Page 42 of Love and Loathing

He hung up. Then he looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of his room, to the mountainside covered in trees, flowers, and wild grass, and breathed deep. He would fight for them. He just had to figure out how now.

Jessie might have been wrong about some things, namely Jacob, but she’d been right about his involvement with this project. He should do more. He could do more. And he would.

* * *

Alex laid out a map of Harvest Ranch on the big table in the trailer. He grabbed a hammer from a nearby cabinet top and a jar of pens off the desk, setting them on the map to keep the edges from rolling. Outside, workers packed up for the day. Inside, Alex and Dave were holding a war council.

Dave came up beside him, hands on hips, and stared down at the map. “What’s your idea, then?”

Grabbing a black sharpie, Alex marked the construction site next to the Southern Run. “This is where we are.”

“Right.”

The plot was about a half mile back from the highway. He marked the stretch where Kevin and Steve wanted to build. “And this is the area up for purchase.”

Dave ran a hand over the back of his head and breathed out. “That’s a lot of land.”

“Can you mark the areas where docks have been put up?” He handed the marker to Dave.

Dave nodded and made half a dozen checks between their site and the boundary of Harvest Ranch. “Most of these are just little docks. But this one—” He circled two of his Xs. “—and this one have boats docked on them. They’re good, sturdy docks.”

Alex grinned. The two largest docks were almost perfectly centered. “That’s perfect. I can’t buy all this land, but I could afford the land around these two.”

“Ah,” Dave said. “Right in the middle of where they want to build. That’s brilliant. If they have to break up their development, they might scrub it all together.”

“Exactly,” Alex said. “And that way, we can leave the land as is.”

Dave grinned at him and put a hand on his shoulder. “You sure you want to do this, son? I certainly appreciate the thought, and I know the town would love it, but that’s still a sizable chunk of land.”

“It’s still a long shot. Kevin and Steve are making a bid on the land today. I doubt … whoever it is who owns the land will give up a larger bid for the entire strip for one chunk in the middle and a fraction the income.” He nodded. “But yeah, I’m willing to give it a shot.” Alex rolled up the blueprints. “Now I just need to go talk to Collins and Brown or … Brown and Nicholls, whatever, and give them my pitch.”

“Good luck.”

Shoving the blueprints under his arm, he stepped out of the trailer and headed toward his truck. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a gleam and turned his head toward the house to see what it was. The house was all but done now, everything but a few cabinets in the house, and it looked sharp, painted white with shutters, a swing on the back porch, and an aqua front door.

Forty yards away, Jessie stood in front of the house, her camera extended out in front of her. She slowly panned across the front of the house. The sun was setting behind her, and gold light streamed through her brown tresses, giving them red highlights. She wore a casual yellow sundress that stopped just above her knees. His breath hitched.

What was she doing here? She’d quit. She’d been perfectly clear about what she thought of working for him. He started to take a step toward her, drawn to her as if by some higher power, but stopped himself. It didn’t matter, though. She’d seen him and turned. Her eyes went wide, and her pretty lips parted just a little. For a second, he could almost convince himself she wanted to talk to him.

Dave came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Ain’t no education in the second kick of a mule, son.”

Alex nodded. Dave didn’t know what had happened between him and Jessie, but he supposed the man could see he was hurting—and with him staring at her, Dave was clever enough to figure out why. Besides, Alex had promised never to bug her again. He got in his truck and sped away.

* * *

Jessie sat on a blanket on her mother’s plastic-covered couch by Caroline. Maggie sprawled out on the smaller couch, holding the clicker and scrolling through Prime Videos. Cecilia was upstairs getting ready for a date, Diana was reading in her room, and their parents had already gone to bed.

Maggie May stopped on a cheesy rom-com from the eighties. “What about this one?”

“Veto!” Jessie and Caroline said in unison. Neither of them had been in a very good mood in week, and the last thing they wanted was a reminder of just how crappy their love lives were.

“You guys are no fun,” she moaned.

Jessie was worse today. She couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday at the construction site when she’d seen Alex. Couldn’t stop thinking about how good, but tired he looked. Or how the moment they’d locked eyes, he turned from her. Had immediately gone to his truck and driven away. And she couldn’t stop thinking about how cold his gaze had looked, and how dismissive his actions seemed. She’d thought he’d hated her before, but now she was certain he did. She never would’ve seen him if she hadn’t talked herself into finishing the project for him. Really, she wasn’t sure why she wanted to, but once the idea had popped in her head, she just couldn’t shake it.

Maggie May kept scrolling, and Jessie barely paid attention, until his face started moving past. She looked up. “Stop!”

The images stopped, andSudden Speedsat in the middle of the picks. Alex’s chiseled jaw, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes stared back at her.

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