Chapter 34 Isla
THIRTY-FOUR
ISLA
I wake up to the sound of Jack’s heartbeat beneath my ear.
I lie there and let my brain do the slow climb from sleep to consciousness. His hand is on my back. Every time I shift, his fingers flex, like his body’s checking I’m still here, even if his brain hasn’t caught up.
It’s embarrassingly nice.
I’m almost comfortable enough to forget that a white-collar menace has my email address, access to my naked pictures, and a name that’s written all over my grant contract.
Almost.
Jack breathes deeply, chest rising under my cheek. “You’re thinking,” he mumbles. “I can feel it.”
“Sorry,” I say automatically.
“Don’t apologize for having a brain. Just know it’s very loud.”
“It’s because it’s so big.”
His hand slides up to the back of my neck, thumb stroking there once. “We can talk to Evelyn today. See what our options are. Then you’re allowed to think all you want. Preferably in ways that end with you still letting me sleep here.”
The ache behind my ribs eases a little. “I’m not kicking you out. You’re in my bed forever now.”
He kisses my hair. “Best promotion I’ve ever gotten.”
We don’t linger. There’s too much day waiting for us ahead. The site visit is over, which should make everything easier, but it’s like my brain took that extra space and filled it with all the ways Roland could use my naked body as a bargaining chip.
By the time I’m dressed and making coffee, my stomach is doing a slow, unfriendly roll.
The phone rings as I’m setting two mugs on the table.
I wipe my palm on my jeans and swipe to answer. “Hello?”
“Isla? It’s Evelyn Mercer.”
“Hi,” I say. “Good morning.”
“Good morning. How are you doing, Isla?”
“I’m a little stressed about Roland’s email. But I’m thinking about just telling him to fuck off. Would that be such a bad idea? I mean, I really don’t want to have all my business out there for everyone to judge. But at this point, would the committee really care if I was a stripper?”
Jack raises both brows, and I wave off his concern. I know what I said last night, but I’m not ashamed of the work I’ve done. If Roland tells the committee and they choose to pull the funding, then we’ll just have to rain hell down on them all.
“There is a reputation clause, which is sort of vague. And actually, that’s sort of why I’m calling in a roundabout way. Are you free to come into town this afternoon? I’d like to speak with you and Jack together, if possible. Beau will be there as well.”
I worry my teeth over my bottom lip. “Why, what’s going on? Has he already posted my pictures somewhere?”
“No, it’s nothing like that. I’d actually prefer to go over the circumstances in person,” she says. “But I’ll tell you the important part now so you don’t spend the next four hours imagining worst-case scenarios.”
My shoulders relax. “Oh, thank God.”
She laughs quietly. “Mr. Langford warned me you trend that way. It’s actually good news. Well, complicated news that ends up being good for you.”
Jack comes around the counter, and I switch to speaker. “Okay,” I say. “We’re listening.”
“Have you looked at the morning headlines? There’s a story breaking about Roland Stein.”
I lean against the counter, heart kicking hard. “What kind of story?”
“His primary holding company is under investigation for financial misconduct,” she says. “There are allegations of fraud, self-dealing, moving money through shell entities he controls. Some of it’s still allegation, but the paper trail looks ugly.”
Relief hits so fast it almost hurts. My knees go weak with it. It’s not us losing the funding or being blackmailed. It’s Roland, finally choking on some other poison he brewed himself.
“So, he’s in real trouble?”
“He’s been removed as a donor representative and funder from the initiative. Effective immediately.”
I close my eyes. “Removed,” I repeat. “As in . . . gone.”
“As in he will no longer sit on the agricultural assessment subcommittee, attend site visits, or have any direct say in the administration of your grant or anyone else’s,” she says.
“His pledged money is frozen indefinitely, and he will not be returning. The initiative is already working on reallocating the gap with existing and new funders.”
I press my free hand flat to the counter.
“Did you do this?” I ask. “Is this . . . because of Luxe and the email—”
“No,” she says firmly. “This is entirely the result of his own unrelated business practices. An investigative journalist started pulling threads a while ago. The initiative’s leadership was notified last night. I had a call with them early this morning.”
“And they told you our funding was secure?”
“They’re working on a solution.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to catch up to my own relief. “Okay. We’ll come in.”
“I’ll text you the time. Try to eat breakfast.”
She hangs up before I can tell her that’s an unreasonable request.
I lower the phone slowly, my hands shaking a little.
When I look at Jack, my mouth pulls into a disbelieving smile. For the first time in weeks, the fear in my chest gives way to something lighter. Not safety exactly, not yet, but the possibility of it.
“Fuckin’ hell, baby, I didn’t even get to punch him.”
The laugh that comes out of me is half hysterical. “Professional disappointment. We all have to cope.”
He crosses the kitchen in three strides and pulls me into his chest. I go willingly, hands fisting in the back of his T-shirt.
“This feels a little like watching a villain trip over his own shoelaces.”
“I’m very comfortable with that,” he says. “Couldn’t have happened to a slimier man.”
I pull back enough to look at him. “Beau’s gonna be at the meeting later.”
He snorts. “Man lives for the drama.”
“He also might be useful,” I say, even though I make a face when I say it. “The initiative does need another funder. You know how many rich philanthropists Beau has probably schmoozed.”
“See, I do love that big brain of yours.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Don’t sound so turned on by business strategy.”
“Ah, freckles, you know exactly what gets me going.”
Evelyn’s office is on the second floor of a brick building over a dentist’s office in Hartford. Two doors down, a dance studio teaches toddlers how to be ballerinas, which feels like exactly the kind of thing that would exist next to a law office in this town.
The hallway smells faintly of spearmint toothpaste. On the way up the stairs, Jack’s hand brushes mine, and I let our fingers tangle for a few steps before we reach the landing and I have to start pretending I’m a functional adult again.
Evelyn’s name is printed on the frosted glass door in neat black lettering. Mercer & Co., Attorneys at Law. A little sticker in the corner advertises sustainable practices and paperless options.
When we walk in, she’s already waiting for us in a navy dress, her hair pulled into a sleek knot, small gold hoops catching the light. “Thank you for coming on short notice,” she says.
Her office is smaller and cozier than I expected. There’s a real plant in the corner and a framed print of the coastline hanging over her desk.
Beau is already there, sprawled in one of the chairs at the little meeting table with his long legs stretched out. “Morning, Winslow,” he says, tipping his mug toward me. “Rhodes.”
“Langford,” Jack says flatly.
They exchange a look.
Evelyn gestures us into the chairs opposite Beau. She takes the head of the table and sets a thin folder in front of her. There’s a legal pad and a tablet beside it.
“The allegations against Stein are serious. Fraud. Moving money through shell entities. Steering contracts to companies he secretly owns. None of it touches your grant directly, but it puts him in a very bad light as a face for any philanthropic project.”
“Has he been arrested?” Jack asks.
“Not yet,” she says. “These things take time. But the Preservation Initiative’s board doesn’t need a conviction to decide they don’t want him in the room. Last night, they held an emergency call. This morning, they confirmed that Mr. Stein is no longer a donor representative or advisory member.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “But you said they’re working on bridging the gap?”
“That’s why I asked you to come in. Losing a major funder creates a hole, but it also creates leverage. The board’s priority is to keep existing projects functional. They don’t want the press writing that they dropped programs after a scandal.”
“So they’re keeping us,” I say slowly.
“Your funding is secure for the duration of the grant term. They’re reallocating some general funds, and they brought in two replacements for Stein on the donor side who are more aligned with the initiative’s mission.”
“Who?”
Evelyn opens the folder and slides a single page across the table. Names. Short bios. At the top, there’s a header: Revised Donor Representatives.
“The first is Mariana Ortiz,” Evelyn says.
“She runs the New England Foodshare Co-op out of Worcester. They work on regional food access and support small farms with distribution. She’s been on the periphery of the initiative for a while, but Stein’s shadow made it hard for them to slot her in.
She’ll be the primary outside funder voice for your program. ”
I read the paragraph about Mariana. She did a master’s in food systems, used to run a CSA, has words like equity and resilience in her mission statement. My shoulders drop another notch.
“And the second?” Jack asks.
Evelyn’s gaze flicks to Beau.
“The second is Mr. Langford here,” she says. “Representing Copper Hollow Cranberries and his own contributions. As a Blue Willow resident and fellow agricultural operator, the board felt his presence would help keep the initiative connected to on-the-ground realities here.”
Beau lifts his mug. “Surprise.”
“You’re on the advisory committee now?” I ask. “For real?”
“Somebody had to make sure the board remembers there are actual humans attached to their yield charts,” he says. “I volunteered when Evelyn floated the idea.”
I look at Evelyn. “You floated the idea.”
“It seemed useful to have someone in those rooms who understands both the language of grants and the way this town actually works,” she says. “Beau has experience with both. He also has a personal interest in making sure your orchard doesn’t become a test case for exploitative practices.”
That much is true, even if I’m still not thrilled by how often the universe insists on putting power back in Beau Langford’s hands.
And yet.
He’s been useful through all of this in ways I can’t ignore. Generous, too, at least in practice, even if the word still catches in my throat when I try to apply it to him. History says he’s calculating. History says he pushes until people have no room left to stand.
But maybe people aren’t always one thing forever. Maybe Beau exists in the uncomfortable middle, where a person can be selfish and still help, where the motive matters less than the outcome.
“For what it’s worth,” Beau says, “I did some asking around after you told me he’d been at Luxe. Separate from all this, Roland’s reputation in certain circles was already . . . questionable. That journalist I tipped off had no problem sniffing around.”
The full scope of what he’s done lands hard. He didn’t only show up for the clean, strategic parts. He put his own name near the mess. He pushed where he didn’t have to. Quietly, and without asking for credit.
Evelyn closes the folder and folds her hands on top of it.
“I know this doesn’t magically fix everything,” she says. “You still have weather and banks and all the ordinary headaches of running a legacy business. But one particular kind of headache is gone now.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Both of you.”
She smiles. “I’ll email you the updated agreement. Read it when you’re ready. If it looks good, we’ll sign and file it.”
“In terms of disasters,” Jack says, “we’re back to normal levels.”
Beau shrugs. “In Blue Willow, that’s as close to peace as anyone gets.”