He needed to have confidence in his own abilities. He did have confidence in his own abilities. But running a big corporation like Cedar Mill Coffee was a daunting responsibility for anyone. As partners, they’d supported each other and balanced each other. He sighed. He needed to make some tough decisions. Possible staff cuts. He hated to do that.
He had to remember that he wasn’t alone in this. The entire executive management team would be involved in major decisions, as they had in the past. He’d be sure to involve them even more now that Parker was gone.
Confident he was in managing his own division, he knew the problems extended beyond retail. Travis was still concerned about Parker’s mysterious plans in Matagalpa. His gut clenched when he thought about what Parker might have been doing there. The last time he’d been worried about Parker’s activities there, the DEA had been involved, for Chrissake. There was no goddamn way he could let Samara continue down that path.
Thoughts of Samara sent his mind off in totally different directions. God she was infuriating. Annoying. Frustrating. And sexy as fuck.
He closed his eyes, his dick hardening. Hell, not here. He shifted in his leather office chair. He couldn’t help but admire her determination and loyalty to the company, even though he had to shake his head at her stubbornness. She was a complicated woman, no doubt about that.
Thankfully he’d arranged the meeting with the executive team for tomorrow, so he could shut down her crazy idea that she was going to take over Parker’s role in the company. They had enough problems.
Parker’s oversight of the import division relied in large part on his relationships with growers and the co-ops in Central and South America. He’d built those up over the years. They trusted Parker. It was going to be damn tough for someone else to step in there. Samara certainly wasn’t capable of doing it.
They’d also had some grading problems with some of the growers recently. They’d been trying to expand production into marginal land that wasn’t really suitable for growing high quality coffee. As a company that had built its reputation on excellence, and because they roasted their beans and sold them whole through retail outlets, this was a serious issue. If they were just roasting the beans to grind and sell, or to brew, it wouldn’t be quite so critical. But many of the producers knew little about grading and didn’t even drink the coffee they produced —how would they know the quality they were growing?
A cupping lab. Teaching them how to grade their own coffee. Incentives for superior quality coffee. His conversation with Samara flooded back into his head. Godammit!
He glanced at his watch. Nearly six. He’d told Dayna he’d be there for dinner tonight. He grabbed his suit jacket off the back of the chair where he’d draped it after coming back from lunch.
He shut down the computer, stuffed some files into his briefcase and headed out the door. Then he stopped. Had Samara left already?
He poked his head into Parker’s office. He couldn’t help a wry smile at how she’d dived into things. She still sat there, the phone to her ear, frowning. She glanced up and saw him, and her frown deepened.
Nice that he got such a friendly reaction from her. She looked at him as if he was carrying an axe, for fuck sake. He took a deep breath, mouthed the words, “I’m going home. Need a ride?”
She shook her head then slammed the phone down.
“Temper, temper,” he murmured, stepping into the office. “Who was that?”
“I’ve been trying all afternoon to reach Javier. Isn’t there anyone else in Matagalpa we could call?”
“Christ, Samara, would you just give up on that?”
He immediately knew he’d said the wrong thing because he practically saw the hair on her head stand on end from her ire. He should have known better. If he just let her run with this into a brick wall, she’d eventually give up, and he wouldn’t be the bad guy.
“It might be important,” she said. “I have a feeling about it. I just don’t understand why Dad doesn’t have any documentation about it. He couldn’t have kept all that in his head. If he did, he was crazy. What if...” She stopped and pressed her lips together.
What if something happened to him. That old “hit by a bus” axiom. He and Parker had talked about documenting their work so the other would always know what each was doing, just in case one of them got hit by a bus one day. He shook his head, sadness rolling over him.
“Go home, Samara. Try again tomorrow.”
She nodded.
“Need a ride?”
“No. I have my car.”
“I’ll see you at home then.”
Their eyes met. It seemed weird that in an hour they’d be sitting down to dinner together. Tension snapped between them every time they got within ten feet of each other, no matter how much they tried to ignore it. He was definitely going to have to find a place of his own, especially if he was going to be moving back to Portland. He’d get on that tomorrow. Staying in the same house as Samara was just too dangerous. He was weak when it came to resisting her apparently, given what had transpired the other night and knowing she slept only two doors down from his own room. Seeing her every morning and every night was just too damn tempting.
She had to talk to her mother before Travis did. They were meeting tomorrow about the plan for managing the company, and her mother was a shareholder. If it came to a vote, Samara had to have her mother on her side.
Samara sat on the edge of her bed. She’d changed into a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt after work and was ready to go down for dinner. She wiggled her bare toes in the soft plush of the pink and taupe rug on the floor.
Who was she kidding? She’d barely spoken to her mother in seven years. Why on earth would she take her side on anything?
She was her mother, that’s why. Weren’t mothers supposed to support their children? The guilt heavy inside her, Samara glumly regarded her tangerine-polished toenails. How could she expect her mother to support her on this?
Samara hated what her mother had done, but realization was gradually creeping over her that perhaps she—Samara—hadn’t handled it all that well. Running away and barely speaking to her mother for years had been...well, passive aggressive. Childish. Destructive.
She sighed, fell back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Shit. This was a fine time to acknowledge that she’d screwed up when it came to the relationship between her and her mother. Because now, if she tried to put things right, it would only look like she was sucking up because she wanted something.
She did want something.
Travis had been right, damn him. She’d known she needed to repair her relationship with her mother even before she’d learned about the shares.
The firm rap on her door startled her. She sat up. “Yes?”
“Dinner.” Travis’s deep voice came from the other side of the door. She should have known that assertive knock was not her mother’s.
“Coming.” She rose and crossed the room. She paused with one hand on the doorknob and took a breath. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, or how she was going to handle this. Her stomach had tightened into knots, and the last thing she wanted to do was eat.
She yanked open the door and jerked to a stop when she saw Travis standing there in the hall.
“Oh.”
He lifted a brow. “You okay?”
“Yes.” She brushed past him and stalked down the stairs. Why did just seeing him make her feel all edgy and nervous? “Of course I’m all right.”
“Good.” He followed her down the stairs, and she was acutely aware of his body right behind her, his eyes on her.
They walked into the dining room. Mom sat at the table, and Samara’s steps slowed at the sight of her mother, shoulders slumped, head in her hands, eyes closed. At the sound of their footsteps, Mom’s head snapped up. She straightened and composed her features into a smile. “Hello,” she said. “How was your day, sweetheart?”
Samara couldn’t speak. Her throat clogged up, and she sent a helpless glance at Travis. The corners of his mouth dipped; he too must have seen her mother.
“Samara wrote the newsletter for staff today,” he said, voice just a bit rough. He held out a chair for Samara, and she sank into it and reached for her napkin. Travis took the seat beside her.
She blinked as she stared down at her plate. Get a grip, for Godfrey’s’s sake. She was tougher than this. What was she getting all choked up about?
Her mother had looked completely grief-stricken. That’s what.
Samara swallowed past the ping pong ball lodged in her throat and reached for a platter of roast beef.
“That’s wonderful,” Mom said. “Thank you, Samara, for doing that.”
Still not sure if she could speak, Samara just nodded as she served herself more food she didn’t want. She felt Travis’s gaze on her.
Finally her throat relaxed. “I also did some research about what Dad was doing in Matagalpa,” she said. “Did you know anything about that, Mom?”
A frown creased her mom’s brow, and she slid a quick glance at Travis. “Well. He did mention something about some kind of amazing coffee bean.”
“Oh.” A thrill ran through her. An amazing coffee bean. “They do grow excellent quality beans there. That could be big.”
“I gather you didn’t get hold of Javier,” Travis put in. He took the bowl of potatoes from her.
“No.” She turned her head to meet his eyes. “I’m telling you, the only way we’re going to find out what he was doing is to go down there.”
“Why is it so important?” Mom asked, looked from Samara to Travis.
“It’s not,” Travis said.
“It could be,” Samara said. “Dad wouldn’t have been down there if it wasn’t important.”
“Oh.” Mom played with her food. “Well, I don’t think...maybe the farmer— what’s his name? Javier? Maybe he will contact you if he still wants to do business.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Travis said, shooting a glare at Samara.
“You’re not going to Matagalpa,” Mom said hesitantly.
Samara sucked in a long breath, every muscle tensing, her face heating. She was an adult and made her own decisions. Even her mother could no longer tell her what to do, never mind Travis. Enough!
She shoved back her chair and stood, tossing down her napkin. “I’m not very hungry,” she said through clenched teeth. “Excuse me.”
The tension in the room followed her like a black cloud as she stalked out of the dining room.
She stood in the hall, brushed her long bangs out of her eyes, and pushed her fingers into her hair. Shit. She was supposed to be talking to her mother rationally about business plans, convincing her mother she was the one who should take over for her father, and what had she done? She’d let everyone push her buttons again and let her temper get the best of her.
She gazed up at the ceiling. She knew what she had to do, but dammit, her pride glued her feet to the floor. Heat flared inside her, and her tense stomach contracted painfully. She swallowed hard.
All the crap that had happened― her father’s death, the tension between her and her mother, the sparking sexual attraction between her and Travis, on top of this battle for the company―was making her all emotional. It was totally unlike her. She was focused and determined and professional. Messy feelings had no place in her life. Not for the last seven years, anyway.
It all chipped away at her, making little cracks and holes in her carefully built walls.
Sucking in a deep breath, she turned and walked back into the dining room. Travis and her mother were having a muted conversation, and both pairs of eyes fixed on her as she stepped in the arched door.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice. “I...I don’t have much appetite, but I’ll sit here with you while you eat.”
Her mother’s wide eyes softened, but she merely nodded. Afraid to look at Travis, Samara kept her eyes carefully forward as she took her seat.
“I wasn’t trying to tell you what to do, Sam,” her mother said gently. “It was more of a question. Are you really thinking of going to Matagalpa?”
Samara shrugged and sipped her water. “Thinking about it. I don’t know for sure. We’ll see what I can figure out here, and then I’ll decide.”
Dayna nodded. “Travis says you’re meeting tomorrow with the rest of the management team to talk about how you’ll move forward.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
It appeared her mother wanted to say more, but she pressed her lips together and nodded as she used her knife and fork to cut a small piece of meat.
Samara wanted to say more too. She wanted to ask her mother if she would support her if it came to that, but...she couldn’t do it.
For some reason, guilt and conscience kept her silent. She couldn’t ask the question, and she knew there was more than one reason why. She did not want to pretend to her mother that everything was okay between them. And she was beginning to realize that, even though her mother had made a mistake all those years ago, she deserved to know why Samara had severed their relationship. Samara wasn’t sure she was ready to sit down and have that conversation with her mother, but for the first time since she’d arrived home, she knew they were going to have it. Some time.
Most of all, she didn’t ask the question because she was afraid of what her mother’s answer would be.
* * *
After dinner Travis grabbed his briefcase and retreated to his bedroom. He pulled the arm chair closer to the bed so he could prop his feet on the bed, opened his notebook computer, and pushed in the USB drive he’d brought home from the office.
But all the documents he’d brought home to review couldn’t hold his attention. His mind kept drifting off to Samara. When she’d walked back into the dining room, the apology obviously being pulled deeply and painfully from within her, he’d wanted to get up and hug her.
The evening had been unsettling, first seeing Dayna all crumpled up with sadness then putting on a smile for them, then Samara getting all emotional about it. She’d tried to hide it, but he could read her like the screen on his laptop. Maybe, just maybe, she was seeing her mother not as some terrible villainess—why, he still had no fucking clue—but as a woman who’d just lost her husband, the man she depended on. The man she loved.