Only You

 

Ashley Bannister searched the restaurant with anxious eyes. The lopsided wooden door banged shut against her hip, making her take a short step forward. It was early for lunch but already a crowd of loud con­struction workers had gathered in the tiny diner.

The music from the jukebox blared out a rowdy country song punctuated by short bursts of laughter. The machine was placed conspicuously in the middle of the green tile floor. The lunch tables were covered by green and white checkered cloths with wooden ladder back chairs pulled out around them.

It wasn't hard to find him. He was sitting at the bar that wrapped around one side of the diner. His dark hair was tied back at the nape of his neck in a ponytail. Broad shoulders led down to a well muscled back. Long legs were encased in sturdy jeans. He wasn't as dusty as the two men seated on either side of him. No dirty sand spattered his boots. He turned to the man on his right and laughed at some joke the three men had shared.

Ashley remembered him as an attractive man. The years since she had seen him hadn't lessened that impact. She hadn't remembered him being quite so large. It made her task seem even more daunting.

Not that it mattered, she considered, straightening her shoulders under her pale yellow suit. She was there to see Trey Harris on business.

She'd only taken one step forward when the construction worker at Trey's side nudged him and nodded in her direction.

Trey picked up his glass, turned his head, and glanced at her. Surprise was quickly replaced by a cold, blank mask on his cleanly drawn face. But he didn’t look away.

Ashley forced herself to continue towards him across the dining area, between the tables and the jukebox. She clenched her teeth when his own perusal in­cluded everything about her from head to toe.

She hadn't felt so self-conscious since she was twelve years old and her mother had made her enter a Junior Miss pageant! Her stomach tightened but pride kept her eyes locked with his.

"Trey Harris." She addressed him confidently. "I'm Ashley Bannister. I'd like to speak with you."

His gaze was malevolent. "I know who you are, Ashley. What do you want?"

Conscious of the audience around them as all ears perked up to hear their conversation, she smiled easily. It was a winning smile that had won her several beauty pageants. She practiced it again for his benefit that day.

"It won't take long," she answered readily, not losing her poise.

She had planned for days for that moment. The tight, short skirt and shadow of cleavage were no accident. If she could disarm him for a moment, she might get his attention.

His eyes flickered over her. Long, shapely legs. Suit coat open where he was pretty sure a blouse of some kind should have been. What was she after?

"All right." He gestured towards a table in the corner near the window. "Come into my office."

"Coffee, honey?" the waitress behind the counter called out as they walked towards the table.

"No, thanks," she replied with a tight smile. She could feel curious gazes boring holes in her straight back as she followed him across the room.

Trey took a seat opposite her. His hands were wrapped around the glass he set before him on the table. His gray eyes were laden with storm clouds and an angry mouth only hinted at his thoughts.

"You're looking well," she observed, fighting both her­self and his frigid expression. She had thought that she was ready, but sitting across the table from him she wasn’t so sure.

"Let's cut to the chase, Ashley. You haven't spoken to me for ten years. I've liked it that way. What do you want?"

"I want to hire you, Trey." Ashley wasted her carefully chosen speech and blurted out everything in the rush of a single sentence. “As a consultant.”

Trey sat back from the table, a smile forming on his ex­pressive face, his eyes half closing as though he'd swallowed a really good piece of pecan pie. Revenge was sweeter than anything he'd ever tasted.

He focused back on her, taking in all the ploys. Her pale blonde hair curled at her shoulder, emphasizing her big blue eyes. He wasn’t impressed.

He shook his head and smiled a breathtaking smile of his own. "So. You want to offer me a job?"

"Yes. Well, in a manner of speaking.”

"Don't waver on me now, Ashley." His eyes quirked up at the corners. "You came on with all your guns primed. I think I know what a duck must feel like on the first day of hunting season."

Ashley swallowed on a suddenly dry throat and ached to twitch her skirt or pat her hair. Only resolve to gain his respect kept her still in her chair.

The sudden teasing light in his stormy eyes was unex­pected. Trey Harris was turning out to be someone altogether different than she remembered. It had been a long time.

"All right," she began again with new confidence. "I am of­fering you a job. I know you aren't looking for one. I know you don't need one. But I need you."

"I'm flattered." He sat back in his chair again and studied her. "What is it you need me for?"

"You were the best at what you did for my father, Trey. I need the best."

He shook his head, wondering when he had ever had such a good time. "Ashley, I can't decide if you're trying to make me feel guilty or if you're stroking my ego."

She eyed his face steadily. "Bannister is in danger of losing its government contracts. With the competition from newer mills, the older firms don't look so attractive. We have a chance at a big contract with a Japanese company. We've been on the verge of turning this around. Then last week, Bill Raymond had a stroke."

Trey frowned. "Is he going to make it?"

Ashley shrugged. "The doctors aren't sure yet. I know the two of you worked together for a while."

"He's a good man," Trey replied. A much better man than your father, he added silently.

"You know everything about the business, Trey. You and Bill and my father made the plant profitable again ten years ago. I know you could do it again."

"It's been a long time, Ashley."

She took a deep breath. "If you could look over the situation. Tell me what I can do to make it work."

"I can save us both some trouble." He leveled her hopes with a quick glance. "Sell out. Make money before it's all gone."

"I don't want to make money," she replied earnestly.

"That's your loss." he pronounced. "Look, Ashley. I haven't done this kind of work in ten years. I don't know if I could help even if I had the time. I have commitments. Something like this can’t be done in a day."

"All I'm asking is a few hours of your time," she ar­gued. "I'd pay you well. If you couldn't help, you wouldn't have lost anything."

"You don't have enough money to make that offer attrac­tive," he returned brutally, tiring of the game. "I have to go."

"Isn't there anything I can do that would change your mind?"

They stood up at the same time, almost the same height. That close, she could see the small lines in his face, fanning out from his eyes and around his mouth. He looked hard. Cynical in a way that made her feel as though he were laughing at her. She wanted to reach out and take back those hastily spoken words as one mocking dark brow raised and his eyes appraised her lightly.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Give me an hour to explain my plan. I can change your mind."

He looked into her clear blue eyes so full of determination and Bannister pride. It was the moment he’d been anticipating for ten years.

“Dinner?” he proposed. He wasn’t sure where that came from. He hadn’t planned it. Just the idea that she had asked for his help was supposed to be enough. He didn’t plan on dragging out his game of cat and mouse for any longer than it took to tell her to get lost.

"Great!" She pounced without hesitation. “I could pick you up.”

He shook his head. “I’ll meet you at the plant at seven.”

She nodded. "I'll be there."

"Good." He smiled at her. He couldn't wait. It was like Christmas in June. It was going to be even sweeter this way.

Ashley didn't respond, watching him walk away. He was possibly the only chance she had to save Bannister Manufac­turing. She'd have to play the game his way.

She sank down slowly on the hard wooden chair, her knees feeling weak.

"Could I get something for you?" the waitress asked her.

"A big aspirin," she told her, not looking up.

The waitress, working her way through college, with a boyfriend that her parents hated, understood the sentiment, if not the problem. She shrugged and left her there, going to check on her other tables.

It was too early to go home, even though Ashley wanted to hide her head under her pillows. She wasn't used to asking for help.

Instead, she took the long way back to the plant, phrasing and re-phrasing what she would say to her assistant and the temporary plant manager. They were the only ones who knew she was going to talk to Trey Harris.

The idea to talk to the man had come from her assistant, Francis. The day after Bill's stroke, she had seen an article about Trey in the Martinsville Gazette.

"Isn't that the same Trey Harris that worked here a while back?"

"I think so." Ashley had barely paid attention, lost in her thoughts. "Why?"

Francis looked at her as though she were a slow child. "He was a good man, Ashley. He really knew what he was do­ing."

The plan was simple. It had been easy to find out where he was living. It had been a little harder to find a way to talk to him. It wasn't until Francis' cousin, whose uncle was the cook at Josie's Diner, had identified Trey Harris as the man who always ate lunch at the restaurant every Tuesday.

From there, Ashley had planned her assault.

Such as it was. She grimaced as she drove down the shaded streets. The tall oaks, easily a hundred and fifty years old, made a canopy against the bright, hot sun, pro­tecting the old houses that lined the road.

That was one of the problems with Bannister Manufacturing, she decided, as well as Martinsville itself. Protected, sheltered against the sun, against time, against the outside world.

Or at least that was what everyone had thought. When her great grandfather had been the first man to pilot a hot air balloon to the coast and back, the Bannister family had be­come famous and made their fortune.

As time passed, they had prospered and her grandfather had built Bannister Manufacturing. It had been started to make the balloons that gracefully soared through the blue South Carolina skies. Later, they had begun making parachutes as well, the company staying fat and healthy on hefty government contracts, even in hard times.

She could remember her father shaking his head as he read the morning paper and her mother bustling around the kitchen. Martinsville was never touched by outside turbulence and Bannister grew and retained its innocence of the world.

Ashley was an only child. A girl, at that. Her father had sighed over not having a son then jumped in to bring the next Bannister into the business. For three generations, that was the way it had been done.

Parish Bannister had left his wife and daughter the year before with a beautiful old house that had been paid for a generation before Ashley's birth. Bannister Manufacturing had been flourishing, even though government contracts were a little smaller. The company was debt free, stockholders happy. It seemed as though they would be cushioned through another gen­eration.

Then, a month after Parish had died, leaving his only daughter at the helm of his grandfather's company, Bannister had lost several lucrative contracts. There was a little stockholder grumbling but Ashley had gone out in true Bannis­ter fashion and secured a few new clients.

Then there were the ones she had lost. A few more, in­cluding a large government contract, were being held up in the decision making process.

Ashley didn't realize that something was wrong until a few close friends of the family called to tell her that they had been approached to sell their stocks in Bannister. From that moment, it had been a nightmare.

A company less than a hundred miles away from Martinsville was competing with them using newer equipment and methods. Some stockholders, disgruntled with the possibility of losses and the chance to make money looming before them, sold out readily.

Ashley didn't panic at first. Things had slipped before but it had always worked out. She had gone about her job of running the company and tucked away her worries.

But many perspective clients saw the struggle as a sign that the company couldn't hold its own and wouldn't do business with them. A few others dropped their contracts. Bannister was struggling for the first time in its existence.

Ashley wasn't proud. She wished her grandfather was there to handle the crisis or that her parents had also had a son who was faced with the dissolution of the hundred year old company.

She could sell contracts and handle differences between employees, but she had relied heavily on Bill Raymond for the day to day running of the plant. He had been with her father for thirty years. She had never dreamed that he wouldn't be there for her.

Three hundred jobs. People with families, who had lived in Martinsville all of their lives, were depending on what she did to repair the damage done to the company. The Mayor had told her over lunch that the consequences to the community would be disastrous.

Ashley realized that she had reached the plant when she looked up at the long, red brick building in the parking lot. In the sun, it looked every one of its years.­ The roof needed tarring and the windows needed cleaning.

Some of her workers were sitting outside at the picnic tables eating lunch. So many people, she thought unhappily. She felt as though she had let them all down.

Trey Harris was a long-shot, but she was backed into a corner. There was nowhere else for her to turn. When she'd first thought about contacting him, every muscle in her body had turned to marshmallow. It had been such a long time and certainly, he had no reason to do her any favors.

Ten years before, Trey Harris had been fresh out of col­lege, full of promise and new ideas. Her father had hired him to learn the ropes at Bannister and eventually, to take over for Bill Raymond.

He had learned quickly. In less than a year, he had Bannister running at peak operation, getting materials at lower prices and he had found new markets. The company had been ready to expand and hire new people when Ashley had come home with her new fiance.

Parish Bannister saw the advantage of keeping the com­pany in the family. For all that he had taught Ashley, there had always been something lacking that he held back from her. Ashley's future husband became the son life had never given him.

It wasn't long before Trey found more and more of his decisions challenged by Ashley's fiance. More of his respon­sibilities were designated to the other man and finally, he was offered a lower job.

Infuriated by the callous treatment he had received at the hands of Parish Bannister, Trey had quit and taken sev­eral customers with him. He started his own company a few blocks away and he worked feverishly to compete with his pre­vious employer.

Ashley gripped the steering wheel tightly as she recalled those terrible times. She had never known exactly what had happened. One day, Harris Manufacturing was thriving. The next, it had shut down. Trey disappeared for a few years. The customers he had taken had come back to Bannister.

To make matters worse, a month after Trey Harris had left town, Ashley's fiancé had decided that the business was not for him. Neither was she. She found him gone one morning. He had left her a note on their front door.

So, ten years later, she had gone to Trey for help. He knew the business inside-out. She couldn't think of any rea­son that he would help her, except that Francis had remembered that he had been close to Bill Raymond.

He had appeared to be genuinely upset at the news when she had told him about Bill's stroke. She hoped the old friendship would bring him back. If not, maybe having a Ban­nister come to him for help would be gratifying.

Would it be enough? It had been a long time ago and she knew Trey had moved on with his life. Surely he couldn't hold more than a small grudge for that long. And she was only ask­ing for a few hours. Just enough time to give her some ideas as to how she could salvage what was left of her com­pany.

Ashley knew her options were limited if she couldn't win him over. She looked down at her short-short skirt and her obviously underdressed jacket and she knew she should have been ashamed at having used those tactics.

What would her grandfather have done? She had no way of knowing. She guessed he would have done whatever it took to get what was needed to keep his people working. That was what she had done.

Ashley opened her car door and squinted into the sun. Whatever happened, she had done her best.

"Well?" Francis barely waited until Ashley reached the office, holding the door open for her.

David Baxter, the warehouse manager that she'd made tem­porary plant manager, was waiting hopefully at the door as well.

"I talked to him," she told them. "He wasn't inter­ested."

"That was it?" Francis demanded to know. She had been so sure he would be their hero.

"Not entirely," Ashley hedged, getting herself a glass of water from the cooler.

David set his purple and yellow Bannister cap back on his head. "I was afraid it wouldn't work."

"What did he say, Ashley?" Francis wanted to hear it all.

"He said we didn't have enough money to make it interesting for him and that we should sell the plant." Ashley walked to her father's old desk, now crammed with her belongings. She picked up her stack of mail and glanced through it. "Then he asked me to talk to him at dinner tonight."

"What?" Francis and David echoed together.

"It's just a meeting," she admitted. "It may not amount to anything.

Francis and David exchanged quick glances as Ashley looked down at the mail.

"That's wonderful!" Francis cleared her throat and ad­justed her glasses.

"I hope so." Ashley looked up at them. "I'm just not sure."

"I gotta get back out there," David told her, looking at his watch. He'd only been warehouse manager there for about a year. He was still nervous about handling everything Ashley had asked of him.

"Did you see Bill today?" Ashley asked Francis as they all thought of the other man. He was only allowed two visitors a day, outside of his immediate family. So they took turns going to the hospital.

"Oh, Ashley." Francis sighed. "He doesn't recognize any­one. His wife told me this morning that they don't know if he'll ever walk again."

It was hard to imagine Bill, with his buoyant step and cheery smile, as the invalid they'd seen in the hospital.

David cleared his throat and gruffly told them that he had to go oversee the shift change. Francis blinked back tears from her faded blue eyes and answered her phone

Francis Anderson, who'd been Parish Bannister's assis­tant before he'd died, had seen his daughter grow up in the plant. She was sixty years old. Not quite ready or able to re­tire. Not able to easily go out and find another job. She needed the youngest Bannister to succeed. All they needed was a miracle. She hoped Ashley could find one before it was too late.

­Ashley was spent the day looking for one. She was the last person to leave the plant that night. She had a meeting with representatives from a Japanese group the following day and wanted everything to be perfect. She couldn't afford to lose the contract for making air bags for Tagami Corporation. It would either be another nail in her coffin, or a chance to hold on a little longer.

Trey found her there, hunched over her computer and a mountain of lists and files. He stood in the doorway, watching her run her fingers through her silky hair, not able to look away as she made a face at the computer then smudged her lipstick with a careless hand.

She was a beautiful woman. A princess in this little town. He had to remind himself that he didn’t like her any better than he liked her father. She was just as heartless. Just as certain that she would get her own way. He was just as determined that she wouldn’t.

“Ashley?”

She turned from her computer screen and blinked to clear her blurred vision when she saw Trey’s face. "Is it that late already?"

He smiled. He couldn’t help it. Her hair was a mess, her lipstick was smudged, and there was a long black pen mark on her cheek. She was pretty far removed from being the beauty queen he was expecting. “It’s seven fifteen. I was in the parking lot waiting for you.”

Her eyes flew open wide. “I’m sorry.” Her hand went to her face. “I must be a mess. Let me repair the damage and we’ll go.”

But Trey had already been having second thoughts. He didn’t need to have dinner with Ashley for him to tell her that he wouldn’t help her. He could end it right there. “Let’s just forget it, Ashley.”

Her smile died. “You promised me a chance.”

He glanced at her then turned away. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Ashley put a hand on his arm. “Please, Trey.”

He looked back at her, swearing that he saw tears standing on the full sweep of her pale lashes. He didn’t want to be moved by her appeal. It was probably fake, anyway.

“You promised me dinner,” she continued, not giving up.

“Ashley,” he began, knowing that this was what he had wanted even though the aftertaste was bitter in his mouth when he looked at her. “I can’t help you.”

“Why?”

Why? With her standing that close to him, he wasn’t really sure why. She’d had the same effect on him at the diner that day. He shouldn’t have given in then. He looked down at the dainty hand she had laid on his arm. Her fingernails were perfect ovals but there were smudges of ink on them.

Ashley looked at her hand then quickly withdrew it. “Well,” she said finally, her voice wavering only slightly. “We might as well have dinner. I made reservations.”

He stared at her. “You’re not making this any easier.”

She held her head high. “That wasn’t my intention.”

Trey took out a clean, white handkerchief and removed the smudge of lipstick from the side of her mouth. “Fair means or foul?”

Ashley faltered, a fluttering in her chest making a deep breath impossible as he continued to look at her lips. “I always play fair.”

His eyes held hers as he made his decision. “That must be why you need me.”

“I do . . . need you,” she repeated breathlessly, feeling mesmerized by him. “To-to save the plant.”

He felt her words down to his toes. Everything heated up at once. Even her mild qualification couldn’t change that feeling. “Dinner?”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“I’ll wait for you in the car.

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