Page 11 of Her Cadillac Cowboy
CHAPTER THREE
“I need the McKinley file on my desk, now! And tell Gene Reynard I want to see him in fifteen minutes.” Sara rushed past Carol, her secretary, and slammed into the dealership CEO’s office. She strode to the closet, dropping her purse on her father’s desk as she went. No, she thought as she hung up her sweater, the desk, the office was hers now. Temporarily, yes, but hers nonetheless.
Before her appointment with Josh, she needed to study the warehouse contract. Carson’s had been running in the red for close to a year, if the reports she’d read on the plane were right. Clearly, Dad had arranged the Mega Motors deal to put Carson’s back in the black. If she didn’t get the warehouse back, Carson’s could go under. Then she’d be stuck in Luville trying to support and care for her father. What idiot notion had possessed her when she’d sold her Alaska house?
So much to do, and she’d wasted two hours at home before giving up on the promised new nurse today. Despite last night’s argument, she left Dad in Donny’s care until the nurse showed.
Sara sat down and penned a note asking McKinley if he would agree to meet her at 1:00 instead of 12:30. Just as Sara signed her name, her secretary came in with the file.
“Carol, have someone run this note over to the backlot warehouse and give it to Mr. McKinley.”
“Right.” Carol turned to leave.
“McKinley and nobody else.”
“Yes, Ms. Carson.”
Sara settled into read the warehouse contract. She blinked when she saw the name of Josh’s business. Well, that explained the playground equipment she’d thought she’s seen last night. He must be storing the items there before putting them up at wherever the daycare was.
As Gene Reynard, the dealership’s lawyer, ambled into the office twenty minutes later, Sara tugged at her hair and snarled.
“Nice to see you too,” Gene sat in the chair across from her desk.
“Gene, I can’t find the escape clause in the McKinley contract. I know we never lease anything without that clause.”
He folded his hands and examined his fingernails. “There isn’t one.”
“What?”
“I said, that contract has no escape clause. Mr. McKinley wouldn’t sign unless we removed it.”
“So why is his company still in our warehouse? Daddy would never do business without that clause.”
“That’s right, but your daddy didn’t sign that contract.”
Certain of what she would find, Sara flipped through the contract’s pages until she came to the signatures. “Donny.” She slumped her shoulders. She checked the date in a vain hope that a discrepancy would invalidate the document.
“Yes’m, that’s Donny Carl’s signature, and mine right next to it.”
She looked up at the hefty man across from her. “You knew better than this, Gene. How could you let my brother lease the warehouse to a McKinley, let alone do it without an escape clause?”
“I didn’t have much choice, Miss Carson. I told Donny it was the wrong thing to do. But you know how he gets when somebody tells him he’s making a mistake. The minute I mentioned how your father did business, Donny said something about making things change and ordered me, as his attorney, to witness his signature.”
Sara thumped her elbows onto the desk, then cradled her forehead in her hands.
“What are the options, Gene?”
“The lease payment is pretty hefty. Presuming Carson’s had the funds, we could buy the lease back. If McKinley is willing.
“I doubt McKinley would go for that. We couldn’t afford it if he did.”
“Barring a buyback, he’d have to break the lease.”
“If McKinley breaks the lease, the warehouse reverts to us. Am I correct?”
The lawyer steepled his fingers and narrowed his gaze. “Yes. The only option he holds is for renewal. If he sublets, vacates, defaults, makes structural changes that cannot be reversed, or violates the terms somehow, we might have grounds for eviction.”
Sara sat back in her chair. The slap of her hands on the desk cracked in the air. “Then I’ll simply have to persuade Mr. McKinley that breaking his lease is in his best interests.”
