Chapter 6
Gabriel looked at Mara.
She shrugged.
“I made him promise.”
For several seconds, Gabriel said nothing.
Then he laughed.
A deep, astonished laugh.
“You really are serious.”
Nolan stood.
“Thank you for hearing the proposal.”
He offered his hand.
Gabriel looked at it.
Then shook it.
Nolan turned toward the door.
“Mara?”
She followed.
They were halfway down the corridor when Gabriel called after them.
“Pierce.”
Nolan stopped.
Gabriel stood in the conference-room doorway.
“I said no to that deal.”
Nolan waited.
“I didn't say I wouldn't discuss a different one.”
Mara smiled.
Nolan did not.
Not yet.
“What kind?”
Gabriel crossed his arms.
“A partnership.”
---
The Ortega deal closed eleven weeks later.
Except it wasn't an acquisition.
Pierce North purchased a forty percent stake.
Gabriel kept control.
The factory stayed open.
Workers received profit-sharing.
The continuity trust remained.
And for the first time in Pierce North's history, employees elected a representative to the operating board.
Business magazines called it a radical change in Nolan Pierce's investment strategy.
They were wrong.
The real change happened somewhere else.
Three months after the Ortega partnership closed, Mara received an envelope at the diner.
Inside was a plane ticket.
She called Nolan immediately.
“No.”
He laughed.
“You haven't even asked where.”
“First class?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Mara.”
“Refund it.”
“It's nonrefundable.”
“You own a private jet.”
“That's irrelevant.”
“Then I'm impressed you've finally experienced consequences.”
“Mara.”
“Where is it?”
“Asheville.”
She stopped.
Nolan's voice became quieter.
“I bought Bellweather.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
“What?”
“The property.”
“It was sold years ago.”
“I bought it from the current owner.”
“Why?”
“Come see.”
---
The old Bellweather factory looked smaller than Mara remembered.
That was the first thing she noticed.
As a child, it had seemed enormous.
Her father had sometimes brought her there on Saturdays.
She remembered sawdust in sunlight.
Fabric samples hanging from metal hooks.
The smell of leather and wood glue.
Men shouting jokes over machinery.
Her father lifting her onto his workbench.
Now the building was silent.
Mara stood outside the doors.
Nolan waited beside her.
“You shouldn't have brought me here without telling me.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because if I told you, you wouldn't come.”
“That's manipulation.”
“Yes.”
“At least you're learning vocabulary.”
He almost smiled.
Then he opened the door.
Mara walked inside.
She stopped.
People were everywhere.
Older people.
Dozens of them.
She recognized some immediately.