Back Where She Belongs(5)

Then his father’s business had failed. Abbott bought it, retooled the plant and turned it around, making a fortune. Believing Abbott had had insider information and had robbed him, his father sued, lost, then appealed.

The ten-year feud between the two men and their companies had ended six months ago, thanks to years of work on Dylan’s part, when Ryland Engineering signed a contract to provide the drive circuitry assembly for the Wharton battery for electric and plug-in hybrid cars.

“I found town funds to pay for the buses, yeah.”

“You tell Rachel?”

“Yes. I saw her at the hospital. Tara was there, too.” His face felt hot. He hoped to hell it didn’t glow red.

“I’m surprised that one even showed.”

“Why would you say that?”

“She walked away from her family. Shook them off like water from a dog’s back.”

“She did what she had to do for herself.”

“For herself. Exactly. I’m glad we raised you better. Though I blame that on her mother, who spoiled her rotten. That’s what comes of thinking money makes you better.” Dylan had felt the friction between his father and Tara’s mother even as a kid when the families got together for picnics and card games. His father had always been sensitive about status and wealth.

Now, he turned a framed photo away from himself.

Dylan picked it up, recognizing it as the shot of his father and Abbott posing with a jet turbofan they’d first collaborated on. His father had designed the components and Wharton Electronics had assembled and sold it, back when the company engineered aeronautics equipment.

The photo usually sat high on a dusty shelf. His father had taken it down to reminisce, no doubt, though he would likely deny that to Dylan.

“Look at you two,” Dylan said.

“We look like fools,” his father said.

“It was the eighties. Everyone wore leisure suits.” The men’s expressions captured their personalities. Dylan’s father looked dazed and humble. A scholarship student at MIT, he hadn’t been able to believe his good fortune. Abbott looked relaxed and confident, knowing success was his birthright.

“Give me that.” His father looked at the picture. “I was the real fool. I should have known he would cheat me blind.”

“He saved you from bankruptcy.”

“He took advantage of me.” Dylan’s father, a dreamer caught up in his ideas, had gone into debt on R&D, failing to boost production to cover costs. Abbott had bought Ryland Engineering at a fair price, not a generous one. Abbott Wharton was a businessman first.

“Abbott knew how to spot trends, Dad.”

“Now you take his side?”

“I’m being realistic.”

Growing up, his father had lectured Dylan, pride ringing in his voice, about how he himself was proof that hard work and intelligence overcame wealth and privilege.

Abbott making a killing on his father’s failed business had destroyed his father’s belief, convinced him that wealth and class always ruled.

“Your mother wore the same blinders. I was a failure, while Abbott could do no wrong.” Dylan’s mother left—went back to her family in Iowa—because she couldn’t live with his father’s bitterness, though his father believed it was the shame of his failure.

His parents’ breakup at Christmas his senior year had shaken Dylan to the core. Love was supposed to last. His parents hadn’t even tried. They drew lines in the sand and folded their arms, stubbornly blaming each other.

They’d forced him to choose, too. He’d stayed with his father, the one who needed him most. His mother claimed to understand, but she’d been hurt.

“And, still, the man’s trying to cheat me from the grave.” His father stabbed a finger at the papers on his desk. “These specs are impossible.”

“We knew there would be kinks to smooth.” To reach this moment, Dylan had watched their profit margin like a hawk, held the line on R&D, no matter how hard his father pushed, and kept tabs on developments at Wharton.

When Abbott nailed the federal energy alternative grant to build the cheaper, lighter, more stable lithium battery his engineers had devised, Dylan made sure Ryland Engineering was positioned as the best provider of the crucial part.

“You know damn well they’re scheming for a price cut,” his father said.

“It’s our bottom price. I made that clear.” They’d gone with a razor-thin profit margin to seal the deal, buying components from a new plant in Tennessee with rock-bottom prices. Once the Wharton batteries hit the market, demand would skyrocket, and Ryland Engineering would be rolling in orders. He hoped to hire some of the workers Wharton had been forced to lay off two months before. Talk about coming full circle. His father wanted that, too, no matter how much he groused.

All along, Dylan’s mission had been to redeem his father in his own eyes and, if possible, end the feud between the two men. They’d finally begun to warm to each other. Now Abbott was gone and his father was dredging up the old resentments to ease his grief and loss.

Dylan longed for the father he’d known growing up—a kind and patient teacher, a brilliant engineer with boundless curiosity and a total reverence for science. Dylan’s best memories were the hours they’d spent in the workshop on projects—building a battery, a potato radio, a fighter kite, even a hovercraft, which took top honors at a science fair.

He hoped that once he had some distance from his father, he could go back to admiring the man, appreciating him for his good points.

His father looked up at him. “Any change with Faye?”

“She’s still in ICU, still unconscious.”

“That’s got to be hard for a mother, though with Rachel, you’d never know she’s suffering. She’s prickly as a cactus.”

“Maybe you could give her a call. Express your concern.”

His father frowned, shaking his head. “It’s on her to reach out. I’ll pay respects at the funeral.”

“Up to you.” His father was as uncompromising with people as Tara had been. That wasn’t Dylan’s way. People were flawed. You accepted that and made the best of the good in them.

“It’s a damn shame about Faye. She’s the best of the bunch over there. Smart and fair and she works hard. Without her, the place just might fall apart. Her husband’s useless.”

“Joseph’s good at what he does. They’ve got good people. They’ll bounce back.” Dylan was concerned, though. A lot was riding on the success of the batteries for both companies. Deadlines were approaching. The too-tight specs were only part of the problem. For the past six weeks, Wharton had reported high test failures on the Ryland units. Dylan had to resolve the problem and quickly.

“And while we’re on the subject, there’s not a damn thing wrong with those units,” his father said, glaring up at him. “You tell those Wharton thieves that in that meeting. I put one on my own car.”

“I will. Don’t worry. Did you look at the data Victor collected?” Victor was their factory operations manager, the man Dylan was grooming to take over for him.

“Haven’t had time. I’ve been looking at the new circuitry they’re working on in R&D. This could be big—a totally new direction for us.”

“They’re a long way from a prototype, Dad. Manufacturing is our bread and butter. You have to keep your eye on the target.” Dylan worried that Victor wouldn’t be able to keep his father on track once Dylan left. That might be the fly in the ointment of his plan.

“You’ll pick me up for the funeral?”

“Yeah,” Dylan said. He hoped to skip the reception, wanting to minimize his father’s contact with the Wharton managers who’d be there. There was no telling how his father’s grief and frustration would play out in a public setting. He’d be damn glad when he could stop managing the man.

He’d see Tara again at the funeral. His heart thumped at the prospect. Tara had been his port in the storm of his parents’ breakup. He’d been so wrecked, he’d made his relationship with her seem better than it was, ignoring their differences, her all-or-nothing personality, the superhuman standards she set that he could never meet. If they’d stayed together, they’d have battled constantly. The hell of it was that holding her for that moment in the hospital, all he could remember was the wonder of love, of pure desire, the miracle of intimacy, and he’d wanted it, no matter how temporary, no matter how false, no matter the whiplash of pain that would follow.

Looked like his father wasn’t the only one who should keep his exposure to the Whartons to a minimum. They should definitely skip the reception.





CHAPTER THREE



AS SHE TURNED onto the brick driveway that curved up the hill toward the Wharton house, Tara glanced at her mother, who’d been quiet on the drive home. She hadn’t even grilled Tara about her choice of casket and flowers, which wasn’t like her mother at all. “You okay?” Tara asked.