Shirley Jump - The Tycoon's Proposal

The word rankled. Twice in one day they’d called him that. “This workaholic is trying to go someplace. If I can ever get out of here.” Mac fended off the rest of his brothers’ questions and slipped onto the seat of his bike.

Jack sighed and threw up his hands. “I give up. You know, one of these days you’re going to realize you actually need your family.”

“I never said I didn’t need my family.” Mac settled the helmet on his head and buckled the strap. Just maybe not parts of his family, such as a father who hadn’t been as true as he claimed to be.

“You didn’t have to say it,” Luke said, disappointment clear in his expression. “It’s written all over your face.” Then his brothers climbed back into the car and headed out of the lot.

Mac revved the bike, felt the power of the engine rumble beneath him. He loved his brothers. He really did. But sometimes he wondered if they lived in a fantasy world. They seemed to think a few family dinners would be enough to settle everything. If that was the case, he and his father would have mended fences years ago. But now, with the information about Colton, that broken fence had become a yawning, impassable canyon.

As soon as he could, Mac was leaving Stone Gap. And it would be a long time before he came back.

He thought of Savannah Hillstrand and all her talk about the business being family. How her father had treated every employee like a relative. Maybe some people were honestly like that, but Mac doubted it. Or maybe she was just some Pollyanna who thought the world was filled with rainbows and people singing “Kumbaya.”

He wound his way to the outer edge of Stone Gap, past the beachfront mansions that outdid each other with more windows, more balconies, more square footage, then down around the edge of the bay before finally coming to a stop in a dirt parking lot. The ocean breeze rolled in from the Atlantic, sweet and crisp. He inhaled and wondered how long it had been since he’d been on the water. Too long, for sure.

His gaze shifted away from the deep blue ocean and over to a small wooden shack. No bigger than a trailer, the place looked ready to crumple with the slightest breeze. The Sea Shanty was, indeed, a shanty.

This was where Savannah Hillstrand wanted to have steaks? This... dive ?

When she’d proposed the dinner, with no talk of business until after dessert, he’d balked. That wasn’t how Mac ran his life. He worked as much as possible, as often as possible. But as he’d wound his way down the roads toward the address she’d given him, and caught the scent of the ocean dancing in the air, he’d begun to feel a...longing. For what, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it had come wrapped in her words. What was it about this woman, who believed in family and vacations and lazy days, that had so intrigued him?

All purely professional interest, of course, even if she did have green eyes that lingered in a man’s mind. He just wondered how anyone running a business, particularly a struggling one, could be so...positive and upbeat.

He heard laughter and turned. Savannah Hillstrand stood to the right of the Sea Shanty, talking to an elderly man and laughing at something he had said. A little fissure of jealousy ran through Mac. Insane. He had no claims on Savannah, nor did he want any. This was business. Nothing more.

Then why did his gaze travel over her lithe frame, now out of the severe pantsuit and looking summery and beautiful in a dark green sundress? She had a little white sweater draped over one arm, and her hair was down and curling along her shoulders. She’d changed, done her hair, and a part of him wondered if—well, hoped—that was because she knew she might be seeing him.

He closed the distance between them just as the elderly man went inside the building. At the sound of his riding boots on the dirt, Savannah turned.

A smile curved across her face. “You made it.”

“You sound surprised.”

“A little, yes.”

“Don’t be. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. I’m not one for spontaneity.” Though he was having a lot of spontaneous thoughts about her right now. It had to be the surprise of the sundress, the expression on her face, the scent of the ocean in the air, because he was having trouble thinking about anything other than her. “And for me, this—” he waved at the glorified pile of wood that was passing as a restaurant “—is a semitruck full of spontaneity.”

“Hey, who knows, Mr. Barlow, in the process of you helping me with the company, I might end up being a bad influence on you.”

He laughed. “That I doubt.”

“Come on. Let’s get a table out back before the sun sets.” She waved at him to follow her down a shell-lined path that circled around to the back of the Sea Shanty. The path led to a small deck topped with white plastic tables and chairs and framed by lattice panels on either side. Clearly, it wasn’t the ambience that drew people to this place.

It was definitely the view.

“Isn’t this amazing?” Savannah said as they slipped into two chairs. She waved toward the ocean lapping at the rocky shore below. “Every time I look at this view, it... Well, as silly as it sounds, it reorients my soul.”

Reorients my soul. Mac considered those words as he took in the panorama before them.

A vast blueness stretched before him, further and broader than his eyes could see. It rippled with tiny peaks of whitecaps, like a dusting of stars in the water. In the distance a sailboat cut through the water quickly and easily. Above his head a trio of seagulls called to each other before one dropped down and scooped a fish out of the shallows. Mac’s heart slowed and his chest expanded as he drew in one deep breath after another like a man who had gone too long in stale air. The salty, tangy breeze was refreshing. Restoring.

The same ocean was right outside his offices in Boston, of course. But he rarely saw it heading into work early and leaving late. The air there was filled with the smog from commuters and the stink of diesel from the busy harbor.

Across the bay he saw one lone house, a two-story white Georgian style with a long wooden dock jutting out into the water, topped with chairs to catch the view. It was a peaceful image, like a painting spread across nature’s canvas.

A sense of something Mac didn’t recognize settled in his chest. Then it hit him—he felt calm, relaxed. When was the last time he’d felt like that? With no worry over an impending deadline or stress about a deal falling through?

The sound of the water lapping over the rocky shore seemed to whisper relax, relax , and every cell in Mac’s being ached to do that very thing. For a moment, he imagined himself at that house across the way, sinking into one of the two Adirondack chairs facing the ocean and just...being.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Savannah said. “My dad loved this place. He and my mom would come here as often as they could. It was just a short boat ride for them, so they’d pop over for dinner all the time.”

“Short boat ride?”

“Yup. That’s my dad’s house over there.” She pointed to the Georgian he had noticed a moment ago.

“That’s where your dad lived? How did he afford a waterfront home?” The moment of relaxation flitted away. Mac made a mental note to take a second look at the company’s finances. If the CEO had been financing a big mortgage, that kind of practice would have to stop. “Because I thought Willie Jay had a house a few miles from Stone Gap, too. In Juniper Ridge.”

“We do. The house in Juniper Ridge is small, the same house I grew up in and that my parents bought when they first got married. My mom and dad never really wanted or needed a big house. The one on the beach has been in our family for a long time. My dad was frugal in other parts of his life, so he could afford to keep this house.” She brushed her bangs off her face and wistfulness filled her features. “It means a lot to our family. Almost everything important in our lives happened over there. And someday I’m going to find a way to get all that back.”