Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
THADDEUS
What frickin’ battle?
I stared after Ryder as he rounded the carport at the end of the path and disappeared from view. In the distance, the sound of a large truck idling and men shouting broke the cool still of the morning.
What the hell is going on?
There was only one way to find out.
I traipsed after Ryder, desperately trying not to lose my footing on the slick concrete or trip myself up in his oversized gumboots. I must’ve looked ridiculous in his baggy sweats and T-shirt with its pithy saying, but what could I do? The curiosity was killing me.
I rounded the carport onto the gravel driveway, barely avoiding a pothole, ankle-deep in water.
A red truck was just visible through the trees, parked at the junction of Crighton and Storten Roads.
Not that I needed a visual to know where they’d gone.
All I had to do was follow the shouting. The very loud shouting.
Rounding the final corner of the long driveway, I almost barrelled into the back of a man wearing a council vest and a condescending smile.
He was watching the argument play out between the driver of a large truck transporting a hefty bulldozer on the back and a furious Ryder standing on the wet verge beside the truck, all but brandishing his fists at the man.
“I have an injunction,” Ryder roared at the driver. “Which means you cannot legally set one foot on this property, let alone bulldoze my bloody fence.”
The driver threw up his hands. “Look, mate. I just do what I’m told.
My boss sent me here to cut an access for the planned earthworks, and that’s what I’m going to do.
The fact that some of your fence strays over the boundary into council land isn’t my problem.
There was no mention made of any injunction or I wouldn’t be here, got it? ”
I saw Ryder’s fists clench at his sides.
“And you need to get it through your head that there won’t be any earthworks or access road or bulldozing of my bloody fence anytime soon.
” He confronted the man, his face flaming.
“Not today. Not any day. The ground is sodden, and you’re making a bloody mess of my land.
” He indicated the deep tracks carved into the ground where the truck had been trying to swing around.
“So, I suggest you head back to your depot and get that fucking dozer out of here, mate.” He all but spat the word.
But the driver was unmoved. “No can do, sorry. I have a boss to answer to, and I like my job . . . most days, present company excepted. We’ve worked in worse conditions than this, so, unless you can show me a piece of paper that clearly says I can’t do what I came to, then I’m gonna unload this thing and do my goddammed job.
According to my boss, this is council land, not yours.
” He revved the truck’s engine to make his point.
Ryder spun to where Tap was busy on his phone. “Please tell me they’re about to put you through.”
Tap shook his head. “They’re stalling. Greegan’s PA says Greegan is in a meeting. I told her we’d have their employees arrested for trespassing and property damage if she didn’t get her boss on the line quick smart. She says she’s trying, but he’s not picking up.”
Ryder grimaced. “They’re hoping that if they delay long enough, it’ll be too late. It might even help their case if the boundary fence is removed.” He turned back to the driver and reasserted his demand that they leave.
The council worker beside me spoke under his breath, “Your friend really needs to get out of the way. This isn’t going to achieve anything other than making him a lot of enemies. Tell him, before someone gets hurt.”
I bristled at the man’s words, automatically siding with Ryder without even knowing what the fight was about. “Why are you ripping down his fence?”
The man shrugged. “Hey, I don’t make the decisions; I just do what I’m told.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Come on. You must have some idea.”
The council worker sighed. “All I know is the guy’s lease expired a while back, and the council doesn’t plan to renew it.
They want his land to build a—” He paused, frowning.
“Jeez, I don’t really know what it’s called.
A data store or something-or-other. I don’t even know what that means. Like I said, I just do what I’m told.”
Cold fear curled in my belly. Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. The software contract our company was going to bid on. The Elosand development was going to affect Ryder’s lease. It was his land that was involved. His litigation had to be the anonymous one cited as holding the process up. Fucking hell.
I took a second to digest that calamitous information as I watched Ryder rail at the driver who’d now left his cab and was heading to the back of the truck with Ryder in hot pursuit.
His colleague raced over to help the driver haul two metal ramps into place so that the dozer could be unloaded.
The men barely looked Ryder’s way, ignoring his angry threats and heartfelt pleas.
As the second ramp slotted into place and Ryder’s expression switched to panic, I was done being a wallflower and I raced to his side. The guy had been kind to me when he hadn’t needed to be. The least I could do was offer my help in return. “What can I do?”
He blinked at me like he’d forgotten I was even there, but before he could answer, Tap joined us, his phone still in his hand.
“Still no luck,” he said with a shake of his head. “They put me on hold for a few minutes, then came back on, told me Greegan would call me back, and cut me off.”
Ryder grimaced. “Bastards. Stick with it. I’ll grab my phone and call Tim. I need to find out what the hell is going on.”
“Tim’s his lawyer,” Tap explained.
“Yes,” Ryder snapped. “And he told me all this legal stuff was in place. That the council couldn’t touch my land until the case was decided. I don’t know what they think they’re doing.”
“What case?” I asked, then shook my head. “No. Scrub that. Just tell me what I can do.”
Ryder grabbed me by the shoulders and those sky-blue eyes drilled into mine. “Anything you can to stop them ripping up my fence.”
Dragging my attention away from the feel of his hot hands on my body, I saw the council workers were almost ready to offload. “And how exactly do you propose I do that?”
Ryder’s lips quirked up in a sly smile. “Do you remember Tiananmen Square?”
I gaped at him. “Now I know you’re not suggesting I put myself in the way of that bulldozer being unloaded, right?”
He had the temerity to look aghast. “Of course not. Just do what you can. Anything to buy us time.” And with that, he was gone, running for the cottage.
The sound of the bulldozer engine being fired up had me spinning on my heels. I shot a panicked glance at Tap. “He wasn’t serious, was he?”
Tap shrugged. “I’ll film whatever you decide to do while I wait for this jerkoff to call back. That should keep things seemly.”
Seemly? Oh God. I faced the truck and swallowed past the ball of fear lodged deep in my throat.
Am I really going to do this? I wasn’t a brave person.
Smart-mouthed? Sure. It was how I’d survived high school.
That and being one of the best gamers in New Zealand.
But brave? Nope. No one had ever accused me of being that.
Which was the reason I’d brought Phillip into the business in the first place.
Phillip walked into every room and business meeting as if he owned it.
I arrived as if I wasn’t sure I was even in the right place, and could I please have my parking receipt verified?
Whereas nothing fazed Phillip, not even the idea of fucking his best friend’s boyfriend, apparently.
And that reminder was all it took.
Oh God! I sucked in a breath and ran to the truck, positioning myself between the two ramps and taking a seat on the ground.
“Atta boy,” Tap called, his phone panning between the man driving the dozer and me sitting directly in its path.
Bile churned in my belly, threatening to spew north at any moment, and my sweats were already soaked from the damp ground.
I’d probably get athlete’s foot. Could you get that under your balls?
Or was that jock itch? Either way, it was the closest I was ever gonna get to a sporting injury, so I figured I’d take it.
The dozer operator stared at me for a few seconds, then put his machine in gear and began inching forward, metal creaking on metal as it moved toward the ramps . . . and me. My heart jumped again in my throat. The thing looked menacingly huge, like squash-me-in-the-blink-of-an-eye huge.
He’s just bluffing. He won’t do it. He’s only trying to scare me.
If he was, it was fucking working.
My heart thumped wildly against my ribs, my hands sweaty on my thighs, and there’d be marks where my fingertips were digging all the way to my bones. I waited for the driver to back down, but the dozer kept inching forward.
I cast a worried glance at Tap, who seemed equally nervous, which was hardly encouraging. This wasn’t going how I imagined. I drew a deep shuddering breath, and then, because I was a complete idiot and running on pure adrenaline, I lifted one arm in the air with my fist clenched.
Tap gave a whoop and shouted into the phone, “This is your council at work, ladies and gentlemen. Bulldozing their way over ratepayers while ignoring any legal constraints.”
The dozer driver shot Tap a killer glare but kept moving.
The crawlers clanked over the truck bed like a ticking clock, and if I hadn’t screwed my eyes tight shut, I’d have run.
A few seconds later, the noise stopped and the driver swore, “Jesus fucking Christ.” He killed the engine and climbed out of his seat.
I blew out the breath I’d been holding, clenched my hands to stop them from shaking, and opened my eyes.
Tap called out, “Are you okay? That was a pretty ballsy move.”