Page 78 of Refuge for Ailsa

They had lunch with her parents, Donovan, and Maureen, then climbed back into his truck. Tavish drove on through town like he was going to the marina, but he wasn’t. Ailsa slapped him lightly on the arm and said, “Babe, pay attention. You drove past the marina.”

“No. I’m going somewhere else.”

“We’ve already passed the road to the house.”

“Yep.”

After he’d driven about five more miles, he slowed. “Where are we going?”

“Right. Down. Here.” He pulled up to the gate. The sign by the gate was covered with a big tarp, and he didn’t pull it off.

“Where are we?”

“You’ll recognize it in a minute.” The truck rolled around the back side of one of the big buildings and Ailsa’s face paled. She’d seen the photos the detectives had taken at the scene. “Do you know where we are?”

“Yes. Take me home. Please. I need to go home.”

“Babe, calm down. I want you to see something.” He parked and pointed at the lake. “What do you see? Or rather, what do you not see?”

She sat there, blinking back tears of terror. “The pods are gone.”

“Yeah. They’re all gone. None of them are here. They were sent to the scrap yard.”

She stared at him. “What’s going on? Where are the pearl thingies?”

“The pearl farm is gone. Mr.Gilchrist had so much debt he could barely support it anyway, and when our suit came along, he knew he just couldn’t do it. So he made me a deal on the civil suit.”

Her voice was softer and she didn’t seem to be in as much of a panic. “What deal?”

“We settled. We’d drop the charges and, in exchange, he’d pay us.” She eyed him suspiciously. “Look.” Tavish reached in his back pocket and pulled something out.

He handed Ailsa one of the business cards he’d had made. She looked at it, turned it over, and stared, then flipped it back over. “I don’t understand…”

“He didn’t have any money. So he gave us the farm.”

“What?”

“He gave us the farm. The deed’s in your name, Ailsa. It’s yours.”

“What am I going to do with this?”

“See that spot right over there?” He pointed to a broad area dotted with huge trees. “We’ll put in a campground over there. And that? That’ll be the marina when it’s built. We’ll put half a dozen cabins up there on the hill. We can use the main building for a boat store, a café, laundry for guests, all kinds of things.”

“How would we ever afford to make all those improvements?”

“There’s over a hundred and twenty acres here, and I’ve got someone who’s interested in buying about seventy acres. The money from that will more than cover the work we need to do. Hell, it’ll cover hiring somebody to do it! Whaddya think? MacDougal’s Marina and Resort? Has a nice ring to it.”

She stood there in the parking lot where she’d been loaded into an ambulance and turned, looking in every direction. “This looks nothing like it did before.”

“It’s not supposed to. It’s new. Something new. With the love of my life.”

“Do you want to live out here?”

“No. I want to live in our house.”

“Your house.”

He shook his head. “No. The new deed has your name on it too.”

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