Tributary Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One - Diana

  Chapter Two - Asa

  Chapter Three - Diana

  Chapter Four - Asa

  Chapter Five - Diana

  Chapter Six - Asa

  Chapter Seven - Diana

  Chapter Eight - Asa

  Chapter Nine - Diana

  Chapter Ten - Asa

  Chapter Eleven - Diana

  Chapter Twelve - Asa

  Chapter Thirteen - Diana

  Chapter Fourteen - Asa

  Chapter Fifteen - Diana

  Chapter Sixteen - Asa

  Chapter Seventeen - Diana

  Chapter Eighteen - Asa

  Chapter Nineteen - Diana

  Chapter Twenty - Asa

  Chapter Twenty-One - Diana

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Asa

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Diana

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Asa

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Diana

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Asa

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Diana

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Asa

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Diana

  Chapter Thirty - Diana

  Chapter Thirty-One - Asa

  Chapter Thirty-Two - Asa

  Chapter Thirty-Three - Diana

  Chapter Thirty-Four - Asa

  Chapter Thirty-Five - Archer

  Tributary: A Billionaire Romance

  Oak Creek Book 2

  By Lainey Davis

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  © 2019 Lainey Davis

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual businesses, incidents, or persons—living or dead—or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Individuals pictured on the cover are models and are used for illustrative purposes only.

  Many thanks to Nicky Lewis, Keith G, and James Verdi for editorial input, and to Sean Carroll for photo illustration.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Diana

  THE SHOP PHONE rings, startling me. I snap my head up from examining my plant specimen when I hear the shrill bell of the old landline. This is unusual. Any Oak Creek locals looking for me just barge into the store, and any of my business contacts call me on my cell. I frown, noting that my phone must have been on airplane mode in my pocket.

  Sighing, I make my way up front to the antique rotary phone I keep on the counter, mostly for looks. “Houseplant Haven,” I say and then pull my head away from the handset as my mother’s voice bellows through the receiver.

  “Diana Crawford! I’ve been trying to reach you all morning.”

  “Sorry, Ma. I guess I had my phone off. I’ve been splicing—”

  “Diana, everything is amiss,” she huffs. “Our special guest is snowed in, and your brother’s been skiing on Main Street.”

  I lean around the corner and peek out the shop window, and sure enough, I see my brother Archer decked out in his best cross country ski gear, shushing a loop around our little downtown.

  “Yes, I see Archer now,” I tell her. I hadn’t paid much attention to the snow storm that rolled into town this morning. It looks like there’s half a foot of snow outside, and it’s still coming down. Most people around here walk everywhere, but I suppose even that’s hard if nobody has dug out the sidewalks. “What do you need, Ma?”

  “I need you to come talk sense into your father,” she tells me. I hear her multitasking as she talks. My mother is the president of Oak Creek College and never stops hustling. She’s been hosting an investor at their house, in town to check up on some of the programs Ma convinced him to fund.

  “What’s Dad up to?”

  She huffs. “He’s trying to get me to my office on the lawn tractor.”

  “You guys barely even have any grass,” I tell her, shrugging out of my apron and hanging it on a peg. “Why do you even have a tractor?”

  I tell my mother I’ll make my way to their house as soon as I can and urge her to distract Dad before he gives himself a hernia. I pop up the stairs to my apartment above the shop to throw on thermals and snow gear. Glancing out the window again, I see Archer making another loop around town. I throw open the window to shout at him. “Arch,” I holler, feeling the sting of the cold on my cheeks. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Getting my cardio in,” he shouts without looking up. “Bill said he and the maintenance guys are doing sidewalks before streets. I got time!”

  I shake my head and close the window, deciding I’m going to need a lot of gear to get to my parents’ house about a mile away. I start to rummage around for my snow boots. Deep in my closet, I find my warmest pair from back in graduate school…from before.

  I look closer and estimate there’s about eight inches of snow on the ground, but it’s still coming down pretty fast. Seems like there’s some work to do here before I head to Casa Crawford. I grab a shovel and begin to clear off the walk outside my shop. The snow is heavy and wet, and the work feels good. I lose myself in the motions, stooping and digging, rising and hurling the snow. My muscles scream for awhile, but then as I start to dig out the walk of the Oak Creek Gazette office next to my shop—the ancient editor shouldn’t be out shoveling this stuff—I reach a sort of zen. My movements become a meditation, and I don’t hear it at all when a man approaches beside me. Too late, I hurl the entire shovel load right into his face.

  “Aw, damn it! Shit!” He yells, and his eyes flash up at me, blue steel, cold as ice.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Asa

  I KNEW I should have listened to my instincts and skipped this trip. I’m not worried about my investments here. I trust that the research nerds at this college are working on delivering. These guys have been chasing these dreams their whole lives. Nothing I say to them is going to urge them along any faster.

  But Andrea insisted I needed to come here in person. It was supposed to be meetings, dinner, morning meetings, home. Back to the real work, where I have an ergonomic chair in my corner office on the top floor.

  Now I’m stuck here, in a town with one snow plow, where even the rail travel is suspended. This never happens in Manhattan. Even during the hurricane a few years ago, I made it in to my office and sealed a deal with a shipping company worried they’d lose everything in the gale. Swooping in during a disaster is what I do…except I’m not seeing where the surefire profit is from this blizzard.

  Before the hurricane, I knew the bay would be fine and I knew the shipping company was dead wrong. I chuckle, remembering the intel I got from a loose-lipped kid in my apartment building, making small talk in the hallway about some state of the art storm swell system his company had just finished building out of oysters and recycled plastic or some shit.

  I might not be good at much, but I know how to file away kernels of information and pull them up when it’s most beneficial.

  And by beneficial, I almost always mean profitable. Which this work in Oak Creek is not…yet.

  Rose Mitchell is an interesting host, and staying here is certainly a break from the grind I’m used to. At least the people kissing my ass here are subtle about it, and they otherwise don’t seem to be putting on an act whenever I’m in the room. Nobody in this town cares who slighted who at the last benefit dinner, and nobody gives a fuck which fork I use to eat my chicken. Watching the snow fall outside my host’s window, I wonder if maybe the benefits here outweigh the drawbacks.

  Andrea has called this morning about 40 times, from the moment the first flakes began to fall and we realized this s
torm was actually happening. Once it became apparent I am stuck here, Rose set me up in her own home office, but I slowly realized none of my employees were working, and all of our clients are snowed in, too. From what Andrea said, New York is getting hit worse than Oak Creek, even though we’re just a few hours away.

  Suddenly faced with my first down time in years, I feel…what is this? Restless I guess. My hosts are outside trying to contribute their lawn tractor to the cause of digging out local sidewalks, but Daniel Crawford told me to make myself at home.

  I start to peer into the closets, marveling at the neatly organized containers of yearbooks, old sports equipment, and laminated science fair awards.

  Last month, I agreed to invest in Hunter Crawford’s biological tissue research, and I smile, noting the national awards he’s evidently been winning in the field since he was a teenager.

  I wonder whether my mom saved anything of mine. It seemed like each thing I did was some desperate item on a checklist toward taking over Wexler Holdings.

  The last bedroom closet is full of snow gear. I look out the window and see it’s still coming down hard, and from the looks of this gear I found, it belonged to a college-aged Crawford kid not too long ago. I decide today’s as good a day as any to go for a walk.

  My phone rings as I’m lacing up my borrowed boots, just slightly too small. “Andrea, talk to me.”

  “Oh, Asa,” she sighs. “There’s just nothing to be done here until the city digs out.”

  I frown, pulling up the rusty zipper on a well-worn ski jacket. “Is the commodities exchange still open?”

  “I think so.”

  “Tell Scott I want him to invest in road salt.”

  “Ten-four,” she says, and hangs up.

  I zip my phone into the jacket pocket and step out into the storm, smiling as I strap on the snowshoes. I crunch away from the Crawford house toward town, not sure where I’m headed or why.

  It takes me about a half hour to get to Main Street, and I wave at some guy who’s skiing around the streets. I actually feel really carefree. I don’t usually like unexpected changes of plans. It’s hard to run an empire without a five year plan, a five month plan, and a five day vision. Somehow knowing that everyone is equally affected by this lets me relax into it. I even get the urge to build a snowman, then laugh at myself. I never even spent much time doing that as a kid. You don’t get into Wharton based on your building skills, Asa Wexler, my mother used to scold.

  Just as I start to shake that memory away, I’m hit in the face with a shovel full of wet, heavy snow. I start cursing and wiping it away, and then I hear a woman laughing.

  “Well what are you doing standing where I’m shoveling?” she asks.

  I look into a pair of brown eyes that seem incredulous. I glance down at the path she’s standing in. There’s nearly a foot of snow on the ground and she’s cleared almost the entire block, seemingly by hand. “Did you do all this?”

  She draws her head back and cocks a brow at me beneath her snowy ski cap. “See anyone else out here with a shovel?”

  I flash her my best smile. This chick’s got stamina. “Asa Wexler,” I tell her, holding out a gloved hand. “I forgive you.”

  She arches a brow but pulls off her heavy glove to shake my hand. Her grip is strong and she pumps my hand twice. An assertive shake. “Diana Crawford,” she says, “You must be staying with my parents.”

  I like this woman. She’s blunt. I find her intriguing, and this blizzard just got a whole lot more interesting.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Diana

  MY PHONE STARTS ringing again, and I groan, realizing I just hit my mother’s investor in the face with a shovel full of snow, then laughed at him. I yank off my glove again to answer the phone. “Ma,” I say around the glove in my teeth. “Yes, actually, I do know where your investor is…No, it’s fine. I’ll bring him back to your place.”

  I hang up with my mother, who has convinced my father not to carve out a path to the college, just in time to panic about Wexler disappearing from under her roof. I raise another brow at the guy, who is still standing there staring at me in the snow.

  I sigh. “My parents are worried about you,” I tell him. I decide I’ve shoveled enough and lean into my shop to toss the gear inside. I shout over my shoulder, “I’m just going to lock up and then I’ll make sure you get back to the Crawford House.”

  I jump when I realize he’s right behind me, peering over my shoulder into the little store front. “Houseplant Haven,” he asks. “Never heard of that as a business model before. Tell me about your work.”

  He stands inside the front door, dripping snow in the warm air inside. I keep the temperature pretty high for my babies in the back. The philodendrons up front seem to appreciate it. “Well,” I start, not making eye contact as I walk over to pull up my growhouse controls on my laptop. “I take care of people’s plants when they go out of town,” I tell him. “Or I offer them consultations when they need help coaxing something back to life. I also grow a few herbs and sell them.”

  He snorts. I ignore him as I set the timers for irrigation and temperature control, switching everything over to the app I commissioned from my brother’s computer friend so I can monitor everything from my cell phone in case I wind up stuck at my parents’ house. Asa sniffs at a pot of marjoram. “You’re telling me that’s profitable model? Even in this town I find that hard to believe.”

  “This town? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” I slam the laptop shut as he makes his way around the counter to snoop. “I didn’t invite you back behind the counter, Wexler.”

  He holds his hands up. ”Woah. My apologies. I’m just curious. You know I take an interest in people’s businesses. Your mom and brother can vouch for me.”

  I shake my head and start wrapping up again for the walk. “Just because my mom and brother think the sun shines out your ass, don’t assume I trust you.” I’m not even sure why I’m being so short with him. My stomach growls, and I decide I’m getting hangry.

  When I finally do look up at him, I’m surprised to see a crooked grin on his face. I study the parts of him I can see through all his layers. It’s a damn shame he’s in business with my family, because he’s just the sort of man I drive out of town to find every month or so. Tall, cocky, dark hair…I take the train to the city every time I get an urge, and pick up this sort of man, who won’t call me ever again and doesn’t pry into my personal life.

  “We better head back before it gets dark,” I tell him. “I’m supposed to make sure you get home safely.”

  He raises a brow at me, his blue eyes dancing with delight now. “Shouldn’t it be me seeing you home safely?”

  “Not in this town.”

  We crunch through the snow together in our snow shoes. I hear the rumble of the maintenance crew getting closer, but it’ll be ages before the streets and walks are cleared. I love the silence of a big snow like this, the sense that the world is small and contained. Everything is as it seems right now—which is to say cold and still.

  We pass my brother Hunter’s place on our way, and I tell Wexler to hang on a second while I check on Hunter’s girlfriend, Abigail. Of course, Asa follows me to their front door. I see the lights on inside but nobody comes to the door for a few beats after I knock.

  I bite my lip, wondering if I should be concerned, but then I see Abigail hustling to the door on the other side of the duplex. She pokes her head out the door. “Hey, Diana! I was just checking on the girls,” she says.

  “Girls?” Wexler looks thoroughly confused, peering behind Abigail to Hunter’s half of the duplex, which is filled with computers and weightlifting equipment. They spend most of their time living on Abigail’s side.

  “She means the chickens,” I tell him. I look back at Abigail, “Did you bring them inside again?” When she grimaces, I sigh. “You know they have down feathers, right? They’ll be ok, Abigail.”

  She waves off my words, saying, “I just want to
make sure. So anyway, thanks for stopping by, but I’m neck deep in my revisions. I’m going to hole up and write for the rest of the blizzard.”

  “You sure? Dad’s making stuffed cabbage, apparently.”

  Abigail shrugs and starts closing the door, already focused back on her work.

  Asa Wexler looks at me in wonder as I start back down the path to the road. “Doesn’t she work with your mother on investment strategy at the college? Isn’t she banging Hunter Crawford?”

  “Banging? Seriously?”

  He shakes his head, then wobbles in the snow. Righting himself, he says, “I thought we were speaking comfortably with one another, since you threw snow in my face and all.” His grin is pretty sexy. Definitely a grin I’d go for if he were a man I was seeking to scratch an itch. But I can’t be thinking nasty thoughts about my family’s business associates.

  “Abigail is my brother’s beloved. I think that’s the term he’s using these days. And she’s writing a novel. Between you and me, I think she will quit working for my mom once it gets published. I’ve read it. It’s good.”

  “You know, Wexler Holdings has some sway in the publishing industry,” he says. “I’m happy to put in a good word for her.”

  “I’m sure Abigail is just fine without your interference.” As soon as I say it, I realize that might be a notch too harsh. But damn it, I’m tired from all the shoveling and this guy has me unsettled. We get a few blocks from my parents’ house and I can see the progress my father made with the tractor. I stoop to remove my boots, catching a glimpse of Wexler’s backside as he bends in front of me to do the same. I can see the seams of Fletcher’s old snow gear straining a bit and try to stop focusing on this guy’s ass. My brother’s a pretty big guy, and I can tell Asa Wexler has an inch or so on him.

  “Enjoying the view?” He straightens and slings his snow shoes and mine over his shoulder, catching me in a blush as he walks on ahead. Damn him. I hurry to catch up as he makes his way up the driveway and into the golden light streaming through the kitchen door.