Just Say Maybe: A Thistle Bend Novel

by Tracy March

  “You’ve gotta watch out for those clichés,” Holly said lightly.

  His lips quirked up a little at the corners and he shook his head. “I fell for her pretty hard. But the sporadic, long-distance thing can only be satisfying for so long.”

  Holly’s heart pitched. That’s exactly what she was afraid of. Wouldn’t it be the same for them if things kept going like they were?

  “So I decided to ask her to move to Costa Rica and live with me,” Bryce said.

  The prick of envy Holly had felt a moment ago turned into a horror-movie stab. She sucked in a deep breath, trying to brace herself against it.

  “But when the time came for Whitney’s next visit, I got a short text from her saying that she couldn’t make it that week.” Bryce sat quietly as the rain poured and the storm skirted them in the distance. He dragged his hand down his face and met her gaze, his chin resting in his palm.

  “And?”

  “That was the end of it.” He lifted his sturdy shoulders and dropped them. “For weeks I called, I texted—nothing.”

  Holly scrunched her face, imagining the worst. “What happened?” She covered his hand with hers and brushed her thumb back and forth across his knuckles.

  “I had no clue until I drank way too much tequila one night and checked her Facebook page.”

  Holly clutched his hand. “It’s something awful, isn’t it?”

  “She’d posted her engagement announcement as her cover photo.”

  Wide-eyed, Holly slapped her hand over her mouth. “No way.”

  “Way.”

  What kind of girl would do that to him?

  “How long ago was that?” she asked, still stunned.

  “Four months ago.” He tossed back the rest of his wine.

  “Hopefully you have a buzz after having to tell that story.” Holly was still blinking in disbelief. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. I can’t imagine how anyone could do that to someone else, much less any girl doing that to you. Did she not realize what she had?”

  He gave her a forced smile. “I was clearly just a fling.”

  Holly leaned down and set her wineglass on the floor. She moved into his lap and faced him, her legs straddled over his. Cupping his face in her hands, she said, “That is not what’s going on here.” She brushed her lips against his. “At least with me.”

  He narrowed his gaze as if he really wanted to believe her but wasn’t sure he could. “That makes two of us.” He gathered her to him, and she rested her head on his shoulder, the swing swaying lazily.

  Holly inhaled his sexy scent, awareness tingling through her. “I can’t get enough of you,” she said. “Not now.” She nestled closer. “Not ever.”

  Bryce ran his hands beneath her tunic and up her back, the raspy touch of his fingers feeling like the sound of the rain. He pressed her tightly against him as lightning flashed bright white. Thunder roared seconds afterward, shaking the swing. “It’s getting close,” he said. “I think we should go inside.”

  Holly welcomed the invitation in his voice. She slid off his lap and stood. He followed and took her hand. A little dizzy from the wine, she led him into the house. As soon as she shut the door, he swept her off her feet and cradled her in his arms, just as he’d done up on the mountain during the sunset. He pressed his forehead to hers and said, “It’s high time for you to show me your bedroom.”

  Chapter 19

  Squinting at the mid-morning sun streaming into the window of his cabin, Bryce logged off the video chat, pleased that things were running smoothly in Costa Rica. He smiled. Things seemed to be running pretty smoothly in Thistle Bend, too.

  Spending the stormy afternoon and night in Holly’s bed had left him satisfied in a way he’d never been. Not just physically, although she turned him on like no woman had before. She was willing and adventurous and seriously scorching hot. They connected on a deeper level, a connection that had been missing in his relationship with Whitney. In hindsight, it had been more of a fling that he’d gotten way too deeply into.

  Bryce had hated to leave Holly this morning but it was back-to-business Monday, and they both had to get to work. They planned to meet at lunchtime at Birdsong Farm to see how the seedlings they’d planted fared in last night’s storms. Bryce had plenty on his to-do list to get done before then, but he kept getting sidetracked with thoughts of Holly naked, lying in the long grass near the mountaintop, and tangled in the sheets of her bed.

  “I can’t get enough of you. Not now. Not ever.”

  Bryce gazed up at the tongue-in-groove ceiling and sighed. He was so in over his head with Holly, and he couldn’t wait to dive in deeper.

  The first thing on his list was to get rid of the stacks of old newspapers he’d taken from the suite, but he couldn’t decide whether to cut out the circled articles and save them, take pictures of them and file them away, or pitch them altogether and start with a clean slate. His phone rang as he sat on the couch, staring at the papers and pondering.

  He picked the phone up off the end table, swiped the screen, and clicked on the speaker. “Hello.”

  “Mornin’, Bryce. It’s George Allred.” This would save him a call, since touching base with his broker was number two on his to-do list.

  “Hey, George. Got those inspectors scheduled for the lodge this week?” For the first time since he and Holly had found the suite, Bryce was truly excited about getting the inspections under way.

  “I do, but it appears that we’ve run into a little difficulty.”

  Bryce furrowed his brow. “What’s that?”

  “Some folks were driving up to park at the lodge this morning, hoping to get in a hike on the Wild Rose Ridge Trail. Turns out all those storms that tore through here yesterday and last night caused a landslide that took out the pass.”

  Bryce’s stomach lurched. “You mean where the stream was running over the road?” Arguably, it was a raging river when he and Holly had last gone through it in the Jeep, but whatever. He stood and started pacing.

  “That’s the spot. Just like the folks in California have been waiting for the big quake, we’ve been wondering for years if all that loose rock above that pass would hold. Last night, we got our answer—certainly not the one we’d hoped for.”

  Dollar signs danced in Bryce’s head. “How’s that going to affect the budget, you think? I’ll need to add in more for repairs, and take some away from another line item. Maybe we can work a temporary way through in the meantime.”

  “I haven’t been out there yet myself, but I’ve seen some pictures I can send to you.” George paused for several beats. “The damage is substantial.”

  Bryce stopped pacing and stood stone still, letting the words sink in.

  “How about I round up my buddy who’s one of Thistle Bend’s civil engineers,” George said. “Then all of us can run up there and see it for ourselves. That’ll give us a better idea of what we’re looking at.”

  Bryce cupped his hand at the back of his head. “I’d really appreciate that. I’m going to go ahead up there now, so don’t worry about sending the pictures.”

  “I really hated to call you with this news,” George said sincerely. It was business for both of them, and each had a lot at stake in this deal. But beyond that, they’d become friends.

  “Thanks, man.” Bryce blew out a long breath with a hiss. “I guess somebody had to do it.”

  He clicked off the call, quickly changed his cowboy boots for hiking boots, and his button-up shirt for a long-sleeved tee. Grabbing the keys to the Jeep, he hurried out the door, eager to assess the damage to the pass himself. His mind raced as he got in the Jeep, started the engine, threw it into gear, and spun out of the driveway.

  “The damage is substantial.”

  Bryce was already stretching his budget with the road repairs he’d anticipated before a damn landslide had wiped out the pass. There was no way he could afford a major reconstruction—the money or the time. Hopefully things wouldn’t be as dire as George
had made them sound.

  Going much faster than he should along the pocked dirt roads leading to the lodge property, Bryce envisioned the worst-case scenario, hoping that whatever he saw after that would seem better than he’d imagined. But the bottom-line, worst-case scenario was that the landside could kill the whole deal on the lodge—after all he’d been through. The end of the deal would send him packing back to Costa Rica.

  Without Holly.

  He feared losing her more than the lodge deal. As much as he wanted to make amends for what his father had done, he wanted Holly more. But she wanted a man who lived in Thistle Bend full time, and he couldn’t blame her. The lodge deal was important to give him time in Thistle Bend—time with Holly—to make certain she was the girl for him, and if this town was the place for him. He knew from his so-called relationship with Whitney that long-distance romances weren’t the preferred way to go.

  Amped beyond the legal limit, Bryce took the bumpy, deep-puddled road up toward the pass, as nervous as he’d been the first time he BASE jumped off a cliff. The Jeep rocked over boulders and holes as he drew closer, bolstering himself for what he might see. He rounded the last hairpin turn before the pass and caught his first glimpse of the damage.

  The devastation.

  His heart plunged. A deep tangle of boulders, trees, dirt, and brush formed a massive debris field in front of him, stretching from far up on the mountain to beyond his sight in the drop-off below. In places, the debris was piled up taller than Bryce. The landslide had taken out at least forty yards of what used to be the pass. He parked along the last stretch of road before the wall of rubble blocked the way. Taking a few deep breaths to bolster himself, he got out of the Jeep and stepped to the edge of the road, looking over into the drop-off to see how deeply the landslide had cut into the mountain. It was difficult to say with certainty, but he’d guess that it taken out several feet of sturdy soil.

  Bryce gazed up the mountain and caught the sun glimmering on the glass gables of the inaccessible lodge. It looked beautiful from here, just as it had from Holly’s special place up on the mountain in the distance.

  You need to tell her about the landslide before she hears this from someone else.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket, brought it to life, and…No signal. At the sound of an approaching vehicle, he returned the phone to his pocket. George’s Land Rover appeared from around the bend, and George parked it behind Bryce’s Jeep.

  George got out—tall and lean and weathered—along with an equally tall but bulkier man with a balding head and glasses. Both of them wore jeans and hiking boots.

  “I’m afraid the pictures didn’t do it justice,” George said grimly as he and the other man met Bryce in the middle of the road.

  Bryce winced. “She’s a beauty.”

  “Bryce Bennett,” George said, “This is Nick Akers, one of Thistle Bend’s ace civil engineers.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Bryce shook his hand firmly.

  Nick nodded. “Likewise. Sorry it’s under these circumstances.” He tipped his head toward the debris field. “Let’s have a look.”

  As they walked toward the tangled, piled-up mess, Bryce hoped that Nick would see it from a different perspective, because all Bryce could see was devastation and dollar signs. Nick examined the debris field from several angles. He even climbed a ways down into the drop-off to get a better look.

  “You had compromised slope stability through this area,” Nick said, “due to snowmelt, rain, and lack of vertical vegetation. This is an area we’ve been watching, as George might’ve mentioned. The landslide could’ve been triggered by all the rain we got yesterday and last night, but my guess would be a lightning strike.”

  Bryce had a flashback of the violent strike he and Holly had seen just down the drop-off where the tree had exploded into a fireball.

  “But what you’ve got now is a more volatile slope covering a vast area. It’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to stabilize it substantially enough to bear the weight of vehicles—especially not heavy equipment.” Nick’s tone was sympathetic. “It would take more professional assessment, but I feel safe saying that if you could reestablish this pass, you’re looking at an exorbitant price tag.”

  “Meaning?” George saved Bryce from having to ask the question.

  Nick bunched his lips. “Seven figures—but that’s just a guesstimate. And it could take quite a while.”

  Seven figures?

  Bryce couldn’t afford that on top of the price of the lodge, the property, the renovations, and the original road repair he had needed to do before the landslide had ravaged the wet, rocky path that had served as the pass until yesterday.

  “This is the only way up to the lodge, right?” Bryce already knew the answer, but he felt compelled to ask.

  “Right,” Nick said. “While I was waiting for George to pick me up, I started thinking ahead a little and I pulled up some maps of area property and easements, looking for alternate routes, just in case. Let me show you what I found.”

  They walked over to the Land Rover and Nick opened the passenger-side door and got his tablet. A touch of his finger lit up the screen. He scrolled to a map, enlarged one area of it, and pointed to a road. “This is that hairpin turn down there.” He nodded toward the turn nearest them. “If you cut the road straight at the turn, it would veer along your property, stretch into a years-old easement on the neighboring property, then curve back over to hook in beyond the debris field.”

  “What kind of cost would I be looking at for that?” Bryce asked.

  “Something in the mid six figures, since none of it would be paved—especially if it’s somewhat flat and there aren’t too many trees in the way.”

  Bryce looked more closely at the map. “So it would cut onto the Garland property, but you said there’s an easement?”

  Nick nodded. “It went on the books back in the 1930s, but it’s never been utilized. We can walk the route I’m proposing if you want to have a look.”

  Bryce shrugged, dazed by the pace at which things were happening. “Why not.”

  George nodded his agreement.

  They walked down the road to the hairpin turn, avoiding pits and puddles and protruding rocks. At the curve in the turn, they veered off through the brush.

  “Looks like there are traces of a trail here already,” Bryce said.

  Ahead of him, George nodded. “Hikers make their way all over the place up here.”

  They hiked in silence for a while, with Nick in the lead. Bryce was a little heartened by the typography of the terrain they were traversing, which seemed sturdy underfoot, with relatively few trees.

  “We’re getting into the easement on the Garland property now,” Nick said.

  Bryce scowled as they cut through a thicket of trees and underbrush, his eyes straight ahead, assessing the feasibility of putting in a road there.

  “George?” A woman called. “Nick?”

  George turned to his left, as did Nick.

  “Bryce?”

  Bryce turned too, and his heart leapt into his throat. About twenty-five yards into the trees stood Holly and Fred.

  What the hell?

  They all met about halfway, and greeted one another, Holly wearing the same clothes she’d had on when Bryce had left her this morning.

  “We’re looking for the source of the explosion I heard during one of the storms last night,” Fred said. “I figure it was a lightning strike, and it was uncomfortably close. Felt like the earth shook afterward.” He and Holly gave Bryce, George, and Nick curious looks. “What are you folks doing here?” Fred asked.

  Bryce’s mind raced, trying to process the unlikely encounter. How far had Holly and Fred hiked from Birdsong Farm?

  “I believe you did hear an explosion from a lightning strike last night,” Nick said to Fred. “Caused a massive landslide that took out the pass up to the Wild Rose Ridge Trail and the lodge.”

  Holly’s jaw went slack and her gaze shot ri
ght to Bryce’s. “Oh no.”

  Bryce nodded.

  “The damage is severe,” George said. “It’s a go-around at this point, if Bryce can even do that.”

  Fred grimaced.

  “His best bet is to cut an alternate route that utilizes a years-old easement on the Garland property.” Nick showed them the tablet and traced the route up ahead.

  “You want to cut a road through here?” Holly asked, appearing confused.

  Things were moving too fast for Bryce. “I—”

  “It’s his only alternative,” Nick said. “Otherwise, there will be no motor-vehicle access to the lodge.”

  George shook his head ruefully. “And no reason for Bryce to proceed with the project. It wouldn’t make financial sense.”

  Holly frowned, but Fred stood stone-faced.

  Bryce shifted his gaze between them. “Nick offered to show me an alternate access option, since there’s no way I can swing seven figures to repair the pass.”

  “Looks like this is a good route,” Nick said. “See that light shimmering through the trees up there? The road would run that way, turn onto the lodge property, and connect back in.”

  Fred furrowed his brow, his eyes narrow slits. “You say there’s a years-old easement on the Garland property?” he asked flatly. “And you want to cut a road through it that goes up along where that shimmery light is?”

  Bryce lifted his shoulders. “Appears that might be the only affordable choice. Things are happening so quickly, I’m just trying to process it all.”

  Fred pressed his lips together tightly, sizing up Bryce with a stern once-over. “The Garland property is Birdsong Farm—known as such for about a half century. That shimmery light is the sun shining on my greenhouse.”

  Bryce’s heart stammered. He tried to catch Holly’s gaze, but she wouldn’t look his way.

  “Easement or not,” Fred said. “I’ll be damned if you’re going to run a road through my greenhouse to get to that godforsaken lodge.”