The Hamilton Heir by Valerie Hansen Page B

wouldn’t have them.”
    “True enough. I just don’t want to see you hurt, that’s all. Promise me you’ll take your time and think things through. I don’t want you getting in so deep you flounder and maybe drown.”
    The water analogy struck Dawn funny. “I promise, mamacita. I’ll always wear my water-wings and wade in with a buddy, like you, holding my hand.” She giggled nervously.
    “You’d better, kiddo,” her friend replied. “Because it looks to me like you’re already swimming with the sharks. You just haven’t spotted their dorsal fins yet.”
    Laughing, Dawn bid Gabi a fond goodbye and hung up. She didn’t think she’d taken the advice to heart till she found herself humming the theme from the scary movies about being eaten alive by a great white!
     
    Predictably, Tim was already hard at work when Dawn got to the office the following day. She greeted him with a cheery, “Good morning.”
    “Morning.” He barely looked up.
    There was a half-empty coffee mug on the desk near his right elbow. Dawn eyed it. “Is that fresh?”
    “No. It’s yesterday’s. But I didn’t want to stop and make a new pot.”
    “Yuck.” She took the mug to the sink and rinsed it out, then disposed of the thick brown sludge in the coffeemaker. “I don’t know how anybody can drink day-old coffee. It’s sickening.”
    “It was all I had,” Tim muttered, still concentrating on the spreadsheets he’d been studying when she’d arrived.
    Nodding as if he’d made an important decision, he leaned back in his chair. “Come here and have a look at this. I don’t want you to say anything to the staff yet, but you’ll need to know. I’m going to outsource our bookkeeping like my dad wanted.”
    Dawn’s breath caught. Her eyes widened. “You mean you’re going ahead with the contract Jeremy refused to sign, even after your father insisted?”
    “Yes.” Tim pointed to the green-tinted sheets of figures on his desk. “There’s no doubt it’s best for business.”
    “I see.” She hesitated, then squared her shoulders and spoke boldly. “You told me to tell you when your public image needed work. Well, this is one of those times.”
    “Go on.” He laced his fingers behind his head.
    “There’s nothing wrong with being mad at your brother because he let Curtis Resnick get away with embezzlement and didn’t want to prosecute him for the sake of their friendship. I happen to think that was a stupid decision, too, especially because Curtis is still hanging around Davis Landing and bragging about what fools he thinks the Hamiltons are. The problem is, you’ll be putting innocent people out of a job if you sign that contract.”
    “That’s where you come in,” Tim said calmly, lowering his arms and leaning his elbows on the desk. “I want you to find them slots withinHamilton Media, if you can. If not, we’ll make sure they have good jobs outside before we make any permanent changes. That was why I wanted their personnel files updated.”
    “Oh. Oh, well then…”
    He snorted a wry chuckle. “There’s no need to blush, Ms. Leroux. I admire your honesty. I’d told you to sound off if you thought I was making a mistake and you did. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
    “Still, I apologize. I should have known what you were thinking when I saw which employee files you wanted to see. I think most of those people will fit into other areas, except maybe the department head. Bob is pretty much a human calculator and not very versatile. We may have to find him something else.”
    “Fine.”
    “And speaking of being versatile,” Dawn said. “I’ve almost finished that article about Stuart Meyers.”
    “I’m looking forward to reading it. Have you got it with you?”
    “No. I—um—I thought I was supposed to give it to an editor.”
    “I’d like to see it first.”
    Rats. She was afraid he’d say that. “Well, I guess I could bring in the rough draft. But I’d rather have it polished up