CHAPTER ONE
Ledger
Dear Sharpe International Network,
We, the members of Cedar Falls City Council, are writing to object to certain issues pertaining to your recent purchase and current renovations of The Retreat.
While we value free enterprise, we also value the citizens of our town and their livelihoods.
In your quest to resort-ize, commercialize, and bastardize our town, many small businesses that have been staples in our community for generations now worry about being wiped out by your big-business mentality.
While we understand you are a business that needs to remain profitable, we are a town that needs to protect its citizens and their way of life.
The City Council has decided that it will only grant a final certificate of occupancy after the following condition has been met.
A founding board member from your firm must stay in Cedar Falls for two full months to oversee the project.
We feel that with boots on the ground, you will see the importance of following through with your promises and ensure that the city council of Cedar Falls can communicate promptly with said founding member as needs arise.
Until that condition is met, neither a final inspection nor a certificate of occupancy will be granted.
Until then,
Cedar Falls City Council
“They’re kidding, right?” I laugh the words out as I glance from the email on my laptop and at my brothers. “Bastardize their town? Such bullshit. When The Retreat is done, it will bring more tourism to Cedar Falls. More business. More everything to boost their economy.”
I knew buying the property, in this specific location, was a bad decision.
But the past is the past, right? What happened years ago are things my brothers don’t even know about. And I plan to keep it that way.
“Apparently they think differently,” Ford says from his seat across the conference table. His feet are on the table, his hands clasped behind his head, and his eyes narrowed as he rereads the same email on his laptop. “And why aren’t we contracting locally?”
“Because the local companies aren’t big enough to handle it? Not of the caliber we need?” I take a guess. “Ask Hillary,” I say of our on-site project manager. “She’ll have the answers.”
“We can ask her all we want,” Ford says, “but it’s not going to fix the problem.”
“Or stop them from holding our permits hostage,” Callahan adds.
I look at Ford and then at our brother, Callahan. He’s standing at the wall of windows that line our conference room, staring at me with the same expression Ford has.
There are three of us, identical in appearance, and yet so very different in every other aspect.
“Why did we agree to purchase this place again?” I groan and pinch the bridge of my nose. Headaches upon headaches upon headaches. “I thought new projects were supposed to be thrilling and exciting.”
“Nothing is thrilling and exciting when you’re as uptight as you are, Ledge,” Callahan says and smiles as only a little brother can.
I flip the fucker off.
“Dad. Dad is the reason,” Ford says to bring back our focus, knowing damn well how easy it is for Callahan and me to get distracted by our squabbling. “We were trying to do something in his honor. Remember?”
And he’s right. We bought the old hotel to upgrade it into a S.I.N.
property in Dad’s honor. A place we could all take our families someday and give them the same experience we had as kids.
Nature. A different perspective. Time to unplug for a while.
Unplug? Jesus, the thought of going for more than an hour without my phone gives me the hives.
Somewhere my brothers and I could be a family instead of work partners and remember what it was like to be a kid.
But who knew the one town where we spent a few months each summer was going to make it so hard for us to do so?
“Can somebody tell them that we’ll make good on our promises?” I ask. “Can’t that be enough? Two months in that Podunk town is enough to drive a grown man crazy.”
“Yes. We forgot. You were the only one not thrilled with the idea,” Callahan says with a roll of his eyes. “Pretty-boy Ledger is too good for the country now.”
“Not too good, but Jesus, couldn’t we have picked a more contemporary location? One with more places than Main Street as the big attraction?”
“Montana is hot property right now,” Ford says with a shrug.
“Yeah. Yeah.” I wave a hand his way, knowing he’s right. “But . . .” It’s not New York? It’s too far away from everything? My last time there was an experience I wish to forget?
“Dude, you loved that place when we were teenagers,” Ford says.
He’s right.
I did.
Right up until I didn’t.
“Hell, it was the only place Dad let us be teenagers instead of his Sharpe protégées.” Callahan crosses his arms over his chest and clears his throat. The pang is there for all of us. Our father’s absence is still monumental.
I smile at my early memories of Cedar Falls.
The long days outdoors and the late nights necking in the woods.
How our father, Maxton Sharpe, would release his tight reins on the three of us because it was a small town, and he thought trouble wouldn’t find us.
It still did. The freedom we were given there was unparalleled to the rigors of prep schools and the pristine reputation necessary back home.
The reputation that had us rushing out of there fifteen years ago and never looking back.
Not that my brothers knew otherwise.
“There was fishing and hiking and beers—”
“Lots of beers,” Ford says, and I know we’re all thinking about how we bribed Dad’s staff to buy them for us.
“And who could forget all those small-town country girls,” Callahan adds with a cocky smirk. “They were desperate for boys from anywhere but there, thinking we were way more sophisticated than we really were.”
“Ah, the good old days,” I murmur.
“Maybe that one girl,” Ford says. “What was her name? Ashlyn? Ashley?”
“Asher,” I murmur and run a hand through my hair. Asher Wells. Another pang but for very different reasons. “God. That’s a name I haven’t heard in years.”
But I lie.
Isn’t that the first person I thought of when my brothers approached me with the idea of buying the hotel? Asher, the girl who handed me my first real heartbreak. The first real scare. And to this day, it’s still one of the only secrets I’ve kept from my brothers.
A secret that’s so old and buried that it does no good to bring it up now.
Jesus.
Asher. My lavender girl.
I can still see her sitting beneath the willow tree with leaves tangled in her hair and fire dancing in her eyes.
“Asher. That’s it.” Ford snaps his fingers. “The only female I can remember who gave you a taste of your own medicine by breaking your heart before you could break hers,” Ford says. “Or maybe you learned it from her. The art of not getting too attached.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes. “Just because I choose to date and not get tied down like you,” I say to Callahan, “doesn’t make me an asshole.”
“Not an asshole. Just . . . perfectly Ledger.” Callahan chuckles. “Why’d she break up with you again? Your dick too small?”
Both Ford and Callahan burst into laughter. I shake my head and cough out the words, “Fuck you.”
Next topic, please.
“Do you think she’s still in Cedar Falls?” Ford asks absently.
“Doubt it. She couldn’t wait to get the hell out of that town.” I hope she did too.
“Okay. Enough reminiscing about the whole two minutes it took to lose your virginity, and the poor girl who had to endure those short, fleeting moments,” Callahan says, earning another flip of my middle finger. “How are we going to handle the situation with this bullshit request?”
“They have us over a barrel. We don’t have any choice but to comply,” Ford says.
“You checked with our lawyers? Can they add this stipulation?” I ask.
“They can do whatever they want to do,” Callahan says. “We dealt with strict demands on the Santa Fe project and, after wasting money fighting the city in court, we still had to comply.”
“Fuck,” I mutter as I run over the construction schedule in my head and the plans for the grand opening. Two months before obtaining occupancy permits will delay us. “This is going to cost us. We’ll have to push the grand opening back. Give it a cushion just in case.”
“It’s a bump in the road,” Ford says, ever the pragmatist. “All projects have them.”
“It’s a ridiculous request, is what it is.”
“So you’ve said. Ridiculous as it may be, we’ve already bought the place. With millions of dollars on the line, we don’t have a choice, do we?” Callahan asks.
“We’re too busy. None of us can afford to lose two months away right now.” I run a hand through my hair. “That’s what we hire project managers and directors of construction for. We need to find a workaround. That’s all there is to it.”
Callahan looks at me as if I’m being unreasonable. “And what exactly do you propose to do because throwing money at them—which is what you’re going to suggest as a solution—will only make us look more corporate than we already look.”
“Or guilty of what they’re accusing us of being,” Ford finishes for him.
“So, what is the solution then? Hire everybody in town? Fine. We’ll do that,” I say.
“To not put the stores on Main Street out of business? It’s not our fucking fault if that happens.
We sell hospitality. How is that going to put the hardware store or bakery out of business?
I mean, this letter is absolute bullshit. ”
“It is what it is,” Ford mutters.
“What did Dad always tell us?” I ask. “To situate ourselves in a position of power. So how do we do that? What’s going to give us the upper hand?”
“We go to Cedar Hills for two months,” Ford states.
“Falls,” I correct, glancing over the email again before shutting my laptop. “It’s Cedar Falls. And since you’re heading out there to live for the foreseeable future until this is fixed, it’s probably best you get the town’s name right.”
“Me?” Ford barks out the word and puts his hands up in surrender. “No can do. This trip is squarely on you, Ledger.”
“The fuck it is.” I glance back and forth between my brothers as grins widen on their faces. “Not happening.” I push up out of my chair and move toward the windows that Callahan just vacated, before turning to face them. “Absolutely not,” I say as disbelief slowly trickles through me.
I know their schedules.
The projects they’re tied to.
The obligations they can’t leave mid-operation.
But I swore I’d never step foot in that town again.
Callahan barks out a laugh the minute he sees the realization hit my face. This one is on me. “What was that?” he teases.
“Look. I have an appreciation for all places. Urban. Tropical. Country. But wouldn’t this better suit—”
“When have you ever liked the country?” Ford asks.
“I did. As a teenager.”
“Ha. But now with your Rolex and designer shoes, you’re too good for it?”
“Wouldn’t this project be better suited to one of you who knows the .
. . less urban areas better?” Christ. Please save me from this proposed misery.
Sure, the past is the past, but it’s not a place I want to revisit.
Was it great as a teen? Yes. Is it even better for our clientele looking for this kind of retreat?
Of course, it is. That’s why we bought the property.
But it’s definitely not what I like now.
The past is the last thing I want to dig up, regardless of whether Asher Wells is long gone or not.
“What’s the problem?” Callahan asks as he pops a grape from the fruit platter in the middle of the table into his mouth. “Is spending two months in Montana not on the Ledger-approved ten-year plan?”
Ford stifles a snicker as he looks at Callahan and says, “I’m sure we could squeeze it right between the bullet points of ‘I’m not getting married until I’m forty’ and ‘I want an article solely about me in Forbes Magazine.’”
“To think he doesn’t want us in that article.” Callahan sighs and shakes his head in mock sadness, clearly enjoying himself at my expense. “You still have a ten-year plan, don’t you?”
“Of course, he does,” Ford says.
“I was just checking. I wasn’t sure if he’d moved on to making mood boards or whatever the in thing is called these days.”
“Vision boards, Callahan. Keep up with the times.” Ford chuckles.
“You guys are assholes,” I mutter, but I’m secretly enjoying their banter.
It was less than fifteen months ago that the three of us were in a different place, a different headspace, where Ford and I were at complete odds with Callahan.
Disappointment. Anger. Resentment. Unresolved feelings that arose after our father’s death threatened to tear us apart.
But look at us now. Now we can call each other assholes and fuckers, laughing while we do it, knowing our bond is stronger than ever.
“Yes. Right. We’re assholes,” Callahan scoffs as he turns to me, humor etching the lines of his face. “Have you progressed from your bullet-point planning to making vision boards now?”
“Fuck the both of you,” I say while fighting a smile.
“He hasn’t denied it,” Ford says.
“Not once,” Callahan continues.
“There is no vision board,” I assert.
“But there is still a ten-year plan somewhere, right? Complete with goals and dreams laid out in spectacular fashion or some shit like that?” Ford asks.
“Are there bullet points or is it a tiered outline? Or have you made posters of each item and have them plastered on the walls of your home office?”
“I’m voting the poster route. Laminated. Glossy and—”
“If that’s the only thing you guys can razz me about, then so be it,” I say while flipping them off again.
“It’s not the only thing,” Callahan says. “We’re going to have even more fun watching you get used to the slow-paced country life of Montana.”
“Sixty days.” Ford draws out the two words. “That’s a long time for you to be outside of the concrete jungle and off the structure-approved plan.”
Sixty days.
Fuck.
That’s forever in my world.