She smiled mischievously. “I think I’ll save your bedroom for later.”
“I like the sound of that.”
And so, I moved over to the kitchen, pouring myself a whiskey before reclining on one of my sofas, patiently waiting for Carla’s return. Before long, a buzzing on the kitchen countertop caught my attention. It couldn’t be my cell because the battery had died hours ago.
Carla’s, then, I reasoned. She’d dropped it there on her way to see the view. After a few seconds, the sound stopped, only to pick back up a minute later. Carla reappeared as the buzzing stopped once more.
“Your phone went off a couple times,” I said when she dropped down beside me on the sofa. “Do you plan on answering it?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Do you want me to?”
“Of course not.”
“Then what do you think my answer is?”
I reached for Carla, my lips on hers before either of us could say another word.
So much for showing her the bedroom, I thought as she ran a hand through my hair, pulling me down on top of her as she lay back on the soft cushions. She curled her legs up and around my waist as my hands roamed across her thighs. When I squeezed them, she let out a low moan.
“God, that feels good,” she moaned.
“When was the last time you slept with anyone?” I murmured, curiosity getting the better of me.
Carla bit my upper lip. “None of your damn business.”
“Fair enough.” While I wanted to know, a part of me didn’t. I didn’t want a picture in my head of Carla with anyone else. Something about her made me feel possessive.
The kissing intensified as our bodies writhed and rubbed against each other, the friction in my jeans becoming almost unbearable against my throbbing, unrelenting desire for the woman below me, and then—
Her phone buzzed again.
It didn’t stop, even as we desperately tried to ignore it. Eventually, Carla sat up, pushed me away, and yowled with rage, swinging herself off the sofa to retrieve the damn device.
“I know it’s you, Rich,” she muttered as she reached the kitchen. “Only you would call me at one in the damn morning.”
“Good to know the only guy in your life is your brother,” I joked, sitting back to make space for Carla as she plonked back down, phone in hand. She gave me the finger as she answered the call.
“So, what does my big brother need at this time of night?” she asked, her voice dripping with annoyance. “I wasn’t aware I had to tell you when I was coming home. You know as well as I do that today has been a rough day.”
She paused as Rich said something in return. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the shift in tone alerted me to the fact that their rough day had been terrible indeed.
Carla sighed, running a hand through her beautiful hair, still damp from the creek. “I know, Rich. I’m sorry. I needed to decompress. I’m staying at a friend’s house.” She chuckled. “I do too have friends,” she said, with indignation. “Yes, I’ve been drinking.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow, but probably not bright and early.” Another pause, and then a small, sad smile. “Love you, too.”
She hung up, and the mood was ruined.
“Do you”—I narrowed my eyes—“want to talk about it?” I ventured, not sure what else to say.
Carla glanced at me. “Do you even want to know, or is this a ploy to get into my dress?”
Getting into her dress had been part of the original plan, but that ended when her demeanor changed. “The former, actually,” I replied, knowing it was the truth. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing I can talk about.”
Carla wrung her dress in her hands.
“I told you my secret. You can trust me with yours.”
“Yours was a five-shot confession.”
I offered her my tumbler. “Start with this, and I’ll get you caught up.”
She shook her head. Her expression turned to one of anguish with a crease as deep as a canyon settling between her brows. She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “I guess I’ll have to tell Cooper Construction sooner rather than later.”
“Okay, now I definitely want to know what’s going on.”
After another heavy sigh, Carla sank into the sofa. Her eyes were overly bright and glassy. Alcohol or tears? I wasn’t sure.
“The mill’s run out of money. We’re going to have to close.”
I hadn’t expected this turn of events at all. “I thought you and your brother had turned it around after taking it over from your folks?”
“For a few years, yes,” she replied, shaking her head sadly. “But now, fewer and fewer buildings are made of wood. It’s all metal and brick and glass and … and plastic. Can you believe they’re using plastic? I’m not against innovation, but it signals the end of the mill.”
I couldn’t refute her point because it was accurate. A home built of lumber was a rare thing nowadays. My house was a convenient exception.
“So, what’re you going to do?” I asked. “How long have you got?” That familiar tightness gripped my chest. I willed and wished it away.
She glanced at me. “We actually have an offer. Some corporation called Frost wants to buy it. We’ve got until the end of the month to decide whether we’ll take the deal or not.”
“Are you leaning toward taking it?”
“I want to say, ‘over my dead body,’” she bit out, with tears streaming down her face. Her shoulders drooped, and she turned away from me. “I wish I could say that, but we have no choice. If we want to give the employees a severance package, and if Rich and I are to have a future, we need to take the offer.”
“But …?” I coaxed. Carla’s reluctance to take the deal was as plain as day.
“All they want is the land. They’ll demolish the mill and the parts of the forest we own. They have plans to open a cattle ranch.”
Ah, shit.
I didn’t know if I was glad to hear this now or whether it would have been better to hear about it after the deal was set in stone.
“Carla, if there’s nothing else you can do, don’t feel guilty about it.” I reached forward and twirled a strand of her hair around my finger.
“Oh, don’t tell me not to feel guilty for destroying the town. And don’t tell me I’m exaggerating. This will ruin Frazier Falls.”
I nodded slowly. Almost imperceptibly. “I know.”
She glanced at me with wide-open eyes. She didn’t appear ready for my honesty.
“There’s no point lying about it,” I said. “It will devastate the town.” It would likely destroy everything I’d worked so hard for, too. My life was in Frazier Falls. My environmentally friendly homes would be born here, but without a forest to sustain the builds, my dreams would die here too.
“How can you be so calm? This is your town. You love it here.”
I wasn’t calm. I was close to an internal meltdown, but I’d learned to conceal my weakness. “You want me to blame you for something completely out of your control? I’m a grown man. I know an impossible situation when I see one.”
She stood up suddenly, turning on me with flashing eyes.
“Why does it have to be like this? Why does the fiber of this town have to be destroyed along with the mill? We’ll lose the forest. There will only be a fraction of it left when they’re done. You know as well as I do it’ll only be a matter of time before they come after the rest of it.” She looked around my house. “Even your beautiful, perfect home will be gone.”
“Maybe.” I was a planner—an architect that worked my way through problems step-by-step. Constructing a life was like erecting a building. One weak spot and it all came crumbling down.
She laughed bitterly. “How ironic. If people lived in houses like yours, then Rich and I wouldn’t be in this position in the first place. As a society, aren’t we better than this? We could choose to live sustainably, in peace with the environment, but no.” She stood and walked around my liv
ing room as if she were talking only to herself, but I was enraptured.
“That’s too much effort,” she continued. “It’s too expensive—even though it isn’t. They think it’s easier to build cheap apartments out of crappy materials that cause the property’s value to depreciate as soon as the build is finished. Years later, we’re left with derelict, abandoned buildings that nobody can sell because no one wants them. Then there’s the expense of knocking them down or fixing them up. It’s absurd. In the end, we’re left with another scar, in another town, that we can’t do anything about.”
Carla breathed heavily under the weight of her own words. This was a speech she’d been clinging to. Something that was desperate to come out but hadn’t had a chance to burst free.
She put a hand to her head as she closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Owen. It isn’t fair to spring this on you. I’ll take my bad news and bad attitude and go home.”
“If you think I’m letting you go anywhere like this, then you’re hugely mistaken,” I said, jumping up from the sofa to reach her. “You’ll stay. You can take the guest bedroom.” I pointed down the short hallway. “It’s over there.”
“Owen, I can’t—”
Focusing on her kept me from panicking about everything else. “Yes, you can, and you will,” I interrupted as I marched her to the bedroom. I didn’t leave until Carla lay down on the bed and pulled the duvet up to her shoulders.
“Get some rest,” I said as I moved back to the door, turning the light off when I reached the switch.
Of all the things I’d expected to happen before the upcoming exhibit, the foreclosure of the Stevenson Mill hadn’t crossed my mind.
Cooper Construction was screwed.
Chapter Ten
Carla
I woke up in an unfamiliar bed, with strange sounds and smells filling the air. Was someone cooking? I swear I smelled bacon.
Suddenly I remembered where I was, and more importantly, who I’d been with to end up here at his house.
I jolted up and out of bed, still fully clothed. Realizing I couldn’t locate my shoes, I quickly made my way out of the bedroom to try to find them as quietly as possible. They sat innocuously at the foot of the sofa. I grabbed them and made my way to the front door. And then—
“Don’t even think about it,” Owen called out, laughing slightly. “Sit down and eat breakfast first.”
I winced at being caught. “What time is it?”
“Past nine. You’re not late for anything. Don’t forget, you told your brother you wouldn’t be home early.”
That made me cringe even more. “I can’t believe I told you everything last night. God, I even cried. Ridiculous …”
“Hey, I’d be crying too if I was having to deal with what you’ve got going on,” Owen soothed as he brought over a plate of bacon and eggs that smelled amazing and made my mouth water.
“You cooked this?” I asked him, glancing up as I murmured my thanks.
“I’d hardly consider being able to cook breakfast fine dining, but yes, I like to cook. Do you want coffee?”
“I don’t suppose you have any cocoa powder to make it a mocha? I don’t think I can handle straight coffee right now.” I hated coffee. I only drank mochas because they sounded more grown-up than hot chocolate, or maybe because Rich bullied me into drinking what he called an adult beverage. In my mind, an adult beverage contained alcohol.
“A mocha coming right up for Miss Probably Hungover,” Owen joked as he made his way back to the kitchen.
“I don’t think I’m that bad,” I said, rubbing my forehead slightly. “Fuzzy headed, but that’s more to do with the crying than the alcohol. Maybe both.”
“Most likely.” He ventured back over with a cup of coffee in one hand and a mocha in the other. He placed it into my eagerly awaiting grasp before sitting down.
The air filled with the sounds of cutlery on plates, the sipping of hot beverages, and the noises of appreciation that escaped my lips whenever I swallowed a particularly good piece of crispy bacon.
When I was done, I sat back and let out a whoosh of air. “Thank you,” I said, glancing over at him as he finished his coffee. “You didn’t have to go to all of this effort for me.”
He made a noise as if to say no bother, but I could tell he was happy I appreciated his gesture.
I kept my eyes on him until he returned my gaze with a serious expression.
“How are you?” he asked quietly.
I burst out laughing despite myself. “I’m feeling like hell about our situation, but I feel better having finally told someone about what was going on.” I looked up at him through the fringe of my lashes. “Last night … I don’t know. Being looked after, and all the drinking and swimming and stuff was fun, I suppose.”
He raised an amused eyebrow. “Oh, so what we were doing in the creek, and against that tree, and on the sofa, was stuff that was fun, you suppose?”
I resisted the urge to punch his arm. “Very funny.”
Then he slapped both of his hands on his knees and stood up. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, it’s time to—”
“What do you mean, out of the way?” I interrupted, following suit, and standing up.
“Now that we’ve covered everything that went down last night,” Owen replied matter-of-factly.
“You’re not going to … you don’t want to … I don’t know. Maybe give last night another go at some point?” I let out, knowing I sounded desperate but not caring. It’s not as if I had anything to lose now, anyway. “Minus the crying and impending bankruptcy, I mean.”
“Absolutely,” he responded immediately; an eager smile plastered on his face. “But we have more pressing matters to attend to. Follow me.”
I tailed him into a large, tastefully decorated home office. The desk was strewn with papers and architectural models; there was hardly space for the computer on top. Owen picked up a file and handed it to me.
I eyed it suspiciously. “What’s this?”
“It’s your secret mission if you choose to take it.”
“You have a terrible sense of humor.”
He snickered. “I know. My brothers remind me of that all the time.” He tapped the top of the manila folder. “Open it.”
And so, I did. Across the front page was the title ‘Green House Project.’ I raised an eyebrow.
“Very imaginative, Owen. Don’t be afraid to stretch your vocabulary into multi-syllabic or compound words.”
“You’re a smartass.” He glanced at the papers in the folder. “My imagination extends to the design of buildings, not to words. My inability to speak in front of a crowd is one of my glaring faults, as I’m sure you’re beginning to work out.”
I lifted my shoulders. “Maybe a little.” I thumbed through what looked like different elevations of the same house plan. “Why are you showing me this?”
He leaned against his big desk and took a deep breath. “Remember the lumber order I put in last week?”
“The one you messed up? How could I forget?”
“It’s for this. More prototypes. Remember the clearing outside? I’m planning to build several ecologically friendly, clean-energy homes like the one we’re in right now.”
“You plan to what? Become a landlord or property mogul or something?” I asked, confused.
He laughed. “No. This is test ground zero. An outdoor showroom if you will. I plan to prove exactly what you were saying last night. People can live in houses built of lumber that are better quality, longer lasting, and cheaper than those shitty apartment buildings that are springing up everywhere. Houses that produce so much surplus energy that they make money for the property owner. Houses that … well … give back.”
I didn’t dare leap to conclusions before Owen stated things explicitly to me. I looked down at the plans, but I already knew how much lumber he had wanted simply for a few model homes. If this rolled out …
“That’s a lot of wood if you’re planning this as
your new business venture,” I said, choosing my words carefully.
Owen grinned at me like a fool, and I knew I wasn’t wrong to reach conclusions.
“Do you want this to come from the Stevenson Mill?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes, as much as the forest and your mill can support.”
I stared back down at the plans.
“This could save the mill.”
“I know.”
“You said nothing last night.”
“Because I thought we were all screwed,” Owen admitted. “But, I went to bed and considered everything. There’s an exhibit at the end of the month where architects and engineers come together to share and pitch innovative building designs to potential investors. I had planned to introduce my idea there. To drum up some interest before diving in next year, but there’s no reason why I can’t speed up the process. If I can get the backing, I can start right away, but I’ll never get the backing unless I have you on board.”
I stared at him. “What do you mean, me? You have all the work done already, and one home completely built to prove your design. What in the world could you need from me?”
“I’m not good at speaking to people.”
She laughed. “You’re Owen Cooper: smooth operator.”
He blushed. “I’m not that bad. One-on-one, I do okay, but I can’t vocalize my ideas in a crowd. It’s …” He shook his head. “A disaster.”
It became clear that all of my remarks belittling Owen’s inability to get his opinion across were unjustly cruel. Regret ate at my insides. This was a problem he’d been dealing with for years.
“Owen, I didn’t realize—”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said dismissively. “I have my brothers. You’ve seen how Pax is. He could charm someone into giving him their bank details. The architectural firm I was with in New York was disappointed in my inability to speak publicly, but my work was top-notch and unmatched, so they let me do what I did best while the firm’s partners did the talking. But now, I’m desperate to bring my ideas to fruition, and I know that if it falls on me to do the speaking, I’ll fail.”
Rescue Me: A Frazier Falls Novel Page 6