Right Brother by Patricia McLinn Page B

that woman—what was her name? Duran? Doring? The one who—”
    â€œYour Honor, that’s a separate matter from this,” Jennifer said quickly.
    He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “That’s your opinion is it?”
    â€œYes.”
    The older man continued looking at her from under his lids for a moment, then turned that look on Trent.
    What was going on? He hadn’t had much time to dodetailed research, but he was confident Linc had given him the pertinent information in their second phone call after lunch. He knew about the deal brokered by the judge with the creditors—an unorthodox effort to avoid bankruptcy because that would end Stenner Autos’ deals with the auto manufacturers and most of its value would go down the drain, gaining the creditors nothing.
    He didn’t recall anything about a woman named Duran or Doring. So, what was this about?
    â€œHere’s what we’re going to do,” Hector Dixon said, then abruptly straightened. “I’m confident the creditors will go along. Trent’s going to buy Stenner Autos, and you’ll get your commission—” Beside him, Trent thought he heard an exhalation of pent-up breath from Jennifer. “That’ll all be straightforward as long as you and Trent agree to two conditions.”
    â€œWhat?” Jennifer looked puzzled.
    â€œIt’s Stenner Autos, and Ashley’s a Stenner. So the first condition is you have an agreement drawn up, Trent, to assign a portion of the dealership to a trust for Ashley, to be administered by Jennifer.”
    â€œWhat portion?” Trent asked.
    â€œTen percent,” Judge Dixon said.
    â€œTwenty,” Jennifer countered immediately.
    â€œFifteen,” the judge said in an and that’s final voice.
    Trent bit back a dry smile. Interesting to have terms of his acquisition negotiated without any input himself. Linc would go nuts.
    The smile became harder to repress.
    But a fund for Ashley was a good idea. Having it come from the Stenners made it more right.
    â€œTwenty-five percent of the fund goes to a college account,” he said.
    Judge Dixon and Jennifer both turned to him, as if they’dforgotten he was there. In the judge’s face he saw approval, in Jennifer’s surprise.
    â€œDone,” the judge said.
    But Trent hadn’t forgotten how Dixon had introduced this topic. There was another shoe to drop. And no matter how much fun it was to ruffle Linc’s feathers, he wasn’t going to buy Stenner Autos at any cost.
    â€œWhat’s the second condition?”
    The judge met his gaze, and Trent let him see that he had limits. He definitely had limits.
    And then the old man went and pushed those limits.
    â€œYou agree to hire Jennifer here, for one year as a manager, and you, Jennifer, agree to take the job.”
    â€œWhat?” Trent demanded, the implications of hiring her as a manager playing out in his head.
    Linc had said large dealerships had a general manger, an operations manager, a sales manager, in addition to the head of the service department. Stenner Autos couldn’t support anywhere near that staff, but would still need those duties fulfilled.
    So they’d worked out a plan on the fly to hire the best general manager they could find, so Trent could dump the whole mess in his lap. It was already going to be tight to pull together the money fast to get a general manager with as broad a background as they needed.
    Could they add another salary and afford to stick with that scenario?
    Even with Jennifer picking up some managerial duties, the general manager would need to fill a lot of roles, which translated into being able to command a high salary.
    So the answer was no. If Trent had to pay Jennifer a salary for a year, he couldn’t afford the kind of general manager that would allow him to be an absentee owner.
    He’d have to stick around and act as his own general