going down, Vee. You’re my attorney. You’ve seen my financials. I don’t even want to think about that loan from the small business association. And then there’s my mom. She raised me completely by herself and worked so hard all her life to take care of me. Waitressing isn’t easy and I’d like her to be able to cut back. Enjoy herself more. You know?”
“Yes, but—” Vicki stopped and shook her head.
“How do you think Chandler would take it?” Rose asked.
“Let me think about this.” Vicki hummed the Jeopardy theme. “You tell the man you’re all but engaged to that you’re going to Montana with the man you married ten years ago and aren’t quite divorced from to do a job in order to save your business.”
Rose nodded. “Yes.”
“I think any man’s head would explode given that scenario.”
“That’s what I figured, too.” This was what Rose really wanted to talk to her friend about. She’d revealed her history with Linc because it had a direct bearing on her decision. As Linc would say—context. “What do you think I should do?”
It didn’t take Vicki very long to come up with an answer. “Tell Chandler and don’t take the job.”
Rose nearly choked on her wine. That’s not what she’d expected. “What? I thought you understood.”
“I do. But I also saw your face when you talked about Lincoln Hart.” There was sympathy in her friend’s expression. “I’ve known you for a long time and you’ve never looked like that before. Tell me I’m nuts but whether you’re willing to admit it or not, you have feelings for the man.”
“Of course I do. All of them bad.”
“Take it from me. Accepting that job will dredge up more feelings and all the crap comes up, too. Just leave it alone. You’re doing fine. Don’t give him a chance to hurt you again.”
“He can’t.”
“Okay.” Vicki’s tone was full of “if you say so but I think you’re wrong.” “For what it’s worth, my advice is to talk this over with Chandler. I’m sure he’ll tell you the same thing. Do not take this job.”
“Wow, don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”
“I always do.” Her friend smiled. “And just so you know, I want to look over those divorce papers before you sign anything. This time things will run smoothly or you’ll know why.”
“Thank you, Vicki.”
“So you’re not mad at me?”
“Why would I be?” Rose protested.
“For telling you what I thought. I know you didn’t want to hear that.”
“I count on you.”
“So we’re okay?” her friend asked.
“Absolutely.”
That was completely true and Rose valued this woman’s opinion more than she could say. But she was going to break the unbreakable rule about automatically taking your best friend’s advice. Rose just hoped there wouldn’t be an “I told you so” in her future.
“So you’re really moving to Blackwater Lake, Montana?”
Linc was standing by the side table in his office, where there was a bottle of exceptional single malt Scotch, and glanced over his shoulder. It was precisely six thirty and Mason Archer, his attorney, stood in the doorway. Right on time.
“Would you like a drink?” Linc asked.
“Yes.” The other man walked closer, passing the desk piled with papers, and went directly to the conversation area with its leather furniture and sleek glass-and-chrome coffee table.
After handing Mason the tumbler of Scotch, Linc said, “You know my sister, Ellie, lives there, right?”
“I do.”
Linc grinned because there was no missing his friend’s clipped tone. “Don’t take her rejection personally.”
“How do you take it when a woman says there’s nothing that could compel her to have dinner with you?”
“That was a bad time. She’d been burned and swore off men,” Linc said. Mason had worked for Hart Industries while Ellie was still there. The man once had a thing for her but that was before she met her husband. However, bringing it up never failed to get a rise out of his friend. Linc liked to get a rise out of him because it almost never happened. “Trust me, it wasn’t personal.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it? You’re a lawyer who makes arguments for a living. It’s like air to you.”
“Knowing when not to argue is just as important. Ellie is happily married and has a child. I’m glad for her.”
“So you’re over her,” Linc persisted.
“There was never anything to get over.”
“If you say so.”
Mason sighed before taking a sip of his drink. “There are many, many other clients I could work for.”
“You’d lose a lot of money if you left me,” Linc reminded him.
“The peace and quiet would be worth it.” Tough words but the other man was smiling.
“You’re going to miss me when I’m in Montana.”
“Tell me again why it is that you’re going,” his friend said.
“I’m buying in to my brother-in-law’s construction company. It needs an infusion of capital to expand in Blackwater Lake. The town is one of the fastest growing places in the country and there’s a lot of opportunity.”
The one at the top of his list was getting out of the Hart family shadow. He’d insisted on being treated as an employee of the company and not an heir apparent, like his half brothers. In the last ten years he’d worked his ass off, partly to prove himself to them and partly to stay too busy to think about how his personal life had imploded. The other day he’d seen the anger and resentment in Rose’s eyes but that was better than having her grow to despise him because he wasn’t a Hart.
He didn’t tell her because she would have said she fell in love with the man and not his last name. But the truth was it would have been like marrying the prince who would be king, then finding out he’d been switched at birth for the peasant who owned a pigsty. Walking away saved her from having to deal with that. It was the right thing to do but that didn’t get him off the restitution hook for how he’d treated her.
The upside of keeping too busy to brood over lost love was making a lot of money. And he was going to take that money to Blackwater Lake and build more success on his own terms.
Linc remembered telling Rose that it was about to be on the “rich and famous” radar. A place for her to build success too but he had yet to hear from her. It was amazing how much that bugged him. And it’s not like he hadn’t known there was a better-than-even chance she would tell him to stick his offer where the sun didn’t shine.
“Opportunity in rural Montana?” Mason drained the rest of the Scotch in his glass. “There’s nowhere to go but up when you’re in the sticks.”
“It has an airport now.” A thought popped into Linc’s mind. “You should think about opening a law office there.”
“I’m not licensed to practice in Montana.”
“You could be. It’s probably not a big deal to make that happen.” Linc sat on the leather love seat. “There’s