Chapter 3
Lauren slammed the phone down into its cradle thinking that the only good thing about the old equipment in her office was that it was tough. She’d spent the last two weeks trying to get a hold of Seth Montgomery only to be sent to his voice mail over and over, making her begin to believe that he was avoiding her and slamming the phone down felt good. If the man wasn’t going to cooperate with her, then she’d have to do some hard thinking about how she was going to avoid a scandal and get the job done she was sent here to do.
“Hey, what’s going on in here?” Heather said, poking her head in the door.
Lauren looked up at her assistant, glad that she was here. After months spent digging through all the old records together to get an idea just how deep the corruption went, they’d become good friends. In fact, Lauren knew that without Heather, she would have been lost and once again silently thanked the director for sending her here.
“I still can’t get Seth Montgomery on the phone. What’s the deal with this guy anyway? I mean doesn’t he know what he’s inherited?” Lauren had asked these same questions before, but never out loud.
Heather sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk and asked, “Do you want to know what I’ve heard?”
Lauren sighed. Heather knew how much she hated gossip, how much she liked hard facts, but in this case, she wasn’t making any headway with facts. She needed a way to get Seth Montgomery’s attention, get him to call her back, if not she was going to have to do something drastic like go looking for him herself.
“Okay, but try to stick to just the facts you know are true,” she finally said.
“Well, I can’t verify everything I’m going to tell you, some of it’s just gossip from around town,” Heather said, reminding Lauren that unlike Heather, she’d barely met anyone since she’d come to town. “But from what I hear, he lives in some cabin miles away from anyone. He and his father had a falling out when he turned eighteen and he moved out, his mother died when he was just a kid and his father married five times after that, I guess it affected the relationship.”
“What about his brothers, doesn’t he have two of them?” Lauren had seen their names in the papers, but couldn’t remember.
“He has two, both are in Anchorage and apparently not very interested in helping Seth. I don’t know the story behind that,” Heather explained.
“Is he married? Any kids?” Now that she’d started she couldn’t stop herself. She’d seen pictures of Seth Montgomery when he’d been younger, but nothing recent. He’d been a good-looking kid, but now she imagined him with a beard and long hair, the typical mountain man.
“No, from what I understand he’s a confirmed bachelor, never dates anyone.”
Lauren thought about that for a minute and decided that it made sense. “Well, I guess that makes sense, who would he date out in the wilderness,” she said, then shuddered to think of living out in the middle of nowhere. “I mean what woman is going to want to live so far from civilization?”
“Apparently, there are quite a few here in town. Seth Montgomery is kind of the ultimate catch around here. Billions of dollars, a nice cabin, and evidently he’s quite good looking,” Heather said, a dreamy quality in her voice.
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those women,” Lauren said, laughing.
“Well, you can’t blame me. He’s a bit of a mystery and I love mysteries,” Heather said, laughing as well. “But seriously, I don’t know what else I can tell you that might help.”
“I don’t know either. I guess I’ll give him another few days to respond to all my messages and if he doesn’t I’ll have to go looking for him,” Lauren said, hoping it didn’t come down to that. As much as she hated her office, she wasn’t sure about traipsing around the forest on her own trying to find his cabin.
“You better get some different clothes then,” Heather said, pointing to Lauren’s heels, which she’d refused to give up, no matter that hiking boots were more appropriate to where she was.
“I suppose you’re right, but I really hate to,” she said, thinking of the ugly boots she’d seen people wearing.
“You live in Alaska now, it’s time to embrace that,” Heather said, wisely.
“I know, but it’s not going to be easy,” Lauren said, thinking of all the designer clothes in her closet that would just hang there until they went out of style. “But I think you’re right. I think I’ll take the rest of the day off and explore town, I could use a break.”
“What me to tag along?” Heather asked.
“That would be fun. We’ve been working hard, we deserve a little time off,” Lauren said, thinking it might not be so bad if Heather was with her. “You can introduce me to some people in town, I haven’t done a very good job of getting out.”
“I know the perfect place for lunch,” Heather said, grabbing her purse. “It’ll be my treat, then we’ll go spend a bunch of your money.”
Seth got in the truck, shut the door, and started it up then sat and looked at the little house in front of him, thinking about how different it was than the home he’d grown up in. Sam and Julie had seemed pleased with the little house, even baby Annabelle had seemed happy with her little room, but he’d still take his cabin over it any day. Thinking of his cabin reminded him that he had more to accomplish before he left Naknek, so he put the truck in drive, dismissing thoughts of how cozy Sam, Julie, and Annabelle had looked when he left.
He’d never wanted a family, had been sure he didn’t want children, but occasionally there was a longing in him that he couldn’t quite identify. It didn’t happen very often, but when it did, it always took him by surprise. Growing up the way he had, he’d long ago promised himself that he wasn’t going to get married and certainly wasn’t going to have any children. Marriages never worked, and that left the kids stranded in the middle of a bunch of adult problems they couldn’t cope with. He should know, that had been his life.
After his childhood, he knew with certainty that he wasn’t cut out to be a father, it wasn’t his fault, he just hadn’t had a very good role model. Not to mention the fact that until he’d moved out, he’d practically raised his brothers, and that was enough for him. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t get lonely occasionally, usually he could bury the feeling by working on his cabin, the physical exertion dispelling his longing. That wasn’t possible now, and wouldn’t be for a while so he’d have to find another way to work out his frustration.
He was driving down Main Street turning the options over in his mind, when a woman walking down the street caught his attention. An instant burst of attraction rushed through him when he saw her, shocking him so much that he slammed on the brakes. It wasn’t the fact that he felt attraction to a woman, he was a man after all, it was the instant recognition that went with that attraction that shocked him, because he knew without a doubt that he didn’t know the woman or the woman she was with for that matter.
They were both loaded down with packages, but that didn’t stop him from noticing her full curvy figure or her wavy black hair that shone in the sunlight. Maybe it was the hair that had caught his attention; he loved women who wore their hair in that short bob style that swung every time they moved their heads. But it wasn’t just her hair, there was something else striking about her, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
A car behind him honked its horn and he realized that he’d been stopped in the middle of the road. As he pulled away, she looked up and their eyes met, sending another wave of attraction rushing through him. It had only a brief second, but her brown eyes had gotten larger when they’d met his blue ones, then she’d quickly looked away. Pushing the strange encounter from his mind, he concentrated on his next task, buying a new cell phone to replace his old one, which just wasn’t up to what he needed it to do.
When Lauren got to the office the next day and walked through the door, Heather practically jumped across the desk to meet her. “Seth Montgomery called yesterday when we were out shopping. He wanted you to meet with him at his office today.” Heather was practically jumping up and down.
“Well, it’s about time,” Lauren said, heading for her office. “Did you call him back yet?”
Heather followed her. “No, I wanted to see what you wanted to do.”
Lauren thought about it for a minute, looked around her office and realized that the last thing she wanted to do was meet with Seth Montgomery in the shabby little office. “Call him back and tell him that I’ll meet him at the restaurant downtown, but that it can’t possibly be until the end of the next week.”
Heather stared at Lauren shocked. “But don’t we want this meeting with him and soon?” she asked, confused.
“Yes, but he needs us more than we need him. Make him beg a little, then find some room in my schedule tomorrow at lunch time,” Lauren said, winking at Heather.
Heather shook her head,. “I feel sorry for Seth Montgomery,” she said, then walked out of the room.
By the time she walked into the restaurant, she was ready to do war with Seth Montgomery. She knew that it was important to establish that she wasn’t going to let him slide on anything, that he was lucky not to be in jail. She didn’t plan to share with him the fact that her boss wanted to keep the scandal as quiet as possible, and she had no intention of giving him anything he could use against her.
Spotting a man in the corner who looked a bit like the pictures she’d seen of Seth Montgomery as a child, she headed to the back of the restaurant and the booth where he was sitting. He was shuffling through a stack of papers, a laptop open on the table in front of him, when she stepped up to the booth. She waited, thinking he’d notice her there, but the as the seconds stretched to minutes, she began to wonder if this was the right man.
“Excuse me. Are you Seth Montgomery?” she asked, beginning to get annoyed the longer he ignored her.
When he finally looked up, Lauren was shocked to find the same blue eyes she’d seen the other day looking up at her and her heart did a little flip flop. “Yes, I’m Seth Montgomery,” he answered, thinking that he’d met her somewhere before.
“I’m L.J. Anderson. We’re supposed to be meeting for lunch today,” Lauren said, her annoyance hitting a new level.
Seth’s eyes got big, and before he could stop himself, he said, “But you’re a woman.”
It took only a second for his words to hit home. “Last time I checked, yes. Is that going to be a problem?” Lauren’s voice was crisp, making it clear that he’d insulted her.
Seth wished the words had not come out of his mouth and back pedaled. “I mean… No, it’s not…. I didn’t think.” He jumped to his feet and pointed to the other side of the booth. “Please, sit down.”
Lauren sighed. She’d spent her entire career fighting to prove that she was just as capable as any man. “I’ll let that slide then,” Lauren said, thankful that at least he hadn’t had an issue with the fact that she was African American. It was much easier to overcome the woman thing rather than the other.
As soon as she was seated, the waitress brought them both menus and Seth put his computer away, leaving the papers on the desk. “Maybe we can start over,” he said, when the waitress had taken their drink orders and left.
Lauren didn’t say anything for a second trying to read the man sitting across from her. He didn’t look anything like she’d expected he would, in fact he was clean cut with the most piercing blue eyes she’d ever seen. As she studied him, a strange sense of recognition passed through her, as if she’d met him before. This was quickly followed by a wave of attraction that stunned her. Speechless, she studied him, trying to understand what was happening.
Seth too was feeling an unexplainable attraction to Lauren, a tightening in his groin that surprised him, but then he remembered watching her walk down the street. Pushing his attraction aside, he took advantage of Lauren’s distraction and jumped right in with what he wanted to say.
“I wanted to meet with you today to talk about a little problem I discovered when I took over the company,” he began, hoping she’d let him get through the speech he’d been working on for days.
But Lauren had finally come back to her senses and she was suddenly on the defensive. “I’d call it more than a little problem. I think we both know that this situation goes far deeper than that,” she said, then took a deep breath to continue, to tell him exactly what she thought of his company and what they’d done, but Seth held up his hand and stopped her.
“Believe me, I know just how big of a problem I have on my hands, but I’d like to point out that my father didn’t do this on his own,” Seth said, then gave that a minute to make the impact he hoped it would.
Lauren would have cussed out loud if she could have; the one thing Seth had on his side was that the EPA was at fault as well and he obviously wasn’t afraid to use that against her. She settled back in the booth prepared for a fight. Clearly, Seth Montgomery had come to this meeting prepared. Now all she had to do was figure out how he planned to use that information to his advantage and shut him down.
“While that may be true, the man responsible had disappeared, although I’m sure we’ll catch up with him eventually. It’s not that easy to disappear these days,” Lauren assured him, a challenge in her voice. “He’ll be brought to justice just like everyone else involved in this will be.”
“I certainly hope so,” Seth said, surprising Lauren. “I’d like to make this perfectly clear, Ms. Anderson, I never had anything to do with what my father and Mr. Parker did.”
Lauren almost believed him, but she’d heard that same speech from several vice-presidents, a few engineers, and even a CEO. She’d thought long and hard about just how innocent Seth Montgomery might be and decided that although his name might not be on any of the paperwork, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t involved.
“Mr. Montgomery, I find it hard to believe that you had nothing to do with your family’s business. We may not be able to connect you to the bribes, but my guess is you knew exactly what was going on,” Lauren said very slowly just to make sure he understood that she wasn’t buying his story.
Seth sighed, this was clearly going to be harder than he thought, it was obvious that he was going to have to tell her everything if she was going to believe that he had nothing to do with the bribery and pollution. He rarely talked about his childhood or what had happened between he and his father, most everyone in town knew the story but no one ever dared to bring the subject up with him.
“I never said that I didn’t know what my father and Mr. Parker were up to, in fact I’ve known for most of my life. I found out when I was thirteen, and my relationship with my father was never the same,” Seth said, hoping that it would be enough, but Lauren remained silent. “It was one of the worst days of my life, in a matter of minutes I discovered that my father wasn’t the man I’d grown up thinking he was. That everything he was so proud of, the house, the cars, the bank account, even his hot, young wives, he’d gotten through cheating and bribery. I was devastated.”
“That was a long time ago, you were just a kid,” Lauren commented, not sure if she was buying his story.
“I set out after that to discover the truth about my family and what I found was so repugnant that I vowed that someday I was going to change the company. Instead of pillaging the land with no concern for the damage we were doing, I would do things differently. I spent years trying to figure out how I could do that, when I finally approached my father, he laughed at me and threw me out of his study. I moved out that day and since then I’ve had nothing to do with Montgomery Mining. In fact, everyone assumed that my brother Jared would be the head of the company, not me.”
“But here we sit,” Lauren said, stalling for time while she processed what he’d told her, testing Seth’s sincerity in her mind.
“Yes, thanks to my great great-grandfather, I’ve inherited a legacy I don’t even want,” Seth agreed.
“You could have just walked away,” Lauren challenged.
“That’s true and don’t think that I didn’t consider it several times. I could live without my trust fund, let it go to pay for cleanup, but it doesn’t feel like enough. The damage my family has done to the land we were entrusted with makes me sick, I can’t just walk away from it. I think I’m the only Montgomery in the history of Alaska to feel that way,” Seth said, the honesty of his words so clear in his eyes that Lauren couldn’t help but believe him.
Lauren was saved from answering by their food arriving, but as soon as the waitress was gone she asked, “And what exactly do you think you can do to make any of this better?”
“I can’t do anything on my own, that’s where this comes in,” Seth said, pushing a notebook across the table to her.
Lauren looked at the notebook, which was black with the words Montgomery Renewable emblazoned across the front in bright yellow letters. She opened the cover and flipped through the pages, amazed to find that it was full of blueprints, maps, and so many scientific papers it would take her weeks to read the entire thing.
“What is this?” she finally asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“This is my plan to not only clean up the land, but to use renewable energy to do it,” Seth said, a huge grin on his face, the first smile she’d seen since she sat down.
“I’m sorry, what?” Lauren asked, not sure she’d heard him correctly.
“I want to use renewable energy to fund the cleanup,” Seth said slowly.
Lauren didn’t care for the tone of his voice, but she could see that he’d done a lot of work on his plan. “I’m listening, but don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot,” she said. “I’ve got a master’s degree in biochemistry and I’m the district supervisor for the EPA.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. It all just makes so much sense to me, it’s hard when someone doesn’t understand what it is I want to do,” Seth said, then continued. “If we use renewable energy to generate the income needed to clean up the mines and logging damage, then I can keep the Montgomery legacy intact while cleaning up the mess it created to begin with.”
“What exactly are we talking about here: solar, wind, water?” Lauren asked, thinking that he might be on to something.
“All of them, but only solar and wind power to begin with. Water is much harder so it would have to come later, but there’s plenty of potential there,” Seth answered, clearly warming to the topic.
“And what about the cleanup? Do you have a plan for that as well?” Lauren asked, a bit of sarcasm in her voice; so far all she’d heard was how he could make money.
“I’ve got a world class team ready to go, look at section two in that notebook, it’s all there,” Seth said, then added, “I know that the government usually runs these projects, but I think you’ll see that I’ve got the best people ready to get started, most of them are already here in Alaska. And you could be a part of the process every step of the way.”
“Well, you’re certainly confident that I’d agree to this plan,” Lauren said, opening the notebook again.
“Frankly, I don’t see that you have any choice,” Seth said, his eyes meeting her in a challenge. “Look at what I’ve got planned, it’s going to be the first project of its kind and hopefully a model for the future.”