Page 4 of Her Property

He squinted at the neighbouring property a moment longer, willing the spy to get up and make themselves known.

Nothing. He couldn’t have imagined it, could he?

No, he saw the person drop. He knew he did.

“You can’t hide up there forever!”

Shit.He couldn’t let Alfred Jones intimidate him like this, not when he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Anger burned in his chest.

Jake scooped up his clothes and began running back up the path to his cabin, stopping only to yank his jeans on once he was in the cover of the trees.

He wasn’t doing anything wrong. Was he?

When Jake had gone down to Barkley Falls’ Town Hall to get his business permit forThe James Colson Memorial Camphe’d been filled with hope. He’d been planning this camp for the past two years. He’d been in Indonesia when the idea came to him, three years after Gran called him to tell him James had died. He’d been leading a group of six wealthy executives on a jungle trek. As he watched one of them snap at his local guide, he’d had the realization that this wasn’t what he wanted anymore. It hadn’t been for some time.

Jake had started his adventure travel company more than a decade before, when he’d needed a reason to stay far away from Jewel Lakes County, a place filled with so many mixed memories. He kept an office in New York, as well as a small apartment, but he was rarely stateside. He spent most of his time leading tours and scouting places to take his clients. He was good at what he did, and he loved some parts of it, but all the joy had been siphoned out of it when he got the email from his grandmother.

“Our worst fear has come true,” Gran had said. Jake could have pictured her sitting there at her ancient desktop computer, hammering out the letter all alone, tears running down her face.

His baby brother James was dead at 28. Lost to his demons on the streets of New York.

Jake still hadn’t forgiven himself. Sometimes he still didn’t believe it. But that was why he was back. It had taken him five years, but he was back, goddammit, ready to make things right.

Jake slammed into the screen door of his cabin.

Keys. He needed to find the keys to the camp’s truck. Jake rifled around on the kitchen table—his makeshift desk, lifting folders and documents and applications. His hand hovered on the heavy manila envelope with his name on it.

Jones & Associates,it said on the top left-hand corner. When Alfred had turned up in person last week to hand him the lawsuit, Jake had been so shocked to see him there that he’d been lost for words. In all their years existing next door to each other, he didn’t think he’d ever seen Alfred Jones set foot on his property.

Technically, he still hadn’t set foot on Jake’s property. Jones had left his Porsche running in Jake’s drive, which, according to the documents in the envelope, was on Jones’s land.

Jake threw the envelope back down onto the table, burying it under a stack of papers for good measure. He knew he couldn’t ignore the lawsuit forever, but even holding it made him furious, as if the document itself was poisonous. Anyway, Jake had read it. Lawsuit or not, sending someone to spy on Jake was low.

Jake finally spotted his keys under another pile of paper and, gripping them so tightly they dug into his palm, he stormed out the front door to his truck. Going over to Jones’ place was probably not the wisest thing to do. But Jake was pissed. He’d been doing nothing wrong.

In fact, Jake had beentryingto do everything right.

The property dispute had been an albatross Jake knew he’d had to deal with, and he’d devised a plan even before he made his business license applications for the camp. He’d planned to offer to legalize the easement—including doing all the onerous work of applications and approvals at Barkley Falls Town Hall, and of course paying for all associated costs. Or if Alfred didn’t like that—and he’d been so naively sure he would be okay with it, given the fact that the encroachment was on a piece of land Jones didn’t even use, Jake had planned to offer to purchase that portion of the property using the savings he’d set aside from the sale of his business. He’d find some other way to supplement the start-up costs in the spring. Sponsorships. Adding more kids. Whatever it took. Jake had planned it all out. Written up the letter. Practiced the script.

But Alfred hadn’t even given him the chance. Alfred wouldn’t hear any of it. His answer to Jake asking if he could talk had been to slap a lawsuit down on him.

After all this time.

Just last week while Jake was visiting his gran at Jewel Lakes Care Home in Millerville, she’d had a moment of clarity. “His grudge isn’t with you, dear,” she’d said, holding Jake’s hand. “It was never you.”

He’d been taken aback. Jake had never mentioned the lawsuit to Gran. She had dementia and sometimes didn’t even recognize him—he didn’t want to burden her with his problems. Especially when they might impact his ability to keep the property he’d inherited from her.

“Who are you talking about, Gran?” he asked, desperate to know if she might have more information. But she had drifted off again, smiling out at the fall leaves on the grounds. “Isn’t it a lovely time of year?”

Jake ground out of his driveway. Gran had spent nearly her entire life on this land. Damn if he was going to let Jones take it away from him.

But as he rounded the giant mess hall, his great grandfather had built with his own two hands, Jake took his foot off the gas. Part of that, too, sat on Jones’s land.

He’s going to win.

Jake’s anger flickered as the truth poked at him like a pin on a balloon.

He slammed on the brakes.

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