The Clarke Brothers (Complete Series)

by Lilian Monroe

  “I just got a call from the secretary at the Department of Environmental Conservation,” he starts. He takes another deep breath. “Care to explain this?”

  He slides over a stack of papers and my heart sinks when I see the application I submitted a few weeks ago.

  “What are all these extra controls? You classed the area as highly sensitive? The original assessment had nothing like that in it! Maddy…” He takes a deep breath and I can tell he’s trying to control his voice. “Maddy, what is this?”

  I look at the report and take a deep breath. “It’s my best assessment of the situation,” I say in a level voice. It’s true. For the first time, I applied for our permit without downplaying the impact that this development would have. “The report is accurate.”

  Barry takes a deep breath. His eyes are blazing and I force myself not to squirm. “Maddy,” he says again. “There’s been a petition by the townspeople of Lang Creek. The petition – along with your report – has made the Department revoke our permit to work.”

  My eyes widen and my chest suddenly feels hollow. “W- what?”

  That’s not what I intended. I didn’t want to stop the job, I just wanted it to be done in an ethical way! I stare at the table, at the report in front of me and feel my heart beating a little bit harder. Is that true? Am I happy? A part of me is relieved that construction has stopped, but when I see the anger in Barry’s eyes I don't know how to feel. This wasn’t a great career move.

  Barry slides another stack of papers to me. “It’s the petition from Lang Creek. They got over five thousand signatures, enough to get the department to listen. Maddy, this is bad.” He takes a deep breath. “Every day we stand down from work, we’re losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our construction program was tight enough already and if we don’t get to work there’s no way we’ll hit our deadlines. This is going to cost us millions.”

  I can’t look at him. My head is in turmoil. I can’t ignore the part of me that’s happy, but I’ve worked my way up in this company for the past five years. I don’t know where my loyalties lie anymore. I scan the petition and my eyes widen when I see one familiar name, right on the first page.

  Aiden Clarke

  I rearrange my face and try to keep it steady. My heart starts thumping against my chest and now, added to the confusion and dread in my heart, I feel a hint of betrayal. How could he be spending every day with me and not tell me about this? How could he be one of the first people to sign the petition that might make me lose my job?

  I force myself to lift my eyes up to Barry. He’s staring at me, gauging my reaction. I take a deep breath and nod my head.

  “I should have run the report by you. When you said to submit it, I should have flagged the changes,” I say. “I’m sorry for that, it was deceitful.” I take another deep breath to steady my voice, staring Barry straight in the eye. “But I’m not sorry for the report. It’s accurate, and I’ll stand by any of the conclusions I made in it about the state of the area and the impact of the hotel.”

  Barry bristles, and I keep my eyes on his. The anger flares inside him and the little patch of red skin on his forehead reappears. He nods his head once and opens his mouth to speak.

  “Maddy, do you understand the gravity of this situation?”

  “Barry, I’m not a fucking idiot,” I snap. “I know that this is going to cost the company a lot of money. I know that I made a mistake in not telling you what was in that report. But I had nothing to do with this petition! I can’t control what the people of Lang Creek do and don’t sign!”

  “What about your little boyfriend?” he snarls. “I find it hard to believe that you had nothing to do with this.” He brings his finger down onto the petition papers in front of me. My jaw drops open and the outrage starts to crawl up my neck until it feels like my cheeks are on fire.

  “Excuse me?” I say, incredulous. “You think I had something to do with this? What exactly are you fucking accusing me of, Barry?”

  It’s my turn to be furious. I’m glad we’re in the conference room, but I know that the whole office will be able to hear what we’re saying through the thin partition walls. Right now, I don’t give a fuck. I can’t believe that he would think I would sabotage the project like that!

  “I’m saying exactly that. I find it hard to believe that at exactly the same time you’re submitting a report without telling me that you’re changing the classification of the site, a petition is being organized and signed and submitted without you knowing anything about it. You’re with him every single night!”

  The heart is pumping through my veins. I haven’t felt this angry in a long, long time. It’s almost intoxicating, and all I can see is that stupid patch of red on Barry’s forehead.

  “My personal life has nothing to do with this,” I say through clenched teeth. “And fuck you for suggesting that I would deliberately sabotage the project! We’ve worked together for five years, Barry.” We stare at each other for a few moments. Neither of us move an inch, and the heat of my anger is almost blinding. I try to keep my voice steady. “You know I wouldn’t do anything like that. You know what? Go fuck yourself!”

  I stand up, pushing my chair back with my legs so that it topples over behind me. My heart is beating fast and my ankle is starting to throb. I stomp out of the office and climb into my car. Within a few seconds, I’m flying down the highway toward the lonely mountain that Aiden Clarke calls home.

  As much as I hate to admit it, Barry is right about one thing. I should have known about this petition. That signature on the front page hurt more than anything else a man has ever done to me. The sting of betrayal mixes with anger and outrage until I’m gripping the steering wheel and racing up the mountain.

  I need answers, and Aiden Clarke is the only one that can give them to me.

  32

  Aiden

  I spend a restless night after my brothers drop me off. I toss and turn in bed, unable to get comfortable. The cabin feels too small and too cold, and when I light a fire it becomes too hot and stuffy. Finally, the grey light of dawn starts to come through the window and I sit up.

  My body is aching, even though I haven’t done anything to make it sore. I’ve hardly slept and I feel like I’ve aged ten years overnight. I stretch my neck from side to side and take a deep breath. I stand up and make my way to the shower, standing under the hot stream of water until l feel alive again. By the time I come back inside, the coffee pot is full and I pour the first mug of many today.

  I scan the small cabin that I’ve called home for the past ten years. It seems so small and dark right now. I feel almost claustrophobic being in here. I run my fingers through my hair and throw the coffee down my throat.

  My brothers are right. The hotel shouldn’t be there. Bill agrees. Most of the town agrees. I think of Mara McCoy’s face when she drove up to the cabin a couple weeks ago. At first, I thought she was just back to celebrate her engagement with her family, but now I know that she was here for business. With the new hotel being part-owned by their family, she probably wanted to make sure her piece of the pie was safe. I know how she thinks.

  I head outside toward the garage. I’ve spent too much time wallowing in self-pity up here, alone with my thoughts. It’s time for me to take back what’s mine.

  The big ‘McCoy Trucking’ logo appears in my head and I see red. I head outside, ready to raise hell in town. They may have stolen my father’s business, but they sure as hell aren’t ruining the sanctity of these mountains by getting into bed with a hotel corporation. I’m not letting that happen. I’m not sure how I’ll stop them, but at least I can try.

  As I stomp out of the cabin toward my truck, I see a familiar car pulling up near the cabin. Maddy jumps out with the car still running and comes flying toward me.

  “How dare you,” she spits. I stop in my tracks, frowning as she runs toward me. “How dare you lie to me! You bastard!”

  She collides with me, and I catch her wrists as she bri
ngs them down toward my chest. Her face is streaked with tears and her whole body is trembling.

  “Maddy!” I say. My heart is beating fast. “Maddy, what are you talking about? I never lied to you!”

  “The petition! You were one of the first to sign it. You never told me about it! Now I’m in the shit at work and I’m probably going to get fired or demoted or moved.” She’s staring at me, tears streaming down her face and I can see the pain in her eyes. I frown. The petition…?

  I remember now, Bill coming up here and warning me off her. He had me sign the petition and promise to keep my relationship with Maddy more subtle. My eyes widen.

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t think the petition would actually do anything!”

  “So you signed it!” she says. “You signed it and you still fucked me every night. You told me that you agreed it would bring more business to the area! I told you about what I was doing at work, how strict I was being with the environmental reports. I told you everything! And you lied to me!”

  “I never lied,” I growl.

  “Lying by omission is still lying,” she spits. She yanks her hands away from me, fury blazing in her eyes. I start to feel the anger bubbling in my stomach and I shake my head.

  “What did you expect, Maddy? You know I didn’t want that fucking thing to be built! You think I wouldn’t put my name to that? It doesn’t matter how many silt fences you put up, you’ve still clear-cut seven football fields’ worth of land over there! It looks like a war zone!”

  “You’ve seen it?” she frowns, taking a step back. “It’s a closed site.”

  “There’s logging roads all through these mountains, Maddy,” I say with a sigh. “I grew up driving all over them. You don’t know these mountains.”

  “So you keep reminding me,” she says bitterly. The tears are gathering in her eyes and she shakes her head. “I can’t believe you. I thought you cared about me. All the times I told you what I was doing at work and you told me I was doing a good job. All that time, you were listening to me thinking I was just a fool.”

  “That’s not true,” I say. I’m trying my hardest to keep my voice steady.

  “Is this a joke to you? You want to fuck the Enviro girl all the while you’re spearheading the campaign to kill this project?”

  “Maddy,” I say. She takes a step back from me and shakes her head.

  “I can’t believe you. I told you everything. You’ve made a fool out of me, Aiden. You’re a fucking asshole.”

  “What choice did I have, Maddy! Short of burning the fucking place down, that petition was the only thing I could do!”

  Her eyes blaze and she opens her mouth to speak. Nothing comes out, and the tears start spilling over onto her cheeks. She spins on her heels and slams the door to her car. The wheels skid on the gravel as she turns around and races back down the mountain path. I watch her leave and my chest feels like it’s being split open with an axe.

  I bring my hands up to my head and press my fingers into my skull. I bend at the hips and let out a yell, screaming into the ground as loud as I can to try to release some of the pressure inside me.

  I can’t take this anymore! I can’t take the pressure and the conflict and the questions! What the fuck did she expect? Of course I don’t want it to be built! Of course I’d still be against it! She goes to work every day and she sees what they’ve done to the forest over there. That forest is hundreds of years old, and they’ve completely destroyed it! For what! For money! To put money in the fucking McCoy family’s pocket.

  I grab a rock from the ground and hurl it at the nearest tree. It hits the trunk with a hollow knock and bounces off into the forest. I want to scream again. I want to punch something. I want this all to go away.

  Even though I know I’m right about the hotel, watching Maddy drive away makes me sick. Seeing the pain in her eyes makes me want to throw up. Having her angry at me makes me want to go over there and build the fucking hotel myself.

  I’m being torn in two completely different directions and I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t get the image of the site from last night out of my mind, but now all I can see is Maddy’s tear-streaked face.

  When I found her in the forest, I swore I’d protect her, and the past couple months have been the happiest of my life.

  I shake my head when the thought passes through it. They haven’t been the happiest of my life. They’ve been a lie. She’s been working for the corporation that’s destroying everything I hold dear to me. That’s not happiness. That’s fake. None of it is real. She can be mad at me all she wants. It doesn’t change the fact that she’s on the opposite side of a problem that I can’t accept. I can’t compromise.

  The hotel shouldn’t be there, and if that means Maddy shouldn’t be here either, then that’s the way it has to be.

  She was nothing but a fling. I got carried away.

  I set my jaw and repeat the words to myself over and over. She was a fling. She means nothing. I got carried away. I jump in the truck and drive down the mountain. When I get to the main road, a big ‘McCoy Trucking’ truck passes me and my heart beats even harder.

  I know I’m right about this. I can’t let the McCoys carve another piece of this town out for themselves. I owe it to my brothers, and I owe it to my father.

  Maddy was a fling.

  I ignore the dagger that passes through my heart whenever I say those words, and I focus on the black anger in my heart. I turn the truck in the direction of Lang Creek. I need to pay my brothers a visit.

  33

  Madeline

  I need to pull over onto the shoulder as I drive back toward town. I can’t see through my tears, and I know I’ll get in an accident if I keep driving. I put my hazard lights on and let the sobs shake my body. I rest my head on the steering wheel and let myself cry and cry and cry.

  When I can breathe again, I look through the windshield at the vista in front of me. I’m surrounded by the Adirondacks, by the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen. I’ve always loved being outdoors, but being here has given me a new appreciation for the wild.

  No, that’s not true. Being here with Aiden has given me a new appreciation for the wild.

  As mad as I am that he didn’t tell me about the petition, as betrayed as I feel by it, I know deep down that I can’t blame him for it. I shouldn’t be here. I’m on the wrong side of this fight. He’s right about it all. It doesn’t matter how many environmental controls we put in. It doesn’t matter how stringent the regulations are. We’ve still cleared acres of virgin forest and are putting a huge, wasteful, luxury hotel in its place.

  How can I call myself an environmental engineer after this?

  My heart feels like it’s breaking for a thousand reasons. I’m crying for Aiden, I’m crying for my job, and I’m crying because I know I’ve been acting falsely in both my professional life and personal life. I’m crying because I haven’t been true to myself.

  My father’s voice rings in my head and I hear him say it again. Be true to yourself. I don’t even know who I am! How am I supposed to know what to do? I thought I was an environmentalist, so I pursued environmental engineering. And yet here I am, complicit in the destruction of the environment. I’ve been lying to myself.

  I thought I was a career woman, proud of my hard work and proud of making my own way through the ranks of this industry. And yet here I am, making decisions that directly impact my progression. I lied to my boss and I dated the main opponent for the hotel’s construction.

  I can’t be true to myself, because I don’t know who I am.

  That seems to sober me up. I sob once more and bring my hands up to my cheeks to wipe the tears away. I’m only crying because I’m mad at myself. Aiden hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s been true to himself. He’s never done anything to contradict who he is. All he’s ever done is oppose the construction of the hotel. It feels like he lied to me, but maybe I was just too eager to believe my own lies.

  I put
the car into gear and start back toward Lang Creek Town. I think of Aiden’s face when I confronted him, how it twisted and contorted as I accused him of lying. What am I to him? Why was he seeing me? Do I actually mean anything to him?

  I sniffle and try to push the thoughts away as I drive. I need to focus on the road.

  Still, every tree, every mountain, every bend in the road makes me think of him. He’s shown me so much about these mountains, so much about himself. He’s shown me so much about me. I don’t know who I am or what I’m doing, but at least I realize that now. At least now I know that I don’t know.

  My heart feels like it’s breaking. I mean physically breaking. It’s a sharp pain that cracks through my chest, and when I finally pull the car up in front of the hotel, I can’t get up the stairs fast enough. I lock myself into my room and let the tears flow from my eyes.

  My phone is buzzing and buzzing and I finally wipe my eyes and look at it. It’s Barry, and Cecilia, and a few of the engineers at work. I scroll through my missed calls and my heart breaks again when I don’t see Aiden’s name.

  His silence says it all.

  I lie back on my bed and take a deep breath. I stormed out of work after being confronted about a mistake. I lied to my boss, or at the very least I misled him. My actions have contributed to the project being brought to a halt.

  I haven’t exactly been a professional about all this. I’ve been a petulant child.

  Sure, Barry shouldn’t have brought Aiden up, but I probably shouldn’t have been seeing him in the first place. Not if I was serious about wanting to progress in this company. Not if I was serious about this career.

  I scroll through my contacts until I find my father’s number. When he answers, my heart breaks all over again and I just wish I was a little girl curled up in his arms.