“We’re not giving in to her. We’re getting her on our side.”
Lance glowered at him. “And which one of us do you think can do that?”
“Not you.”
“Seems to me, Maren Campbell’s on the short list of people who would never end up on your side.”
Well, there’s that. “Then I guess I have my work cut out for me.”
“Fine.” Lance picked up his glasses and shoved them back on his face. “I’ll play nice and let you take care of her. But don’t go all soft on me, Mason.”
Right.
Still, when Maren pushed away from the table an hour later, Jack had no clue what else he could do. She’d asked her questions, and he’d nailed the answers. And she’d dodged every attempt he made to get her to sell. If she didn’t sell he’d have to answer to his father, the Board, Lance, and every landowner who’d thrown their weight behind his bid.
No pressure at all.
“You do have a talent for this.” She sighed. “The development has potential.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “That sounds dangerously close to a compliment.”
She grinned. “If you tell anyone, I’ll deny it.”
“It’s pretty ambitious, but once we pull it off, that plant will bring a lot of good things to the county.” He leaned back in his chair. “That’s why everyone’s in favor of it”
She frowned back at him. “But everyone isn’t giving up what I am.”
Lance scowled. Jack ignored him. He’d been quiet through most of the meeting, but impatience had baked off him in waves. Jack considered sending him out of the room. He couldn’t afford to let Lance blow it now.
“Some did,” Jack said. “Several people sold us their homes.”
She shook her head. “It’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
Her eyes reddened. “You wouldn’t understand.”
His gut twisted. Careful, Mason. The last time she’d gotten misty-eyed, she’d ended up in his arms. He shifted backwards. Just to be safe. “Maren, I understand how much your grandparents meant to you.”
“No, you don’t.” She raised her chin and cleared the wobble from her voice. “If you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Dang. And she’d thought he wanted revenge. He hated this. How many decent men could force a woman who was so upset to give up something that meant so much to her?
“Look,” Lance blurted out, “you wanted to know what’s going on. Now you know. We’ve been more than accommodating.”
That answers one question. Jack shot him a warning glance. Maren’s eyes darkened. “And so have I.”
“We don’t have to decide anything right this second.” Jack took her arm and steered her towards the door. Her smooth skin slid under his fingers, and his stomach tugged again.
“Jack?” Lance’s eyes dropped to Jack’s hand on her arm and his lips clamped together.
Jack glared him into silence. He slid his hand up Maren’s arm and around to her back. The urge to pull her tight against him nearly took over, but he shoved it aside. Instead, he led her into the hall and closed the door behind him before Lance got it in his head to follow.
Crap. He’d been so close. She hadn’t been ready to make a deal, but he’d been close to gaining some trust. Why couldn’t Lance back off and let him handle this?
The muscles in her back pulled rigid with tension. His fingers tingled with the need to stroke the stress away. He grimaced and dropped his hand before he did something stupid. Well, something else stupid. She had sucked him in back there. She cared about her grandparents, sure, but they both knew how this would have to end. She didn’t need the farm. She didn’t want it. And if she found a way to hang on to it, she would abandon it again as soon as all of this was over. Maybe even sooner.
So why had he had second thoughts?
Who knew? Maren had always been able to take little pieces of his sanity when he needed them most. He couldn’t let himself get sidetracked like that. He held open the outer door and let her step through. “Look, don’t listen to Lance. He’s got his neck on the line, and he wants this thing to succeed.”
Maren rounded on him, her blue eyes shooting sparks. “No, he wants the same thing you do. At least he’s honest about it.”
“I told you. I didn’t know—”
“No. I mean I know what you’re doing.” She dropped her gaze and took a step back. “You’re turning on the charm because you think that’ll make me change my mind.”
Charm? “What are you talking about?”
“When I left town, we couldn’t even stand in the same room with each other.” She wrapped her arms around her chest. “Suddenly you’ve gone all… nice.”
He silently cursed Lance for opening his mouth. Jack had gotten to her—he knew he had. He’d set aside their past problems to deal with business, and she had done the same. Now, she assumed he was kissing up. He’d never kissed up to anyone.
But, in a way, that is what I’m doing. He frowned. Was it? If she’d come home a year later, after they had broken ground and the project was underway, would he have treated her the same?
“I am nice,” he said after a moment.
Her lips twisted into a contrite smirk. “Maybe. But not when it comes to me.”
The blare of a horn stopped him from responding, and Jack looked up. The driver stepped out of a small red car and waved. He had dark hair and dark eyes and was dressed casually in jeans and a yellow T-shirt. Where have I seen him before?
“Jack Mason?”
“Yeah.”
“Ron Landry. Marquette County Times.”
Ugh. Great. At least now he knew why the guy looked so familiar. According to local gossip, Ron had moved over from neighboring Franklin Hill to take over the Times a year ago. Jack had seen him at the town hall meeting. Since Jack rarely saw faces he didn’t recognize around town, the man had stood out.
“If you want to contact my office, I’ll be glad to—”
Ron ignored him. “Maren Campbell?”
She gave the man a sunny smile that set Jack’s teeth on edge. “That’s me.”
Ron returned her smile and stepped forward, extending his hand. Jack stifled a groan. “I’d love to do a story on you for the paper.”
“Sure. Of course.” Her eyes lit up.
Crap.
Ron nodded towards the building. “Was this the meeting Lance promised you on Tuesday?”
Jack glared at him. “That’s private.”
“Private meetings with public officials?” Ron shot back. “I wondered if you set that up to keep things off the record.”
Jack gritted his teeth. “We’re done here.”
“It’s okay, Jack.” She turned back to Ron. “Yes. We met and talked about the development.”
“Want to give me a few quotes for the record?”
Jack bit down on an expletive. “The project is all public record. You can get whatever you want from the clerk.”
“I don’t want an official statement from the county. I want to know what’s really going on.” Ron turned back to Maren. “Ms. Campbell?”
She smiled at Ron again. Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and curled his fingers into tight balls. “Call me Maren. And we didn’t discuss anything that isn’t on the record.”
“I’m not surprised,” Ron snorted. “You can’t count on people to tell you everything. I guess that goes for both of us, doesn’t it?”
As if she didn’t distrust Jack enough already. I don’t need this. Not now.
“We’re working together to come to a resolution that takes care of everyone’s needs,” he snapped.
“If that isn’t a rehearsed speech, I don’t know what is.” Ron rolled his eyes. Jack’s temperature edged up a few more degrees. “How many times have you said those exact words at a press conference, Mr. Mason?”
Maren glanced at Jack, eyes dancing. He had never wanted so badly to hit a man and kiss a woman at the same time. He could
barely handle the strain.
“Well, we are,” she said.
“Don’t count on it,” Ron said. “You can be sure this is all about them getting what they want.”
“We’re done here,” Jack repeated. He took Maren by the arm again, ignoring the flash of warmth in his gut, and led her towards her car.
Ron flipped a card out of his pocket with lightning speed and shoved it into Maren’s hand. “Call me.”
Maren nodded, and Jack moved her forward. “You boys are taking advantage of that poor woman,” Ron called after them. “It’s David and Goliath. The corporate giant crushing the little woman. The epic struggle of good versus evil.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jack muttered. How had he gone from “you have a talent for this” to “the corporate giant crushing the little woman”? He’d somehow lost all control of the situation.
When they were out of earshot, Maren giggled. “The epic struggle of good versus evil. I like him.”
Jack glared back over his shoulder. “He should have taken up acting. Guy thinks he’s performing Shakespeare.”
Her giggle turned into a hearty laugh. His heart flipped over in his chest. “He loves his job.”
“He’s full of himself.” They reached her car, and she punched a button on the handle and unlocked the door. “For what it’s worth, I’m not trying to charm you. I’m setting our past aside so I can deal with the problem in front of us.”
She nodded. “It’s just business.”
“Right.”
“Except it’s not business for me.”
He closed his eyes. How did she keep making him the bad guy? “I know.”
“Is there any scenario we can talk about that will let me keep my farm?”
He hesitated. He could only answer that question one way, and she’d shut down as soon as he did. He’d been fooling himself. She’d never willingly give up the farm. Especially not to him. Unless he could think of a way around it, he’d be forced to take her grandparents’ home from her. He shouldn’t care.
Still, a dull thread of regret wound through his chest.
“No.”
She nodded. “Then I guess we really are done here.”
She hopped in her car and shut the door. He gave her a final nod, then headed for his truck. They would fight, then. As much as he turned the problem over in his head, he couldn’t think of another way. Had he made a mistake by delaying the vote? If she intended to start a fight no matter what, he had slowed the project’s momentum for nothing.
No, he had made the right decision. His integrity was intact. When the time came to bring in the wreckers, he would know he hadn’t done what she accused him of—he had given her a fair chance to deal, rather than taking her farm while her back was turned. She would still despise him for his role in all this, but everyone else would be satisfied and his conscience would be clear. That would be enough.
It will have to be.
Chapter Six
“Okay.” Ron folded his hands under his chin and gazed across the table at her. “This will make a great story for next week’s paper. Politics. Drama. Young woman against powerful corporation. The citizens of Marquette County should get both sides of the story, not just the one the Board of Aldermen wants them to see.”
“I don’t know about that.” Maren stirred her coffee and frowned down at the swirling band of white left by the cream. “I’m not out to cause a lot of trouble. I just don’t want to lose my grandparents’ home.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Are you kidding? This is the most exciting news to come out of Shepherdsville since Bobby Joe Lucas went up to the state pen last year for embezzling from the property tax fund.”
Maren held back a shudder. Embezzlement remained firmly at the top of her list of things not to talk to a reporter about. “So what do you want from me?”
He took out a small tape recorder and sat it in front of her. “I haven’t been in Shepherdsville for long, so I don’t know the history. Tell me about your grandparents.”
She smiled. Grandma had told her the story countless times, and she had never tired of hearing it. She could recite it by heart. “My grandparents were married in 1960. My great-grandma’s family had land, so she gave them a little piece of property over by Farrell Creek. You know where that is?”
He nodded. “Sure. Not too far from your farm.”
“Right. Grandpa served in Vietnam, and he saved all his money while he was in the army. So when he was discharged, he took a job working at the steel mill in Franklin Hill, and in the evenings, he and his two brothers built this little two-room house on the land with the money he had saved.
“But my great-grandma had a bunch of kids, so by the time she split the land up, there wasn’t much of it. My mom was two in 1967, and Grandma and Grandpa had another baby on the way, so they wanted to add on to the house. The plot they had was too small, so Grandpa bought the fifty acres where the house sits now from the paper company.”
“So he didn’t get the land from his parents?” he asked.
Maren smiled and propped her elbows on the table, one palm cupping her chin. “Nope. Grandpa earned it. The company was in a slump and needed to sell off some acreage, so he could afford it. They cleared out a spot on the new property and moved the house from that patch of land by Farrell Creek.”
“And that’s the same house that sits there now?”
“Yeah,” she said. “They updated a little and added on through the years, but it’s the very same one my grandpa and his brothers built when he was younger than me.” Her smile faded. “But mom’s little sister died when she was only ten days old. Grandma and Grandpa were devastated. Then Grandpa got laid off from the steel mill. He took a job out in Texas to give them a fresh start. They locked that house up, furniture and all, and left it there.”
“For how long?” Ron asked.
“Three years.” She shook her head. “And then one day my mom was playing with some friends and wandered off to climb up in their tree house. Grandma searched all over for her, and when she couldn’t find her, Grandma went into hysterics. She had lost one daughter, and she was terrified of losing another. She told Grandpa that day that she wanted to go back home, near her family. So they came back, and the house was sitting there waiting for them, just like they left it.”
“Kind of like it has been for you.” He smiled.
“Yeah.” She hadn’t made that connection. “They came back home, opened everything up and aired it out, and it was like they never left. Grandpa cleared the fields and started farming and raising cows. That’s how they took care of mom and, eventually, me.”
Ron’s smile dropped, and he leaned forward, his expression intense. “So how did you feel when you found out what was getting ready to happen?”
“I was…surprised.” Not quite. She’d been cut to the core. When her grandparents died, the house had become the only tangible thing that proved there were ever people who’d loved her. The thought of losing it had made her feel like an orphan all over again.
She couldn’t share that part with Ron, though. He’d splash her private pain all over the front page without giving it a second thought. She didn’t want pity. She just wanted the house.
“I didn’t know anything about it until I got here,” she continued after a moment. “As you know, I met with the county and the developer yesterday.” She grimaced. “The developer” seemed unnatural. But “Jack” felt too personal. “The development would be good for the town. But I can’t stomach the idea of Grandma and Grandpa’s home being turned into a factory. My grandparents built that house with their bare hands. The thought of not being able to sit in front of the fireplace or stand in Grandma’s kitchen breaks my heart.”
“And if someone… influential… owned part of the land the county is buying, do you think that might affect the decision?” Ron asked.
Maren stared back at him. “Do I think . . .” An image of Laura May bubbled to the surface. Her furtive glance aroun
d the room. That pointed stare. They needed that land. What if she hadn’t been talking about Maren’s farm, after all?
“I didn’t know that. Who?”
Ron gave her a thin-lipped smile. “I’m still gathering evidence.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How much land?”
“A lot.”
Maren sat back in her chair. “Is that right?”
“Yep.”
“Hmm.” She stared over Ron’s shoulder, trying to absorb this new piece of information. Someone specific stood to gain from the property sale. Someone influential.
“And now you know why Mason is so keen on this project.” His brows furrowed. “From what I hear, Jack’s bid wasn’t the lowest, but he got the job anyway. Wonder why?”
She rolled the question around in her head. “Because he made promises?”
“That would be my guess.”
Mine, too. Jack had bought his way into the project by promising someone influential a benefit of some sort. The county would buy that person’s property, probably at a premium, and Jack would be guaranteed the contract. All he had to do was make sure the project would be located on… that land.
He had chosen the property. Hers, which would give him his payback for whatever slight he’d imagined from their past, and someone else’s, which would ensure there would be nothing she could do about it.
Wait a minute. He’d tried to make a deal with her. He wouldn’t do that if he already had everything in place. And he wouldn’t do that if he meant to hurt her.
Would he?
But he had told her there was no way for her to keep the farm.
“The only thing that stands between them and a lot of money is you.” Ron leaned back and folded his arms. “So what do you plan to do about it?”
“I don’t know.”
Ron nodded. “I told you—this is all about them getting what they want.”
“Not the first time I’ve come up against that.” Bill had taught her a thing or two about getting trampled by someone who only cared about himself. The question was how much she had learned from that lesson.
“Well, you’re the only person left who can stop them,” he said.
She stared out the window. Did Jack’s motive even matter? He might be right. She had a life back in Seattle, and sooner or later, she would have to leave the farm and go back to it. What then?
Home Again (The Shepherdsville Series Book 2) Page 8
