by Stacy Finz
Once she’d shouted his name, his kisses became searing again, and his strokes more powerful. Hard, fast, and forceful. It was almost too much. Then he rocked into her one last time, shuddered, gasped, and collapsed.
He lay there for a second, still slowly moving inside of her. “Am I crushing you?”
She pulled him tighter against her, spreading little kisses across his face, chin, and shoulders. “Uh-uh,” she said, drowsily.
“Sleepy?” He lifted up on his elbows, making Maddy cry out in protest.
“Come back.”
“Hang on a sec. I’ve got to get rid of this.” He motioned to the condom and rolled out of bed.
Maddy lay there, listening to the faint sounds of water running in the bathroom. She stretched her legs, trying to reach the edge of Rhys’s queen-size bed, and wiggled her toes. Oh, she felt good.
The RV was surprisingly comfortable. Even the wind slapping its metal frame sounded melodic. And the sheets smelled like Rhys—that same combination of pine and tree bark that awakened Maddy’s senses like aromatherapy.
When Rhys returned, he pulled her on top of him. “Better?”
She nodded and reached for the blanket. He tugged it over them, snuggling her head under his chin. As she drifted off to sleep, she wondered at the carelessness of letting herself grow attached to this man. Maybe she and Rhys had simply found each other out of temporary necessity—two people stuck in Nugget, both going through particularly rough patches in their lives, trying to find security and empowerment in each other.
He was leaving to go back to Houston. And she was in no shape to tumble into another relationship. She was still trying to figure out who she was, who to trust, or if she could even trust herself anymore. This was supposed to be her time for self-reflection, sorting out all the things that had gone wrong with her marriage and learning how to stand on her own two feet.
Still, it didn’t stop her from going a second round when they both woke up.
Rhys sat at the station, dripping grease from a Bun Boy burger all over a stack of papers, when Clay came in the door. He reached in the bag for a wad of napkins and sopped up the mess. Rhys hoped he didn’t want his fifth wheel back.
“Got time for a break?” Clay asked, lifting the brim of his cowboy hat.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Rhys pointed to his boots propped on the desk.
“This will require you to leave the office for about thirty minutes.”
Rhys sat up. “Everything okay with the boys?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Clay dismissed his concern. “Got something to show you.”
Rhys figured whatever it was it must be important for Clay to leave the ranch in the middle of the day. He grabbed his keys and jacket off the hook and yelled to Connie that he was stepping out for a while.
“We’ll take my truck,” Clay said.
Rhys climbed into his Ford and they headed past the square, onto the main road out of town. A Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens duet blared on the stereo, and Rhys turned it down. “What’s up with all the mystery?”
“No mystery. Just thought you needed a little fresh air.” Clay was full of shit, but Rhys was a patient man. “Trailer still working out?”
Better than Clay would ever know. Rhys smiled. “Real good.”
“Not getting sick of it?”
“Nope.” Rhys noticed that they’d left the highway and had turned onto McCreedy Road. Clumps of snow patched the sides of the street, but a lot of it had melted into a slushy mess. “We going to the ranch?”
Clay slid Rhys a look. “Those kids getting tired of sleeping on bunk beds in Shep’s living room with no privacy yet?”
“Given that their other option was foster care, I’d say life’s good.”
They passed Clay’s house and continued farther up the paved street. Rhys had a foggy memory of riding horseback in these pastures when they were kids, looking for stray cows for Tip.
They drove two more miles before Clay pulled into a circular driveway paved in red brick that led to a big white house with a wraparound porch that reminded Rhys of a miniature version of the Lumber Baron. The yard was filled with crabgrass and a dead sunflower wreath hung on the door, making him think the place was either abandoned or neglected.
Clay got out of the truck, walked up the steps, and fiddled with a lockbox hanging off the porch railing. It took him a few minutes, but finally the key popped out and he unlocked the door.
Rhys followed him inside. The house was empty of furniture, but looked to be in remarkably good condition. The oak floors gleamed and the staircase banister looked freshly painted in a glossy white that matched the interior moldings and baseboards. Light filled the front room, which smelled like lemon polish.
The dining room had a fireplace and a built-in hutch that looked original to the house. The kitchen, too modern to be original, had one of those restaurant stoves, a giant refrigerator hidden behind cabinet doors, granite countertops, and something Clay called a butler’s pantry—a little room with an extra dishwasher, sink, and lots of cupboards. There were several other rooms on the main floor, including a sun porch and a guest room with its own bathroom and fireplace.
“Why you showing me this?” Rhys asked, as if he didn’t know the reason. Clay wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d anchored Rhys to Nugget like a barnacle to a jetty post.
“Take a look upstairs.” Clay led the way to the second story.
Three good-size bedrooms, a couple of bathrooms, and a master suite. The attic had been converted into two smaller rooms with sloping ceilings and dormer windows. He walked through the rooms with his thumbs hooked inside his pockets, taking in the amazing views of the Feather River and the Sierra mountain range from the windows.
Back in Houston, he’d occasionally spent a Sunday going to open houses. Before he came here, he’d been saving to buy something. Most of the homes he could afford had been new, jammed right next to each other with hollow-core white doors, thin walls, and postage-stamp-sized backyards. He much preferred an older-style place like this.
“What do you think?” Clay asked, lifting his brows expectantly.
“That I can’t afford it, and even if I could, I’m not looking to set down roots here since I’m going back to Houston.”
“You don’t even know the price yet.”
“The place has five fucking fireplaces, Clay. A water faucet next to the stove. God forbid someone should walk three feet to the sink to fill a pot. That brick driveway alone is probably worth fifty g’s.”
“So, I guess you won’t be wanting to see the guest house?” Clay said flippantly.
Rhys grinned. “All right, show me the fucking guest house.”
They went back downstairs, through the mudroom, and out the back door into an expansive yard. Sure enough, a trail of redbrick pavers ran to a small cottage that looked straight out of a storybook with a slate roof and a porch that mimicked the main house. Clay unlocked it and they stepped in.
The inside was gross. Dated linoleum floors. Grimy walls in desperate need of a paint job. Outdated appliances. And it smelled moldy. But the problems were mostly cosmetic. Maddy could have it looking like a dollhouse in no time. Rhys kicked himself for going there. This was not his house. And Maddy was not his woman. Although the sex had been beyond outstanding.
“Wanna see the three-car garage?” Clay asked.
Rhys shook his head. “Give it up, McCreedy. I gotta get back.”
As he followed Clay to the front door to return the lockbox key, Rhys said, “You moonlighting as a real estate agent now?”
Clay scratched his chin and nodded his head in the direction of the stairs. “Sit down a second. I wanna talk to you about something.”
Rhys planted himself on the fourth rung and watched three deer—a mama and two little ones—across the lane pick through the slush for acorns. The road, he noticed, was nicely maintained, but not a lot of traffic. Besides this house and Clay’s, he doubted there were any others up
the street, which probably dead-ended at a fire trail.
“I don’t think this place would take too much to get into,” Clay said, grabbing a spot on the porch where he could hang his legs off the side. “It’s in foreclosure—the owner, some tech guy, who only came up on weekends, lost his job and couldn’t afford to make the payments.”
“How do you know about it?”
“Plumas Sierra Credit Union holds the note. I do business with a guy over there and since this property abuts my land he thought I might be interested. And to tell you the truth, I’m real interested.”
“Why didn’t the owner come to you in the first place, instead of foreclosing? Might’ve saved his credit.”
“He did. But he bought at the peak of the market. I wasn’t about to pay the kind of money he needed to meet his loan. Place isn’t worth it. The bank’s price is more in line with current property values. At this point they’re just looking to unload it.”
“What do you need another house for?” Rhys asked.
“The place comes with prime grazing land—about a thousand acres.”
Rhys nearly choked. “Never mind the house. You thought I could afford a thousand acres of California real estate?”
“Hell no.” Clay laughed. “But I can. And like you said, I don’t need a house. But you do.”
“Yeah. So what’s your point?” Rhys stood up.
“I’m buying the place,” Clay said. He jogged down the stairs and with his foot drew a primitive map in the dirt. “This is the house and about three acres of yard.” He pointed so Rhys could see. “Here’s the land I want. With a little county finagling I could break this off, and sell you that.”
“You could sell it to anyone—and for a load of money.”
“I don’t want just anyone living next door to my spread.”
Even if Rhys wanted to settle permanently in Nugget, he wasn’t about to take a handout from his best friend. And what Clay offered absolutely smacked of a handout.
“Thanks, buddy. But not happening.”
At the end of the second week in January, Maddy and Nate got their sewage report. Nate drove from San Francisco so they could go over it together, before they teleconferenced with their expert and Josh, their lawyer.
“Jeez, you need a PhD in poop to understand this thing,” Maddy complained as she and her brother sifted through the documents. “Yay or nay?”
“I can’t figure this damn thing out.” Nate looked at his watch, grabbed the phone, and speed-dialed. “Josh, you ready to do this? Wait . . . wait . . . I’m putting you on speaker. Okay, go ahead.”
“I’ve got Doug here,” Josh said. “Doug, why don’t you explain what’s going on?”
“The bottom line,” Doug said, “is the Nugget Wastewater Treatment Plant is designed to take 18,600 pounds of waste a day from commercial users. It’s currently running at close to seventy-five-percent capacity. A twenty-room inn should only produce roughly twelve pounds of waste a day, meaning there’s no way you could come close to pushing the system over its limit.
“But,” he continued, “I can see why the city would be concerned. The plant’s equipment is outdated and desperately needs to be upgraded and optimized. If I were them—”
Josh cut him off. “My argument would be that the system could go at any time due to wear and tear, not quantity. In other words, the Lumber Baron would not be the straw to break the camel’s back.”
“We win, right?” Maddy said.
“Unfortunately, it’s not that cut-and-dried. Like I said before, local businesses and the residents can sue the city. I don’t think they would have a leg to stand on, but it could hold you up for years.”
“So we’re right back where we started,” Nate said.
“No. Now you actually have a viable defense to the capacity issue. The Addisons are just plain wrong, which in the court of public opinion should blow their credibility to shit.”
“That’s what we want to do.” Nate put the report back in sequence and tapped the packet on the desk to get the pages even.
“The hearing’s at the end of the month, right?”
“Yes,” Maddy and Nate said at the same time.
“Doug, you’ll be ready to go?” Josh asked.
“You bet.”
“Then I’ll talk to you guys later in the week.”
“Thanks, Josh.” When they hung up, Maddy turned to Nate. “You think we’re screwed?”
“I don’t know. It could go either way.”
She wrung her hands. “I’m really freaking out about the hearing, Nate. The Addisons have done an excellent job of working everyone up. Even though our expert says there’s plenty of capacity left, people here are just going to believe the Addisons. On top of that, Colin’s attack has all the workers edgy.
“I love this place,” Maddy continued. “It has such incredible potential.” She paused and let out a breath. “But, Nate, I’m almost thinking we should cut our losses and sell.”
He joined her on the love seat. “Mad, you may be a first-rate hotel operator, but real estate savvy—not so much. No one in this economy is in the market for a half-restored hulking Victorian in a shabby business district for the kind of money we’ve already sunk into this place. We’d lose our shirts.
“Our only hope is to win that hearing. So, what do you say we buy some people off?”
She shot him a dirty look. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I figure in a town like Nugget, a hundred bucks and a mule ought to do it. Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.”
They crossed the green to the Ponderosa and Maddy noticed that a few of the banners had been knocked askew from the storm. The one on Portia’s kiosk had been shredded. Just the “Flush” part remained. A few members of the Nugget Mafia lounged in the barber shop, leading Maddy to wonder if they ever worked.
“Hey,” Nate said. “Don’t let me forget, I have an afghan in the car for you from Mom. She couldn’t finish it in time for Christmas so she sent it home with me. Thing weighs a freaking ton.”
“Okay. I’ll get it out of your car after lunch. Dave called to tell me that he got the earrings back. I overnighted them.”
“What’d he say?”
“He was surprised,” she said. “But mostly sad. I think it’s sinking in for him that I’m not taking him back.”
“He’s going to do everything in his power to talk you out of it, you know?
“Even with a prenup, a divorce could wind up costing him mega bucks. Wellmonts like holding on to what they have.”
Maddy could feel her face heat like a radiator. Was that why Dave had begged her to take him back—to save his damn money?
Nate reached for her. “Uh . . . that came out harsh. Hell, Maddy, I’m probably wrong. I just don’t want him taking advantage of you.”
“Give me a little credit, Nate.” Credit for being the most gullible female on the face of the earth. Credit for having loved someone who hadn’t loved her back.
“In other news,” she said, wanting to change the subject from Dave. “The documentary guy from Stanford is coming to check out Nugget—wants to get the lay of the land. He has about fifteen history students working with him. Virgil and I are going to take them to Donner Lake to see where it all went down. Cool, huh?”
“Thrilling,” Nate said.
They grabbed a booth in the Ponderosa. Sophie and Mariah bustled over, wanting to hear the results of the report. Maddy and Nate gave them the Reader’s Digest version.
Mariah poured them each a cup of coffee and slid a copy of the Nugget Tribune under Maddy’s nose.
“What’s this?” she asked, quickly perusing the page where Sandy had written a long op-ed piece urging the city council to reject new businesses that would tax Nugget’s sewage plant and detailing how Sierra Heights had been required to build its own septic system. Sandy had ended the article by writing, “Shouldn’t the Lumber Baron have to do the same?”
As if their twenty-room inn could be compared
to a development with eighty homes and a golf course. Maddy wanted to skewer the woman along with the people who had written letters to the editor, advocating that the Lumber Baron’s lodging permits be revoked. She passed the paper to Nate.
“My sources tell me the Addisons and their band of merry losers are planning a demonstration a day or so before the meeting,” Mariah said.
Maddy leaned her head back. “For goodness sake, will these people not give me one moment’s peace?”
“Well?” Mariah asked. “What now?”
“We continue to move forward,” Nate said. “Let the town see that we’re not backing down. And until the hearing, spread the word that Nugget’s waste system is only running at seventy-five-percent capacity. I’m also thinking that we have Josh send a threatening letter.”
“Uh-uh,” Maddy said. “No letters. I know this town, and it’s not going to respond well to a San Francisco lawyer telling it what to do. I think threats of a lawsuit should be a last resort. Don’t you agree, Soph?”
Sophie nodded her head. “Maddy’s right. Folks here will see it as an affront. They’ll dig in their heels just to be contrary.”
“That’s exactly right,” Maddy said. “No, for justice, we must go to Don Corleone.”
Everyone looked at her like she’d sprouted a second head. Sophie reached for the coffee carafe and refilled their cups. “What did you have in mind, Mad?”
“I’m getting a haircut.”
Chapter 20
Before Nate left for the city, he and Maddy treated themselves to a couple of fried egg sandwiches at the Bun Boy.
“Anything new on the Sophie and Mariah baby front?” she asked her brother. “I wanted to talk to them about it yesterday, but I figured they’d be more likely to give you the skinny.”
Nate shrugged. “They’ve been pretty tight-lipped. All I know is they’re making a trip to the city in a few days for some medical tests.”
As far as Maddy knew, Sophie had already done all the preliminaries. “You think something’s wrong and that’s the holdup?”
