’t done business in Matagalpa in years.”

She turned her head to one side and gave him a sidelong look. “Worried about...what?”

“You know.”

She gazed back at hm. “Oh, Travis.”

“We don’t know what happened to him! It could’ve been an accident, but I’m worried he was mixed up in something....dangerous.”

She nibbled her bottom lip. “But...”

At that moment, Samara appeared in the French doors. Despite the fatigue bracketing her mouth and the sadness darkening her eyes, she was still so damn beautiful, with her long flame-colored hair behind her shoulders. She wore another sundress, this one lime green with tiny straps and a big bow tied around her narrow waist. She wore lime green flip-flops with yellow and white daisies on them. Silly shoes, but her feet were so pretty in them, her little toenails painted a vivid tangerine. Hell, once again, he’d been checking her out from head to toe. He dragged his gaze away from her.

Parker’s daughter.

How many times in the past had he reminded himself of that? Too many to count, dammit. Who she was and how old she was had been enough to give him the strength to resist her powerful allure. In the past.

He looked at her again as she walked toward them. She was twenty-four years old now. Not a teenager. But she was still Parker’s daughter, and he’d made that promise to Parker, a promise he had to keep even though Parker wasn’t with them anymore. He had to keep his distance. Had to.

“We’re just having a drink before dinner, Samara,” Dayna said. “Would you like something? Sherry? Glass of wine?”

Samara blinked then looked pointedly at the bottle in Travis’s hand. “I’d rather have a beer.”

Travis raised a brow. Funny how he’d known her for ten years and felt he knew her so well, but he didn’t know she liked beer. Who would have thought?

Dayna went to get one for her, and Samara followed her, her silly sandals making soft thwapping noises as she padded across the plush carpet. The sound drew his eyes to her feet again then to her slender ankles and slim, pale-gold calves and...shit. He felt himself getting hard, cursed inwardly, and closed his eyes. Just looking at her feet and calves was fucking turning him on.

When he’d met Samara, she’d been fourteen years old, tall and gangly, with braces, freckles and stringy red hair. He’d barely noticed her the first few times he’d visited Parker’s home. Then one day the braces came off, and he’d been taken aback by her stunning smile. Had she never smiled when she’d had the braces on? Suddenly her body had changed too, with full, bouncing breasts he couldn’t help but notice. Hey, he was a guy. The day she’d brought her first boyfriend home for dinner, he’d been unaccountably irritated, especially when he’d walked in on them necking in the living room after dinner.

Her hair had grown longer and thicker, satiny-smooth and richly colored. One day he’d been completely nonplussed to realize she was a gorgeous woman with a smile that lit up a room and eyes that dazzled him into a stuttering idiot.

When he’d started to fantasize about her, the horror made him actually avoid Parker’s home. He’d felt like some kind of perv, a twenty-five-year-old man hot for a teenage girl. But he couldn’t stay away forever, and he’d steeled himself against the torture of being with her.

He’d thought she was spoiled rotten, indulged by her wealthy parents and given everything she wanted. The contrast between her easy, pampered life and his own miserable, scrabbling youth made him a little nuts if he thought about it, but she made him laugh and entertained him with the way she loved to argue, especially with her father. She was confident and smart, yet never obnoxious or rude to her parents. She just tested them at every turn. Jesus, one time she’d actually had the audacity to challenge her father, and Travis for that matter, on whether fair trade was really the solution to problems in developing countries.

Damned if her arguments hadn’t made sense and had merit. She’d claimed fair trade led producers to increase production, which benefited some producers in the short run, but in the long run would push coffee prices in world markets even lower. Ultimately, it would make things worse for the majority of coffee producers. She’d even outlined her theory that artificially raising the price of coffee to earn farmers better money would actually remove motivation for them to learn new skills and to focus on education for their children, which was really the key to a better future. Reluctantly, he’d been forced to admire her brains as well as her growing beauty.

He focused on her now, taking a seat in a chair far away from him, lifting the glass of beer to her lips and crossing one slim leg over the other.

“So, I guess you didn’t have time to come to the office,” he commented. Even as the words left his lips, he knew he was provoking her. Christ, he might as well have stuck out his tongue and said “Nyah-nyah, I was right, and you were wrong”

Her eyes narrowed. “There was a lot to do.” She downed half her beer, and he lifted an amused eyebrow. “What was happening at the office?”

Travis tipped his head. “I was just telling your mother about it. It was a bit chaotic, but I think I got things settled down and got a plan in place.”

“What kind of plan?”

“Public relations. I met with Matti and David. We’ve sent emails and instructed every district manager and store manager to hold staff meetings tomorrow and gave them the announcement to make. We have to put out a press release about Parker’s death, reassure our suppliers and customers and business partners that everything will go on as usual and reassure staff that they’re not going to lose their jobs. We’re going to put a big photo of Parker in the lobby at headquarters tomorrow. We haven’t finalized anything yet, but we talked about a linkup with the memorial service so we can broadcast it to L.A., San Francisco and New York. We’ll likely do a special issue of the newsletter for staff.”

“Oh. That sounds...good.”

“We talked about the memorial service too. There may be some things you haven’t thought of. We think there are a few people you’re going to have to ask to speak.” He reeled off a list of names, prominent business people from across the country.

“Oh, lord.” He could see she hadn’t realized the magnitude of all this as she nibbled her bottom lip. Her eyes met his, and he sensed she was on the verge of asking him for help. He knew how hard that was for her.

“I can call them,” he offered as casually as he could.

He waited for her to refuse the offer as she sat there thinking about it. He was about to tell her that it wasn’t a weakness to accept help from someone, but then she gave a tight little nod. “Okay. Thank you, Travis.” His heart expanded a little in his chest, and he again resisted the urge to say “good girl”, knowing how much that would piss her off. She changed the subject. “Did you talk to anyone in Matagalpa?”