Brandon walked in as if he had every right to be there. Dark blue suit, tie, the same posture he used to impress clients. But I saw his eyes—quick, nervous, scanning the room.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, as if he’d been invited.
Thomas stood. “You were not called to this meeting.”
“I’m a director at Mercer Capital. I have every right.”
“You’re my ex-husband,” I said.
The entire room went still.
“And you tried to legally challenge the trust that protects this land, which gives you exactly zero right to sit at this table.”
Brandon looked at me, and I held his gaze. No anger. No trembling. Nothing.
“Clare—”
“Scott can represent Mercer,” I said. “You can’t. Leave.”
Scott looked at the white-haired man. The white-haired man looked at Brandon and, with the smallest gesture, barely perceptible, shook his head.
Brandon stood frozen for three seconds. Then he turned and walked out. The door closed behind him with a soft click.
“Where were we?” I asked.
The white-haired man folded his hands. “The lease. I’ll take it to the investors. I’ll call in a week.”
“Two weeks,” I said. “I’m busy.”
Part 5
The call came in twelve days.
Thomas told me the details late that afternoon while we sat on the cabin porch. I made coffee for both of us the way my grandfather used to make it—too strong and too sweet. Thomas held the mug with both hands and looked out at the lake before he spoke.
“The lease agreement was approved by Mercer Capital’s board. Sixty years. Review every decade. Fixed annual revenue of six hundred eighty thousand dollars, plus 2.3 percent of the resort’s gross revenue. The environmental clause stayed intact. The reversion clause stayed intact. You keep every deed.”
He took another sip of coffee.
“There’s one more thing. Scott Kesler told me Brandon was let go from Mercer Capital last week. Conflict of interest. The attempt to challenge the trust while the company was negotiating was the final straw.”
I didn’t say anything. I looked at the lake instead. The water was calm. The sun was dropping behind the trees on the north ridge, the ridge my grandfather bought in 1991 with money from timber he cut and replanted himself.
“You’re not going to ask how he’s doing?” Thomas asked.
“No.”
Thomas nodded, took another sip of coffee, and didn’t ask again.
I signed the contract on a Friday morning in Thomas’s office. There were no photographers, no party, no champagne. Seven deeds. One lease agreement. My name on every page.
The white-haired man—Richard Hail—shook my hand and said, “If you ever want to invest, look me up.”
“Thank you,” I said, “but my grandfather taught me to invest in land. I’ll stick with what I know.”
I drove back to the cabin, parked, and sat on the porch. It was real autumn now. The trees had turned red and gold. The lake reflected everything—the colors, the clouds, the dark pines at the top of the ridge.
Then I went inside, grabbed the easel, carried it out to the porch, set up a blank canvas, opened the paints—the same ones he used—and started painting the lake.
It was terrible. Completely out of proportion. The trees looked like fat broccoli. The color of the sky wasn’t remotely close to the orange tone I was trying to capture. It didn’t matter.
I signed it in the bottom corner, not with his initials but with mine.
C.A. — Clare Ashford.
Then I hung it on the wall beside his nine paintings. The tenth, the worst of them all, and somehow the one that made the most sense there.
I called Megan that night.
“Thank you,” I said. “For the couch. For the borrowed car. For reminding me the cabin existed.”
“Are you okay?” she asked.