Part 7 (1/2)
Which left the problems with the build site. Thankfully, nothing as bad as she had feared. Nothing as minor as she'd hoped.
A sinkhole had opened up, and until it had been completely stabilized, they couldn't exactly put down foundation, could they?
They were already well under way working on that, but it wouldn't be finished for days. Possibly as much as a week. There was a little s.p.a.ce for error. Probably enough s.p.a.ce, and if there wasn't enough s.p.a.ce, then plans just got changed.
Morgan tried to remind herself that they'd set aggressive goals for themselves. There was no reason that every goal had to be hit, as if they were some kind of supermen.
If you fall short of an 'aggressive' timeline by a few days, you're still months ahead of the compet.i.tion. But there's a good deal of embarra.s.sment involved with not being able to say that you were completely on track the entire time.
And as the new head of a national company, with no public experience running a company-regardless of what happened behind closed doors after her father got sick-her reputation needs to be stainless.
Which is why, even though it's hardly a big deal, she's not going to leave this detail out of the weekly call back to the board in Nevada.
Maybe she should. Maybe she'd just be spooking them. But it's a decision that needs to be made, and she's just made it.
Her heart thumps loudly in her chest. No problem. No problem. She can do this. She picks up the phone and dials in to the conference call.
A minute later she's in.
”Who do we have?”
A round of voices respond. She ticks them off in her head. Peter's here, James is here, Ron is here, Shane is here, Andrea's here. Which leaves Will, Lana, and Craig.
n.o.body talks. It's not a friendly chat. No doubt every one of them is looking to get this over with, but it's something that needs to be done. n.o.body likes to have these talks; it takes time out of the day, and involves a serious risk that they're going to hear something that they very much don't like.
But on the other hand, it's better to know what's happening at Lowe Industrial than to not know, and it's better for Morgan to make sure that they're not freaking out at the first media reports that reach their ears, because they already know what's happening.
Because she's already made her bi-monthly report on how things are really going around the build site, around the factory, and on the financial side of things.
Lana arrives next. She's perhaps the bubbliest of the lot of them; the only knock-on effect it has is that she sounds a little more energetic when she says h.e.l.lo.
Will and Craig arrive minutes later.
”That's everyone here, then?”
Everyone goes through again. It's all of them. Morgan takes a deep breath and holds it in. Her heart beat speeds up a little with the extra oxygen, and when she breathes out, it slows down again.
”First order of business,” she begins. ”The Wyoming factories.”
She looks down at the notes in front of her. She knows what they say, and the words make good sense in her head, but it feels like her eyes aren't reading them correctly somehow. She does her best to ignore the nerves that keep threatening to crop up.
”I can confidently say, we haven't hit any major snags. We've got a small delay, in the form of some unstable ground on the Western campus, but we've already identified the problem. A fix shouldn't add more than two days to the total build time, and our men are confident that they won't find any further issues.”
Her fingers tap on the table, waiting for someone to break the silence. She should be getting some sort of reaction... right?
”Good news, then?”
”I mean, you always hope for the best, but you prepare for the worst. In this case, I think we're closer to the best-case than the worst-case.”
The ton of the conversation seems to be in general agreement.
”Second. I've taken on a little bit of a side project, but one that I think will pay out significant dividends when it pays off.”
She takes a breath in and hopes that n.o.body asks specifically how it's going.
”You'll all be aware of what I'm referring to when I say that I'm looking at purchasing the Callahan ranch. I'm not quite to the stage of negotiating on price yet, but I'm confident-”
”Your father was adamant that the man wouldn't sell. What makes you think that this time is any different?”
It takes a real effort for Morgan to swallow the response that pops into her head first.
The biggest difference is that he was a sh.e.l.l of the man who she knew growing up. He'd been knocking on heaven's door for months up to that point. It was amazing that he managed to get out of bed every morning, and Morgan was thankful for every second that she had with him.
But he was in no position to try to do any negotiating. It was an absolute and utter wonder that he'd bought what property he had. But he wasn't at his best, and he wasn't prepared to deal with a difficult case like Phil Callahan's.
She's not willing to say that, though. Not in the least bit. Because that would mean throwing her father and his memory right under the bus. And not only didn't she want to do that, but it wouldn't even serve any purpose.
”Well, to start, as I said I've been treating this as a long-term project. As a matter of course, Mr. Callahan doesn't intend to sell. But that's only a starting position, of course.
”There's no reason to a.s.sume that under the circ.u.mstances, he might not change his mind, or that I might find some situation in which he might be more willing to part with the land.
”If I can find that circ.u.mstance, then I can try to triage the situation and put us both into positions where we're happy with the outcome. In our case, buying that specific plot of land, which enables easy and convenient housing for Lowe employees, as well as more direct transportation between the Eastern and Western factories.”
She lets her shoulders slump a little forward. No problem. No reason to be stressed. It's fine. It's easy. She answered the question sufficiently. No doubt about it.
The voices on the other end of the line don't respond right away.
”Any thoughts or objections?”
”None on my end,” comes the first response. n.o.body counters it with objections of their own. Perfect.
”Now, if that's all for the new business, I'd like to bring your attention to our other locations, which you'll be more familiar with. I'm confident that there aren't going to be any surprises for any of you here, but let's go through some of these reports together...”
She turns the page on her notes.
The good news was that she couldn't have done any better than that. The bad news was, now she'd promised the Callahan ranch, and she had no way to be sure she could deliver on that.
Chapter Seventeen.
Glen always has a big smile on his face. It's not the least bit genuine, but then again, n.o.body who knows the man expects it to be. He's never been genuine in his entire life.
Everything he's ever done has been a con masked behind a friendly smile and a pretty face. It's not that he's hard to read. He's easy to read, as long as you believe his act that he likes everything and is always happy with the results you're showing.