2. Bar
BAR
“We lost the Clifton Towers case, Barnaby. I’m sorry,” the lawyer added, “but it really was lost before we started. There just was no way we could’ve won.”
Bar hissed through his teeth, steering the big truck with both hands while the cell phone went through the hands-free setup into the car stereo. The roads were terrible out here, and reception was worse; he could only intermittently hear his family lawyer through bursts of static.
“What about the Gulf Coast properties? I know Dad had some condos built down there. Aren’t we still collecting rent on those?” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say I. I, me, mine . Everything in the business had been Dad’s for so long that Bar still had trouble wrapping his head around the idea of all of it being his.
Whatever was left of it, after years of mismanagement.
“Those are gone,” the lawyer said. “Long gone. Seized for nonpayment of everything your father’s company owed on the construction and leases.”
There was a moment of staticky silence as Bar navigated a particularly tricky stretch of road. He could tell he wasn’t driving off the absolute ends of the earth only because there was another set of tracks in front of him, visible in the fresh snow on the road.
“Dad really left a mess, didn’t he?” Bar said finally. He wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself; the call had already dropped once.
But the lawyer answered with a kind of indulgent tone—not surprising, as his dad had retained the same law firm for decades, and the older partners had known Bar since he was a kid. He was always going to be Barnaby to them, not Mr. Grey.
“Your father had a brilliant mind and not much of a head for organization. It’s salvageable, Barnaby. It’s just going to take work to rebuild your family legacy.”
Bar would have closed his eyes in despair if he’d been able to risk losing sight of the road. The family legacy. It had always been held in front of him as the most important thing, the reason behind all the family’s choices. More important than anything, even family itself. After six months of trying to untangle the mess of his dad’s affairs, he was so sick of thinking about the family legacy that he would have thrown it into the ditch and left it by the side of the road if he could.
“That’s what I’m trying to do. You think I’m up here in a blizzard for my health?”
“Yes, the old family land in the mountains will be an excellent start. That’s a great piece of investment property. Do you want to have your firm start looking into development options?”
Bar’s almost instinctive, furious reaction startled him deeply. It’s mine, some part of him seemed to snarl. It’s no one else’s.
“I’ll handle that side of things,” he snapped. “Why don’t you stop telling me my business and try to see if you can find some piece of the family legacy that’s not mortgaged to the hilt, desperately in arrears, or sold off to pay a debt. You won’t get paid either if this company goes under, so it’s in your best interests to make this work, as well as mine.”
He regretted it instantly. He hated channeling his inner Dad. Hearing that authoritative voice coming out of his mouth made him almost physically ill. But the symbol flashed on the truck’s ultra-modern screen to show a dropped call, and Bar sighed and punched the button to disconnect. He wasn’t going to try to call back. He’d apologize for his outburst later—something his dad would have never done.
They’re used to Dad, anyway. It’s not like having me snap at them is going to bother the old warhorses at the firm any.
Bar turned his attention to trying to squint through the windshield as the wipers beat a steady tattoo, sweeping snowflakes out of the way. There was one thing he was reasonably confident his family did still own, and he didn’t plan to come down out of the mountains without having it securely back in the family hoard.
If he ever got there.
“How much farther can it be?” Bar muttered. Although he was reasonably sure the big vehicle wasn’t likely to get stuck, he still drove at a crawl as the snow continued to thicken.
Good thing he did, too, when a figure in a puffy coat ran in front of him.
Bar slammed on the brakes with a yelp. Since he wasn’t going very fast, he fishtailed a little but skidded to a stop without any trouble.
Apparently unaware of their shared brush with disaster, the pedestrian skidded to a stop as well, putting one hand on the grille of his truck. The person’s hood was down, so Bar could see that it was a woman with a thick mass of snowflake-dotted hair.
Something inside him came to attention, instantly fascinated.
She kept her hand in contact with the truck as she moved around to the driver’s side, as if worried that Bar might accelerate right past her if she didn’t stay in physical touch with the vehicle. Bar rolled down his window in time to hear her say, “Hello? Hello there? Please help us. We went off the road.”
“Are you all right?” Bar asked, opening his door. Sharp, cold wind blew into the cab of the truck. It was miserable out here.
The woman paused, and Bar had to glance down at himself to realize what she must be seeing. He’d come straight from the office. In his sharp, professionally tailored charcoal suit and shiny wingtips, he couldn’t possibly look more out of place in a snow-covered forest.
“Yes,” the woman said, recovering. “Yes ... I’m fine, that is, we’re fine. The car slid into the edge of the ditch, but nobody was hurt and I don’t think it’s damaged.”
“Who’s we?” Bar asked. He found himself thrilling to the sound of her voice in a way he’d never experienced before, which probably meant she had five kids and a husband in the car. He wished he could see her better. Snowflakes dotted her cascade of wavy chestnut hair like tiny stars.
“My sister,” she said, and he felt a little inner flip that might be the excitement of his shift animal, or his own.
“Do the two of you need a lift?”
“I’d like to get the car unstuck, if we can,” she said. “I have a whole load of baked goods in the backseat for the lodge’s holiday party.”
Bar had never unstuck a car from a snowbank in his life, but with her looking at him hopefully, he decided it was time to learn something new.
The lovely woman in her puffy coat waded through the snow back to her car, and Bar jumped down from the SUV. His unsuitable wingtips sank into the snow and vanished. Well, if they were damaged, he could afford to buy new ones. Probably. Maybe a cheaper version.
He reached into the back for his long black wool coat, then followed her to the stuck car.
The car was a small sedan, tilted into the ditch with its taillights glowing through the snow. The vision of chestnut-haired loveliness got into the car, and Bar heard some arguing from inside.
“—leaving me stuck in here while you talk to?—”
“Leah, stuff it and let me get this in gear?—”
Bar clambered around to the front and examined the situation. It ought to be easy enough to push out, he thought, especially for him. In this snow, she’d never know that he was exerting more than the usual amount of effort on it.
He rarely got an opportunity to really flex his strength.
The woman rolled down the window. “I’ve put it in reverse, but it’s not going anywhere. Do you want me to do anything else?”
Bar realized that he had absolutely no idea what to do next, but he could improvise. “I’m going to push.”
“Okay, I’ll feather the gas,” the woman said, giving him the distinct impression that she knew more about this than he did. Her head pulled back into the car.
With Bar pushing and the woman tapping the gas, plus vigorous advice from the passenger seat that he could just barely hear over the sound of the engine, the car rocked and suddenly shot backward as it was released from its slippery prison. Bar stumbled forward, grabbed and missed, but the woman slammed on the brakes and the car slewed to a stop near his truck.
The woman opened the door and got out. She was laughing, with snowflakes half melted on her hair. Her heart-shaped face was flushed with pleasure at their success. At the moment, she was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.
“Thank you so much! You really are my hero,” she said, looking at him with eyes that sparkled like stars. “I hope you can get around my car. It’ll take me a minute to get going. I need to check that things are riding okay in the backseat.”
“Yeah, thanks, mister!” the passenger called, dangling out the side window. “You’re a peach.”
“Actually, why don’t you drive ahead of me?” Bar suggested. “You said you’re going to the lodge, right? I can follow along, and if you get stuck again, I’ll help.”
“Are you sure? You’ve done so much already.”
“It’s no problem. I’ll worry every minute if I know you’re back there.”
She thrust out a hand. “I won’t argue. I’m Joy.”
What an apt name, Bar thought as he took her hand. Her grip was cold and wet and thrilling. She really was joy incarnate. “Bar,” he said. “Short for Barnaby.”
He wondered if she, too, experienced the contact of their hands like a physical shock, because she had gone entirely still for an instant. Her eyes widened and looked into his, meeting them full on. There was a shock in that took; it was as if each contact with her was a new revelation.
“Bar—Barnaby,” she said cautiously. “Are you a shifter?”
The words rang in his soul like a bell. The feeling was simultaneously frightening and thrilling. It was so deeply ingrained in him that he must never tell a soul that it took him a moment to be able to answer. “Yes,” he said. “Are you? And please call me Bar; the only person who ever calls me Barnaby is my dad’s lawyer.”
She blinked as if coming back from a long way away. “Yes ... yes, I am a shifter. Bar ... I don’t know how to ask this ... do you know me?”
“No,” he said. “Have we met?” But even as he said it, he knew they hadn’t. He would have remembered her instantly. He could never have forgotten her.
He wished he had answered differently when he saw her face fall a little. “Okay,” she said. “Listen, I’m freezing out here. Let’s—let’s get on the road. Are you at the lodge for the holidays?” There was a renewed burst of hope in her tone.
“Yes, through the weekend.”
Joy beamed at him. “Me too. I’m—I’m looking forward to getting to know you better, Bar?”
It lifted strangely into a question at the end. He realized he was still holding her hand. “Yes, me too,” he said, and Joy continued to beam at him as she fled back to the car.
“I’m Leah!” the as-yet-not-properly-seen sister called through the passenger side window. “Since my sister seems to have forgotten about me.”
“Hi, nice to meet you,” Bar called, but the window was already rolling up. Becoming aware of his sodden shoes and cold ankles, not to mention his nose and ears turning what was probably an unlovely shade of red, he waded back to the truck.
The cold had turned Joy an incredibly fetching pink. He found himself fixated on it as he got back into the truck, flexing his hands in front of the heater’s vents while Joy’s car back-and-forthed a bit and then got straightened out in front of him. She was crawling along, but Bar didn’t blame her. If they drove all the way to the lodge at the pace of an arthritic snail, he would be fine with that. The last thing he wanted was for Joy to push the road conditions and get herself stuck again, maybe hurt this time.
But as he followed the flash of her taillights in the snow, he found himself wondering: What did she mean, Do you know me?