Page 47 of Pay the Price

And I realized it didn’t. I’d helped organize the event, but Piers and Diana had approved everything. If the bartender they’d hired wanted to serve underage girls, that was on them. I’d picked Ruth up that morning and was driving her home, so it was no skin off my nose if she got hammered on champagne.

She narrowed her eyes. “Have fun? Itdoesn’t matter? Who are you and what have you done with the real Daisy Hammond?”

“I’m starting to realize I don’t even know who that is,” I said.

She nodded like she was impressed by my epiphany. “Damn.”

I laughed. “I need to go do this thing.”

My dad was assembling with Piers, Gray, and a couple of other guys in suits — local politicians — while Natalie and Kyle stood a couple of feet behind them. Diana was there too, holding four shovels with red bows around them.

I walked to the front and stood with Kyle and Natalie while Piers stepped up to a podium that had been set up at the front of the crowd. Natalie smiled at me and I was relieved my working relationship with her and Kyle had normalized in the weeks I’d been back at Cantwell. I’d been careful to show up on time during the two days a week I worked there, volunteering to stay late when there was still work to do as long as I wouldn’t be alone in the office with Gray.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

It was something Joan said, and the advice had come in handy more than once over the years.

My dad started by introducing himself and talking about the land that had been in his wife’s family for generations and how he couldn’t be more thrilled to continue their contribution to the development of the beautiful town they’d helped to settle.

I forced myself to keep smiling until he passed the microphone to Piers, who talked about the Cantwell Ridge Resort and Spa. He described the amenities of the exclusivehotel, which would test a new business model of only opening for guests during select times of the year. The rest of the resort, an assortment of five-star private villas nestled in the woods, would also be available on a limited basis.

Piers assured the investors in the crowd that the exclusivity would increase the resort’s cache, creating an insatiable demand to be one of the lucky few able to secure a reservation.

Intermittent murmurs of excitement rolled through the crowd as he spoke, the upper-crust attendees clearly enthused about the business model.

It was an innovative idea, but I couldn’t help but feel a little sad that only rich people would be able to enjoy the stunning views from the hill where the main resort would be located. From up here, the whole valley was on display, the lush green of the woods dappled by the summer sun. Birds sang in the surrounding trees and the air was fresh and clean with the scent of sun-warmed earth.

Would my mom’s grandfather be proud that his investment in Blackwell Falls had paid off so big for his descendants? Or would he feel the same kind of regret that tugged at my chest now, the feeling that all the meaning — all the history, everything personal about our connection to the town — was being bled out of the land where he’d put down roots?

I thought of Wolf and his mom, whose ancestors had been here long before my grandfather. They’d loved the land and respected it, had taken care of it so everyone could enjoy it.

Then I thought of my mom and that just made me sad. Because I knew my mom would have felt how I felt now. She hadn’t been involved in my dad’s business decisions. At the time it hadn’t seemed strange.

I’d been a kid. It was all I’d ever known.

Now I wondered if it had been by choice. If my mom had meant to hand control of the Mercer family legacy to my dador if he’d seized it. Through the clear-eyed lens of adulthood, it was starting to look like that was my dad’s MO, and when I really thought about it, I couldn’t think of a single asset, a single business triumph, that he hadn’t built on the back of my mother’s inheritance.

I suddenly wished I could remember more from my childhood, that I could replay all the little moments that had faded into the soup of memory so I could see them from the perspective of the person I was now.

Finally the speeches were over. My dad and Piers exited the temporary dais and walked to a small area next to it that had been roped off for the ground-breaking. Two other men in suits — I hadn’t been introduced, but Piers had pointed them out as primary investors who “shared our vision” — joined them and Diana handed them each a shovel.

They dug the shovels into the ground, freezing long enough for the press to take photos that would doubtless be on the front page of theBlackwell Bulletin, heralding another notch in the belt of Blackwell’s growth.

Everyone clapped, myself included, because I wasn’t looking to draw attention to myself. Then music started to play from a white tent set up a hundred yards from the ceremony site and the crowd made their way toward it like million-dollar sheep ready for their feeding of champagne and caviar.

“Thank god that’s over,” Ruth said. “I’m going to the tent. My underboob sweat is gross. You coming?”

I eyed my dad, walking toward us. “I’ll be right there.”

I couldn’t avoid him forever.

Chapter 29

Daisy

Isaw why business magazines loved featuring my dad on their covers. As an entrepreneur he was straight out of central casting, his dark hair peppered with just enough silver to make him look experienced and distinguished. His custom suit fit him perfectly, and he still had the trim build of a man whose middle name was discipline and who’d been playing tennis and racquetball his entire life.

I took a deep breath, trying to muster my courage. What was it about a parent that could turn you into a nervous kid no matter how old you were?

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