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TEN

Merritt skimmed her dad’s operations journal for the fifth time, hoping that she’d find some clue among the meticulous daily notes of business to why he’d left that message. Reading the summaries of what he did each day battered her already bruised heart.

It shouldn’t have. It wasn’t like the entries contained any personal information. But with each bullet point, she saw her dad.

Efficient with no muss.

There were times growing up that she’d wanted muss. Just a little bit of coddling to soften the blows of childhood. She understood now that his suck-it-up attitude didn’t mean that he hadn’t cared.

He just couldn’t see the need to nurture hurts.

He’d always listen to her problems and woes, intently and without distraction, something she’d never seen him do with anyone else. Then, after the problem was out, he’d talk through solutions with her. There was never any pandering to make her feel better, just solid advice on paths forward.

If he was there, she’d thank him for that. She liked to think that, aside from her irrational fear of bears, she had ended up a strong person, able to objectively look at a situation and figure out a solution, whether it was personal or not.

She missed him so much. She set the book down on the desk and closed her eyes. A tear escaped to race down her cheek just as stomping sounded in the hall outside.

She quickly wiped her cheek, shoved the journal under a pile of reports on her desk, and pulled up the latest update on the safety protocol just as Silas stormed into her office.

“We have a problem.” He slammed his laptop onto her desk, making her cringe.

Good thing it was military-grade and practically indestructible.

“Nolan just messaged that he wants both of us on a teleconference with him, Mom, and Rachel.” Silas opened his laptop and typed in his password.

Merritt glanced at her phone. She didn’t have any messages from Nolan.

“I don’t have a message.”

“Yeah. Apparently, I not only got shafted in the will, but I’m also now your assistant.” He cursed and muttered under his breath that he didn’t have time for problems.

Merritt could see how he’d consider her a problem, but she didn’t need or want him to be fielding calls for her, especially when she didn’t know if she could trust him.

She straightened in her chair, pulling her pen and pad closer, ready to take notes. She’d realized early in being dumped in the CEO seat that she had to take detailed notes of almost every conversation so she could study what she hadn’t understood, which was a lot.

It was honestly scary that she was in charge of a multibillion-dollar corporation she knew very little about. What had Dad been thinking?

“What’s this about?” she asked, scratching the date and time on her pad.

“No clue. Nolan didn’t say.” Silas growled as he pulled up the conference app, dropping the f-bomb for good measure. “Crazy old man and his secret spy tendencies.”

While Merritt’s sentiments toward her only living relative were the opposite of Silas’ obvious dislike, it was annoying how Nolan never messaged or called when it pertained to business. His insistence that all communication about the corporation be “secure and safe” was a major pain in the butt.

“Old, huh?” Nolan’s voice and face appeared on the screen.

He ran his hand down the front of his custom-tailored suit, while she silently calculated how many weeks an entire refugee camp could have been fed with its cost.

“I’d say more like robust. Matured like a fine wine. Some might even say a silver fox.” He wagged his eyebrows at the screen as Joni and Rachel popped on from Joni’s office in the Barrow house.

That’s why she loved Nolan.

Nolan had been an operative for the CIA before Dad convinced his brother to work for him. Always said Nolan’s contacts in just about every part of the world came in handy.

Even with his spy background and being the chief operating officer of Harland, he loved to joke. Where her dad had never coddled, Nolan had been her soft place to land when she needed to be cheered up.

“What’s with the summons? I’ve got things to do.” Silas leaned on the credenza behind her chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

Impatience and anger fairly pulsed against her back. When had he turned from the troubled, yet protective boy he’d been in high school to this bitter man who oozed discontent?

She wished she could go back and not have been so focused on her mission that she cut herself from him for the sake of production.

Maybe she was more like her dad than she cared to admit.

“I just got off a call with a contact in the EPA. Apparently, there are concerns from the villages in the area. Water contamination issues.” Nolan’s switch from jokester to serious always jolted her.

The hard clench of his jaw could rival her dad’s.

Silas shook his head. “We’ve got clearance from the EPA that we’re good to go.”

“Supposedly, some geologist sent Clay concerns about the AMD risk.” Nolan lifted his hand in a frustrated gesture.

“AMD?” Merritt hated asking.

“Acid Mine Drainage.” Rachel’s tone clearly said she thought Merritt was an idiot. “The fact that you don’t know the basic mining term is just more proof you have no right leading this company. Seriously, what was Dad thinking leaving the village idiot in charge?”

Guess Merritt didn’t have to wonder what Rachel really thought.

“Rachel, watch your tone,” Nolan snapped. “Your petty jealousy of Merritt doesn’t have a place here.”

“Rachel has a point.” Joni’s cool, collected counter almost had Merritt snorting.

Of course, the evil stepmother would back her daughter.

Crossing his arms, Nolan scowled. “Merritt may need catching up on some things, but she’s not an idiot. The success of our nonprofit sector proves that.”

Nolan leaned forward on his desk. “AMD is a problem that happens sometimes when the rocks the graphite is surrounded by contain sulfide minerals like pyrite, such as schist and gneiss. When these rocks are exposed to air and water during the mining process, sulfuric acid is created which then can seep into groundwater, streams, and rivers. Apparently, our graphite is surrounded by schist.”

Well, schist.

She cringed and opened her mouth to ask more, but Silas bulled over her.

“Which we’ve addressed. In detail.” Silas slammed his hands on her desk next to her, leaning toward the computer. “We’ve had multiple geologists out here and revised our waste management procedure with their input and the EPA’s. The schist is minimal and any AMD formed is easily contained.”

“I understand, but if someone is tickling the right ears at the EPA, then our little schist issue becomes a major schisting problem.” Nolan’s lip twitched at his pun.

Merritt tilted her head, barely containing the urge to raise her hand. “Who is the geologist bringing the concerns?”

“I haven’t been able to get that information from my contact.” Nolan shrugged. “It’s pretty hush-hush, but the warning was there. If enough ruckus is made, drilling will get delayed… again.”

Merritt pulled up the report she’d read the other day from her memory. “What about the backing of the governor and the president and being designated as a High-Priority Infrastructure Project? Won’t that overrule any setbacks, especially with the approval from the EPA?”

Nolan shook his head. “Not if there’s enough evidence that the claim is correct, which apparently the local villages have.”

Silas swore and pushed off her desk to pace. “We can’t have any more setbacks. We’re weeks away from drilling. Any delay now will put us into winter. Then any kinks we have will be magnified by ten at least from the cold.”

Merritt gently tapped her finger against the desk. “What if we go to the villages and explain the safety procedures we’ll have in place and reinforce the EPA’s clearance?”

She remembered her dad always insisting that influencing public opinion was better than gold.

“With your experience in kumbayaing with the unfortunate, you might actually be of help to the mine.” Silas came back to look at the screen. “I say we send Mother Theresa here to sweet-talk the locals.”

Rachel cackled. “Have you been drinking the idiot juice or something, Silas?”

“That’s a horrible idea,” Joni interjected. “She knows nothing about the process. She’ll just make the situation worse.”

“And you think you’d be better?” Merritt couldn’t keep the venom from her voice.

“As the head of public relations, it is my job.”

“Yeah, but sending you into the villages would be like sending Cruella into a puppy store.”

“Why you little?—”

“Silas is right.” Merritt cut off Joni and sat forward in her seat. “I’ve spent the last eight years calming problems in situations a lot more dire than this. And unlike you, I actually care about these people and their concerns.”

Merritt nodded as a plan formed. “I’ll visit each of the villages along the Kobuk River. Joni, I want two community meetings a day over three days, starting with Kobuk and ending in Kotzebue. Be sure to communicate that HGR’s commitment to the minimal environmental impact has always been a priority, including ensuring the concerns of the communities affected are addressed. ”

“Unlike you, I know how to do my job,” Joni snapped back.

“Joni.” Nolan’s tone warned Joni to drop it.

She raised one eyebrow at him and cocked her head in challenge.

Nolan shuffled papers on his desk. “I’m heading up there as soon as I get off this call to clean up this mess and will be in Barrow by tonight.”

Merritt’s heart dropped. She didn’t need a babysitter. And she definitely didn’t need him swooping in to rescue her.

She shook her head. “That’s not necessary.”

“We’ve got it covered,” Silas added, surprising the heck out of Merritt.

“Obviously, you don’t.” Nolan’s rebuke snapped through the computer, and Silas’ jaw clenched. “And even though I’ve got all the oil assets of the company to take care of, I have to come up there to make sure this silly experiment of Clay’s doesn’t destroy everything we’ve built. I refuse to let all my hard work collapse over schist rocks.”

The online meeting room abruptly closed. Guess the meeting was over. Silas slammed his computer closed and stormed out with muttered curses about stupid geologists. She slumped into her chair with a long exhale.

What was she doing there? As much as she hated to admit it, Joni and Rachel were right. She didn’t know nearly enough about oil or graphite mining to be in charge. She definitely didn’t have the knowledge needed to ease the concerns of the locals.

Maybe she should turn the company over to Nolan so she didn’t accidentally destroy everything. He was a better choice for CEO with him being with her dad for years. He’d helped Dad expand from just drills in the Texas desert to rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, then later up to Alaska’s waters and the North Slope.

Aside from Dad, Nolan knew everything there was regarding mining and their business. Yet the thought of giving up and disappointing her dad turned her stomach into a heavy pile of schist.