"Well," I started, "there's the thing where my boss died a couple weeks ago."
"Is it still a big deal at the office?"
"Mr. Porter worked there most of his life. For a lot of people, he was the only boss we knew. It's not like we were friends, but it still sucks," I said, pulling a pickle out of my sandwich and eating it. "There was a plan. When Mr. Porter wasn't in power anymore, it was going to be transferred to his son, Cameron."
"So how's he doing?"
"That's just it," I grimaced. "He isn't."
"He isn't what?"
I broke it down for her. Cameron owned everything his father did now, including his positions of owner and CEO at Porter Holdings. Of all the people who should have cared about what was happening with the company, he was at the top of the list, but he had been a lot more reluctant than any of us had been expecting.
"Can’t you just get someone else?"
"Technically, yeah, but it isn't that simple. It would have been one thing if he had just sulked and said he didn't want to work, but he's been talking about selling his stake and completely stepping back."
"Oh my god, can you imagine that sell out," Kasey said dreamily. I frowned at her.
"Let's hope I never have to." Or did. Whichever got us to the end of this foolish detour faster. If selling was what was going to happen, then fine. I knew Brett didn’t want it to for whatever reasons—I wasn’t terribly interested in learning them—but between Cameron and the company, the company was more important. Cameron could sit out in the mountains forever, as long as he wasn’t fucking up the program for everyone here.
"I still don't get it. What’s the big deal if he wants to sell? Maybe he just wants to take the money and be happy and rich the rest of his life. That's probably what I would do."
"Porter Holdings employs hundreds of people. The way the business is structured, a major shift in management could end up costing a lot of people their jobs. The way Mr. Porter told me, there's a bigger reason why he wanted Cameron to have the company when he was gone. He worked at it all his life for the day he could hand it over to his son."
"So you agree that he needs to do it? What does he actually want? You've told me about people needing to keep their jobs and this being his destiny or whatever, but what about him?"
"Well, I get to find that out tomorrow," I sighed. "He moved into a cabin in the mountains almost a week ago."
Kasey laughed. "Are you kidding? And you have to go check on him or something? Who is this guy?"
"I ask myself that all the time and still haven't figured it out. Brett, the guy he left in charge, asked me to do it. He thinks I can talk some sense into him. Or maybe he just asked me to go to make sure he hasn't died out there yet."
"Well, he got the right girl for the job," Kasey teased.
"Don't remind me," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Are you getting flashbacks?" she asked, laughing. Princess Kasey had never lived outside of a mile from an ATM in her life. She loved to bring my country and western childhood up to get a rise out of me. I went back to the ranch to see my parents a couple times a year, but I did not miss it. My childhood had been great. My parents were amazing people, and I knew that I could rely on them for anything, really. My brothers were good men too. Aaron still lived with my parents, helping on the ranch, Derrick had started his own, while Ollie and Marcus lived in Missoula. I just didn't want to be that girl anymore. Leaving finally for college drove home just how much I hadn't experienced or even knew about. These days, I was more interested in getting my nails done than baling hay.
Cameron didn’t get that chance, I realized. He wasn’t living with his parents until they died, but he had been part of their world until they died. Okay, I could see the why for this existential crisis. His timing was still wrong, and his methods were ridiculous. I knew what it was like not to want the life your parents had raised you into, a lot of people did. That didn’t make Cameron special. It made him a late bloomer.
"You know what? If he moved out there after nothing but reading a Wikihow article and buying himself a bowie knife, he's in for a rude awakening."
"Did that guy, Brett, know your people are mountain men? Is that why he wanted you to do it?"
"He couldn't have known that. I've never told anyone at work before. I don't know why he picked me. I was with him when we got the news that the Porter's jet had gone down," I shrugged. "His dad had asked me for help talking to him too," I added, making the connection. Mr. Porter had gotten me involved initially, so had he talked to Brett to make sure I did what he had asked me to? Had he wanted two instead of just one person watching out for his son once he was gone? It hardly mattered; I was driving out to the mountains regardless.
"He had to have asked you for a reason," Kasey said, shrugging.
"Yeah, because he didn't want to do it himself," I said, remembering the last conversation I had had with Cameron Porter. All this time I had spent talking to and about him, and I didn't feel any closer to having him figured out. He thought the world he lived in was corrupt and materialistic? Did he lose
a lot of sleep in his mansion thinking about how sad it is that people are artificial and he's the only one who knows what's going on?
Fucking hell.
"You'll think of something," Kasey said. "You're a lawyer; you convince people for a living." Not that kind of lawyer, but she was kind of right. There was the fact that I didn't really know what I would tell Cameron, but it was trumped by my not wanting to see him very much. He... he wasn't very fun. I had caught him at a bad time, obviously, but I never really looked forward to our interactions when we would have them.
"I don't think failure is an option in this case," I said dryly.