At Bluebonnet Lake (Texas Crossroads Book #1): A Novel (17 page)

And Kate wanted their account. It might not be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but it was the most intriguing opportunity she’d ever had. The chance to do a complete revamping of a corporate image, perhaps helping determine how to expand the product line, was exciting. Kate knew from her own experience as well as Grandpa Larry’s stories that projects like this were rare. She couldn’t let it slip away.

“Maybe I can convince my grandmother to leave at the end of the week.” Though it was unlikely Sally would agree, especially now that she’d be leaving not just Rainbow’s End but also Roy, Kate was willing to try. So much was at stake.

The clicking of Heather’s keyboard grated on Kate’s nerves. So did her boss’s next words. “That’s not good enough. I need
you to start right now. You know we can’t put together a decent pitch in a week. It’ll be hard enough doing it in two. You need to be on a plane to New York today.”

The elation Kate had felt over the possibilities for Aunt Ivy’s and the knowledge that Hazel and Ike Preston wanted her to run their account vanished, replaced by a sickening feeling deep inside her. “I don’t see how I can.”

Heather let out a huff. “I hate bringing out the big guns, but you’ve left me no alternative. The truth is, Kate, if you’re serious about a partnership with Maddox, you’ll figure out a way to make this work. I need your decision before close of business today.”

“All right.”

But it wasn’t.

W
hat’s wrong?” Greg stared at the woman on the opposite side of the net. They’d been playing tennis for ten minutes, and it was obvious her head wasn’t in the game. If she hadn’t looked so glum, he might have thought the reason for her inattention was that her mind was wandering back to yesterday and that ride on the Ferris wheel. His own had taken that particular detour more times than he could count. Greg hadn’t been able to forget the ride. Oh, why pretend? It wasn’t the ride he was remembering. It was the kiss.

He could have done without the ride, although—to his surprise—it hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected. That was due to Kate. When Greg had been sitting next to her, he’d been able to concentrate on the light fragrance that always surrounded her. His sisters would be able to describe it, telling him whether it was floral or exotic, whether there were undertones of musk or jasmine. Greg didn’t care. All he knew was that it was as much a part of Kate as that lovely blonde hair that had clung to his fingers when he’d touched it.

He’d wondered if her hair was as soft as it appeared. It was. He’d wondered if her lips were as soft as they looked. They were.
But they were more than soft. They were sweet. He hadn’t been tasting caramel corn when he’d kissed her. He’d been tasting Kate. Wonderful, unforgettable, and now obviously distressed Kate.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Though he was certain she was aware of how poorly she’d played, Greg sensed that Kate wanted him to identify whatever it was that had alerted him to the problem. “You haven’t returned a single volley, and you practically tripped over the serve. Even the first day, you didn’t play like this.” At least then she’d tried. Today he had the feeling that her body might be on the tennis court, but her mind was somewhere else. If he had to guess, he’d say that her mind was back in New York in her office.

“I guess I’m a little preoccupied.”

Greg picked up the ball and nodded toward the bench. There was no point in continuing the match. “Let me guess. It’s about the calls you made this morning.”

“Yeah.” She accepted the bottle of water.

Greg took a slug from his bottle as he considered his next move. He knew she checked messages each day, but this was the first time he’d been aware of her making a call. Something had changed, and her reaction told him it wasn’t something good.

Yesterday Kate had been a happy, almost carefree woman. They’d laughed together, and then there had been that unforgettable kiss, a moment so wonderful that nothing had mattered beyond the fact that Greg had his arms around the most amazing woman he’d ever met. If it had been possible, he would never have let her out of his arms, he would never have ended the kiss. But the kiss had ended, and Greg had had to content himself with long gazes at Kate’s beautiful face and those tantalizing lips.

The way she’d looked at him had made him believe she felt the same way. The way she’d smiled when he held her hand as they walked through the fairgrounds and the twinkle in her eyes
when she’d wiped a speck of chili from his cheek had told him she cared as much as he did. And then she’d gotten those messages from her boss. This morning, Kate had seemed somehow deflated, as if the energy had been drained from her. Now she looked almost gray, as if her lifeblood was being leached away. He had to do something.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head, then nodded. “No. Yes.”

“If you add maybe, you’ll have all the bases covered.” Greg kept his voice light, not wanting to discourage Kate from confiding in him. As she’d told Angela only a few days ago, there were times when a person needed to talk.

“You’re right. It’s not like me to dither.” Though Kate laughed, it sounded forced. “The short version of the story is that my boss wants me to work on a new account.”

He had been afraid of something like that. “I’m guessing you mean right now, not when you return to New York.”

“Yeah.” Kate took a swig of water, then frowned as she recapped the bottle. “Heather wants me to cut my vacation short and go back, but I suspect she’d settle for my working while I’m here. It’s not like I haven’t telecommuted before. We all do that if there’s a lot of snow.”

Greg tried not to wince at the thought of how difficult telecommuting might be, given Rainbow’s End’s painfully slow dial-up connection and the limited amount of time Kate could use it. “Did you agree?”

“Not yet. Heather needs my decision today.” Kate glanced at her watch. “I have two hours and thirty-seven minutes left.”

“But you’re going to say yes.” She might think she hadn’t made a decision, but the tone of her voice said otherwise.

As a bird flew by, squawking at some unseen menace, Kate nodded. “Probably. My promotion is at stake.”

“You know, Kate, there’s more to life than a job.”

She blinked, and the color that rose to Kate’s cheeks told him he’d touched a sensitive nerve. “Says the man who doesn’t have one.”

“By choice.” Greg saw the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. Kate obviously thought he’d been laid off, one of the millions whose jobs had been lost to downsizing. Now that he’d started, he’d have to finish. It was time to tell her who he was. Correction: who he used to be.

“I left when I realized it wasn’t fun anymore and that the only reason I was working was for the money.”

Kate leaned forward, fixing her gaze on him. “That’s not the only reason I’m working. I enjoy what I do.” And she was trying to live up to her grandfather’s expectations, to accomplish what he had not. Greg knew that was a powerful motive.

“I enjoyed my job too, until one day I didn’t.” It probably hadn’t happened that suddenly, but it had seemed that way to Greg. One day he’d wakened, realizing that he dreaded going into the office. The thrill had disappeared, replaced by what felt like days of drudgery.

“What did you do then?”

Like the moment the Ferris wheel car had moved upward, Greg had passed the point of no return. He had to tell Kate the truth, and then he’d have to deal with the consequences.

“I took my partner’s advice and sold the company.”

Kate’s eyes widened as she absorbed his statement. “You owned a company? A software company?” She had obviously remembered his comment about working for a software firm in college and had taken the not-so-large leap to assume that he’d continued in the same field.

Greg nodded. “I don’t talk about it a lot, especially here, but Drew Carroll and I had a company. I was the majority owner with 60 percent of the stock.”

Greg saw the speculation in Kate’s expression, but unlike the
speculation that normally surrounded him, he did not believe she was trying to calculate his bank balance. She looked more like she was trying to solve a puzzle. “Would I recognize the name?” she asked.

“You might. Have you ever heard of Sys=Simpl?” Employees referred to it as S-squared, but the public knew it by its full name.

“Of course.” Kate’s expression brightened, and she nodded vigorously, setting her ponytail to bouncing. “I read business magazines as part of my job.” He must have looked surprised, because she added, “The primary reason is that I’m looking for trends and possible new clients, but I learn a lot of other things too. I read about the way your software revolutionized small business.” She gave him an appraising look. “How did you get started? The articles never mentioned that.”

Because he hadn’t told the reporters. Though he’d known it would be impossible, he’d tried to keep his family from being involved in the frenzy that accompanied sudden success. His mother would have been embarrassed if reporters had descended on her home, and his father . . . Greg wasn’t certain how Dad would have reacted, but he couldn’t imagine that it would have been a pleasant scene.

“My parents both worked in the fruit processing plant in my hometown,” he said slowly. “They complained about how none of the systems talked to each other. That caused problems and required a lot of duplicate work. I tried to fix that.”

“And you did.” For the first time today, Kate’s smile seemed genuine. “I’ve never used your software, but from everything I’ve read, it’s brilliant.”

“It filled a niche.” Admittedly a bigger niche than he’d expected, but it was still a niche.

“It did more than that. It made you and your partner billionaires.” She said the words matter-of-factly, as if she knew dozens of billionaires. Perhaps she did. What amazed Greg
was that there was no awe in her voice, no calculated gleam in her eyes.

Kate took another swallow of water, her expression serious as she asked, “So why are you here if you have all that money?”

It was a valid question, albeit not the one he’d expected. But nothing about Kate’s reaction had been what he’d expected. Instead of looking at him as if he had suddenly sprouted dollar bills all over his body, she seemed genuinely interested in him, in what made Greg Vange tick, rather than what his money could buy. No one else, not even his family, had reacted so well.

As Kate raised one eyebrow, Greg realized she was waiting for his answer. It was simple and yet complex. “I’m trying to figure out what God wants me to do next.” He wasn’t certain what God had in mind for him, but he couldn’t discount the possibility that he might have been led here to keep Kate from making the same mistakes he had.

She tipped her head to one side, reminding him of a bird listening for the soft slither of a worm. “Have you considered that your purpose might be to save Rainbow’s End?”

It was clear that the tennis game was over. That was just as well, because this was more interesting and more important. “The thought has crossed my mind.” More than once. The day he’d arrived and had seen the resort’s deplorable condition, Greg had wondered if he ought to invest in it. Later, when he’d learned that the Sinclairs were anxious to sell, he’d considered buying it. But even though the thoughts refused to be dismissed, he’d never pursued them, because each time, he’d felt as if there were an invisible hand holding him back.

“If by saving Rainbow’s End you mean buying it, I don’t think that’s the answer.” Greg hoped Kate would understand. “Rainbow’s End needs more than my money. It needs a whole new focus, and I don’t have a clue what that should be.”

Kate drained the bottle, then recapped it and tossed it into
Greg’s bag for future recycling. “There’s a lot of talent in Dupree. You could hire some of them to develop theme weeks here. Lauren could teach quilting, and I saw a wonderful silversmith shop. The owner could probably be persuaded to share his knowledge with guests. Carmen could even offer cooking classes. Those would attract more people.”

Greg hadn’t thought of that angle, but it made sense. Other resorts and even cruise lines attempted to attract a specialized clientele using similar approaches. “They’re good ideas, Kate. They’d probably work, but for some reason, they don’t feel right to me. Maybe it’s because they seem like temporary patches rather than a real fix. I don’t know.”

Greg hesitated, not wanting to burden Kate with his own problems, then realized she was waiting for the rest of his explanation. “Even if I wanted to buy Rainbow’s End, there’s another problem. I don’t think I’d be good at running it. You’ve seen what a disaster the Sinclairs have created. They had good intentions, but they don’t have the right background. I don’t, either.”

Greg looked up. A bank of clouds was moving in swiftly from the west, threatening a storm. It felt like a metaphor for his life. Yesterday had been the happiest day he could recall—the sun—but today the clouds of doubt had rolled in.

“Drew was the front man for Sys=Simpl.” Greg continued his explanation. “He handled most of the people-related aspects of the company. Other than press conferences announcing new releases and meetings with venture capitalists, I was behind the scenes, designing the software. That’s what I’m good at.”

And, according to Drew, that was the only thing Greg was good at. “You may be brilliant, but you don’t relate well to people,” his partner had told him more than once. Though the criticism had bothered Greg, it wasn’t unexpected. He had heard variations on that theme his whole life. According to his father, he lacked the basic elements for making friends as well
as scoring a touchdown. It was only once he’d moved to Stanford and was surrounded by other equally smart and motivated students that he’d felt at ease. Still, running a resort and dealing with guests on a daily basis was far different from convincing venture capitalists to invest in his ideas.

As if she sensed Greg’s turbulent thoughts, Kate laid her hand on his and squeezed it lightly. “I think you’re selling yourself short. You may not realize it, but you’re good with people. Look at how you handled little Fiona and the way you convinced Sally it would be a good idea for you to drive to the bluebonnet festival. You obviously understand what people need. If you didn’t, your software wouldn’t be so successful.” Kate gave his hand another squeeze before releasing it. “I think you can do anything you set your mind to.”

It was a good thing Greg wasn’t a blusher. If he were, Kate’s praise would have sent blood rushing to his face. As it was, he wasn’t certain what pleased him more, her touch or her words. All Greg knew was that Kate had ignited a fire deep inside him.

He’d received accolades for his software. The company’s success had given him the reward of financial security. And yet nothing had touched his heart the way Kate’s approval had. She made him feel like one of those storybook knights who slayed dragons. If only he could live up to Kate’s expectations.

“I appreciate your vote of confidence.” More than she’d ever know. “But much as I’d like to see Rainbow’s End continue, I can’t do it alone. It needs more than I can provide.”

Kate shook her head, once again setting her ponytail to swaying. It was obvious she wasn’t going to give up and that she didn’t want him to, either. “You could hire people to do whatever you’re not comfortable with. There are plenty of folks who could handle the finances and promotions, even the day-to-day running of the resort.”

“Maybe.” Greg hadn’t thought about the details, mostly
because every time the idea of buying Rainbow’s End popped into his head, he heard a small voice saying no. “I like your ideas, Kate. In fact, I think they’re really good, but . . .” He paused, wanting to choose his words carefully. “It’s possible I’ll change my mind, but it doesn’t feel right.”