Love and Trust

by Jean Oram

  “Chicken?” she taunted.

  He stood up, hoping to walk off the anger ripping through his muscles, making them burn. “You work for her, but I don’t appreciate you getting involved with her development battle. You need to stay out of it, as it does not concern you.”

  “They’re dropping stuff in the water I’m swimming in.” His daughter’s head tilted in a haughty challenge.

  “Don’t you dare get involved in this!” Realizing he’d moved to the edge of the dock and was glaring down at her, giving her the reaction she’d feed upon, he stepped back and forced himself to cool it.

  Dot’s fingers tightened on the edge of the dock as she bobbed in the wake from one of the barges. “Why are you being such a dick? You could squash Rubicore in, like, five seconds.”

  “Don’t talk to me that way, young lady.”

  The teen gave an angry snarl, rolled off her tube and swam away.

  “Stay close to shore.”

  He judged the distance between her and the barges. Given the location of the cottage on the outside curve of the bay, she had plenty of room before she ended up where the boat traffic naturally turned on its way in and out of town. But still, it was hard to see a swimmer, especially one far from shore.

  Tristen checked his cell phone for reception, took off his watch and shoes, removed the small, polished black stone he carried in his pocket to remind himself that power, prestige, and wealth didn’t equal a life worth living, and kept an eye on Dot in case she needed help. Having a teenager was going to make him prematurely gray.

  That and the way Melanie kept popping into his life, taunting him to step into the world he’d left behind. He was a stoneworker now. One on the brink of being able to ditch selling houses, and start doing it full-time without digging into his billion-dollar nest egg. Call him crazy, but he felt the need to start this new life without his old money tainting it. An all new Tristen was being formed and he didn’t need anyone or anything distracting him from the goals he’d set out for himself.

  Dot continued to swim, rolling into a fluid back crawl, making her way toward shore, where the water was dark, shaded by tall trees. The exertion would hopefully work off the excess surliness and she’d return to the land of the normal. Then, he’d suggest she find a different law office to work in.

  When Dot was close enough for him to holler at, he called, “How does someone with a stroke like that fail gym class?”

  She pulled her head out of the water, not even out of breath as she replied, “What?” The snarky note in her voice was still there.

  “Keep swimming, kid.”

  A few shingles nailed to a board drifted by, and he stooped to scoop it out. Max came over to inspect the object and Tristen found himself hoping Melanie would manage to put some stops and checks on the developer, if nothing else. Rubicore didn’t care about the surrounding area, only their bottom line. And in a quaint, historic area such as Muskoka, it was a shame they should be allowed to act that way.

  Dot’s regular splashing faltered and she let out an anguished cry, which had her choking on water. Tristen went on alert, perching himself on the dock’s edge, ready to dive in, arms out for balance as he watched for further signs of distress. As Max barked at his side, he mentally calculated Dot’s location, in case she went under.

  “Are you okay?” he hollered.

  “No! I’m stuck to something!” Her voice was high with panic, her eyes huge. Tristen’s legs burned with adrenaline as he shoved off the dock in a dive, arching far across the water in hopes of getting to her faster.

  Then he was splashing across the lake, the inner tube under his arm, the weight of his clothes slowing him down as his cargo shorts’ pockets filled with water. The tube interfered with his movements so he clipped its seam between his teeth and backstroked to where his daughter was treading water, struggling to keep her head above the waves.

  “There’s something under the water,” she gasped as he came closer. Her eyes were black with panic. “It’s caught my anklet.”

  “It’s okay. I have you now.” He pushed the tube toward her but she flailed, knocking it away as she went under. He grabbed her around the waist, trying to hold her up as he stretched for the tube, which was dancing away in the breeze. They went under together. Tristen kicked hard, his legs screaming. They were going down, along with whatever she was caught on.

  He let go of her to try and dive, but she scrambled against him, hugging him so hard he lost the breath he’d been holding.

  The water was deep, the bottom coming closer by the second. His foot hit a dark object under Dot. The fir beam he’d been griping about had decided it was time to sink to the rocky depths with his daughter attached.

  Tristen twisted away from her, letting her use her energy against him as he bent to grab her leg. He yanked.

  Nothing.

  He was out of air. Dot’s struggles were weakening. He shoved her arms out of his way and grabbed her ankle, bracing his feet on the old beam. It was too dark to find the clasp to her anklet. He yanked again. Then harder. Why had he bought such a strong chain? He was going to hurt her if he wasn’t careful.

  He fumbled through the darkness, unable to find what the anklet was caught on.

  Dot was barely moving. He couldn’t lose her. Not like this. Not ever.

  He braced himself against the beam, knowing this would hurt Dot, but that it might be their only chance. Wrapping his hands around her ankle in hopes of minimizing the damage, he gave one last vicious tug, using his legs as leverage. The anklet broke beneath his grip.

  She was free!

  Kicking hard, Tristen pushed past his daughter, snagging her as he burst to the surface, her limp body clutched against him.

  Tristen gasped and sputtered. His lungs fought to take in the sudden oxygen; his muscles speared by pain. Shore. He needed to get to shore.

  His body weak, he kicked as hard as he could, heaving great gulps of air as he dragged Dot to land. After carrying her over the rocks set along the shoreline, he collapsed onto a bed of pine needles lowering her to the ground.

  Her eyes were closed, her lips not nearly as pink as they should be. His fingers fumbled to find a pulse. He lowered his ear to her chest and checked for breathing.

  “Come on, Dot. Breathe. Don’t die.” Please don’t die.

  Movement. Her chest expanded.

  He rolled her onto her side, unable to take his eyes off the pulse at her neck, her nostrils’ slight flutter.

  Wake up.

  After an excruciatingly long series of seconds that had him praying to every god he’d ever heard of, she stirred slightly. Then nothing. Max came thundering over, crashing into Dot. He barked twice, then licked her face. She coughed and sputtered, her eyes opening. Then she let out a wail, and Tristen crushed her against his chest as she sobbed in terror.

  “I have you, Dot. I have you. It’s okay.”

  Max nosed his head between them, licking Dot’s face.

  Tristen checked her over as he held her. The leg that had been caught was bleeding from a long gash, and there was an oozing, angry welt where he’d tugged off her anklet.

  His baby girl.

  He hefted her, Max barking at his side, and spun to head up the hill to his truck. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  A large wail escaped her.

  “Are you hurt anywhere other than your leg?”

  She clung to his wet shirt, her hands in fists. The water she wrung out of the fabric trickled down his chest. He wanted to shake her, get a full sentence, so he could slow his storming heartbeat and know she was safe.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She let out a sob, her body shaking in residual fear.

  Tristen tightened his grip and hurried his pace. Someone was going to pay for this.

  * * *

  Tristen helped Dot into the law office. She had needed twenty-four stitches to her foot and ankle due to the developer’s negligence, and it had taken every scrap of willpower Trist
en possessed not to go marching over to Melanie’s and ask her to start a lawsuit against Rubicore, even though it was almost midnight by the time the doctor had set them free.

  Melanie wanted action? Well, now that Dot had been hurt, there was going to be plenty of action. And not just from Tristen. His girl was fired up and ready to take on the world, as well.

  Look out, Rubicore.

  “Oh, my.” Melanie rushed to help Dot as the girl hobbled into the office’s entry. “What happened to you?”

  “I got caught,” she replied in a shaky voice. “On some trash that fell off Rubicore’s barge.”

  “Rubicore?” Melanie met Tristen’s gaze.

  “We’re pretty sure,” he said.

  “It was under the water,” Dot continued. Her vulnerability tore him up, and he had to suppress the urge to punch something in hopes of making the helpless feeling go away. “We need to go get them, Melanie. We need to make them pay. My dad is right—they have to clean up their mess.”

  Melanie cut him another glance. She was in one of those 1950s dresses again, blue this time, with white accents, and it was as sexy as all get out. His eyes kept being drawn to her cleavage, which was tasteful exposed, but ultimately a sexy curve that made him want to get her naked.

  He had to be hard up for a lay. It was the only reasonable answer. Two years of abstinence was finally doing him in, because he was seriously considering a woman that a smart man would not take to bed. Melanie was not a one-night-stand sort of gal. She was the other kind. The kind he was definitely not seeking and therefore should not be eyeing.

  They were waiting for him to speak, their expectation tangible.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Are you going to help?” Dot plunked her hands on her lips, that scary teenage persona flickering to the surface.

  “Sure, let’s get you over to your desk.” He helped her along, purposefully misunderstanding her meaning, doubts niggling his mind. If he got into this Rubicore mess with Melanie at his side he would ruin everything. And he wasn’t referring to Rubicore. He’d crush the developer, of course, but he couldn’t be that dashing hero for Melanie and still be the man he wanted to be. The man he was now. The man who wanted Melanie, a sexy, smart woman, to desire him as badly as he feared he desired her.

  Doomed. That was the word for it.

  “No.” Dot stopped moving. “Help with the development.” She gave him an assessing glance, then reached for the killer ammo. Like an illegal arms dealer, she pulled the pin on his soft side’s grenade. The hurt child card. Helpless, he watched it roll in. “They hurt me, Daddy.”

  Daddy.

  Crap.

  He was officially a ruined man.

  “I know, Dot. But we…I—”

  “What’s the excuse, buster?” Melanie had moved up on him, arms crossed, fury pumping below her unflawed skin.

  Double crap. He used to play hockey, but he hadn’t seen his opposition closing in on him, ready to take him down. “Look, I don’t have the puck, okay? So go after someone else.”

  Melanie narrowed her eyes. “You can’t put the rookie with no experience on the ice and expect her not to get creamed. The team needs an experienced coach.”

  Triple crap. She was using sports analogies now? Add sprinkles and a cherry on his I’m-completely-and-utterly-screwed sundae.

  He looked to Dot. She, too, needed him to be the man he’d become, not the monster he used to be. The man who could make her laugh and not scowl all the time. A father who was there. Not the man who strived to win at any cost.

  Maybe he could sue Rubicore from afar.

  “We need you, Daddy.” Dot pulled on his arm, her eyes big. “We need you to be the scary guy who takes them down. We can’t do it without you.”

  Both women might be harmless in appearance, but he knew they had a hard underside of manipulation and strength. While they were softening him, they were no match for an experienced manipulator like Rubicore, whose administrators had money, power, and prestige on their side and could buy out anyone—and likely already had.

  Melanie and Dot couldn’t do it on their own, could they?

  “Imagine who else is going to get hurt if we don’t stop them. I can’t even go swimming anymore. What if something happens to Max? Or Melanie’s kids?”

  “I don’t have kids.”

  “Who is going to stop them, Dad?”

  Okay, first of all, it didn’t have to be him. Anyone could raise a ruckus.

  “We need you. You know what to do.”

  Unfortunately, that was true.

  “We only have one chance. Time is limited,” Melanie added quietly.

  They were dog-piling him.

  “I’m sure the municipality will do something,” he replied.

  “I called them this morning and I got a brush-off.” Dot’s chin jutted out and trembled. “You said you’d help. You said you wanted to crush their skulls like they were canned salmon bones.” Her eyes brimmed with tears.

  Oh, no. Not the tears.

  He edged toward the door.

  “You know people in the municipality, right, Tristen?” Melanie asked softly. She was following him. Stalking him with her pretty, sweet, and innocent persona. Nonthreatening but completely dangerous.

  He was being a jerk saying no, and by now he had probably learned how to manage the monster he kept bound in the attic if he only helped in the background, right?

  “We need you, Daddy.”

  His daughter needed him. How could he ever convince himself there was a choice in the matter? If she needed him, he was in. End of story.

  CHAPTER 7

  This was bad.

  Tristen had changed his tune and was eager to help, which was good, but he’d turned into an impossible bossy pants who wanted to take over and be in control.

  “We need to get someone who can make sure they perform due diligence. Like a watchdog committee,” he said, leaning against the couch back, making himself comfortable here in Trixie Hollow. They’d left Dot at the movie theater with her new girlfriend Samantha and had done a motorboat drive-by of Baby Horseshoe, seeing frustratingly little despite hearing loud machines working in the island’s woods. They’d decided on a Nymph Island stopover to try and come up with a game plan.

  “How do you find a person like that?” Melanie took off her glasses and rubbed them on the skirt of her dress.

  Tristen stared at the fireplace’s stonework, seemingly lost for a moment.

  “Out here, in the middle of nowhere?” he said finally, coming back around. “Not sure, exactly.”

  Melanie sighed, wishing the frustrating man didn’t smell awesome. She’d been ecstatic when he’d agreed to help, but now he was withdrawing, becoming distant and professional. She wanted the man who had charmed her at the boat show, the man with the passionate glimmer in his eye when an injured Dot had convinced him to help.

  Part of Melanie wondered if he was having second thoughts about working with her.

  She walked to the screen door that led out to the veranda and listened for a moment. “How can they possibly have a permit to be doing whatever they are doing over there? I haven’t seen a thing in the municipal news.”

  “I’ll write a letter to the council that you can use as your own,” Tristen said, moving back to the garbage issue he seemed so stuck on.

  “Why can’t it have your name on it?”

  “I thought you wanted to be the head of this project?”

  “Why don’t you want Rubicore to know you’re involved?”

  Tristen wouldn’t meet her eyes as he began typing on his laptop. “I think you should also set up a few meetings to find out what is really going on.”

  “Mr. Valos still thinks I’m a useless teenager. We need someone with more sway.” She gave him a pointed look, which was lost on him.

  “I’m going to talk to the bylaw officer about the trash issue. I’ll take the concerned-father approach.”

  “What can we do about the heritag
e they are surely destroying over there?”

  “The garbage issue is long-term, Melanie.”

  “So is heritage.”

  “They are still going to be hauling trash once the resort is open. It’s not something we want to see or have falling into our water.”

  “And the other environmental issues? Such as destroying habitat, creating noise and light pollution? This is a dark-skies area. Has that been considered in their plans? Will I be able to look at the stars with Tigger or will they have too many security lights running so we can’t see the heavens? They’ll totally denude the place of shady trees, I’m sure, and then have to run noisy air conditioners. Sound carries across the water. And a golf course—they’re hard on the environment, especially along the shore. How did anyone approve that? Just the fertilizer and pesticides running off into nesting areas are enough to make me want to scream and lie down in front of a bulldozer.” She sat down in a huff beside him, arms crossed. “I could go on, you know.”

  Tristen took a long, slow breath. “You’re not going to stop this development, Melanie. The best you can do is ensure they stay accountable and follow the rules.”

  “Look at what they’re doing! And nobody has the teeth or the backbone to stop them.” She stood again, her anger exploding. “Why are you even here? For the stupid garbage issue? Because that’s like asking someone to repaint a car that’s going to crash into everyone’s lives. You’re going to pull out as soon as they clean up the bay, aren’t you?”

  Tristen’s jaw tightened and he flexed his hands, finally settling them into fists on his knees.

  “Oh, my word. You are.” She wanted so badly to shake him her arms hurt from the effort of holding herself back. “I thought you were a real man, Tristen Bell. I can’t believe you were going to use me like that.”

  He glanced up, eyes wide with surprise. “No. Melanie, I wasn’t.”

  “You’re not even one bit committed to stopping Rubicore. You’ve given up and rolled over.” She leaned closer, his amazing scent wafting over her. “Are you committed to helping me, or not?”

  “Melanie, I can’t give you what you need. I can’t be here all the time. I have a job.”