Excerpt of Home To Laura by Mary Sullivan

"What did you do to my granddaughter?" Mort Sanderson
stormed into Nick Jordan's office, indignation pouring from
him like lava.
Nick took his time placing his pen beside the documents he'd
been perusing and struggled to remain calm. Mort's behavior
was becoming more erratic with age. Sure, Nick could handle
it, but Mort's eccentricities didn't belong in the office.

He also wished Mort would keep Nick's private life out of
here, too. He worked hard to separate the two.

Mort was Nick's boss. He was also his father-in-law.
Ex-father-in-law.

Too late, Nick had learned the danger of mixing his personal
life with business.

He pointed toward the office door. "Would you mind closing
that so this conversation can remain private?"

Mort stepped into the room and slammed the door.

That should impress the two clients in the waiting room,
Nick thought. Thank you, Mort.

"What's wrong with Emily?" Nick asked.

"She called me last night in tears."

"What?" Nick shot out of his chair. "Why? What's wrong?"

"She's not happy with you."

Not happy with him? Why not? Old, familiar acid churned in
his gut. His stomach troubles had started with his ex-wife's
defection to another man. Was he about to lose his daughter,
too?

Emily hadn't said a word to him about being unhappy. He
reached for the phone and dialed his home number before
realizing Emily would still be at school.

His daughter had called Mort in tears.

You should have been there for her. She shouldn't have to go to her grandfather.

"What did she say?" he asked.

"That you ignore her and never have time for her."

"I work hard." Nick owned a beautiful home in a good
neighborhood. Emily attended a private school. Every
Christmas, he sent her to visit her mother. "That's what a
man does to support his family."

"My granddaughter deserves to be happy," Mort shouted,
leaning his fists onto Nick's desk. If he were a tall man,
he would loom over Nick, but at five-five, Mort had learned
to use the force of his personality to intimidate. At the
moment, he leaned close enough for Nick to count the red
spider veins on his cheeks—and to smell alcohol on his
breath. Damn. It wasn't yet noon, too early for Mort to be
drinking.

After Mort left the office, Nick would get his assistant to
find out where he would have to do damage control.

What was happening to Mort? When had he started this slide
into…what? Self-indulgence? Self-pity? Where was the astute
businessman Nick used to admire, used to emulate? Nick was
the one making all of the big decisions in the company these
days.

If that involved putting out too many fires that Mort
started and not enough time on creativity and
problem-solving—the things Nick loved—so be it. That was the
cost of running a large corporation—and a small price to pay
for the money he raked in.

His stomach roiling, he stared at Mort, eerily afraid that
he might be peering into the crystal ball of his future. No
way did he want his life reduced to a string of wives and
endless days of drinking, of depending on others to fix his
mistakes.

How could Nick stop that future for himself? He didn't know
when Mort's slide had started, or how.

"You couldn't make Marsha happy." Mort interrupted his
thoughts. "Now you can't keep Emily happy."

"Enough," Nick shouted, anger spurred on by fear that this
might be a problem even he didn't know how to fix. What
then? What would happen to Emily? "How is this any different
from you? You're on your fifth wife. Marsha complained about
how little attention you gave her as a child. Keep your damn
hypocrisy to yourself and stay the hell out of my
relationship with my daughter."

"It's different because Marsha is my daughter and Emily my
granddaughter."

"Each of your wives was someone's daughter and
granddaughter."

"That's beside the point. I want Emily to be happy. That's
your job."

Nick mimicked Mort, leaning his fists on his desk and
pushing forward into Mort's face. "That hasn't been my only
job, has it? You've never once complained when I worked
nights and weekends on end to bring in new clients or to
complete your projects, have you?" The unfairness of the
man's criticism burned.

"You've been my mentor," Nick continued. "You taught me how to deal in business. I'm following your example. You 're the reason I am the way I am." He silenced a voice that nagged, that's not completely true. You wanted so much. You were an ambitious SOB. Mort fit into your plan. "I ignored Marsha and Emily because I was here making money for you and this company. How else do you think I did it? By twiddling my thumbs? By taking vacations with my wife and child? I made you a fortune." Nick struggled for control. Where was his precious cool head? "As far as Marsha goes, we divorced as friends," Nick said, forcing a reasonable tone. "She knew who I was when we married, but wanted someone who could give her more attention. She wanted the money and the big house and me home evenings and weekends."

That was why she'd had an affair with Harry Fuller and why
she'd divorced Nick and married him. Harry came from
money—had never had to work and scrape for every penny as
Nick had—and gave her the attention she craved. Yes, he'd
understood, but it had hurt, which was strange considering
it hadn't been a love match for either of them. Was he more
of a dreamer, a romantic, than he'd thought? Had he been
fonder of Marsha than he'd realized?

"Marsha wanted too much, just like her mother." Mort's voice
came out as a growl. "I shouldn't have spoiled her."

"You didn't," Nick conceded. "She's a good person and she
was right. I never paid her enough attention. I probably
never gave Emily enough, either." He knew in his heart he
hadn't. Now he was making her cry. He'd never figured out
why Emily had opted to stay with him in the home she'd grown
up in rather than follow her mother to Europe with her new
husband four years ago. Maybe to keep her friends?

Had any of her decision been based on wanting to be near her
father? He hoped so. Again, he reached for the phone. He
needed to talk to her. Again, he remembered she wasn't home.

"Fix it," Mort said. "Whatever is wrong with her, take care
of it now."

He planned to. Tonight. There wasn't a person on earth who
mattered more to him than his daughter.

Nick winced. "I honestly never meant to hurt her. I'll talk
to her tonight."

"That girl means the world to me."

Nick's anger softened. Mort had always treated Emily like
gold. She was a shining light in his life.

"I'm not sure what can change," Nick said, but the fight had
left him. Emily was his shining light, too. She kept the
darkness at bay. "I have to work as hard now on this project
as I ever have."

"Stop it now. Cancel it."

The Accord Ski and Golf Resort? He couldn't, and there was
no way to explain to Mort why. Mort had been born with
money. He would never in a million years understand how Nick
had grown up, how poverty had shaped him, how important it
was to build the new resort in his old town.

"Make Emily happy," Mort said, his eyes narrowing. "That's
an order. Do it, or I'll pull the plug on the resort."

Nick stilled. Accord Resort was his dream, his baby, part
homage to Mom and part revenge against his older brother
Gabe—and partly to prove to the town that had barely noticed
him when he was growing up that Nick Jordan had become a
success and was a force to be reckoned with. His reasons
were so confusing and convoluted even he didn't understand
fully what drove him. He only knew that he had to annihilate
that old house and build something bigger and grander than
the Jordan family had ever owned in the past.

Why he worried about his name, and the family, was anybody's
guess. He wasn't part of the family anymore, was he? In
thirteen years, he'd gone back only twice, four years ago
for Mom's funeral and in January to a town meeting
concerning the resort. He spoke to Tyler occasionally on the
phone. To Gabe? Never.

Mort couldn't possibly pull out now. They were about to
break ground. Before Nick had even sent his former
assistant, Callie, to Accord to work on getting his brothers
to sell, he'd been working behind the scenes to have permits
pushed through, greasing more palms than he cared to admit
to Mort. Once Gabe and Ty had sold their shares to him, he'd
increased his efforts. This resort had already cost him a
bundle.

"You can't be serious about pulling the plug," Nick said.

"Look at me." Something in Mort changed, as though a crack
opened in that gruff exterior he painted on like shellac.
"Take a good look at me. Do you like what you see?"

Nick stared for a long moment at things Mort had never laid bare before—unhappiness, regret and enough loneliness to bury a man. No wonder he drinks. The powerful man Mort had been shrank before Nick's eyes.

With one quick jerk of his head, Nick admitted that he
didn't like this version of Mort, that it scared the
daylights out of him. That it confirmed Nick's fears that he
himself was on a slippery slope barreling toward his own
version of Mort's life. And he wanted to stop.

"If you don't make a real effort to change for that little
girl—" Mort pointed a finger at himself "—then you're
looking at your future. You're going to lose Emily. She told
me she's going to France to live with her mother. I want her
to stay here. Make it happen."

He walked from the room, closing the door without slamming
it this time, leaving Nick stunned.