Western Romance Collection: Rugged Cowboys Part 3

"We'll think about it, definitely." Morgan tries to smile in a friendly way, but it's probably not working, and she doesn't much expect it to. She's not going to think about it any more than she already has.

They could have a completely automated factory, these days. With the level of complexity machines can work at, she's already putting as many people to work as she can afford. The truth is that they've already got the human touch.

Human a.s.sembly, humans work the line... but the metal cutting, the heat-treating... it could all be done by hand, at one one-hundredth the speed, and at several multiples of difference to the cost.

"Over here, we have a.s.sembly. It goes through several different stages, of course." The entire demonstration works better when you're inside a building. They've got girders up now, and in a few days they might start putting up walls.

But as it stands right now, they're standing in a big pile of dirt, surrounded by steel beams. It's hard to say that this area is a.s.sembly, because first of all, no it isn't-it's a patch of dirt. Second, they just don't see it in their heads, the way you do when you're standing on a factory floor, the machines silent for the night...

They don't see it the way she sees it. The way that she's always seen it, since she was five years old. They don't know these buildings.

They don't know the work. And quite frankly, whether they're an investor, or a corporate buyer, or a rancher who won't sell his land, they don't care. Not the way that she cares.

Morgan Lowe doesn't expect any miracles. She knows the type of guy who doesn't sell is out there. Someone who doesn't view money as all that valuable compared to other things in life.

There are plenty of people like that, and as much as she doesn't like to think that she's a bad person, no more than anyone else, it's not hard to hear people talking about how when a corporation comes in-corporations like Lowe Industrial, though they're still not big enough to be the first thing that comes to mind-everything goes to s.h.i.t.

That's completely, patently false. She has seen towns prosper because Lowe came in. But facts don't matter, not in the long run.

Not when you're standing up there on a stage and you're trying to convince a hundred people to sell you their homes so that they can move into new homes, and get one of the five hundred new jobs that you're going to bring with you.

Not when you get off the stage, and the next speaker they've got on is a community leader who tells them a bunch of stuff about how she's going to bring in foreigners to work the factory, about how she's just like all the others, about how they're not going to see a nickel of that money returned to the community.

Lowe Industrial has always prided itself on giving back to the community, wherever it could feasibly be done. And Morgan has always been careful to uphold that, even forward it where she could.

But none of it matters to people, because in their minds, corporate factories like Lowe are all the same. Morgan takes a breath and looks around.

"Any questions?"

He seems to think about it for a minute. He looks around.

"You hiring local, or are you just bringing your boys up from Colorado or wherever?"

That's a question that she's always hoped someone would ask, but the second she hears it, for an instant, she freezes up. Then the words start to come back to her, and she's back in her element.

"We've got a policy of hiring as many local workers as possible. However, it often proves necessary to provide on-the-job training to make sure that our new locations offer the same high standards of quality and the same high efficiency as our prior locations.

"It can be difficult to do that without having management end up as overbearing and controlling. We aim to have a high rate of manufacture because our workers are driven to work harder, rather than simply threatening their jobs if they don't work hard enough.

"For that reason, the first year or two, we will have to have previously-trained Lowe Industrial management staff working alongside local workers, until the management style has, you know, rubbed off on them."

She finishes the speech breathless and with a practiced smile. That might have won him over. It's a good speech and she's only had a few chances to use it. The past four months, she's been to a half-dozen town-halls and almost n.o.body asks her to her face if they're going to hire locals.

They either believe her when she says they plan to, or they believe the guys who say that they absolutely won't. So she doesn't get a chance to give the more-details version of the little speech.

But in reality, it gives a great overview of how Lowe Industrial differs from their compet.i.tion. As far as Morgan's concerned, maybe they should be using it as the beginning of all their corporate speeches.

Then she looks at Phil Callahan's face, and the way he looks so thoroughly unconvinced...

She lets out a sigh. This was a mistake.

She should just give up, but she can't afford to now. Not after two days of work. If she doesn't get the Callahan ranch, she'll tear her hair out.

She's going to get it, if it's the last thing she ever does as President of the company.

Chapter Seven.

Phil Callahan closed the truck door and got onto the highway before he knew what he was doing again. Talking about a d.a.m.n factory? What interest did he have in anything to do with it?

He knew it would be a waste of his time. It always would be, because it wasn't moral opposition to the project that stopped him from selling his land. She must have decided that was it, though.

The truth was, it was a lot of little things. There's no way around it-yes, he needed the money. He needed to keep the property renovated properly. He needed to keep the horses fed.

But he wasn't going to leave the place that his wife had loved, the place where she'd been buried, so that he could get a paycheck.

He wasn't going to give up ranching just because of some financial difficulties. If he could get some of these horses sold off, like he should have already done, then... that would be different.

But he hadn't been able to so far. Every time that he reached for the phone and tried to set up a meeting, tried to get something moving with the Stallion, he hadn't been able to do it.

A three-year-old horse is already old enough to be making money on the track. Now he's got to be broken, trained up, they've got to find him a rider... there's probably another year's worth of getting him ready for racing.

Which means that by then, he's a four-year-old horse, and only five or six years of racing ahead of him. That will hurt the price, no doubt about it. Which is why he should've been gone already. Should've been sold off. It was Philip's own stupidity.

He takes a deep breath and holds it a little while. Eases off the interstate and then five minutes later he's pulling into the big yard out front of the ranch. Looking at the clock tells him before he even needs to ask why the boys are all piled into the bed of their old, beat-up Ford.

"How'd your whatever-it-was go, boss?"

"Waste of time. Should've been here."

"That's a nice shirt. You wearing your church clothes?"

He looks down at the shirt. Not especially nice. When Sara had been alive, if he'd been caught wearing anything to church that wasn't starched and pressed he'd be skinned alive after.

"I guess it is," he says, finally. Sara wasn't alive to skin him for wearing it, and n.o.body was starching his shirts for him any more, either.

"What was it about, anyway?"

"Just going to meet somebody."

They share a look. He's ducking the question because he doesn't want to bother with it any more, but they're reading into it and he can see it on their faces.

"Somebody female? Somebody who's a girl?"

For a second he considers telling them that she wasn't. Because if he tells them that Morgan Lowe is a girl, yes, then they're going to read into it in all the wrong ways.

On the other hand, one couldn't spend more than a few moments looking at the woman to know that she's exactly a woman. She's about anything a man could want out of a woman, with the single exception that she wasn't Sara, and she wasn't going to be any time soon.

"You boys talk too much, you know that?" He scowls.

Too much free reign, these brothers. James very pointedly and very openly looks from one of his brothers to the other, before announcing in the loudest 'quiet' voice that Philip's ever heard that that meant 'yes.'

"You boys didn't go out to lunch and not bother getting your boss anything, did you? Lunch, without calling to check and make sure I didn't have more work for you to do? You wouldn't have done that, would you?"

"You don't like Mexican food, boss. You wanted a Burrito, you shoulda said something."

Philip puts his foot up on the tail of the truck and steps up into the back alongside them. Michael's already reaching down into a big white paper bag.

"You're right, I shoulda said you three were on thin ice." He can't keep up the act, but he can sure keep talking like he was fooling somebody.

"We're sorry, boss. Would a burrito make you feel any better?" James takes the burrito that Michael surrept.i.tiously pa.s.ses him. "We got an extra, for n.o.body in particular, but we made sure it didn't have any tomatoes, just cause we know how particular some people can be."

"I'm not particular." Philip takes it. James c.o.c.ks an eyebrow. "I just know what I like."

"Of course."

The boys continue eating. They've got a little head start on him, but Callahan's not an old man yet, and he can still eat. He might have taken a few weeks off, after everything went south, but he'd realized not long after that it was either eat, or die, so he decided to eat.

"I'm thinkin'," he says after a while. The boys get quiet. There's a time to play, and a time to work, and he's got the working face on, this time. "It's about time we get rid of that Black."

The boys exchange glances. "Well, sure," James says finally. "What's your point?"

"He'll need to be saddle-broken, 'course." He takes the last bite of the burrito, and then b.a.l.l.s up the aluminum foil that had been keeping it warm. "I could call someone, have them do it, but if one of you boys wants to get a good bonus, I'd rather give you the money than some stranger."

The boys are that age. The right age to do stupid s.h.i.t, even if it weren't for a paycheck. You offer them permission and the money, and... well, it only takes one look at their faces to know exactly how they feel about the offer.

"Well, sure. We could take a look at him. You know. Give it a shot. What kind of money we talking about?"

"Don't know. I figure that if we brought somebody in, I'd probably end up paying a couple hundred bucks. Call it a hundred if y'all manage it. Cash bonus."

"And when are we supposed to do this? Plenty of post-holes need digging."

"I don't d.a.m.n know. You boys complain too much. Here I am, offering you extra money, and you're bellyachin' about when should you do it?"

The youngest is nineteen and his boots are kicking up dust before the other two know what's going on. Randy's quiet, but he's got a wildness to him, as well. Rash. Making the offer might as well have meant Phil was just asking him to do it.

For all that Callahan knew, the boy had already been trying on the side, and the only difference now was that he had permission to do it in the open. If that were the case-and a creeping doubt in his mind couldn't quite be forced into a box that said it wasn't-he'd better not find out about it.

Because up til now, it was definitely not their jobs to do any horse-breaking, and he was definitely not going to be G.o.d d.a.m.n happy if he came back from lunch to find out that Randy was out of work for the next month because a horse broke his d.a.m.n sternum doing something stupid off the clock.

But then again, what was he going to do about it now? Yell at him? Nope. The other two took off after him a minute later, and by the time Phil Callahan was leaning up against the paddock fence, they'd already gotten the big thing saddled up, in spite of the Black's best efforts not to be saddled.

It was only a moment later, as Randy shifted his weight up into the stirrup-the horse pulled away and Randy dropped back to the ground safely-that the bright red sports car drove up.

Callahan turned. This wasn't the time for folks to be showing up, and it definitely wasn't the time for Morgan Lowe.

Especially not with the boys thinkin' what they were thinkin'.

Because if they didn't keep it to themselves, Callahan might start thinkin' it himself.

Chapter Eight.

Morgan Lowe grew up in Nevada.

She's aware of rodeos, in the sort of way that people are aware that people race around half-mile dirt tracks somewhere in the country, and that people make money doing it.

She's aware of them in the same way that she's aware that there are probably stamp collectors working for her. It's likely the case, and she's not so stupid as to question it, but that doesn't mean that she knows anything about it, and it doesn't really mean that she's interested in knowing anything about it, either.

But as she walks up, a youngish man-couldn't be older than twenty-with a cowboy's body tries to throw his weight up onto the horse.

Part of Morgan might think that he's attractive, in a theoretical way. He's got a handsome body, but she's not thinking about any of that. The one that she's thinking about, thinking in more ways than she should, since the man is as off-limits as anyone could possibly come, stands outside the fence.

He's got a st.u.r.dy build, and a square jaw. In some ways he looks like someone who was a movie star in his younger years, and then stopped doing it.

Philip Callahan has a quiet confidence, and he doesn't look like the sort of guy who has ever looked in the mirror and wondered what someone else thought about his looks. Not that he has anything to worry about.

If it was just his jaw, it might have been enough for most women. He's got an attractively square jaw, and whether he's smiling or frowning he manages to look at once intense and masculine.

Like a movie star, which is exactly the impression she'd gotten. If he never did any work in that field, well, he was missing out. Then again, Morgan figures, it's not likely that there are as many Hollywood agents in Wyoming as there are in Vegas.

It's more than just his jaw, though. Every motion, every movement, every expression... everything about the man is picture-perfect. As if he were designed by the Lord and imbued with his good looks for some kind of purpose. Like he was there specifically to tempt Morgan Lowe.

He turns as she comes up. He's caught between laughing at the kid, she knows, and being less than happy to see her. She doesn't have time to worry about whether or not he's happy to see her, though. She's got a business to run, and that business relies on her getting close to him and convincing him to sell the property.

"You're back," he says. Neutral. Which is better than she expected, at least. "Did you forget your jacket yesterday, and just now remembered?"

"I thought I'd come see what I could do. You left in a hurry."

"Well, I had to get back, didn't I?" He turns back to the horse. "We've got to get rid of him, and with his breeding-that means racing."

Something sounds weird in his voice. He's got feelings about the horse, feelings that it's hard for Morgan to put her finger on. Just that he's got them.

"Has he got a name?"