No conference calls.
No negotiations.
And she had to come to Cedar Ridge to meet Ethan Brooks.
“Why?”
Ethan asked.
Victoria looked irritated by the entire memory.
“Because apparently my father heard about you from half the town.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“He thinks you’re a good man.”
“That’s a dangerous reason to drive onto somebody’s property.”
“I told him that.”
Ethan leaned against the gatepost.
“And he thinks I need a wife.”
Victoria closed her eyes briefly.
“He said, and I quote, ‘That poor man needs someone to remind him there’s more to life than surviving, and you need someone who isn’t impressed by you.’”
Ethan stared at her.
“He sent you here because he thinks we should marry?”
“No.”
She hesitated.
“Not exactly.”
“That hesitation is doing a lot of work.”
“My father has an unfortunate sense of humor.”
“I’m beginning to like him.”
Victoria almost smiled.
“His actual condition was that I meet you. He said if I spent one afternoon talking to someone outside my professional world, he would stop interfering in the expansion project.”
“So this is corporate therapy.”
“That is not what I would call it.”
“What would you call it?”
“Extortion.”
Ethan laughed again.
This time Victoria did too.
The sound surprised both of them.
Then Ethan set down the wrench in his hand.
“Your father thinks I need a wife.”
Victoria nodded reluctantly.
“I don’t.”
Her expression changed slightly.
Ethan continued.
“I need feed prices to drop about twenty percent. I need a tractor that makes it through one month without inventing a new sound. I need three days where nothing breaks.”
He pointed toward the farmhouse in the distance.
“And mostly, I need more time with my daughter.”
Victoria listened.
“A wife isn’t some missing tool in my barn.”
“No,” she said quietly. “She isn’t.”
That answer surprised Ethan.
The embarrassment in Victoria’s face disappeared.
Something more serious replaced it.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked at her.
“For coming here like this?”
“Yes.”
“That was strange.”
“I’m aware.”
“But you didn’t invent the idea.”
“No.”
“Your father did.”
“Unfortunately.”
Ethan picked up the new hinge.
“Well, you met me.”
“I did.”
“Go get your expansion project.”
Victoria looked toward the SUV.
She should have left.
Instead, she glanced at the gate.
“What happened to it?”
Ethan looked down.
“Rust.”
“That’s it?”
“Rust is very ambitious.”
She stared at the hardware.
“You’re replacing the entire hinge.”
“The bottom one failed. Top one isn’t far behind.”
Victoria nodded as though this information might someday matter in a board meeting.
Then she asked:
“Do you want help?”
Ethan looked at her cream suit.
“No.”
“That sounded immediate.”
“It was.”
“I’m capable of holding something.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Then?”
“I’m trying to imagine explaining to your shareholders that the CEO of Hayes Global got crushed by a farm gate because her father was matchmaking.”
Victoria stared at him.
Then laughed.