24. Campbell
TWENTY-FOUR
CAMPBELL
There’s something oddly clinical about the fluorescent lights in the stadium’s executive conference room. Fitting for the task at hand, I suppose.
Outside the glass walls, the afternoon sun bakes the empty grandstands of the Mavericks’ ballpark, but inside, the air is freezing.
A thick manila folder sits in the exact center of the massive marble table.
It contains the printed transcripts of forty-eight hours of toxic public relations, national sports blogs calling for a corporate boycott of Summerhill Executives, regional news anchors questioning my father’s ethical standards, and roundtables of experts valuing the loss that Austin Summerhill is likely to incur on this venture.
Plus, a viral petition with sixty thousand signatures demanding the preservation of Sweetwater’s historic district.
The town’s population barely cracks a thousand if you don’t count the university students who are just part-timers.
“This is an absolute circus, Campbell!” My father’s voice is tight, full of disappointment and his usual brand of condescension.
He won’t look at me. He refuses to. His eyes are locked onto his legal notepad, his knuckles white around a Montblanc pen.
“The board in Nashville spent the entire morning fielding calls from institutional investors. The damage is compounding by the hour.”
Across the table, Austin Summerhill sits perfectly still.
He isn’t wearing his suit jacket today, and his shirt sleeves are rolled up.
Not a business white today, instead choosing a casual blue-and-white checked pattern.
His forearms are nice, not that I’m looking.
I’m looking. They aren’t anything like Jake’s, though. I feel smug about that.
“The investors are choking,” Austin says, his voice low. I think he means that only for my father’s ears. I suppose the rest of us are supposed to serve his whims, stepping outside for them to talk privately. He finally tilts his head, his gaze sliding toward me.
“You went and built a digital guillotine and put my company’s logo on the blade. Impressive.”
I sit straight in my leather chair, my hands clasped loosely on my laptop. Beside me, Sarah Blackwood adjusts her glasses and slides a fresh, redlined contract across the polished wood.
My father shakes with a single punch of a laugh.
“She can’t practice law here.” He’s referring to me.
“No, she cannot. But the partners at Kenmore and Wilkins can. You know them, don’t you?” Sarah’s voice oozes confidence, and I simply wait as my father’s hard-lined mouth falls into a delayed frown.
There’s only one firm that he considers to be more ruthless than his, and we hired them.
Their headquarters are in Dallas, and it turns out they’re big Roddy McKinney fans around that place.
Since Roddy is footing the bill for their hourly rate, they gave us a break.
Plus, I really think Alan Kenmore enjoys beating my father at his own game. College rivals do that to one another.
Kevin sits to Sarah’s left, his face pale. He’s sweating through his polo shirt but remaining firmly on our side of the ledger.
“Let’s stop the bleeding,” I say, my voice steady, cool, and entirely devoid of the trembling little-girl guilt my father has used to control me ever since my brother died.
“The terms are non-negotiable. If you want the viral campaign to drop, if you want the press releases detailing your predatory eminent domain filings to stop hitting the regional wire, you sign the amendment.” Sarah taps her finger on the proverbial dotted line, then tosses a pen on the paper.
My father finally snaps, slamming his fist down before leaning across the table. His face is a flushed, angry purple.
“You are completely out of your depth! You think a few thousand angry posts give you the leverage to dismantle a six-hundred-million-dollar deal? We will tie this town up in appellate courts until the stadium rots into the dirt!”
“Try it,” I counter quickly, leaning forward to meet his gaze.
I don’t flinch. I don’t look away. “By the time you get your first hearing date, Summerhill’s commercial real-estate division will be considered toxic.
No municipality in the country will touch a deal with a firm that targets multi-generational family ranches.
You might win legal title in three years, Dad, but you’ll destroy the corporation to do it. ”
I swivel my head and turn my focus on Austin.
“Is that what you want to tell the board?”
Silence drops over the room like a lead weight.
Austin doesn’t look at my father. He looks at me, a grim but somehow appreciative expression settling into the corners of his eyes. He recognizes a checkmate when he sees one.
“Give me the pen,” he says quietly.
“Austin, don’t?—”
“I said give me the pen,” he repeats, his gaze snapping to my dad. “The project is bleeding capital every hour we sit here. We pivot.”
For the next several seconds, the only sound is the scratching of ink on paper.
Using the media leverage we built from nothing, I watch Austin and my father legally scale back the development plans to something that gives Kevin the golden parachute he was looking for in the first place and protects the people I’ve come to love.
Clause by clause, Sweetwater is carved back out of the corporate jaws.
The historic downtown district is permanently removed from the acquisition map.
Earl’s is legally protected. The local ranches are stripped from purchase orders, their borders secured.
The entire mega-resort and waterpark development is legally restricted to a specific tract of unused, pre-zoned commercial acreage three miles outside the town limits, on the other side of the highway, completely separate from the beating heart of the community.
Sweetwater is saved.
Austin signs his name with a defensive flourish, then slides the document to Sarah and stands up. He catches my eye one last time, a slight smirk still playing on his lips.
“Looks like I hired the wrong Hines. If you ever want a job that actually pays what you’re worth, give me a call.”
He grabs his jacket and walks out, leaving the door open in his wake.
My father stays behind for roughly three seconds.
He shoves his files into his leather briefcase, his hands trembling with a mixture of professional humiliation and the short temper he always had but showed me more after my brother passed.
He finally looks at me, his eyes cold enough to freeze water.
“I won’t forget this. Ever.” His voice is flat. I almost wish it hurt more to hear, but somehow, I’m all out of surprises.
“Same.”
He storms out of the conference room, slamming the heavy oak door behind him so hard the glass partition rattles.
Through the transparent wall, I see Jake waiting in the hallway.
He’s standing there in his blue warm-up gear, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes tracking my father’s furious departure with a quiet, protective intensity.
When the hallway clears, Jake looks at me through the glass.
I stand from the table, my spine perfectly straight as the massive, invisible weight evaporates from my shoulders.
The suffocating cloud of family obligation has been like a poisonous gas, and even though I thought I stood on my own when I walked away from law, I really didn’t. Not until today.
Jake smiles at me through the glass, nodding once.
You did it.
Sarah and I sit at a small metal table near the concourse concession stands, two hours prior to the gates opening for tonight’s game.
There’s a pleasant breeze, albeit a warm one.
I’ve never felt more relaxed. Jake isn’t playing tonight, but I might stick around simply to watch him stand tall in the dugout.
Sarah takes a long sip of the iced tea I spiked with a touch of rum from the upstairs specialty bar. There are perks to having worked here. She looks out at the manicured green grass of the diamond, her gaze fixed on the lone grounds crew member spraying down the dirt.
“I spent years managing scorched-earth political campaigns and handling Fortune 500 crisis communications, Campbell,” she says, shaking her head with a soft chuckle.
“I’ve spun DC scandals and stopped corporate bleeding for the most ruthless people in the country, and I have never seen anyone dismantle another soul the way you just did.
You didn’t just win us that settlement, you completely dictated the terms of their surrender.
And you did it all without touching the law. ”
I shrug and take a healthy sip of my spiked tea.
“I had a lot of motivation.”
Sarah leans forward, resting her elbows on the table, her lips twisting with a thought.
“I have a proposition for you.”
I tilt my head.
“A proposition? No, Sarah. I’m only into one at a time.”
We both laugh hard, the tea doing its job.
“Seriously, though,” she continues. “Look at what we just did. You’re brilliant with media strategy.
You have incredible instincts. I know the dark arts of crisis management and how to pull the levers on political machinery.
Small towns all over the country are being systematically eaten alive by predatory developers and private equity firms just like Summerhill.
They don’t have the playbook to fight back. ”
She taps her fingers against the table.
“I want to open a specialized crisis PR and political consulting firm,” Sarah proposes, her voice confident and unyielding.
“A permanent partnership. You and me. Sweetwater is our home base. I’m done traveling the country, chasing the professional challenge.
I’d like to be around for this next phase of life.
My daughters might be grown and doing their own things, but they need me still.
My oldest with her twins, and, between me and you, I think there’s something going on with her and Brooks Callahan. ”
My brow lowers, and I scoot in close, intrigued by the gossip.
“Really?” I whisper.
She nods.
“Huh.” I sink back in my seat, folding my hands behind my neck as I mentally filter through the clues. I’ve been rather preoccupied with my own bullshit, but yeah. I can see what Sarah means.
“Anyhow,” she starts, bringing me back to the point. “God knows the locals will protect us forever after today, and we can take clients nationwide, helping them from here, traveling only when we need to. We go to bat, so to speak, for the little guys. What do you think?”
I’m touched, and it’s a tempting business model. It would be a huge professional opportunity and an offer born from mutual respect. And for a second, the idea of rooting myself here, in this tight-knit town that took me in when I was completely lost, feels right.
But then my eyes drift past Sarah’s shoulder.
Across the field in the home team bullpen, Jake is finishing up his late-afternoon physical therapy session. He’s performing a series of resistance-band exercises, building the strength back in his shoulder. He isn’t a man who belongs in a minor-league dugout forever.
I stare at him, a sureness settling deep into my bones, and I look back at Sarah.
“I am incredibly honored,” I say, my smile tight. She takes in a deep breath, and I’m certain she sees this answer coming.
“Working with you has been the best part of my professional life. But . . . I can’t tie myself to a physical home base right now. If we do this, I need to keep my side of the business model entirely mobile. Laptop, cell phone, and a healthy dose of airplane miles.”
Sarah’s brows rise, her gaze tracking mine out to the field where Jake is packing up his bands. A knowing smirk touches her face, the expression of a woman who recognizes a long-term campaign strategy when she sees one.
“A mobile model, huh?”
“I love this town,” I say, my voice steady, filled with a renewed sense of hope as I watch Jake swing his arms out on the grass. “But I have a strong feeling Jake’s time is coming very soon. And I love him too.”