He had loved coming to work with the old man. When he was too small to go onto the floor, his dad had given him the run of the administrative offices. He would ride round and round in the secretary’s chair that spun and rolled, and she would let him crank the mimeograph machine and swipe candy from the bowl on her desk. When he got older, he loved the way his dad would talk to him as if he were another adult, laying out facts and figures, asking for his opinion. At home, he wasn’t supposed to pester his dad, who would stretch out in his chair, tired from a hard day’s work, reading a magazine and drinking the Tom Collins Mom always served him. But at the mill it was a different story. Dad was alert, energetic, attentive. They were a team.

He had never wanted to kick loose, to move away or strike out on his own. In college, when his classmates were studying Marxist literature and marching against the war, he had lied about being a business major, because that was almost as uncool as being in the ROTC. But he never questioned that he was going back to Millers Kill, where an office next to his father’s waited for him.

He stood there now. It was small, tucked between the reception area and what used to be the payroll accountant’s office, until they outsourced payroll to a big firm that cut the checks and handled the taxes and Social Security for them. He had hoped Jeremy would one day work there, within earshot of his father, but-he shook that thought off. Entered the office that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s.

Most of the old pictures, from the first days of the company, were in the reception area now, impressing anyone who got off on the quaint idea that a business might run for over a century without changing hands. The pictures and plaques in his office were personal, and looking at them, he realized how much his life had been shaped by the presence of the mill and his role in its continuity.

There were his mom and dad, and him in bibbed shorts and curly hair, squinting into the sunlight at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the “new” dam and causeway, now forty-seven years old and aging fast. There were his high school and college graduation pictures. No honors. He had never pushed himself. Never had to. The picture of Jeremy in cap and gown, though, showed loops of gold braid and an Honor Society tassel. Even then, his son had been planning ahead for his getaway.

By his son’s graduation picture was a framed newspaper clipping with a picture of Shaun and Russ Van Alstyne at the 1968 trout tourney, showing off their winning fish, their arms around each other’s shoulders. Russ had left the year after that and not returned for a quarter century. Shaun had seen him a few times since he had become chief of police, at Rotary dinners and town meetings. They had nothing in common anymore. It wasn’t Russ personally. Shaun didn’t have much in common with many of the people he had called friends back in high school. They had aged into grocery clerks and dairy farmers, or they had left town and not come back. There weren’t many success stories in Millers Kill, not for the class of ’69.

He flopped onto the sofa Courtney had picked out for him. Soft leather as comfortable as an old glove. He had kicked and screamed, but once the old couch-picked out by his mother, circa 1964-had been carted away and the new one installed, he wondered why he had put up with the hard seat and scratchy upholstery for so long. Maybe selling the company would be the same. After it was swallowed up by the GWP empire, he’d wonder why he had ever fussed.

Sure. Just like the victims of the Borg never fussed on Star Trek. Prepare to be assimilated.

A knock on the door. He rolled off the couch as the door opened and Jeremy stuck his head in. “Hey. Am I interrupting?”

“What are you doing here?” Shaun’s tone was harsher than he intended.

Jeremy entered the office. “I’m looking for you. You weren’t home, and the Trophy Wife is at church, so where else could you be but at the Holy of Holies, the office.”

Shaun was willing to let the crack about Courtney pass. Once. “If you ever want to rise above the level of gofer, you might try a little work ethic, too. It was putting in lots of hours in this office that paid for your college and B-school.”

“And my year in London and my car. Don’t forget those, Dad.” Jeremy smiled insincerely.

Shaun jammed his hands into his pants pockets to avoid clenching his fists. It was always like this with them. Gretchen, Jeremy’s mother, liked to say they were too much alike. Shaun didn’t see it. At twenty-five, he had been a husband and father, putting in fifty or sixty hours a week at Reid-Gruyn. Jeremy was a glorified concierge who spent every minute out of the office partying. The only thing they had in common was their looks: both tall and rawboned, Shaun’s faded sandy hair the remains of Jeremy’s aggressive auburn.

“I repeat, what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see if you needed me to smooth your path tonight. I can wrangle you seats at the GWP table, if you want.”

“No, thanks.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Dad, it’s in your best interest to talk with these guys. If they make a bid for the company, your future is going to depend on them. I keep telling you, you can’t make it today just by keeping your nose to the grindstone. You have to be out there, networking. Schmoozing. Personal relationships are important.”

“I know that! Why do you think I’ve been going to those damn Rotary and Chamber of Commerce meetings all these years.”

“Oooo, the Rotary Club.” Jeremy dropped his voice from a falsetto to his normal range. “Dad, if they like your stuff, you have a chance to be a mover and shaker within the GWP structure. You know the Trophy Wife would love that.”

Shaun glared at his son. “Don’t call your stepmother that.”

“She’s five years older than I am, Dad. I’m not going to call her Mom.” Jeremy threw himself onto the couch in exactly the same position Shaun had flung himself into earlier.

“We’ve had this talk before. Call her Courtney.”

“Is she going to wear that slinky black dress tonight? The one that shows off her…” Jeremy made the universal male gesture for breasts.

“Goddammit! Show my wife some respect.”

“Sorry, sorry. I got carried away. Really, I came to offer help. Let me get you up at the head table. Courtney, too.”

Shaun sat heavily in his chair. “Listen to you. Making table arrangements. I can’t believe you got an MBA for this.”

“I’m getting the ground-floor view of a growing business. This year, I’m in charge of visitor satisfaction. Two years from now, I’ll be the assistant manager. Two years from that, I plan on being the manager, and from there, who knows? BWI/Opperman has resorts all over the country.”

“The hospitality industry.” Shaun spat the words out. It always sounded like a fancy term for prostitution to him.

Jeremy ignored his sour tone. “The future of the Adirondacks, and of the country, isn’t in manufacturing, Dad. It’s in experiences. Tourism, hospitality, entertainment, games-that’s where the money is.” He waved a languid hand at the office around them. “Unionized labor, taxes, high transportation costs-Reid-Gruyn’s cost per ream of paper produced is almost twice that of GWP’s.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

Jeremy lifted his head. “I pay attention, Dad. I’m a shareholder, remember? I stand to make a lot of money if GWP tenders a good offer.”

Shaun felt as if a live wire had just made contact with his spine. “You can’t be serious. You wouldn’t vote for selling the company.”

“GWP could be the best thing to happen to Reid-Gruyn. They can afford to update the specialty milling presses, they can funnel cheap pulp our way… hell, they can even bring in workers if the union threatens to get out of hand.”

Shaun circled his desk. “This mill has been in our family since 1872! I can’t-that you would even think of throwing it away to those… those… Malaysians!”