Chapter Two
“Your profits have been very healthy, Jake,” Harvey Tomchuk said between sips of his coffee. “But given the capital outlays you want to make this year, you could use a cash infusion.”
Jake Hartman liked the sound of the phrase. Sort of New Age—like a vitamin or herbal infusion. “Are you talking about a bank loan, Harvey? You know I’m not keen on debt.”
“No debt.” His accountant—graying, with arthritic knees, but as mentally sharp as ever—helped himself to another cup of coffee from the machine on the counter. “I’m thinking of equity here, as in cash provided to the business by a new investor. Simple enough for you yet?”
“Oh, sure. Now I get it. You want me to find someone with a quarter mil to invest in my heli-skiing business. That should be a snap.” Jake was mostly teasing.
Harvey had been his accountant since the inception of his business and he trusted the man.
He didn’t know what he was going to do when Harvey retired—something he’d been threatening to do since he turned sixty-five three years ago.
“You could always ask Patricia for the money.”
Jake snorted. He’d rather see his business fold than go into partnership with his mother.
She’d been against the heli-ski lodge from the beginning.
As she was with most of his ideas. Not that he didn’t sympathize with her.
She’d lost her husband in a ranching accident when she was only thirty, and been left to raise, on her own, a rowdy boy she’d never been able to understand.
After his dad’s death, she’d sold her share in the Thunder Bar M and moved them east to a series of big cities before settling in Philadelphia. For about ten years she tried to mold Jake into a cosmopolitan urbanite, before throwing in the towel and kicking him out of the house at age eighteen.
Jake’s happiest memories were of his early childhood and the summers he’d been allowed to spend with his uncle Bud McLean’s family, on the Thunder Bar M in Montana. So he headed west and never looked back.
His mother was furious and refused to so much as visit him. Which left it to Jake to make annual pilgrimages to Philadelphia so she could frown at him and heave great sighs of disappointment. Once a week he called to assure her he hadn’t killed himself on some godforsaken mountain.
Ask his mother for money? No way.
“I guess I’ll think of something,” he said. “How much, exactly, should I be looking for?”
“For the kind of renovations you’re thinking of?” Harvey circled the bottom number in a long line of figures. Jake winced.
“Of course,” Harvey pointed out, “you could avoid all this by lowering your standards just a tad. No one expects a world-class spa in a remote mountain lodge.”
“Actually they do.” Grizzly Peaks was Jake’s baby, his life. His clients came from all over the world, willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the opportunity to ski in the backcountry wilderness of the Rocky Mountains.
But Jake wanted more. Not necessarily bigger—in fact, definitely not bigger—but the best of everything. One day Grizzly Peaks would be the premier heli-skiing operation in all of North America.
“Any summer plans?” Harvey asked as he gathered up his papers.
“Help out Dylan on the ranch, as much as I can. He’s still trying to rebuild his herd from those years when his ex-stepfather was in charge.
” If life had worked out differently and his mother hadn’t sold their stake in the Thunder Bar M, he and Dylan would be partners now.
It was a future Jake would have missed more if he didn’t have Grizzly Peaks.
“Max only cared about his development plans,” Harvey sympathized. “Now I hear he’s bought up adjacent land and is going ahead.”
Jake shook his head despondently. “No way to stop him, it seems.”
Harvey finished his coffee. “Well, I guess we’re done here. I’ll put together the final financial proposal, then you can go out and try to find your money.”
After a warm handshake, he shuffled out the door. A moment later the older man poked his head inside and handed Jake a rolled-up newspaper.
“This was on your front porch.” He handed over the Whitefish Journal then left.
Jake took the paper to his favorite reading chair.
A breaking story by Mick Mizzoni had captured the headline.
Jake swore softly as he read about council’s approval for the Thunder Valley Developments project.
Once he’d absorbed all the implications, he cut out the article and added it to the others he was saving in an old shoebox.
The past few years had been tumultuous for the ranch and the family that he loved so much.
He’d watched helplessly as his cousin became “a person of interest” during the police investigation into Beckett’s homicide and he felt equally helpless about Max Strongman’s development plans now.
He didn’t like or trust Max, but had no idea how to stop him.
Jake reached for the phone to call his cousin.
“Did you hear the news about Strongman?”
“We’re still in shock,” Dylan said. “Max should be in jail for conspiracy to murder Joe Beckett and the attempted murder of my mother. I don’t know why James is protecting him.”
“James idolizes his father. Don’t know why.”
“Well, unless Max is implicated, I don’t think we can stop his development. According to Mick Mizzoni they’ve already acquired over one thousand acres. The development will cut right across the natural wildlife corridor along Thunder Creek.”
“It’s a disaster,” Jake agreed. He’d hoped—the entire family had hoped—that with Max out of the mayor’s office the development plans would be out too. But while feelings against development in Whitefish ran strong, in far too many cases economics trumped nature.
After a depressing pause, Jake told his cousin about the plans for upgrading Grizzly Peaks.
“So you need a silent partner? I may know just the person. Let me check and get back to you.”
“That sounds intriguing.”
“Oh, she is. But I have to go, buddy. Cathleen’s giving me that look…”
“Say no more.” Jake hung up, knowing his cousin was referring to the look that every man longed for. The look that meant Come to bed, darling.
Lucky guy. Jake hadn’t been the recipient of the look in a long time.
*
Maureen was pulling into her driveway after a long day at work when her cell phone rang. “Sis #1” showed on the display. Maureen turned off the car then answered the call.
“Cathleen?” With her free hand she reached over to the passenger seat and grabbed the bag of groceries.
“Hey, Mo. Dylan has an opportunity he wants to run by you. It’s with his cousin, Jake Hartman.”
Jake had been around Whitefish during holidays as they were growing up, but Maureen had never had much to do with him. While Cathleen and Kelly loved the outdoors and rode horses every chance they got, Maureen preferred books and organized sports.
Maureen had last seen Jake at Dylan and Cathleen’s wedding. Jake was a big, well-muscled man with dark blond hair. She’d noticed him watching her from time to time at the wedding, but they’d only spoken once, when he’d offered his condolences on her husband’s death.
As she made her way into the house she asked, “What’s the deal?”
“Jake is looking for new capital for his heli-skiing business. It may sound risky, but trust me, his business is extremely profitable.”
Maureen’s interest plummeted. Heli-skiing. Sounded like something her husband would have loved, if they could have afforded the expensive sport.
“What’s this have to do with me?” Maureen set the grocery bag on the kitchen counter.
She could hear the muffled, pulsing bass of Holly’s music coming from down the hall.
Her daughter was listening to awful stuff these days, heavy metal from bands like Fates Warning and Bitter End, and she used Maureen’s Spotify account to make soul-destroying playlists that Maureen was tempted to delete.
“You have that money from Rod’s life insurance, and I know how pitiful interest rates are these days.”
Maureen pulled out a bowl for salad, then a knife to carve the roasted chicken she’d purchased. “You think I should invest Holly’s inheritance from her father in a heli-skiing business? Cathleen, that’s nuts!”
“Why? Jake’s a great guy and Grizzly Peaks has a world-class reputation. With your cut of the profits, you wouldn’t need to work as hard.”
Maureen wondered if this could be it—the sign that she needed to change her life. Maybe she shouldn’t reject it out of hand. “I have to admit, I’ve been thinking Holly and I could use a change.”
“Then you should definitely check out Jake’s proposal. If it appeals, you could move back to Whitefish. There are some cute town houses near the middle school for sale at the moment.”
“How much capital is Jake looking for?” Bespoke vacation experiences were very hot right now. If she thought of it simply as an investment, it might make sense.