BUTTERMILK ROAD

A neatly interlocked directorate of romance and business features an ambitious here driven in both his quests. Adam Salter takes up the gauntlet when his uncle, Dr. Garth of the great house and beautiful daughter, asks him to buy up stock in The Taurus Company, a milling operation that keeps the Southern town of Mercer on the map. Adam finds himself quickly in a stock battle royal, the outcome of which will spell new life or slow death to the company. In love, he is confronted with his cousin Josephine's attachment to Cato Herold, a married man with a wife happy to make as much mischief as she can. Adam marries Josephine, not for her money, which he can use, or even to stay the voices of townspeople who have eagerly absorbed the advertisement of her adultery, but because she is the one women he can love. Still blocked from success or happiness, he ultimately discovers his true enemy in Dr. Garth, who wishes to gain power over Taurus knowing its undisclosed resources -- and who wishes to retain power over Josephine even after marriage. Adam's fight for control of the company is climaxed by Dr. Garth's well staged suicide -- and Adam is left with the presidency in sight through Josephine's option...and a marriage under the receding shadows of Garth and the lover she has not yet forgotten. A romance with a satisfying edge to it.