a perfect location for launching the luxurious sailboats that they built. They’d become one of the most successful custom builders on the West Coast, with business moguls, sports stars and Hollywood celebrities as clients.
Their grandfather’s faithful executive assistant, Miriam, was sitting at her desk when they arrived. As always, she greeted them stoically, giving no clue what awaited them inside the wood-paneled doors.
“Sit,” Martin said as they walked in, shuffling the papers on his desk as he spoke. Ronan looked up from his spot on the leather sofa, his gaze filled with concern. “I expect you’re wondering why I’ve called this meeting, so I’ll get right to it.” He leaned back in his well-worn leather chair. “Our corporate attorney has advised me that it is time for me to start thinking about my successor.”
Dermot watched a strange expression settle on his grandfather’s wrinkled face. Martin Quinn was not the kind of man who liked to be reminded of his mortality and this was no exception. Dermot cursed silently. “You’re not going to retire, are you?”
“Not tomorrow. But he’s right,” Martin continued. “It’s time to put my affairs in order.”
“Is everything all right?” Cameron asked. “I mean, are you well?”
“Fit as a fiddle,” Martin said. “But there are practical reasons for this decision. When your parents died, I brought you boys to work with me. You spent your afternoons and weekends learning the business, instead of doing things you wanted to do. You see, I thought it was the best way to deal with your grief. Now I see it was the best way to deal with my grief.”
“We liked working here, Grandda,” Kieran said.
“But you all had your own dreams. Dermot, I remember you wanted to be a veterinarian. And, Cam, you wanted to be an archaeologist.”
“Paleontologist,” Cameron corrected.
Martin nodded. “Right. And Kieran, you wanted to be a… Well, I don’t recall, but—”
“A cowboy,” Kieran said. “Or a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman.”
Their grandfather nodded. “And, Ronan, I think all you ever wanted was to have your parents back again. The point is, I never gave you the chance to follow those dreams. And now that I have to decide whether to leave this business to you or sell and make all of us extremely wealthy, I realize that you might not be prepared to make a decision about your future. I don’t want any of you to tie yourself to a business that isn’t part of your own dreams.”
Kieran shook his head. “Grandda, we would never—”
“Let me finish.” He folded his hands on his desk and looked at them individually. “I came to this country with one hundred dollars in my pocket and the intention of making something of my life so that I could support my son. I made my own life, something you boys haven’t had the chance to do.”
“We love working for you,” Cameron said. “It’s a family business and family sticks together.”
“That’s a lovely sentiment,” Martin replied. “But it doesn’t make my decision any easier. So, I have a plan. I’m going to give each of you boys one hundred dollars cash, a company credit card and a bus ticket. I want you to go out there and spend some time in the real world. Find a job. Meet new people. See what life is like all alone in the world. Believe me, without all the comforts of home, you’ll have time to figure out what you really want out of life.”
Dermot opened his mouth to protest, but his grandfather held up his hand. “Give yourself six weeks. If you’re still interested in running the Yachtworks after that, I’ll be satisfied.”
Cameron gasped. “You’re kidding, right? You just expect us to take six weeks away from work? I have projects going.”
“Although we’d all like to think we’re indispensable,” Martin said, “if one of us fell off the planet tomorrow, the company would go on.” He stood and handed each of them an envelope.
“You have tonight to pay your bills and put your affairs in order,” Martin said. “You leave tomorrow morning. Go out and imagine a different life for yourselves, boys. And when you come back, come back with a decision.”
“Vulture Creek, New Mexico?” Cameron asked.
Dermot opened his envelope and withdrew his bus ticket. “Mapleton, Wisconsin. What the hell is in Mapleton, Wisconsin?”
“Bitney, Kentucky,” Kieran muttered. “Great.”
“Sibleyville, Maine. Jaysus,” Ronan said. “I’ll be on the bus for a week.”
The brothers looked at each other, shaking their heads.
Martin smiled. “Good luck. And I’ll see you in six weeks.”
RACHEL HOWE grabbed the fifty-pound bag of feed, wrapping her arms around it and lugging it to the back of the pickup truck.
“You need some help with that, little lady?”
She glanced over at the two old men watching her from their spot on the front porch of the local feed store. “Nope,” she said, forcing a smile as the bag began to slip through her arms. “I’ve got it.”
Wincing, she took a deep breath and heaved the sack toward the tailgate of the truck. But at the last second, it fell out of her arms and dropped onto her foot. Rachel cursed, then kicked the sack. How would she ever make this work? She couldn’t even load a pallet of feed bags onto the truck, much less run a farm with absolutely no help beyond her eighty-year-old uncle.
She was virtually alone in this, with nothing but her determination to keep her company. Her father had maintained the dairy until the day he’d died and he hadn’t had help. If a seventy-five-year-old man had managed, certainly his twenty-five-year-old daughter could.
Though she’d put a help-wanted notice in the grocery store and in the feed store, hoping to find a high school boy to relieve her of the heavy lifting, there hadn’t been any takers. Her father’s bachelor brother, Eddie, was still able to help with the milking but the heavy work was beyond his capabilities.
Maybe all the potential workers knew what everyone else in Mapleton knew—that without help, Rachel’s time as a dairy-goat farmer was going to be short-lived at best. Maybe they were right. Maybe she ought to just sell and get on with her own life. A surge of temper caused her face to flush and she reached for the sack again, determined not to fail in front of two more doubters—Harley Verhulst and Sam Robson.
“Are you sure we can’t give you a hand?” Harley asked.
“No,” Rachel snapped. “It’s just going to take me a while to work up my strength.”
“A little girl like you shouldn’t be running that farm all by your lonesome,” Sam commented. “You need to find yourself a husband.”
“Preferably one with very big muscles,” Harley added.
A husband? Right now she’d be satisfied with one reasonably handsome, completely naked man to tend to her sexual needs once a week. She was quite willing to work out some kind of barter, maybe do his laundry or iron his shirts. It could be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
