“Where does the sixth man come from, then?” Dad grumbles, flipping through the report. “Pull that from his ass too, does he?”
Ignoring his sass, I deliver my assessments like a professional, as he asked.
“It’s related to the time and money saved by his reliable safety record. Of all your employees, he has the fewest serious incident reports and near misses — and that includes you. When he’s on shift, things run smoothly. He causes theleastamount of downtime during sluicing, and therefore his verypresencegets more gold in the box. There’s a definite disparity between having him on your team and not having him on your team, and you know it. That’s why you went out of your way to get him here.”
Dad flips back through the pages and glares at the recommendations and predicted losses on the front sheet. “Well, I don’t want him here anymore, Lana. He’s not on my fucking team now. He’s on yours.”
I open his door and slam it again without actually leaving, even though I want to storm out.
“We’re all on thesamefucking side, Dad. We’re all playing to win ‘happy ever after.’ It’s just that some of us want that with you, but you’re too busy bitching about stupid shit to get on board.”
“Stupidshit?” His finger jabs at the report in his hand. “This out-clause is ridiculous! The season hasn’t even started and you’re demanding I pay you and your sisters the cash bonus you would have received had we won the end of season wager— and you’ve just stated here that there’s no way I canwinthe fucking thing without you and Bates. I’ll be out of pocket twice.By an unbelievable margin, becauseyouconvinced me toupthe fucking ante this season.”
I swallow hard and nod. “That would be the price of breaking the contract you signed. Martha and Harper shouldn’t be out-of-pocket due to our dysfunction. We can negotiate a payment plan if you need to. I’ve made as many recommendations as I can pre-season to help you reach your targets, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough for you to break even at the end. You have another option in the second?—”
“Get. Out.” His face has turned bright red, and the report in his hand is beginning to crumple as his fist clenches tightly around it. “I’m too angry to evenlookat you right now.”
I glance at the other, unread report and nod. “I’m pretty angry too.”
I close his office door quietly behind me, then head out to where Bates is waiting by Martha’s truck with our gear.
Waitingis perhaps not the right word. His head is under the hood, and he’s tinkering with the engine. He steps back when he hears my boots on the gravel.
“I’d ask how that went, but I can see your face,” he says, wiping his hands on a rag.
Not wanting to talk about it, I nod at the truck. “Is this thing roadworthy?”
“She’s fine,” he assures me. “Just giving her a quick checkup to keep my mind busy. You okay?”
I start throwing our bags into the back. “Yup.”
One of my smaller packs flies right over the truck to land in the dirt on the other side, and Bates comes to give me a hug. “I’m thinking maybe you lied when you saidyupjust now, beautiful.”
“Maybe.”
“We’re still leaving, then?”
“Yup. He chose to ignore the most optimal report.”
Bates swears under his breath. “What the fuck is wrong with the man?”
He kisses my forehead, lets me go, and walks around the truck to retrieve my bag. My notebook falls out of the front pocket as he’s dusting off the pack, and he picks it up, studying the cover for a moment before absently lowering my bag into the truck bed. “I’ll be back in a minute, babe. There’s some water on the seat there. You have a sip and take some deep breaths and shit.”
25
BATES
Ibarge into Hawk’s office without bothering to knock.
“You’re doing this all wrong, Hawk.”
“Don’t want to hear it. Least of all from you.”
“Well, you’re going to.” I throw Lana’s notebook in front of him and point at it. “Take a look. That’s what you did to your daughter.”
Hawk glances at the notebook and sighs. “I’m afraid to fucking look. She’s going to ruin me over you, you know.”
“You’re doing a fine job of ruining shit all by yourself,” I tell him straight. “Lanais trying to minimize the damage so it doesn’t hurt you too badly. Open the fucking notebook.”
