by May Williams
“I’m Paul Brickner from Northfield Real Estate Investments.” The man shook hands and listened to the introductions before taking his seat. “I don’t plan to take up more of your time than is necessary tonight. I just want to make my employer’s offer clear.”
“What’s the name of your employer?” Lexy questioned him.
“Northfield Investments.”
“No, who owns it?” Colette clarified her sister’s question.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Why not?” Colette demanded. “The last letter said the owner is putting up the money personally. I guess that was meant to convince us to sell. Why would someone want to lay out that kind of money personally if he doesn’t want us to know who it is?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Ah,” Colette commented. “Is that your favorite expression?”
Mr. Brickner huffed out an impatient sigh. “I have been instructed by my employer to increase the offer to twelve million dollars. I assume that’s an acceptable offer as it far exceeds the property’s value.”
“No,” the sisters said together.
Mr. Brickner eyed each of them individually. “Very well. My employer has authorized me to use whatever means are necessary to secure the property.” He pulled several folders out of his briefcase. “I’ve carefully checked the deed, property taxes, and any documents pertaining to the property.”
“And found nothing,” Colette said. Pleased with herself that she’d checked all of this already.
“Correct. You are very careful people. But there is always something, so I’m still looking.”
“Mr. Brickner, it’s no use. You won’t find any dirt on us or the property and we are not selling. Please understand our refusal. Go back to Chicago and report it to your employer. We are just wasting each other’s time here.”
“Miss…”
“Doctor Peterson,” Colette corrected. She rarely pulled out her title, but today was a good use of it.
“My apologies, Doctor Peterson, I fail to understand why young people wish to hang on to a piece of property when you could profit so much by its sale.”
“What profit could I buy with that money that I don’t already have here? That property you would have us so callously discard has been in our family for generations. We have no desire to sell it, regardless of the price.”
He turned to Lexy. “You have children to provide for. Surely you must see the value in such a profitable transaction.”
“No. My husband and I are content with our finances. Cookie, Mr. Brickner?”
Colette rolled her eyes, shooting her sister a look to back off with the cookies. This wasn’t a social event. “If we’re done here, my sister and I have other things to discuss.” Colette stood, forcing Mr. Brickner to rise. She led the way to the door, all but pushed him through and locked it behind him. “You can come out of the kitchen now, Mom, he’s gone.”
Jade emerged from the other room, coming through the swinging doors and around a display case. “Do you think he’ll come back?”
Colette lifted the curtain on the front door and the three of them put their heads together to peep through. “Not tonight.” Colette dropped the curtain and stretched her neck, trying to relieve the tension in her shoulders. “Did you find out anything about the owner of Northfield, Mom?”
“No, I dug around on all sorts of sites today, but nothing. No name associated with the business, although I saw that one man is the primary owner. I asked Adrien to dig. He’s better at it than I am.”
“It probably doesn’t mean anything. I just wondered why the owner was so personally interested in our property. I thought maybe there was a connection of some sort. Someone we angered once?” Colette flipped open her agenda to find the long to-do list for the fundraiser. “I need cake, Lexy, before we tackle this list.”
“I’ve got a raspberry chocolate torte in the cooler. I’ll just be a minute.” Lexy disappeared into the back.
Jade came and sat at the table with Colette. “Maybe you should stay with your father and me for a few nights until Brickner goes back to Chicago. I don’t like the look of him.”
“Mom, I’m fine. The dogs will let me know if anyone comes around.”
“Is Ian spending, um…?”
“Ian is out of town until Saturday,” Colette cut her mother’s stuttering off, firmly. “I love having Ian with me, but I’ve lived on the farm for a long time without a man. I don’t need protection.”
Lexy brought three large slices of cake garnished with whipped topping to the table. “You should stay with Nate and me until…”
“No. I’m not leaving the farm. I’ll be fine,” Colette repeated and ran her finger down the list in her book. “We’ve got plans to finalize. Let’s focus on those.” She took a bite of cake. With chocolate and sugar racing through her system, they worked through the final details of who was responsible for getting the donated items from area merchants, picking up the wines from the local wineries, and making the last minute contact with the musicians.
By the end of the evening and an entire cake, the three agreed on a schedule covering every day from now until the event and an hour-by-hour schedule for the day before and day of the fundraiser.
Ian gripped the steering wheel and squinted through the wet windshield. Lakeshore Drive in Chicago was a rotten road on any day, but the torrential rain from a thunderstorm made it a blur of streaming water and brake lights. Ian would have preferred having this meeting at his father’s home, north of the city, and not downtown late on a Friday afternoon. The only good news was that most of the traffic was headed out, while he was headed in.
He parked in the garage under the Michigan Avenue building housing his father’s offices and took the elevator to the twentieth floor. As a kid, he’d loved coming to the office building and spending hours looking out the window at the busy street below. Now, a pit grew in his stomach as the elevator rose the last stories, as if the view were a ledge to walk off.
Before he reached his father’s corner office, he could already hear the old man blustering at his assistant through the half open door. “Tell him to go back and try the brother again. Have Brickner talk to the one’s husband. Men will understand this better.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but he’s already spoken to the brother and gotten nowhere. Perhaps…”
“The brother’s obviously an idiot. Do I have to go myself?” Ian pushed the door open all the way, nodding to the assistant as he scurried from the room.
Behind the huge desk, his father appeared tiny. His heavily-lined face drooped under its perpetual scowl. His carefully-trimmed, snow-white hair remained thick. Ian had only seen him a few times in recent years. Each time, he was physically smaller, yet his eyes remained piercing. “Ian.” His father gestured him to a chair. Not even a handshake in welcome, Ian noted. A hug or word of greeting was completely out of the question.
“Hi, Dad. It’s good to see you.” Ian could say it even if his father wouldn’t. Ian waited a few seconds for a response that didn’t come. “Were you talking about the Peterson Property just now?”
“You know damn well I was. If you had done the job I hired you to do, this would be over. What the hell are you doing out there?”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about.” Ian kept his tone calm to prevent his father’s temper from flaring any worse. “They aren’t going to sell no matter what you offer them.”
“Bull crap,” Mr. Kroft yelled and slammed his fist on the desk. Ian was careful not to react. Reaction was what his father wanted.
“Everyone’s got a price. I told Brickner to offer twelve million.”
“And?”
“They turned it down.”
“As I said, they aren’t selling. I’ve had time to watch them, gotten to know them. You won’t change their minds.”
“Brickner will keep on them. Unlike you, he knows when to go for the kill.” Kroft dug around on his desk. “You never were
worth a damn. I should’ve known not to trust you.”
“Then why’d you hire me to do this job?” Ian snapped back. “What are you really after?”
“Thought maybe you were a man now after all these years,” his father grumbled. “Someone I could work with, like your brother was before he got soft.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Were you treating me like a son or just using me to get what you want?”
He found a paper and shoved it at Ian with a glare. “I had legal draw this up. Sign it.”
Ian leaned forward to read the paper. It was a document breaking the verbal agreement between Ian and his father about the purchase of Cherry Ridge Farm. He’d promised himself in the car that he wouldn’t lose his temper and yell at his father so he swallowed his anger. Grabbing the pen his father held out to him, he signed his name with a flourish and pushed the paper back across the desk. “Out of curiosity, now that you’ve fired me, why does it have to be that property? I sent you information on properties in the area better suited to development and cheaper. What else is going on here?”
“None of your damn business,” the old man snapped, his scowl contorting into a grimace for a second.
“Dad, there’s a reason you want that property. What is it?” The elder Kroft said nothing, just stared at Ian with his sharp eyes.
Ian stared back. “I saw a picture of you with Trevor Peterson. Must have been taken while you were in France during the war. Does this have something to do—”
“Get out of here!” his father jumped to his feet and roared. “I don’t ever want to see you, hear from you again. Do you understand me? Out!”
Ian got to his feet. He should have felt anger; maybe petulance or fear, but all that came to him was a bitter resignation. “All right, Dad, I’m going,” he said from the doorway, giving his dad one last look.
In the drizzly rain left from the storm, Ian caught up with the remains of rush hour headed out of the city. It was already too late to make it back to Petoskey tonight. He might as well stay somewhere and interview the veteran in Gary, Indiana, tomorrow before heading back.
He tried not to dwell on the incident in his father’s office, but several things about his life were obvious. His shitty relationship with his father wasn’t going to resolve itself any time soon, probably never. Although his hopes had never been high for a reconciliation, the disappointment was palpable. And it wasn’t even because he wanted it. It was because he’d made a promise to someone else who had wanted it for him more—someone who wasn’t even there anymore. So the crushing honesty of failure was utterly inescapable, and forgiveness impossible.
Financially, he’d be lucky to have enough cash flow left to finish the book unless funding came through from a different source. He should probably pour what money he had into establishing a studio. Gripping the steering wheel, he had a moment of complete honesty with himself. His book was important, but it wasn’t going to get him love.
He pictured Colette coming out of the barn, headed for the house after the last check on the animals for the night. With Romeo and Prospero at her side, she’d stroll through the little garden behind the house before entering.
Just thinking of her on the farm brought some peace to him, but it would all go to hell if she found out who his father was and what his intentions had been. He had to tell her himself before she found out some other way. He wouldn’t put it past his father to call Colette or one of the other family members directly, out of spite. If he introduced himself as Liam Kroft, they’d connect his father to him in less than a second.
But he couldn’t tell Colette yet. In a couple weeks after her fundraiser, he resolved, he’d explain it all to her and hope like hell she didn’t hate him forever. He reached for his cell phone to call her; hearing her voice even if only for a few minutes might take the edge off. The phone rang several times before going to voice mail. He swore silently and thumped the steering wheel with his fist. With no other option, he left a message asking her to call him.
The next evening he pulled into the long driveway of Cherry Ridge Farms, tired from his trip, but happy to be where Colette was. Headlights bounced toward him on the narrow lane. He dropped off the edge for the unfamiliar car to pass, catching a glimpse of the other driver. Not someone he knew, which pointed to one conclusion. The belligerent-looking man was Brickner, his father’s agent. The guy looked like the type the old man would hire. The fact that he was on Colette’s farm this late in the day on a Saturday did not bode well.
When he reached the farm house, Colette stood on the front porch with an aluminum baseball bat in one hand and a cell phone in the other, her face clouded with anger and defiance. For a second, he thought she knew the truth about him, but the wrinkles on her forehead smoothed when he stepped from his car.
“What’s the matter?” He strode toward her, still feeling a little unsure. She never had returned his call last night.
“Nothing,” she said too quickly.
“Like hell. Who was that leaving?”
“A representative from the company who’s trying to buy my property.” She shoved her cell phone in her pocket and rested the tip of the bat on the porch floor. “He’s been around for the past few days pestering Lexy and me. Tonight he went too far.”
Cold laced through Ian. “What’d he do?”
“He came here.” She tapped the bat against the wood. “I had to ask him to go.”
“I see.” He waited on the steps below her, the night humming around him. Should he take her in his arms as he’d imagined for the past hundred miles of his trip? “I worried about you being alone out here, but I guess you can take care of yourself.”
“What is this lately? Everyone thinks I can’t live here by myself anymore.” Her tone expressed exasperation. “Mom wanted me to stay with her, so did Lexy.”
“I didn’t say that,” he held up his hands, “but I can’t help worrying about you.”
She studied him for a moment from her post on the porch. “I think Brickner’s gone, hopefully for good.” She walked down the steps to stand in front of him with her head cocked to the side. “You look tired and a little sad.” She reached a hand up to trace along his jaw. He nodded, wanting to turn his head into her hand, but still hesitant. “Your interview didn’t go well?”
“It was all right.” He grasped her hand and pulled it to his lips, kissing her palm. A light brightened in her eyes at the contact. “It was a long trip.”
She clutched his shirt front and tugged him to her. “I’m glad you’re back,” she whispered, her face close to his.
“Me too.” He buried his face in her hair and breathed in her scent. The realization that he never wanted to be anywhere other than in her arms on this farm took hold of him body and soul. He wanted to claim her as his. It was a sensation dredged up from the basest of human relations, but that didn’t lessen its intensity. “Is it too early to go to bed?”
She smiled for the first time since he got there. “We can claim we need our beauty rest.”
“I don’t plan to sleep or to let you.” He nipped at her lower lip where the scar sliced through her flesh. “At least not for a while.”
Chapter Fourteen
Colette stretched when she woke, reaching a hand out to find Ian in her bed. When she touched nothing but cool sheets, she opened her eyes. No Ian. She lay still, listening. No sounds reached her from anywhere in the house. After a moment, she rolled out of bed and grabbed her robe. Maybe he was in the kitchen or working on his laptop to look at some pictures.
She wandered downstairs calling for him, but only the dogs greeted her, looking for their breakfast. After she fed them, she checked outside for Ian’s car. It was gone. No sign of him anywhere except on the mantle, where the photo of the two of them stood. She thought back to the night before. He’d brought nothing in the house with him.
Was that his plan? Did he mean to come back for one night then leave? His work at Boyne was nearly done as were his interviews
in the area. Could he leave just like that? She sank down on the bottom step and put her head in her hands, rubbing her eyes to keep the tears from coming. Usually, she loved the quiet of the morning; today, it was oppressively lonely. The other night, she’d all but asked him to stay with her forever. Had her words shoved him away?
With a groan, she admitted to herself that she couldn’t have been more obvious if she had asked to have his baby. A thought that was growing increasingly appealing in her mind. Damn it. Why did relationships have to be so hard? This was her fault. She wanted too much, got too attached, then they were over. Apparently, without a word.
Romeo stuck his nose in her face and sniffed at the tears. She hugged the dog close for a moment, burying her head in his slim neck. Rising, she stomped up the stairs to shower and get dressed. A few hours of hard work in the barn might take the edge off. Animals were far superior to men. Her animals would stay until she found a better place for them. They were loyal and caring. They didn’t slink off in the night.
Out in the barn, Colette put the animals in their respective pastures and mucked out stalls. The smell of hay and manure that some might find repugnant was instead comforting to her. She’d spent more happy days in this barn than she could remember and if she was still doing that by herself when she was old and gray, so be it.
In the hayloft, she took a moment to pet one of the barn cats. Poor thing only had one eye and no tail, but she was a heck of a mouser not to mention highly prolific if judged by the mewing of kittens coming from under a pile of loose hay. With surprise, Colette gently uncovered the kittens. Not more than a week old. How had she missed their birth?
Too obsessed with other problems. She squatted, rocking back on her heels to watch them for a bit. Well, not anymore. One of her distractions was gone. She’d get through the fundraiser in two weeks, make it clear to Northfield she wasn’t selling, and concentrate on her animals. They, at least, always needed her.
When she was tossing bales of hay down to the stalls, she heard a sound near the barn door. She walked to the edge of the loft to see below with a bale still in her gloved hands. Ian stood in the sunlight of the open door with a cup of coffee in one hand and brown paper bag in the other.