“Good morning, Brielle. It’s been a long time,” Tanya said with a genuine smile.
Brielle had always liked Tanya, but she couldn’t let down her defenses, not right now, so her reply was less than warm: “I’m here to see my father.” Instant remorse filled her when the woman, who’d always been kind to her, flinched. “I’m sorry, Tanya,” Brielle told her. “I…” Her words had to trail off — she didn’t know what to say.
“It’s okay, darling. I understand,” Tanya said, but it was obvious that she didn’t.
Brielle sighed. “No. It’s not.” She gave the woman a rueful smile, then turned and moved toward her father’s office. Being cold was how she survived. It was awful, and she knew it, but it was the only way she made it through each day. Trying to erase the awkwardness with Tanya from her mind, she came to the end of the hallway, where she found an open door.
Of course his office was facing the water. Her father had always loved the ocean, even after losing his parents in a boating accident.
Enough of this. Brielle refused to get sentimental. She was here on business, and she had no time for anything else. She was here to get her father to bend to her will. Or maybe to her wiles.
Turning her lips up in a determined smile, she walked through her father’s door. Richard looked up and a grin spread across his face. It was nearly blinding and caused Brielle to stop in her tracks. When was the last time she’d entered a room and found someone so happy to see her? She honestly couldn’t remember.
Her protective wall seemed to crack just a little. Heck, she really wanted to rush forward and cling to her father the way she used to do when she was younger and found herself frightened or hurt.
But times had changed. She needed to remember that. She wasn’t a little girl anymore and she didn’t need anyone, especially not her father. Repairing the wall around her heart, she started moving again — was her stride suitably confident? — and then sat down across from Richard without a word.
“It’s so good to see you, Brielle. I’m glad you made your way to Seattle,” Richard said, his smile not deflating in the least despite the cool look she was sending his way.
“You really left me with no choice, Father,” she replied, trying to tone down the bitterness in her voice but not quite managing to pull it off. She’d had to take a bus to Seattle. A bus! The trip had taken three days. Three days of pure hell.
“Again, I will say that I’m very sorry I had to do things the way I did, but I need for you all to understand that anything in this life worth having is worth working for.”
“This whole rescuing-a-failing-business thing is stupid, Father. I don’t know anything about business. Do you remember my college major? You’re setting me up for failure, and you know it.”
“I would never do that. I love you, Brielle. I know how strong and capable you are. Heck, from the moment you were born, you had your brothers and me wrapped around your tiny little fingers,” he said with a chuckle.
“The only business that’s left is a stupid ranch in Montana.”
“I know. Your brothers have already taken possession of the other businesses. I’m very pleased to be seeing results already.”
“I can’t go to Montana!”
“I hope that’s not true, Peaches, because I think it’s just the place you need to be.”
“I’m not Peaches anymore!” She obviously couldn’t pull this off. She was too dang upset.
“You will always be my baby girl. I love your brothers dearly, but you will always hold more of my heart than anyone else. And I know you can do this. I wouldn’t have asked you to do a task I thought you’d fail at.”
They gazed at each other for several moments. Two personalities so much alike in some ways, but so different in others. But the bottom line was that Brielle knew he had the upper hand, knew he didn’t need to back down. He knew that, too.
“And if I do fail, I lose everything?”
“Failure isn’t an option. You’re a Storm.”
“You don’t know me anymore, Father!”
“I know you better than you think, Brielle. You’re a fighter. I got lazy as a parent and forgot how to raise you, but it’s never too late. Don’t give up before you’ve had even a chance to see yourself shine.”
“Crew gets to be in sunny California and I have to go to Montana. How is that fair?”
“You shouldn’t have taken so long to choose.”
“So I’m being punished because I didn’t want to play your game?”
“You’re not being punished at all, Brielle. I know you’ll figure that out once you’ve decided to put your heart and soul into this.”
“Well, it sure as hell feels like a punishment.”
“I understand that, darling, but go to Montana and I promise that you’ll find yourself.”
He had to be crazy. How could she find herself amongst a bunch of cows?
“I need money. I have nothing,” she told him. If she could just get enough to get by for a little while, she’d manage to find another job, and she’d show him that she didn’t need him to prove herself a success.
“You have a budget to work with,” he said, then paused before speaking again. “You’ll get it once you reach Montana.”
“And how am I supposed to get there? It took the last of my funds for the damn bus ticket here.” She was still ticked he hadn’t even paid for an economy-class flight.
“I will get you there.”
Brielle greeted his words with silence, but she knew she’d been defeated.
She’d go, but only because she had no other options before her. She wouldn’t succeed, and she knew it. Still, it would be a place to rest her head, a place where she could figure things out and begin mapping out her next steps.
Yes, she would go. But she certainly didn’t have to be happy about it.
Chapter Two
It was a freaking nightmare. Sure, most ranches probably had dusty old trucks, and what else did she expect to be waiting for her at the ridiculously small airport in Sterling? But the rusty orange clunker didn’t even have air conditioning!
And now that she’d managed to get this antique off and running — sort of — she was hit with another shock as she looked at the house standing before her. What could she say about it? Country bumpkin?