6. Lincoln
6
LINCOLN
I stared out one of the massive windows in the office Cope had let me commandeer as mine. I was pretty sure my staff back in Seattle thought I was losing my mind, but it wouldn’t be the first time. I’d purchased more than a couple of companies where they’d doubted my sanity. Just like how people thought I was headed into some premature midlife crisis when I bought the Seattle Sparks hockey team. But all of that had worked out just fine. This would, too.
A flicker of movement caught my attention—one of Arden’s horses grazing in a far field. I wouldn’t lie to myself and deny that I’d hoped for a flash of mahogany hair in the distance or an appearance of those gray-violet eyes on my doorstep. I’d gotten neither.
I hadn’t seen any hint of Arden since she’d all but slammed her studio door in my face days ago. And I didn’t blame her. But it also made apologizing difficult. The last thing I wanted to do was invade her space without her permission, and if I texted Cope and asked for her number, it would give far too much away.
“Linc?”
Shep’s now familiar deep voice pulled me out of my swirling thoughts. I turned to face the contractor, a sheepish smile tugging at my lips. “Sorry, losing myself in possibilities.”
Shep chuckled, tapping a construction pencil against the desk. “I get it. Starting from scratch is always a little overwhelming.”
“But there’s something rewarding about it, too. Taking something that only exists in your mind and bringing it to fruition.”
He nodded. “It’s my favorite thing. Creating a vision of what will meld best with the surrounding landscape.”
It was one of the reasons I’d chosen Shepard Colson to design and build my home here in Sparrow Falls. He wasn’t the kind of designer who went for flash. His creations felt like art in and of themselves, and the surrounding land was his canvas. He always made sure the two came together in the perfect blend. And it didn’t hurt that he was Cope’s brother, which meant I trusted him. And trust didn’t come easily for me. Not anymore.
“I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with.”
One corner of his mouth kicked up. “Then let’s pick your spot.”
I’d spent the past two days looking at parcels of land in and around Sparrow Falls, taking in the views and listening to a realtor talk about all the benefits and pitfalls of each. The woman had been no-nonsense and a straight shooter, which I appreciated. Especially when I’d dealt with more than one realtor who simply tried to sell me the most expensive thing on the market.
Shep gestured to the eight listings he’d laid out across my desk. “I went by each of them earlier this week just to make sure my instincts were correct.”
“Appreciate you taking that time,” I said.
“It’ll save us in the long run. Picking the right build site is half the battle.”
The right spot to call home. Just thinking the word had me shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I didn’t feel like I’d ever had one of those. Not really. The penthouse on Central Park West had been more like a museum. With an endless list of rules of what you couldn’t touch and where you couldn’t run.
My only escape had been the park. Charging over grassy knolls and around walking paths with Ellie as our nanny watched. Racing around the Peter Pan statue and across countless bridges. Central Park had been the one place I’d felt like I could breathe growing up. And I’d been determined to search out and find that for myself ever since.
I’d come close with my place in Seattle. On the water. Plenty of space. But it ended up feeling empty half the time with nothing to fill it but too many nights caught up in endless hours of work.
“I’m not sure these three are right.” Shep cut into my thoughts, tapping his pencil against the three listings on the right. “This one’s too close to Castle Rock. The ground is full of lava rock and cinder. Thanks to all the excavating we’d have to do, it’d take twice as long. It would be worth it if the views were something you couldn’t get elsewhere…”
“But other properties have better ones,” I finished for him.
Shep nodded. “These two are so close to that ridge line, you’ll have a higher risk of forest fires in the vicinity.”
I sure as hell didn’t want that. “Scratch those three.”
“You know, for someone with a reputation as a controlling bastard, you’re being pretty damn agreeable.”
My lips twitched as I grabbed the three we’d nixed and threw them in the trash. I knew I had a reputation. One that suggested I could be hard to deal with. But the truth was, I didn’t play games or manipulate. I said exactly what I wanted and was never afraid of a little hard work. I’d done more than my share to get where I was today.
“I’m not a tyrant.”
“Tell that to Forbes ,” Shep shot back.
I rolled my eyes. That damn article would haunt me forever. “Maybe you can write a letter to the editor. Tell them how agreeable I am.”
“I’ll put that on my to-do list.”
“Appreciate it.”
Shep turned back to the listings. “Any of these would make great build sites. They all have pros and cons, but I’m curious if any spoke to you.”
I scanned the remaining papers on the desk, bringing the images printed on them to life in my mind. But I already knew the answer. It was likely the least practical of the five: farther outside of town and nestled in the foothills of the Monarch Mountains. But there was something about the spot.
The property had the sort of quiet that meant you could hear your thoughts. No neighbors in sight. A creek that ran through the land and made wildflowers spring to life around it. Endless meadows that shifted into forests, which melted into staggering mountains. It felt like you were so close you could reach out and touch them.
Something about the vastness reminded me that anything was possible. And more than that, it reminded me to stop and breathe. To appreciate the simple beauty that lay around us.
I lifted the piece of paper that read Meadowlark Lane . “This one.”
The grin that spread across Shep’s face was like a kid’s at Christmas. “You know it’s a good thirty minutes outside of town, and you have the potential of getting snowed in come winter.”
Even that sounded like heaven. No one able to get to me. The ability to turn off my phone and simply be unreachable. “I don’t mind that. But you’ll have to run through what I’ll need. I grew up back east, so I’m familiar with snow, but something tells me Manhattan snow and Sparrow Falls snow are slightly different.”
Shep outright laughed then. “How do you feel about getting a truck with a plow setup?”
It was my turn to grin. “I’m in.”
“I’d recommend solar panels that feed a storage battery. But you might want a generator on top of it, just in case. You’ll be on well water, so you’re good there. Are you thinking a guesthouse or any other outbuildings?”
A vision of Arden’s workshop flashed in my mind: the windows facing that gorgeous view, and an endless array of paintings and sculptures scattered around the space. It was a bizarre thing to pop into my mind. It wasn’t like I had a secret art hobby I needed a home for. Maybe it was simply that she’d taken over so many of my thoughts the past few days.
There was just something about her. A fiery honesty I’d had too little of in my life. But more than that was the thirst for survival I admired the hell out of.
I shook myself of those swirling thoughts, pulled under by gray-violet eyes yet again. “A guesthouse would be good. Pool for sure.” After sparring, swimming was my favorite workout, the only one that truly cleared my mind. “I’m not sure about others. Can we start there?”
“Of course,” Shep said, gathering up the other listings and tossing them into the wastepaper basket. “I won’t get started on an official concept for the main house until you close on the property, but I might doodle some preliminary ideas to see what you like and don’t. Is there anything else you want to cover today?”
“I think we’re good for now,” I said, setting down the Meadowlark Lane listing and running offer figures in my mind.
“All right, then. I’ll get to work,” he said, starting for the door.
“Shep.”
He turned, waiting for whatever I was about to say. I cursed myself but kept on going. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“What’s the story with your sister Arden?”
Shep’s easygoing demeanor shifted in a heartbeat. Gone was the slight grin and open expression. In their place were hard eyes and a mouth set in a grim line. “That’s a no-go zone. You wanna get laid, you look elsewhere.”
My spine straightened as a prickle of suspicion skated down it. I should’ve been insulted by the idea that Shep thought I would use his sister to get off—that I would treat any woman with such callous disregard. But I couldn’t be bothered to even consider that when I was too focused on the reasons why.
Why was Shep this protective of Arden? It made sense that he would look out for a younger sibling, but this stark flip in demeanor and intense reaction…didn’t make sense.
“Not how I meant it,” I said, assessing the best approach. I was used to that sort of thing in business. How to get the information I needed without showing my cards to my opponent. But Shep wasn’t my opponent, and I wouldn’t lie to him. “Just curious. I hit up Kye’s gym early the other morning.” A smile tugged at my lips. “Think I might’ve startled her because she held a knife to my throat.”
Shep stared at me for one beat, then two. Then he barked out a laugh, running a hand through his rich brown hair. “Shit, Linc. I’m sorry. She turns that music up to ear-bleeding levels and can be a little trigger-happy.”
“Please, tell me she doesn’t actually have access to firearms. I’d definitely be missing a little of my ear.”
Shep shook his head and sighed. “No guns. But definitely knock and wait to be invited in. Kye’s trained her in jujitsu. She’s pretty damn good.”
“She’s not half bad with a switchblade either.”
“I’m going to give her shit about that one,” he said, amusement filling his expression.
Something about the pleasure Shep got out of hearing about the interaction and the clear affection he had for his little sister had a pang taking root in my chest, worry rising alongside it—concern that my sister, Ellie, had gone so far down a road she couldn’t come back from it, and worry that I might lose her to a world we’d always sworn we would never be a part of.
I shook that off, refocusing on the conversation at hand and finding out what Arden’s story was. “Is there a reason she’s so quick with a blade?”
A shadow passed over Shep’s expression a split second before he donned a mask. I was good at reading those defenses. A childhood spent trying to figure out people’s motives or determining when they would snap had trained me well.
He shrugged, the motion meant to be read as careless, but I could see the tension winding through Shep’s shoulders. “We’ve all got stories. Hers isn’t mine to tell,” he said.
Fuck.
I’d been right. This was about more than Cope’s attack. Something had happened to Arden. Something bad. Something I didn’t have any right to know about. But that didn’t stop me from wanting the information .
I bit the inside of my cheek until the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth—whatever it took to keep from pressing Shep for more and stop myself from showing him every damn card in my deck.
“Understood,” I said, my fingers twitching at my sides. I needed to spar or go for a swim. Maybe hike into those beautiful mountains where I could breathe.
Shep held my gaze for a beat longer than was typical. “She likes her space. I recommend giving it to her.”
I understood that, too. Heard the warning that lay beneath his words. I lifted my chin, a gesture that said I heard him, but I didn’t give him the words that said I agreed to his terms. Because they would’ve been a lie.
Arden’s ferocity and vitality pulled at me. It was the sort of thing that grabbed you by the throat and never let go, forcing you to wake up and pay attention.
“I’ll walk you out,” I offered, already heading in that direction as if Shep didn’t know the way far better than I did.
“I’ll shoot you a text when I’ve got something for you to look at,” Shep said as he headed outside and toward his truck.
“Sounds good. Thanks for taking this on.”
He shot me a grin. “Kind of fun to work on a project with no budget.”
I chuckled. “Just no gold toilet seats, okay?”
“Aw man,” Shep mock complained.
“You’ll live,” I called over my shoulder as I headed back inside.
Just as I closed the door behind me, my phone rang. I pulled it from my back pocket, tapping accept as I read my second-in-command’s name.
“Hey, Nina,” I greeted.
“We’ve got a problem.” Right to the point, like always. I appreciated her lack of pretense and bullshit. But we’d lost the need for that long ago. When you knew someone for almost two decades, hand holding wasn’t required for bad news.
Nina and I had met at Stanford, both struggling to balance classes and as many part-time jobs as possible while determined to make the most of the opportunities in front of us. We’d both continued on to get our MBAs at the university, specializing in entrepreneurship. The moment I secured enough capital to make my company a reality, I’d asked her to join me. We’d been running Gardien—the company I’d named using my mother’s native French—together ever since.
“On a scale of french fries in your milkshake to pineapple on pizza, how bad is it?” I asked, knowing that she hated both with a passion, but that there was nothing worse than the sacrilege of pineapple on Italian food to her.
She snorted across the line. “The best thing about you being gone is that I don’t risk coming across any leftover Hawaiian atrocities in the kitchen.” She paused for a moment, and I knew I needed to brace. “We lost Ice Edge.”
My fingers tightened around the phone, annoyance and confusion sliding through me. The company produced a variety of hockey gear and was one of the few with manufacturing operations in the United States. They’d been struggling for the past few years, and I saw a way to turn that around. The fact that I owned a hockey team that could put new eyes on the gear and brand didn’t hurt either.
“How?” I growled.
“I don’t know, but I’m working on finding out. Mike went into negotiations today, and the owner said they’d gotten another offer last night and were taking it. He already signed.”
I cursed. I hated losing deals, but this one bothered me a little more than normal. I’d liked the owner, Shawn. I’d thought he understood how we could take his company to the next level. But it was also something more. I’d seen how he was with his son. Had witnessed the bond they shared through hockey. It was something I’d never had with my father, and I’d wanted to support that more than anything.
“Who?” I asked. It wasn’t unusual for other companies to try to swoop in and disrupt our deals. I’d gained a reputation for wisely choosing fledgling companies, and others wanted in on that. But we’d kept this one under lock and key. Only four or five people even knew about it .
“Don’t know that either, but I’m working on it.”
“Text me the second you know more,” I snapped.
“Don’t get growly at me, Linc,” Nina barked. “I wanted this deal as much as you did.”
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“That’s better.”
“Gonna get off this call before you ground me.”
Nina laughed. “Go for a swim. Clear your head.”
She knew me too well. “Will do. Talk to you later.”
I hung up before she could say anything else. If she took pity on me, I’d feel even worse.
The moment the call cleared, I saw I had a new text.
Philip Pierce
Always wanted to take a trip to Minnesota. Just long enough to sell them for parts.
Beneath the text was a photo of a signed contract between him and Ice Edge. My gut twisted. Shawn had no idea what he’d done. My father had likely promised him the world, but his company was about to be no more. And for what? To get at me? To prove he was the apex predator?
Another text appeared as I stared at the screen. It gave me all the answers I never wanted.
Philip Pierce
There will be more if you don’t come home for the wedding. I won’t have you embarrass this family any further.