Tanner rolled his eyes. Rip didn’t look as though he had a care in the world—the eye-straining Hawaiian shirt paired with his beat-up cowboy hat pretty much reflected his whole outlook on life.

“Wow, T-man. You couldn’t have picked a better place for us to meet.”

“I should have known this was a set up.” Tanner ran a hand through his hair and stared out into the Austin, Texas hotel lobby hosting the National Beauty Products Convention. “My old man is testing me.”

Rip sighed. “This place is heaven.”

“It’s hell for me.” Tanner waved a hand at the plethora of women—slim, curvy, tall, petite, fresh-faced, mature—and in every mouth-watering color scheme available on the planet. “Look at them. All of them. I’ll never make the deal he expects.”

“Tanner, why don’t you just tell your father you quit?” Jesse Jordan sipped his steaming coffee.

The twinkle in his eye said he understood Tanner’s predicament all too well. Although women fawned over the young Robert Redford lookalike, he didn’t melt like hot wax.

“You don’t need Peschke Motors,” Jesse said. “You make more on your investments in a month than that place sees in a year.”

“I made a promise to my mother—”

“On her deathbed ten years ago.” Gage Jenkins, a no-nonsense man with a military haircut and direct stare, leaned over the table. “Dude, a lot has changed since then.”

“You could buy ten Peschke Motors with your pocket change.” Rip shook his head. “Hell, you could probably buy your own new car manufacturing company with the money you’re making in day trading.”

“That’s not the point.” Tanner leaned back in his seat. “Why do you work at the radio station, Rip?” Irritation tightened his throat. He turned to Jesse and waved a hand. “Why do you run a ranch supply store, Jess? And why are you still a member of the Army National Guard, Gage?” Tanner glanced around at the group. “None of us do what we do because we
need
the money.”

“That’s right.” Rip let out a belch, followed by a grin. “Sorry.”

Tanner shook his head. “We started the Texas Billionaires Club so we would all succeed.”

Rip nodded. “And once we made our collective billion, we are supposed to remind each other what’s important.”

“Family, friends and, most important, not getting a big head.” Jesse counted off, one finger at a time.

“Back to the point.” Gage set his coffee mug on the table with a thump. “Tanner made a promise...to his dying mother, who is family, to stand by his father...who is family.”

“That’s why I called this meeting, my friends.” Tanner straightened his collar. “I needed moral support and a reminder of what’s important. My dad’s counting on me to do this right.”

“Well, soldier.” Gage threw back his broad shoulders and gave Tanner his best military glare. “Get out there and make that deal.”

“I don’t get it.” Rip’s brows furrowed. “What’s so hard about buying a load of used cars from an old lady?”

“He’s a sucker for a sob story.” Jesse shook his head, a grin spreading across his mouth. “This place is filled with women, a veritable field of land mines for our man Tanner.”

“You got that right.” Tanner stood, staring out at the lobby, dread filling him with each passing second.

Jesse, Gage and Rip stood, Rip leaning in like a quarterback in a huddle. “Keep your eye on the ball. Ignore the other team, and the fact you’ll be surrounded and outnumbered by the fairer sex.”

“Thanks,” Tanner snorted. “I’m ignoring them already.” His tone dripped sarcasm.

“You can do it, buddy.” Rip pounded him on his back. “Just pretend they’re all men in drag and breeze right through.”

“We’ve got your back.” Jesse took his turn pounding Tanner’s back. “Call us when you’re done. We’ll give you a cyber high-five.”

“I’m on it.” Tanner strode out of the bar and entered the lobby. Knowing the TBC had his back gave him fuel to get going.

On his way to the reception desk, several lovelies nodded, smiling as they passed. Others fluttered their fingers in little feminine waves—the kind that made a man’s insides curl. All the while, the combined scents of their perfumes increased the dread in his sensory-overloaded brain.

Tanner cleared his throat and straightened his red tie. Time to get serious. This meeting was important to his father’s business and crucial to Tanner’s future at Peschke Motors. The appointment could be the beginning of bigger and better things...or the beginning of the end.

Passing a large gilt-framed mirror, he checked his appearance. He’d been shooting for honest and down-to-earth to appeal to the matriarch and CEO of Barbara Stockton’s Beauty Secrets. Thus the blue chambray shirt, crisply ironed blue jeans, and highly polished cowboy boots. Next to all the beautifully groomed and fashionably dressed women in attendance at the conference, he probably looked like a hick. He got great pleasure in knowing he wasn’t just a hick. He had money. Lots of money, but he chose not to advertise that fact. No one in Texas but his banker knew exactly how much money he had. And he liked the situation that way.

Tanner usually didn’t give much thought to what he wore or how others viewed him, but his normally take-me-as-I-am attitude had gone for a hike after his father’s latest challenge, which he’d delivered just that morning...

“Son, if you’re gonna run this company when I retire, you’ve gotta show me you want it.”

That was the hard part. Tanner really didn’t want the business. He didn’t have Jesse’s steadiness, Gage’s laser-focus, or even Rip’s laissez-faire attitude. He was a man approaching thirty and feeling strangled in place because he hadn’t found his life’s calling.

Sitting across the desk from his father, Tanner silently groaned and tipped his cowboy hat forward so his dad couldn’t detect his impatience. He knew he was in for his father’s latest lecture on “Used Car Sales Business: Lecture Number 4123.”

Try as he might, he couldn’t force the passion his father had for the sales game. But Tanner promised his mother on her deathbed that he’d help his father with the family business. He wished he’d inherited his father’s natural used-car-salesman gene. The fact was, he hadn’t.

Just once, he’d like hearing his father’s praise and admiration of his business prowess. But his father wouldn’t sugarcoat what wasn’t there for him to see at Peschke Motors.

Too often, Tanner bit hard on his tongue to keep from telling his father he didn’t need him or the job or anything to do with Peschke Motors. But his sweet mother’s last words always came back. “Take care of your father. Help him. He needs you.”

“Tanner!” Joe Peschke’s booming voice pricked the bubble of Tanner’s memory. “Son, are you payin’ attention to anything I’m sayin’?”

“Yes, sir,” Tanner lied and decided he’d better give the man his undivided attention, or this could turn into an even longer ordeal than usual. By the look of his father’s ruddy cheeks and bristling black moustache, Tanner guessed he’d missed a cue.

His dad rose to his feet, his bulky frame towering over Tanner. “I plan on buyin’ a fishin’ boat and a house on the beach. In exactly three months, I’m movin’ there. Do you understand what I’m sayin’?”

Tanner must have drifted
way
off. This was the first he’d heard about his father moving. “You’re moving?”

“Yes, I’m moving.”

“But how will you run the business from the coast?”

“I’m won’t. I’m retirin’.”

“Retiring?” This was new, too.

“Yes, and I wanted to leave the family business in the hands of family. I had high hopes that family would be you, seein’ as you’re the only family I have left.”

Tanner pushed his hat back on his head, every fiber of his being tuned in to his dad’s words. He could feel a “but” coming...

“But, I need a quarterback who can lead the team to victory. Problem is, son, I’m just not seein’ you as that quarterback.”

Wait a minute. Tanner couldn’t have heard that right. “You mean, you’d fire me?” he asked disbelieving. A little devil in his conscience leapt for joy, while an angel with a face like his mother’s shook her head sadly.

“Not necessarily fire you, but I need to select a general manager. If you’re not the man for the job, I can’t put you in it.”

A cold, hard lump lodged in Tanner’s throat. Perhaps now was the time to break it to his father that he was a multi-millionaire and didn’t need the job of general manager. But that time had come and gone. Telling his father he didn’t need him might break the old man’s heart and would definitely go against what Tanner had promised his mother. Caught between a rock and a soft spot, Tanner argued, “I’ve sold fifteen cars in the last month, Dad. How many other salesmen have sold as many?”

Joe Peschke shook his head, his mouth turned down in a sad frown. “Not a one. Volume’s not your problem, son.”

“Then what is?”

His father lifted a piece of paper from the stack on his desk and shook it. “Statistics show every car you sold to a woman, you sold
at
, or a fraction above, cost. Which barely pays the bills around here, much less your commission.”

Tanner knew he couldn’t refute his father’s words. “But Dad, you don’t understand.”

His father shook the paper. “Then help me understand, son.” Scanning down the list, he poked a finger at a line. “The green conversion van.”

“That would be Mrs. Jenkins.” Tanner straightened his shoulders. “Her husband’s disabled and they live on a fixed income.”

His father frowned and looked farther down the list. “How about that blue, four-door Saturn?”

“Rebecca Pitkin.” Tanner remembered the frazzled redhead with the toddler. “Student. Single mom. Needed reliable transportation to get her daughter to daycare. She’s trying to make a better life for herself and her child.”

With a roll of his eyes, the older Peschke went to the next line. Crossing his arms over his chest, his father slowly shook his head. “Tell me about the F-150 Pickup.”

Tanner groaned inwardly. Was this how a frog pinned to a dissecting board felt? “F-150 pickup?” Damned if he could remember the face that went with that vehicle. “Refresh my memory, Dad.”

“Micky Freeland ring a bell?”

“Micky... wasn’t that a man?”

“I don’t know too many men who dot their ‘i’s with hearts.”

BOOK: Tarzan & Janine

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