Wolf Women (The Madison Wolves Book 10) (16 page)

"The roof of the school," Michaela answered immediately. "And of course, there will be classes for the kids. If we fill the available space on the school, we can use space at the airfield."

"Of course," Hadley said.

"In fact, that's how we could begin the trial and keep our costs down. We can get the pack to teach the kids a hands-on class in solar energy." She turned to me. "What would it cost to build a panel?"

"I'm not sure. In round numbers? Under a hundred dollars. But then there's the wiring, installation, a grid tie inverter, and monitoring equipment."

The three of them looked at me. "Have we answered your question as to whether we think you should do this?"

"Yes," I said. "But now I'm really confused."

"Well, I am going to make a proposal," Michaela said. "You are going to be busy between now and when your house is built. You are teaching photography classes, designing a house, planning a wedding, building the house, getting married, perhaps going on a honeymoon, being a new foster mother, and still settling into the pack. And so my suggestion is that we assemble a plan for what you would like to do. If you wish to take advantage of the various offers made today, then we could target fall term of next year to begin your trial run."

I stared at her. "I could have panels installed next fall?"

"Yes, for a small trial."

"I want to do it," I said. "But I don't know if the offers are fair."

"It would depend on the details," Michaela said. "Five percent of what? Ten percent of what? When you start accepting investors, how will those original numbers degrade. You see?"

"No, but I'll take your word for it."

"Zoe," said Michele, "let's you and I do lunch sometime in a week or two. I can explain all this, and you'll be free to tell me you think Hadley is asking for too much."

"I wouldn't say that," I said. "I don't know whether Hadley's offer is fair or not. I don't really understand it all."

"Well, we'll talk about that," she replied.

"Oh, pshaw," Hadley said. "It's all about stock. Let us say that your company issues ten million shares of stock. I want five percent, or fifty thousand shares. The pack gets ten percent, or a hundred thousand shares. We would agree that, as the founder, you would get some amount strictly for having the idea, and with the understanding you would be doing a great amount of work for no money. Let's call it another hundred thousand shares."

"Wait. I only get ten percent of my own company?"

"Well, so far, you we've only given away 250-thousand shares, and you have 100-thousand of them. So you actually own forty percent."

"But I'm going to do a lot more work than you are."

"Not necessarily," Hadley said. "But we are only trying to explain the principles. So let's use these numbers."

"All right."

"After that, you will accept investors. The pack will invest. The three of us will. You'll put money in. I bet Lara, Elisabeth, and half the members of the council invest. You sell the remaining shares at one dollar per share, raising 750-thousand dollars."

I stared at her.

"Now, you started with nothing but an idea, but you own ten percent of a company that suddenly is worth at least 750-thousand. Or maybe a little more than ten percent, as we agreed you would be buying stock, too."

"I understand. I hadn't thought it would be that big."

"It doesn't pay to think small," she said. "So those are one set of numbers. Let's say that you don't want to start that big. Let us say you don't wish other investors, and you're only going to build as fast as you can finance this yourself. We start with the same numbers, and you find 10-thousand to invest. I am going to do a great deal of legal work for only five hundred dollars worth of equity."

"Oh. That's not fair to you."

"No. Let's use another set of figures. Let us say we aren't going to write a million shares, but ten million. I get a half million; you get a million; the pack gets a million. You own forty percent so far, I own twenty percent, and the pack owns forty percent. Now you start selling, but you only sell 750-thousand, because that's all you can sell. I'm not sure about the math, but the investors are kind of screwed, because they put in a lot of money but didn't get a very good equity position."

"And you are over-compensated for your work," I point out.

"Exactly," she said. "Here's what I expect. I expect we'll pick some target investment goal. Let's use that million shares I stated earlier. We do that over a period of several years. You build a modest solar farm with that, and then you reinvest all the profits, growing the business. We prove it's a good investment, but at some point we want to grow faster than we can with reinvestment. So you then write more stock and continue to sell it. Now, instead of a five percent investment, I might drop down to three percent, unless I buy some of that stock. But you know what?"

"What?"

"That's fair, because most of my work happened at the beginning."

"What about me?" I said. "If I'm still working for it, shouldn't I get more stock?"

She smiled. "Good. Yes. I would envision we would also have stock options as part of your compensation, and I would also insist you get paid, at least once the company grew to a certain size. You could choose to take some of your compensation as stock, but you would have to pay taxes on it."

"I think my head hurts. What if we just want to stay small? No investors except me."

"Well then, we'd come up with different numbers, but if you're talking that small, the amount of legal work is minor. We wouldn't need to negotiate with a power company. You could sell the power to the school for whatever they currently pay for electricity."

"But Zoe," said Michaela. "Don't you want to do more than that? Isn't that what GreEN is all about?"

"I could sell shares through GreEN!"

"No, you couldn't, unless we produce a public company," Hadley said. "That's another big ball of wax."

"I will not allow investment from outside the pack," Michaela said. "I'm sorry, Zoe, but that just creates a mess. What if your investors want to visit our facilities? We can't have people traipsing through."

"Oh."

"If you ever want to go down that route, you can form a separate company and find land somewhere else for your solar panels," Michaela said. "Frankly, I think we can get more than enough investment for you for a long time."

"If you even want outside investors," Hadley said.

"Would people really invest under those terms?" I asked. "As you said, it's a poor investment, financially speaking. The reason to do it is so that you can help."

"We all said we'd invest," Michaela said. "Not heavily, not at first. I don't want to give you a lot of money until you solve the problems that having less money create for you."

We snickered at that.

"Have we given you enough to think about?" Michaela asked.

"Yes."

"Well, you and I should still do lunch in a couple of weeks," Michele said. "Away from these two vultures."

"Oh yeah, like you're not a vulture yourself," Hadley said. She laughed at her joke. "But it's good advice, Zoe."

We had a plan.

More than one.

* * * *

In the car, I asked Michaela, "How much of that did you orchestrate ahead of time?"

She laughed. "You caught me."

"How much?"

"Well, I hadn't anticipated your conversation today. I thought you might come to me alone first, but we would have needed Hadley, anyway. I shouldn't have offered the school without Francesca's approval. So consider that a tentative offer."

"You knew about it?"

"Elisabeth told Lara and me last summer. Why did you wait so long?"

"So much has been going on. So you had already planned the other conversations?"

"Well not all of them," she said. "I didn't know Ava had a boyfriend."

"You know what I mean."

She grinned. "Yes, I orchestrated that."

"You're not done meddling either, are you?"

"Of course not."

We rode along quietly for a few minutes before I turned to her and wrapped my arms around her, kissing her cheek. "Thank you."

* * * *

That night, after we tucked Ember into bed, sharing our usual cuddle with her, I led Portia to the bedroom, tugging on her by the end. With the door closed, I moved into her arms, asked for and received a very warm, lovely kiss, and then fended off her hands.

"What is this?" she asked. "You turn me away?"

"I have a confession, Portia," I said, lowering my eyes.

"It can't be that bad," she said. "You may tell me about it later." She reached for me, but I stepped away. She began stalking me.

"Please, Portia. You may do anything you want to me if you aren't angry after I tell you."

"Oh ho," she said. "A bribe, is it? I accept your offer." She pointed to the bed. "Sit."

We sat on the bed facing each other. "I have done a few things."

"I am not surprised. You do a great deal."

"I didn't consult you first."

"Are these irreversible decisions?"

"No."

"Then tell them, and we shall discuss calmly."

"I may have invited too many people to movie night."

She laughed. "The three women from today?"

"Plus mates," I clarified.

"Finally."

"Finally?"

She nodded. "I wish to invite Karen as well."

"Where will we put everyone?"

"You may have to sit on my lap." She struck a dramatic pose, the back of her wrist to her forehead. "Oh, the horror: a lap full of warm, squirming human. However shall I bear it?"

"Stop it," I said. "We went from five or six of us to at least twice that. You said you didn't want the home turning into the alphas' house."

"I don't want people coming and going at every hour. That's not what's happening."

I still wasn't sure, but I said, "Okay."

"Now, what else did you do?"

"I may have accepted an invitation on your behalf."

"Oh?"

"Hadley is inviting us to cards once a month."

"Cards?"

"She wasn't specific what game, but it's not for gambling. Michaela was particularly pleased to make it the same night as that poker game. She muttered they never let her come." I gave her a little more information.

"That sounds like fun. Anything else?"

"I'm not sure, but I think I formed a new company today."

Portia began laughing.

* * * *

About the same time, we began to plan the wedding. Portia and I agreed we wanted something small and relatively informal. We couldn't invite any humans who didn't know about werewolves, and so that kept my side of the aisle basically empty. While I would have liked to have my brother and his family at the wedding, it wasn't to be.

We made a guest list. While we wanted small, we didn't want to be exclusionary. So the guest list was pretty simple: the people living at the compound and a small number of others.

Portia wanted Karen at her side. I wasn't sure whom I wanted, although my list of choices was small. We also wanted Ember involved in some fashion, but not as my maid of honor. Portia wanted the alpha -- and by that, she meant Lara -- to officiate. Oddly, I wanted Prudence, Monique's aunt. We talked to Karen about it, and then we talked to Lara, who solved this easily.

"If Prudence agrees, then she and I will co-officiate."

Problem solved.

I spent much of January deciding what to do about a maid of honor. There were a few clear choices. As I couldn't include any of my old friends or family, that meant someone from the pack. I had grown close to Ember, of course, Monique, and Elisabeth. I never even mentioned Elisabeth's name to Portia. I wasn't having my ex-girlfriend as the maid of honor at my wedding. And, frankly, I didn't want a child, or someone I thought of as a child.

Finally Portia asked me about it.

"I don't know whom to ask," I told her.

"I would think it was fairly obvious," she replied.

"I want Ember there, but she is important to both of us, and I don't want to give the impression she's only my daughter."

"I wasn't thinking of Ember."

"And all the kids are too young."

"I wasn't thinking of any of the kids. Who else are you close to? Who has gone out of the way to include you as a friend?"

"There's Michaela, but she's the alpha, and she's already so busy with far too many other irons in the fire. I can't ask her to do this, too."

"Why not? She's expecting you to."

"No she's not."

"Zoe, I know you haven't been friends with her for that long, but who do you go to when you need advice, and you can't ask me?"

I sighed. "Michaela."