Dallas, Texas
23 February 1972
Leaning close to accept his light, the pretty blonde then created some distance between them as they got down to business.
"I don't know how many more ways you need to hear it but he's not negligent. He'll show interest when my girls approach him at events but he won't pursue them himself."
Sitting up in bed, playing with his lighter as he watched her dress, Jock frowned at her comments. Relaxed a few moments ago, now he was tense.
"I'm not paying to hear you describe what I already know. What I want is to hear what you plan to do about this."
"I'm working on it. As a default, we don't push. Men don't like when women push."
She was right, women who pushed weren't appealing, especially women in her line of work. A man of his status could easily find a confident, pushy woman of her kind suspicious and off-putting. That said, he was offering generous remuneration to get the job done and part of that was for overcoming obstacles.
"Do you think then that perhaps you and your girls should be making more of an effort to keep him interested when you do have him?"
He knew JR, he wasn't one to say no to a beautiful woman, or at least he hadn't previously been. It sounded like he still wasn't, but those he associated with weren't taking full advantage of what they had when they had it. If JR was prepared to look, touch and accept a certain level of attention then he was prepared to complete the task, with the right woman.
"Like I said, we're working on it."
"You should be working harder. If you want to call yourself a leader, you need to lead. Get in there yourself and get the job done. Put the pressure on. Whatever it takes."
He didn't care who she was, that wasn't important beyond gestation. The agreement was that once she did what she needed to she'd be wealthy enough to leave the state and start anew elsewhere, never to return, and he got a grandson, one who was to be a Ewing by blood, adopted at birth into the family. It was an agreement as old as time, with a few variables, but still, it wasn't complicated, it was a simple transaction.
"Do I tell you how to run an oil company? No. Don't tell me how to do my job."
Glaring at him, the blonde pushed back on the pressure he was applying which was misplaced in his opinion. If anything, she ought to be directing her frustration at those working underneath her.
"I am paying you for a job and you're only delivering excuses."
"That's not true."
Throwing the covers back, he dropped his lighter on the nightstand and approached her.
"It is, but we can agree to disagree. All I want is the result I'm paying for."
"As far as I'm concerned we're already going above and beyond what's reasonable. This isn't usual and took some convincing."
"Not enough apparently."
"You know what, I quit. If you think it's easy then find someone else to get the job done."
Exasperated by her stubbornness, he reacted swiftly, his hand on her cheek without hesitation, although there was some regret inside him when she glared, raised her voice, saying, "don't contact me again!" and then turned and left.
He didn't know where they stood, whether she was serious or not, and if she was, what he was supposed to do now.
28 February 1972
Sliding a letter opener across the top of the envelope marked private and confidential, JR frowned as he read the note contained inside.
He shouldn't have been surprised, it was something he'd done himself in other circumstances, but to have his life manipulated to this degree by his own father was unforgivable.
Fuming, he didn't want to believe it, but he did. His daddy had meddled without boundaries up until this point and he while it would have been nice to think that separating their personal and business lives would slow or stop the interference, it seemed it had only put it at a distance.
"Susan, come in here a minute will you."
Pressing the button for the intercom, he called his secretary into his office, cutting straight to the point when she appeared a few moments later.
"Who delivered this?"
"A woman. Blonde, tall, nicely dressed."
"Did she give a name?"
"No."
"Call down and have security stop her from leaving the building."
He believed what the note said, what he wanted to know was who exactly was the one warning him and why she coming to him with the information now. A confrontation with his daddy was going to happen regardless of whether he had a full set of facts or not but that was no reason not to do his own investigation first.
"She might be gone."
"Try."
Rereading the note, he screwed it up and tossed it across the room in frustration when Susan reappeared in his doorway with the news that the woman who'd delivered the envelope had left before the call had come through.
29 February 1972
Unable to sleep, Jock lay in bed, wishing again that things hadn't occurred as they had. If Sue Ellen had just delivered the grandson he needed, if JR had just listened to him, and if Julie hadn't been so obstinate all of their lives would be different. They'd had more than one chance to add John Ross Ewing III to the family but still, past Julie's due date and months into his plans for JR, there was no sign of what he wanted.
Complicating things further was the fact that JR now knew of his plans too. The blonde or someone close to her had told and neither he nor JR were happy about it.
"Do you hear yourself? Making all sorts of unfounded accusations."
"But they're not unfounded, are they? This is exactly what you would do."
"Would do doesn't equal done. Besides, you said it yourself; you haven't participated in a thing that would fulfil my wishes, so I don't see how this is of any concern to you."
"It's a concern but I see we're getting nowhere so we'll shelve it for now."
"Saying that, it's not a bad idea. Have you reconsidered your position?"
"No, and we're not getting into this."
"Aren't you afraid you'll never inherit Ewing Oil?"
"I don't need Ewing Oil, I have JRE, but when the time comes I'll have Ewing Oil regardless of your wishes."
"How do you figure that?"
"Well, there's no other option for the company when it comes to that. Neither Bobby nor Gary are fit to run Ewing Oil the way you would and you know it, so it'll either leave the family via sale or bankruptcy, or I'll step in and save it. Your John Ross Ewing III doesn't exist and even if he did it'd be a long time before he's of an age where running Ewing Oil is even possible, plus, someone will need to teach him and if it's not you it'll have to be me, in which case it might as well be me."
JR was confident and unfortunately, that confidence wasn't baseless. He was a good businessman and he had a good grasp on the position he held within the family as far as his business capabilities went. JR was almost exactly who he'd raised him to be, although he had one huge flaw, he didn't see John Ross Ewing III as important to the family.
