“That’s usually at a cupping, not in a restaurant.”

She shrugged. “I don’t care.”

He slurped his own coffee, and she smiled.

“Excellent.”

“Crystal clear brightness,” she said.

He lifted a brow. “Nice balance of acidity and sweetness.”

“Clean, smooth finish,” she added, lifting her chin. Dammit, he did not know more about coffee than she did.

“Crisp fruity cocoa, hazelnut, and citrus notes,” he challenged.

Dammit again. He was right. She scowled, lifted the cup to her mouth, and inhaled the rich, dark scent of it. God, she loved coffee.

“Anyway,” she said, “it seems Dad had some different ideas about the Palizada.”

“Well, I do know he was really excited about the quality of the beans they were growing there near Santa Anjelita. All the beans from that area are superior. Very fine varietals.” Then he frowned. “But I’d be concerned we were getting into a situation where we’d be paying too much for the beans—more than they’re worth.”

Samara studied Travis. “Direct trade relationships usually mean the roaster guarantees to pay more than the going fair trade price for coffees, as long as they meet the agreed-upon standard.”

He regarded her with a strange expression. “Yeah. That’s true.” Then he looked down at the table. “Sometimes Parker got ideas in his head and just took off with them.”

“He had great ideas. I know he anticipated reluctance on the part of some of the farmers to change things,” Samara continued. “I read that in the file. There was mention of plans to build a cupping lab and teach them to judge their own coffees, so they’d be able to judge the quality themselves. If their coffee scored even higher than the standard they could earn even more. It was an incentive for them to improve quality. It takes a lot more work to grow superior quality coffee beans than just average ones, and yet they often only get paid a few cents a pound more.”

Once again, Travis stared at her for a long moment. Heat slid through her body at the intensity of his gaze. “He must have been really impressed with the quality of the beans there to propose something like that.”

She couldn’t help her smile. “Exaaaactly.”

“Look, I don’t mean to doubt Parker.” Travis sighed. “We knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and that’s why we worked so well together. But sometimes he needed a reality check.”

“So that’s why you’re saying this project is dead.”

“We don’t have the money to spend on building cupping labs in Central America.”

“Unless it’s a good investment.”

“We don’t know that. We don’t have enough information. I don’t see how we can move forward with it.”

“Well, there may be only one way to find out.”

He lifted a brow. At that moment, the waitress arrived with their lunches, setting Travis’s steaming plate in front of him and a plate loaded with greens in front of Samara.

When she’d left, Travis spoke. “Okay, how?”

“By going to Matagalpa.”

He choked on his first bite of steak.

“Need a Heimlich?” she inquired, stabbing a piece of spinach with her fork.

“No.” He coughed and set down his knife and fork. “You can’t possibly be thinking of going to Matagalpa.”

“Why not?”

He shook his head, opened his mouth, then closed it again. She eyed Travis’s steak sandwich. Medium rare, just how she liked it, glistening and juicy. The char-broiled smell of it wafted across the table to tease her nostrils. And French fries. Golden, crispy French fries. She looked down at her plate of raw spinach.

“Apparently Dad was going to talk to the farmers about the new pricing structure at the fiesta he attended.”

“Yes. He’d just left the fiesta when he got in the accident.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment as another wave of sadness swept over her. “So if he’d already presented his plan to the farmers, they can tell us what it was.”

Travis grinned. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. You would take their word for it?”

She frowned. “Why not? They’re not exactly sophisticated, conniving businessmen. They’re nice people. This Javier will tell us. If I can ever get hold of him.”

He lifted one eyebrow. “You’ve tried?”

She looked down at her meal. “I called a few times. But there was no answer at the number I have.”

“I have a bad feeling about why you can’t reach him.”

“If I went there, I could find him and talk to him.”

“That’s insane. You’re not going to Matagalpa.”

She carefully set down her fork and swallowed down the anger rising inside her. “Do I have to say it again? You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

He chewed on his lunch then reached for his water goblet, but said nothing. Because he knew she was right. With a lingering gaze at Travis’s plate, she stabbed at a leaf. She lifted her eyes to Travis and caught him smiling.

“Want some fries?”

She chewed her spinach. “No thanks.”

“How’s the salad?”

“Delicious. Nice dressing. Honey Dijon vinaigrette.”

Travis nodded, looking like he was trying not to laugh. “You’ve developed a taste for veggies over the years? I remember your mother begging you to eat something green.”

She pressed her lips together. “I was a teenager. Burgers and fries and Cokes were all I wanted. Now I know how to eat healthy.”

“Ah.” He nodded and cut into the tender juicy meat.

Samara dragged her eyes off his plate and focused on her salad. It really was delicious.

“So,” she said, “I think he went to Matagalpa to sell the farmers on the new idea. If he made promises to the farmers there, we may already be committed to doing something.”

Travis’s brows snapped together above his nose. He shook his head. “Leave it, Samara.”

“We can’t just leave it! What if those farmers are expecting something from us now?”

Travis’s face colored, and his jaw tightened. As he was gritting his teeth. He stabbed his fork into the sandwich and sawed at it with his knife. “Fine,” he ground out. “You keep trying to call Javier. See if you have any luck getting through to him. I doubt he’s sitting there waiting for us to come flying down there and build a cupping lab.”

She shrugged, chewing on more spinach. It was like eating the leaves of an elm tree, for Godfrey’s sake. “Okay.”

She couldn’t wait to get back to the office and start trying to get through to Javier. She knew phone service in Matagalpa wasn’t the most reliable, but she should be able to reach him. Maybe she’d be able to do something Travis hadn’t.

Travis’s head pounded in a thick, heavy rhythm later that afternoon. He put a hand to his temples and leaned his elbows on the desk in the office he was using, the space he often used when he came up from Los Angeles.

As much as he wanted to do it, running the company without Parker wasn’t going to be easy. There were problems—the company had been growing so fast, and for so long, the downturn in the economy had come as a rude shock. Parker had wanted to continue the expansion, whereas Travis wanted to scale back and take a look at how they were organized. Parker had thought that, because they were a high-end coffee importer and roaster, they were immune to economic downturns. People who could afford high-end coffee drinks weren’t as impacted as lower income earners. But the expansion had increased their customer base and brought in many customers who were lower income earners. With the slump in the economy, those people were, in fact, eliminating pricy coffee drinks from their budgets. Parker had made a few bad decisions lately.

Tough competition from newer companies was eating into their market share. Even fast food places were serving cappuccinos now, for Chrissake.

He lifted his head and slid his hand to the back of his neck, massaging the tight muscles.

Now Parker was gone, there was no one to argue with, and dammit, Travis missed that already. He liked the give and take, the way they built off each other’s ideas. Sure, now Travis could just revise their expansion plans however he wanted, but it didn’t feel right. It felt like he needed to fight for what he wanted, or else it might be...wrong. If he didn’t have to make the arguments to convince Parker using rationale and a good business case, how would he know he was doing the right thing?