Page 5 of Her Property

For the briefest moment, a sense of hopelessness washed over him.

What was the point? Jones’ lawsuit was valid. Maybe heshouldjust give up on the camp. It wasn’t like it was going to bring James back.

Jake swallowed back the thickness in his throat. He could sell the property and forget about the whole thing. Get a one-way ticket to… Beijing. Auckland. Montenegro. It didn’t matter. He knew how to get by on his own. He’d been doing it for years.

It would be easier that way.

Jake looked up at the solid old wood building.

Jake’s great-grandfather, Matthew Colson, had purchased the property on Ruby Lake for a song when he’d gotten back from the war in 1945. As Jake’s grandfather had explained to him, his father had gotten it cheap because of the awkward layout. It was a peninsula hemmed off from the main shoreline by a broad rocky outcropping. The only way to access it was by trespassing on the property next door, which belonged to another family back then. To build a road, Jake’s great-grandfather would have needed to blast through the rock and clear several hundred trees, or build the road on the neighbour’s property, which ended in a narrow portion of flat land next to the rocks.

Once the original neighbour heard that Matthew Colson planned on building a summer camp, they agreed to let them build the road on their land, in exchange for their kids being permitted to attend the camp for free until they were grown. It had been a gentleman’s agreement, with no official record or notice on title.

Everything was fine until Simon Jones bought the property after the neighbor died, long after their kids had grown and their years at the summer camp were just a distant memory.

Alfred Jones’s father was a nasty man, Gramps said. Made his boy look like a pussycat.

Jake remembered seeing Simon in town in the summers, sneering at the locals as if he couldn’t keep his family far enough away from them.

Gramps said Simon Jones had taken action on the camp the minute he moved in, after his land survey showed the road and half the mess hall were built on Jones land. It was only when Jake’s grandfather, who’d run the camp after his father, agreed to shut it down that he relented.

Looking up at the hall now, Jake took in its peeling brown paint and the rotten steps at the front. It had been out of use for decades—three and a half of them, actually. The last campers had graced its steps the year before Jake was born. His mother had been one of them.

Jake gritted his teeth. Hehadto reopen the camp. He’d been working steadily towards it for two years. He’d sold his adventure travel company and moved back here. He’d already partnered with a youth rehab program in the next county over to take their kids for the summer before they went home. He had a business plan, a potential staff pool, hell, he even had a logo.

The James Colson Memorial Campwas supposed to be a place for kids to get the support James never got. The special time and care he needed that might have saved him.

Jake’s stomach twisted with fury—the camp wasn’t just a new adventure for him. It wasn’t just business.

It was atonement.

It meant more to him by a long shot than Jones’ stupid strip of land. Jones had no reason to need his portion back. It was his summer home, for god’s sake. He was being vindictive. Hateful. He’d gotten Barkley Town Hall to put a stop-work order on Jake so he couldn’t construct anything new until the lawsuit was settled. That’s why he’d sent someone to spy on him; they were trying to catch him out.

But Jake had done nothing wrong.

If Jones would stoop so low as to send someone to keep tabs on Jake, Jake could sure as hell go over there and give that person a reason to stop.

Jake slammed his foot down on the gas. The roar of the old truck’s engine articulated the rage in Jake’s thrumming body. With a spin of gravel under his tires, he headed for Alfred fucking Jones.

Cat

Maybe he hadn’t seen her. Maybe he hadn’t heard the glass shattering on the planks of the deck. Heart pounding, Cat leaned against the wood railing, listening for something—anything—to indicate whether she could get up again. But when she looked down at her hand, her stomach lurched. Blood gushed freely from the wound. Just the sight of it had her feeling light-headed.

She had to deal with this injury, and fast.

Cat pulled her cardigan off and wrapped it around her injured hand.

She never liked that sweater much, anyway.

But it wasn’t doing a very good job of stopping the flow of blood.

Hauling herself to standing, Cat ran off the deck, bent over in a half-hearted effort to conceal herself. Only when she’d been sitting on the floor inside the French doors to the deck did she dare to take a closer look at the wound. She pulled her sweater back. With the pressure removed, the two inch long gash filled with blood.

Cat’s stomach wobbled. She wouldn’t call herself dainty, but that was a lot of blood.

Alot.

What if she’d hit some kind of artery? What if she passed out up here and died on the floor of Alfred’s fancy lake house? There was no one to find her—Alfred wasn’t coming back for a week, and Laura was at the trial back in New York. The same trial Cat had flubbed so masterfully.

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