The Inn at Eagle Point Read Free Page A

told you to drive your mother's
car. You have an image to uphold now."

"What was Mother supposed to do?" Trace asked reasonably. "I
couldn't see her riding my Harley to her garden club meeting."

"She has a dozen different friends who would have been happy to pick her
up," his father countered.

"And apparently not a one of them had any desire to run all her errands
with her after the meeting," Trace responded.

"You have an answer for everything, don't you?" his father grumbled.
"This situation is never going to work if you don't take me or this job
seriously."

"I always take you seriously," Trace said. "As for the job, I
don't want to take it at all. I have a perfectly good career in New York. Just
because I don't have to wear a suit or use a calculator doesn't mean it's not
respectable." In fact, his career as a freelance design artist not only
paid well, enabling him to live and work in a large loft in SoHo, it didn't
require him to answer to his father. That was quite a perk in his book.

His father's scowl deepened. "So, what? I should let this community bank
get gobbled up by one of the big banking conglomerates?"

"Maybe so," Trace said, knowing his response would only push his
father's hot button. "That's the way the banking world is going."

"Well, this bank won't, not as long as I have any say about
it," his father said stubbornly. "Chesapeake Shores Community Bank
serves the people in this town in a way that one of those faceless, impersonal
behemoths never could."

Trace couldn't argue the point. He just didn't want any part of running the
place, family heritage or not. "Why not put Laila in charge?" he
asked, referring to his younger sister. He warmed to the topic. If he could
convince his father to put Laila in the job she'd always wanted, he could be on
the road back to New York by morning. All he had to do was sell his father on
the idea. "Think about it, Dad. She has a head for numbers. Her SAT math
scores were through the roof. She aced all of her college business courses. She
has a master's degree from the Wharton School of Business. She'd be a natural."

"I thought of that," his father admitted. "I even spoke to her
about it, but your sister told me to take a hike."

That was unexpected, Trace thought. "Why?"

His father shrugged. "She said she wasn't going to be anybody's second
choice, even mine."

Trace regarded him with bewilderment. "But you asked her first."

"When has your sister ever paid any attention to logic? She's convinced I
only asked her because I knew you wouldn't want the job."

"I don't suppose you tried to convince her she was wrong," Trace
said.

"How could I when she was right?"

"Do you think you two will ever learn to communicate?" Trace
grumbled. He and his dad might be at loggerheads ninety percent of the time,
but Lawrence Riley and Laila were rarely on the same page about anything, from
a choice as inane as breakfast cereal to a decision as critical as who ought to
run the bank. It had been that way from the moment she learned to talk.

"You mean communicate the way you and I do?" his father retorted
wryly.

"Yeah, at least that well," Trace responded. "Look, I'll talk to
her. I'll smooth things over between the two of you. Her pride's been hurt
because you've made it plain over the years that you want me back here, but
she'll come around."

His father hit his fist on the desk. "Dammit, you're the one who needs to
come around, Trace. What ever happened to family loyalty? A man works his whole
life to build up something good for his son, and you toss it aside without a
second thought."

"I've had a lifetime to think about it. You've never made a secret about
what you expected. I've given it a second thought and a third, for that matter,
ever since you called. Dad, come on, you know the whole nine-to-five drill
would never work for me. I like a job that's creative, a word that tends to
make bankers nervous as hell."

The faint hint of a smile finally touched his father's lips.