Acquiring Trouble (2 page)

Morgan couldn't believe her boldness. But the man of her dreams was alone in the room and had compared her to her sister. It was the only way she could think to prove she wasn't her saintly sister
—s
he was better.
The fact that
Morgan
had been dreaming about this moment for four years contributed
too.

She moaned into his mouth as she felt his tongue slowly move in response to her kiss.
The turmoil of the last fo
ur years melted away. The fight
with her parents and sister just
this
afternoon left her mind and was replaced with the permanent memory of the feel of Miles'
s
tongue in her mouth and the weight of his erection in her hand.
She ran her other hand across
his muscled back and slid it
around his shoulder, bringing him closer to her.

"Oh my god!" someone shrieked.

"
Dammit.
Babe
, it's not wh
at it looks like. She kissed me," Miles tried to explain to an outraged Stacy.

"So is she the reason you're going to Texas and didn't even apply
to
Vandy
? To be with this skank
?"

Morgan felt her eyes go round, her hands clenched into fists. She was used to being called names, but
that
didn't mean it didn't hurt.

"I would never be with someone like her, you know that.
You're all that matters to me," he pleaded.

Morgan ducked her head and pushed past Stacy and into the hall. People were staring at her and whispering as she ran past them. Once out in the night air she ran as fast and hard as she could. Anger filled her. Her feet took her to the back of the hardware store on Main Street.
She looked
around
,
approached the back door
,
and
quickly picked the lock.

Two hours later Morgan
was high above
the
town with a can of red paint. She stepped back from the tower and leaned against the rail. "Miles Loves Morgan" was written in huge letters across the side of the
water
tower facing town. She signed
his
initials under it and then
pulled out the note she
had written and a strip of duct
tape.
She attached the note where it would only be visible to someone standing where
she was and then climbed down.

Morgan picked up her two bags that sat in the field and walked away from Keeneston forever.
 

Miles sat in his office in Lexington and read the document in f
ront of him. It was a warm
night, but he had been in
his office so much recently he
forgot it was even
the beginning of fall.

He loosened his dark red tie and slid his black suit coat off, hanging it on the back of his chair as he stood up with the papers. He
paced
across the office reading them one last time. He paused in the middle of a long stride when he heard the soft knock at the door.

"Come in," he barked. He looked up at his
quiet
assistant, Claire Montgomery, as she made her way into the office holding a sheet of paper. "Is that the final agreement?"

"Yes. The Kentucky Re
staurant Council just sent this over via
courier
.
It's signed by the president
. They approved your initiative. All
3
00 plus
restaurants belonging to the
c
ouncil have agreed to purchase local produce from our fa
r
mers! Isn't that wonderful? The farmers are going to be so excited."
 

Claire was a middle-aged housewife turned
assistant
. He hired
her because she had raised
triplet boys. They were now in high school and during her interview she had joked that she needed the job for the bottomless pits that were teenage boys’ stomachs. He figured anyone who could control
three teenage
boys could handle anythin
g.

Miles smiled as he looked at the signe
d agreement
for
his company, Family Farms. During college he had discovered
that the heart of farming, the small family farms like his parents'
,
were being run out of
bu
siness by large corporations which
then
bought the failing farms
for pennies on
the dollar during foreclosure.

These corporations w
ere negotiating huge contracts to supply their produce to certain governments, restaurant chain
s
, grocery
stores
,
and more. They lobbied Washington to keep
quotas on farmers based on the size of their farms
or th
e produce they were generating.

Miles started his company with the intention of being competitive with the large corporations. He pulled in
family-owned
farms from all over the state under one umbrella. Instead of three hundred small family farms competing for sales
independently
,
they combined their power and growth into one organization
. It
result
ed in
being more competitive for contracts such as the one he just closed with the R
estaura
nt Council and the one for the
regional grocery store he was currently in negotiation with.

"I just
got
this email from Top Producers, LLC," he said as he handed it to Claire
. "They wanted to
congratulate me on getting the Kentucky Restaurant Council contract
. If you read
it
you'll see where they are supportive of our cause but
I
believe
they are fishing
.
”

“What would they be fishing for?” Claire wondered as she leaned over his shoulder and read the email.

“Us. I’ll bet you anything they are interested in finding out if we’re weak enough to be taken over.
David Washington, the president of Top Producers
,
will
come in and garner support for a change in management, then once in power he’d
break up and dismantle Family Farms faster than you can blink. Without us here, the farms will slowly go bankrupt.
I’m
sure David is counting on that. He's done it before and I can't see that he would suddenl
y want to help the local farmers
."
 

"So, how are you going to handle it?" Claire absently fiddled with her belt as she worried. His secretary was loyal to a fault. Her parents were both farmer
s
and she took it as her personal mission to look out for every client of Family Farms as if they were her own family.

"It means more long hours.
I need to find a way to make us look
invincible
to the investigators so they’ll tell David to save his money and go after someone else.
"

"Mr. Davies, you already put in long hours. You need to take a break," she worried.

"I can take a break later.
I need to strengthen our defenses
—c
losing on the grocery deal will help, because this is going to be a battle. David will
take a couple months
to investigate
and that gives us time to develop a plan of action
."

"Do you want me to stay and help?" Claire asked.

Miles looked down at his watch and grimaced. It was already past seven and Claire had a family
at
home. "No thanks. I'll get s
tarted and then we can go over my ideas
on Monday." As Claire left
,
Miles
thought about calling
his brother
Marshall
, the Sheriff of Keeneston,
and seeing if he needed help with the
dog-fighting
ring he was tackling. He'd give him a call right after he pulled
some
info
on last quarter’s sales
.

*
    
*
    
*

Miles ran a large hand over his face and stood up to stretch. He looked around his office and realized it was dark outside.  He glanc
ed at his watch
and cursed as he saw it was five in the morning. He'd done it again. This whole week had been a blur. He
spent his business hours
on th
e phone
with the farmers discussing crop yields
,
t
alking to banks
,
and lining up potential contracts
.
Nighttime
was the only time he had to work on the grocery store proposal
because his days were filled with fortifying the company
.

It shouldn’t really matter that he wasn't sleeping. It wasn't like he'd slept since that night in Afghanistan when Cade had been captured. That was almost six years ago
now
.
Surely
his body was used to getting the three hours of sleep a night he relied on.

He
welcomed the late nights.
W
hen he did go to bed early, it wasn't like
he actually went to sleep. He sub
consciously prevented himself from going into a deep sleep. He was always on alert. Always listening and evaluating every noise he heard.
A
t least
this
gave him something to do when he
was
lying in bed at home
wide
awake
.

Miles went over to his chair and slid his suit coat on.  He patted the pockets and pulled out his cell phone. He had turned it off when he visited with some of the farmers and
hadn’t
bothered to turn it back on. He grabbed some files and picked up his keys when his cell phone beeped. He dug it back out of his pocket and looked at the screen. He had three missed calls and two voicemails. One was from his brother, Cade
,
and two were from his mother.

He locked up his office as he list
en
ed to his brother's voicemail first and then his mother's. Apparently Marshall had found the
dog-fighting
group and arrested a huge number
of people. Their brother-in-law
,
Cole Parker, who was with the FBI, was helping out along with the DEA.

Miles looked at the timestamp of the last missed call and saw that it was just an hour ago. Marshall was probably still on scene wrapping everything up. He'd check with his brother, get a couple hours of sleep, and then get some more work done all before he was due at his mother's for dinner.

He had gotten a lot done this pa
st week. He had received positive news
from many of the farmers and
was almost done with the grocery store proposal
.
He was waiting for his contacts to get in touch with him when one of David’s men called for information on Family Farms. He was sure they’d be checking out every business deal where his name was mentioned.

Miles took a deep breath of the early morning air. Lexington was still asleep. The offices in the historic downtown were dark and the normally busy streets were empty.
He
opened the car door
,
placed his wrinkled suit coat on the seat next to him
,
and went to check on Marshall.

Morgan Hamilton
was in the middle of a lovely dream about
running her own company. She was at the head of a long table with her employees around it
. They were all facing her and
listening to her morning briefing before she sent them out to conquer the world.

Her very own executive assistant came into the room with a stack of papers. He opened his mouth and all that came out was a ringing noise. The man tried again to tell her something and again all that came out was that annoying ringing sound.

Morgan groaned and without lifting her head from her extra
-
fluffy pillow
she
slowly reached her perfectly manicured hand out from
under
her comforter. She didn't bother to open her eyes. She'd find the blasted ringing cell phone in just a minute. Morgan felt
her
hand
hit the nightstand and slapped
around until she felt the phone. She grabbed the phone and pulled it under the
comforte
r before putting it to her ear.