Elias In Love

by Grace Burrowes

  The weekend had been spent sprucing up Violet’s property in hopes the insurance company would be placated. The stonemason had said cosmetic effort alone would put the barn to rights, but replacing windows on an entire farmhouse would cost thousands.

  “Violet will never sell to Maitland,” Dunstan said.

  The crickets chirped, the fireflies drifted, and Elias contemplated how much sorrow could fit into two syllables. He might well never see Violet again, never hold her again, never make love with her again.

  All of that hurt like hell, but hurt was a fact of life. Worse than the hurt was the sense of abandoning Violet with the enemy setting up camp on her very door step—and at Elias’s invitation. Come spring, Maitland might claim her gas tank had leaked into the soil, or her sheep had gotten loose on his property. Her dogs might turn up missing or injured.

  If Maitland had committed arson, he had no scruples. Maitland didn’t strike Elias as stupid enough to set a fire in broad daylight when anybody could have driven by, though.

  “Elias, can’t you commute from Scotland?” Jane asked. “Dulles Airport is handy, and Dunstan describes you a frequent traveler. Just pop over every couple months, beat Dunstan at chess, keep in touch with Violet? Even farmers get some down time over the winter. Maybe Violet could do New Year’s in Scotland.”

  “Elias hates to fly over water,” Dunstan said. “Not that anybody should blame him.”

  “I hate to fly, period,” Elias said, “but one copes. Violet claims the last crops can come off as late as November, December is for accounting, and the lambs start coming in January. What she’s not saying—what she doesn’t have to say—is that a relationship with the man who betrayed her valley doesn’t interest her.”

  “She’s interested,” Jane said, stifling a yawn. “She watches you the way I used to watch Dunstan when he had a case before mine. His closing arguments were… Well, I paid very close attention.”

  “Let’s turn in,” Dunstan said, rising and drawing Jane to her feet. “And you can hear a closing argument from me of a different sort.”

  In Scotland, the newly married cousins would never have flirted like this before Elias. His failed engagements, his upbringing in the home of a bachelor uncle, his history, his work, everything had set him apart. Odd, that Dunstan, the one who’d wandered the farthest, made Elias feel like a cousin again.

  “You going to bed?” Jane asked.

  “Soon,” Elias replied. “I have some thinking to do.”

  Dunstan cuffed him on the back of the head. “Think all you like, and it won’t change a thing. This is not a problem you can think your way through.”

  “Dunstan, leave him alone,” Jane said, leading her husband by the hand.

  “Yeah,” Elias said, reciprocating the blow. “Leave me alone or wee Jane will turn you over her knee.”

  “You see before you a man sustained by hope.” Dunstan saluted and let his wife lead him away.

  The two of them wafted into the house on a cloud of marital bliss, while Elias shut off the porch light, and took up a seat at the top of the porch steps.

  Summer nights in Damson Valley were alive in a way Elias hadn’t experienced in Scotland. Night birds, bats, and droves of insects filled the air, while small animals skittered through the underbrush. The humidity lent every scent more weight, so that mown grass, woods, and baskets of petunias all perfumed the darkness.

  Wallace butted his head against Elias’s arm, then climbed into Elias’s lap. The cat was a comfort, but no substitute for a hand to hold, or someone to love.

  “Why is it, cat, that I feel more satisfaction from cleaning Violet’s gutters than from saving a lovely old castle?”

  The weekend had been educational, and gratifying. Mowing a field for Violet, changing the oil in her tractor, piling up the cut tree limbs for next year’s firewood had felt relevant, real. Not like sitting around a conference table and brainstorming a new mission statement for an organization that needed a heart far more than it needed a catchy slogan.

  “And I’ll leave Violet here, with the worst possible threat building his empire directly across the road from her farm. Maitland is apparently well connected, determined, and ruthless.”

  Wallace dug his claws into Elias’s thigh hard enough to hurt, just as Maitland would dig his claws into Violet’s valley—if Elias gave him the opportunity.

  Chapter Fifteen

  * * *

  “I should come out there, bring Ebersole and maybe Wainwright,” Pete Sutherland said. “They’ve both played the course at St. Andrew’s, you know. Eight-hundred acres is not something you want to negotiate on your own, Max. No offense, but we’ve been at this game a lot longer than you have.”

  Max was offended. Lately he was offended every time he talked with Sutherland or one of his investment buddies, who thought a grasp of civil engineering and complicated budgets resulted from walking manicured golf courses.

  Sutherland and his usual gang of idiots were the primary reason Violet Hughes had been able to torpedo the Poplar Cove development three years ago. Sutherland had taken over the microphone at a public hearing, and good-old-boy condescended to a woman who’d rained down facts and figures like a Maryland thunderstorm.

  The zoning board had listened, the locals had smirked all the way to the feed store, and Max had kept Sutherland at arms’ length from any transaction of significance since.

  “It’s a simple deal,” Max said, switching the phone to his other ear so he could use his mouse. “We’re buying the land, straight up. The preliminary appraisals are done, the deed is clean, the only dickering to do is over the price. If you bring half your posse, you’ll spook this guy.”

  A few hours of high-dollar cyber-research confirmed that Elias Brodie was what Max aspired to be—an international businessman. His origins might be Scottish, but his home turf was any conference table where assets and revenue were under discussion. Brodie had turned around more than a few not-for-profits, and his own resources included an earldom, an honest-to-God castle, some sort of baronial lodge, significant land, and an amazingly diverse and green portfolio.

  “You sure we can’t talk him into a contingency?” Sutherland asked. “A ninety-day exclusive? We’re prepared to be generous with regard to earnest money.”

  A deluge of emails had assured Max just how generous, but Brodie wasn’t a fool. Earnest money was spare change compared to the sale price. Max scrolled through a search of images from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the terrain bearing a close resemblance to western Maryland.

  Pretty, in other words. Low mountains, rolling fields, plenty of surface water, beautiful vistas. Some of the best salmon-fishing streams in the world flowed through Aberdeen. Too bad nobody had thought to develop that land.

  “Max, are you listening to me? If you can’t close this deal on Tuesday, the guys and I will have to look for another project elsewhere.”

  “Just printing out the last of the preliminary appraisals,” Max said. “They all came in within a five percent range, which makes the pricing simple.”

  “You’re offering too much,” Sutherland said. “I’m telling you, Max, start out low. First rule of business. Start out low. Costs you nothing, earns you respect from your opponent. What time is this meeting?”

  The meeting was tomorrow morning, which meant Max would endure at least three more calls from Sutherland, possibly some from his co-investors, none of whom knew how to use a nail gun, much less how to develop a piece of land without getting sued.

  And Pete’s threat—close tomorrow or the investors would walk—was anything but casual.

  Down the hall, Bonnie and Derek were having their first argument of the week, and abruptly, Max had had enough. Enough micro-management from the privileged buffoons pulling his strings, enough putting up with bickering co-workers, enough balancing everybody’s ego but his own.

  Time for a little walk-away posturing. “I’ve been thinking, Pete.”

  “What have I told you about th
inking?”

  “Do we really want to get involved up to the neck with yet another residential development?”

  A pause ensued, while Pete probably closed the game of solitaire he’d been losing. “What are you saying, Max?”

  Get off my back. “We’ve done housing developments, nice ones, but this is the same old, same old. You wanted a project that would boot you into the big leagues. Is this it? Sediment and erosion control, curb and gutter, metes and bounds. It’s the same drill, only larger, and we have no guarantee that the zoning board will play nice-nice come public meeting time. Maybe we should keep looking.”

  “I don’t have time to keep looking,” Sutherland retorted with gratifying alacrity. “The tax man cometh, Max, and that means the revenue has to be invested. Eight hundred acres is not the same drill. Nobody else has built anything that size that far out from D.C. and Baltimore, and I thought you said a strip mall was a possibility?”

  “Be a lot of off-site road improvement,” Max said, though every development of any size required modifying the highways and intersections in the immediate area.

  “Like that has ever stopped us? You don’t understand money, Max. You have to spend money to make money, and this deal has money written all over it.”

  “I always make you a healthy profit,” Max replied, while the argument down the hallway escalated. “I’ll make you a healthy profit on this project too, but next time around, let’s think outside the box, Pete.”

  “As long as you bring in the money, you can think in a geosynchronous orbit over Disneyworld. Let me know how the meeting goes.”

  He hung up, and Max placed the receiver back on its cradle. The projects Max managed for Sutherland had been very profitable, because Max did not believe in building junk. Shoddy work cost a lot more to replace—or to litigate—than it did to get right the first time. His subcontractors either played by that rule or worked for somebody else, and the eventual buyers were willing to pay for value.

  And yet, the notion of turning eight-hundred acres of farmland into yet another well laid out, pretty, inviting, instant neighborhood should have pleased Max more than it did—a lot more. Violet Hughes would dig in her heels as only Violet Hughes could, and she’d dog the construction phase like a bad rash. Telephoto lenses came to mind, and injunctions, and stop work orders.

  “For God’s sake, Derek it isn’t your coffee maker. What part of asking permission don’t you understand?”

  Bonnie wasn’t merely irritated. She was furious. Max shoved away from his desk and headed for the kitchen.

  “What is wrong with you, Bonbon?” Derek held a cup of coffee in one hand, the scent suggesting he’d helped himself to the good stuff. “It’s Monday. Mon-Day. A little joe to start the day is the American way, and the purpose of a coffee maker is to make coffee. I thought you wanted me to keep a fresh pot going for you?”

  He imbued the last suggestion with lascivious intent, which was as disgusting as it was pathetic. Max got out his phone, and swiped it into video recording mode.

  “This coffee maker was sitting underneath my desk,” Bonnie spat. “The coffee was in my shoulder bag, and that means, you got into my personal space, and my personal effects to help yourself without permission. That’s stealing, Derek.”

  Derek apparently hadn’t sensed Max lurking behind him in the doorway, or Derek was stupid enough not to care that he had an audience.

  “You are the most uptight, controlling bitch,” Derek retorted. “So I helped myself to your damned coffee without asking? Why don’t you get laid and chill out? If you’re that hard up, we can leave the lights out and I’ll make an exception to my no pity-fucking rule. Either that, or find another job, Bonbon. I don’t need your PMS on top of everything else I have going on.”

  He patted Bonnie’s breast and took a sip of his coffee. Patted her breast.

  The guy had a death wish. Max couldn’t see Derek’s expression, but he could see Bonnie’s. He slipped his phone in his pocket, took three steps forward, and positioned himself between Derek and Bonnie.

  “I’d set the coffee down,” Max said. “You don’t want to be holding anything hot when Bonnie slaps the shit out of you.”

  “She knows better than to assault a lawyer,” Derek retorted.

  Bonnie moved to stand by the door. If looks could kill, Derek would have been a scorched circle on the floor tiles.

  “Bonnie,” Max said, “may I see you in my office?”

  “Sure, Max.”

  She left without a backward glance. Derek watched her go, his gaze fixed on her backside.

  “Pack your desk,” Max said. “Don’t finish the coffee you stole, don’t bother putting on your wounded-bro act, don’t so much as sneer, or I will re-arrange your face and swear on a stack of Bibles you fell against the door. Bonnie will swear on a bigger stack of Bibles that I’m telling the truth too.”

  Derek took a slow sip of his contraband brew. “Max, the white hat just doesn’t suit you, buddy. Wrong fashion accessory. If you want to suck up to a woman who thinks she runs a law office because she can type half-decently, that’s your little-dick problem. What I’m going to need you to do, though, is explain to Bonnie that—”

  Max took the coffee from him, held it long enough that even Derek understood he was at risk for a scalding, then dumped it in the sink.

  “Pack. Your. Desk. Leave your keys in the mail tray. Your lease agreement provides that you can be evicted for moral turpitude at the sole discretion of the lessor, who would be me. Go, and go quietly, or you’ll wish you had.”

  Derek leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms, the soul of nonchalance. “Are you threatening me, Max? Over a cup of coffee?”

  A phrase Max’s mother had used came to mind: He ’s dead and he won’t lie down. “I’m evicting you, and if need be, I’ll start the legal proceedings, and have the sheriff’s deputies here putting your worldly goods in the street. Bonnie is taking the rest of the day off, recovering from a migraine. You are finding a new address.”

  Max left Derek slouched against the kitchen counter, trying to look sophisticated and amused, and failing.

  “You OK?” Max asked, when he’d closed the door to his office. Bonnie sat at the table by the window, dry-eyed and composed, when she ought to be ranting and throwing things.

  “I can’t work here anymore,” she said. “I’m sorry, Max, and I might need some unemployment and a reference, but you saw… I can’t believe he did that. I can’t—”

  Her chin quivered, and Max wanted to throw something fragile. He got out his cell phone, and queued up the video.

  “You are filing a sexual harassment claim, and you will sue for damages, Bonnie. I can’t represent you because I’m a witness, should Hendershot be stupid enough not to settle. His father will likely pay any amount you name, but it won’t be enough to save Derek’s license to practice law.”

  Bonnie watched the vignette, her expression clearing. “Did I ever tell you that you are my favorite rat bastard lawyer in the world, Max Maitland?”

  “Rat bastard lawyer is an oxymoron to some people. I’ll file a complaint with the bar association, and by this time next month, Derek Hendershot will be in very, very hot water.”

  Bonnie reached for a tissue and replayed the video. “He really is awful. You’re going after his license to practice law?”

  Max watched the images of Derek petting Bonnie’s breast. To create a stink like this in a rural jurisdiction now, when a major project was about to come to life, was bad timing. Max couldn’t get the hell out of Dodge when he’d need to work closely with the zoning board and find office space here for his engineers and accountants.

  “I won’t have to go after his license to practice law. Bar counsel will investigate, interview us both, watch this video, and probably give Derek the option of surrendering his license voluntarily. I’m doing the citizens of Damson Valley a favor.”

  Which would earn him not one iota of support for his project.
>
  Bonnie passed him back his phone. “Max, are you OK?”

  Well, no, he wasn’t. He was in the unenviable position of seeing his wishes fulfilled, and being less than impressed with the view. Damson Valley was crying out for development—beyond doubt—and the Hedstrom property was a terrific place to start the process, despite Violet Hughes’s perch across the road.

  But the project would take years to see through, the job would be uphill every inch of the way, and most of the money would go to a bunch of smug, lazy bastards whose idea of work was carving the Christmas roast. Max would get a good salary out of it, and another paragraph on his resume, and that would be…

  Max emailed the video to himself and to Bonnie. “You ever get bored being a legal admin, Bonnie?”

  “I’ve been bored for about twenty years, give or take, but I’ve also been able to pay my bills. That was the front door slamming.”

  “Derek has been evicted,” Max said. “A moral turpitude clause comes in handy, even if it’s largely unenforceable.”

  Bonnie’s smile was downright diabolical. “You know what the best part is?”

  The best part would be… Max wasn’t sure what the best part would be. Hundreds of families would have beautiful homes in a beautiful setting, the local economy would grow significantly, job security would improve for the service sector, and tax revenues would give the local government options it couldn’t dream of now.

  And not one person would thank Max Maitland for making it happen, though like Bonnie, his bills would be paid, and that mattered a very, very great deal.

  “The best part is my bills will be paid, too, Bonnie.”

  “Nope,” Bonnie said, getting to her feet. “The best part is, if Derek wants to contest my complaint, or appeal the ethics findings, not a single attorney in this town will represent him.”

  “You’re right,” Max said. “That is a cheering thought. Can you call a locksmith or shall I?”

  “I’ll be happy to,” Bonnie said. “As it happens, I know a guy with a lock and key service. He’s kinda cute too, and a first rate dancer.”