Chapter 34
KENT
Ihadn’t expected to feel anything when I came around that bend in the road and saw the Northwood Lodge spread out before me.
It was just a place, just another business venture that needed handling.
But when the property came into view—the twinkling lights, the snow-covered Christmas trees, and the warm glow from the lodge windows—my chest swelled with emotions I couldn’t quite name.
It felt like coming home, which was completely ridiculous since I’d been gone less than a week.
And this was definitely not my home.
I wasn’t sure I would be welcome back.
The morning after was never something I thought much about. The women I took to bed were usually aware of what was going to happen. They might want me to call, but they didn’t expect it.
I pulled up to the tree farm and was climbing out of my rental SUV.
I had learned my lesson and wasn’t about to drive anything fancy.
It was all about functional. I didn’t want to end up in the ditch again.
I had a feeling Sylvie would leave me to freeze this time.
And if her brother knew about my last night at the lodge, he would probably try and kick my ass.
I spotted Sylvie leaning against the outside of the small payment building. Even from a distance, I could tell something was wrong. Her posture was defeated, shoulders hunched, and as I got closer, I could see that she was clearly crying.
She hadn’t seen me. Or if she did, she was ignoring me.
Her nose was bright pink from the cold and emotion. She wiped her cheeks with the sleeves of her sweater in a way that suggested this wasn’t just a momentary upset. This was the kind of crying that came from deep, soul-crushing disappointment.
Concern rippled through me as I approached her. “Sylvie? What’s wrong?”
She started when she saw me, immediately trying to wipe away the evidence of her tears, but it was too late. I’d already seen the devastation written all over her face.
“I didn’t think you were coming back,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.
“Why are you crying?” I asked, stepping closer. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Those simple questions seemed to break whatever composure she’d been trying to maintain. She crumpled before my eyes, the words pouring out of her in a rush of anguish.
“Dad’s closing the lodge. After New Year’s Day, it’s over.
We’re going to sell off pieces of land to developers, and I’m going to have to find somewhere to live.
I’m going to have to watch strangers build strip malls and subdivisions on land that used to be mine.
We’re going to witness everything my family built get eroded away piece by piece until there’s nothing left. It’s over. My world. It’s done.”
I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. She was crying because her family was losing everything, and here I was with paperwork that would make that loss total and immediate instead of gradual and partial.
I should have felt vindicated. This made my job easier. They were already desperate, already facing the inevitable loss of their property. All I had to do was offer them a way to get paid handsomely for what they were going to lose anyway.
Instead, I felt guilty for not being here when she needed me. For leaving her to face this devastating news alone while I was in New York plotting to make things even worse.
“Come with me,” I said.
“I can’t. And I don’t want to.”
“I have something that might help,” I heard myself saying, pulling out the paperwork from inside my jacket pocket.
I had planned to present it a little differently, but this was a glimmer of hope for her.
Not the hope she was expecting, but it was far better than being broke with nothing.
She might not have her family property, but she would have money.
She could buy a house. Plant a thousand Christmas trees if she wanted.
It just couldn’t be here in the soil her family had worked for generations.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s what I went back to the city to deal with,” I said.
“Your family is going to invest in the property?”
I winced. “Not exactly.”
I handed the paperwork to her and watched as she devoured the information. Her eyes went wide as she read the offer page. I watched her face cycle through disbelief, shock, and something that might have been hope.
“Two hundred million dollars?!” she gasped.
“Hush,” I said quickly, looking around to make sure no one had overheard.
The last thing we needed was word of this kind of money getting around before we had a chance to present it properly.
She was looking at the numbers and not quite understanding what it meant.
“That’s not the kind of thing you want to say out loud. But yes. One million for every acre.”
“This… this…” She stared at the papers like they might disappear if she looked away.
I waited for reality to sink in. Waited for her to read the fine print and realize what this offer actually meant. Waited for her to lash out at me, to be angry that I was trying to take everything away from her family.
But she looked up at me with the biggest grin I’d ever seen on her face.
“This changes everything!” she said, and before I could process what was happening, she was on her tiptoes kissing me like I was some kind of hero instead of the villain in her story.
She kissed me like she’d been waiting for me to come back. I wanted to believe she wanted me as much as I wanted her because of who I was. I wished I wasn’t about to destroy her entire world for my family’s profit.
I found myself gathering her up and kissing her back, overwhelmed by how right it felt to hold her again. I was going to take advantage of her ignorance about the deal for just a little bit longer. That was the kind of jackass I was.
“I missed you while I was gone,” I said against her lips, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
“I missed you too,” she whispered. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back after… after the way you left.”
“That was never a possibility,” I told her, and I meant it. Whatever happened with this deal, whatever consequences I faced with my family, I couldn’t have stayed away from her.
She rolled up the paperwork carefully, treating the documents like they contained the secrets of the universe instead of the blueprint for her family’s destruction.
“I’ll talk to Dad about this later,” she said, tucking the documents under her arm. “Right now I need to help customers, but, Kent, this is incredible. This is going to save everything.”
The trust in her eyes and the pure joy on her face made me feel like the worst kind of bastard. But I couldn’t bring myself to correct her misconceptions. Not when she looked at me like I’d just handed her the moon.
“I’ll help,” I said, not wanting to miss a moment with her now that I was back.
“Are you staying?” she asked.
I nodded. “At least a day or two. I would like to talk to the rest of the family about the offer.”
“Lucky for you, there’s plenty of room at the inn,” she said with a wink.
Her nose was still pink from her earlier tears, but that smile? Damn. I would gladly harness the moon and give it to her to see her look at me like that.
I needed to enjoy it while it was around because once she read the paperwork and her family read it, they were going to run my ass out of town. She wouldn’t be smiling at me ever again.
“I’ll go check in and I’ll be back,” I said.
“Thank you, Kent. Truly. Thank you.”
I forced another smile. Guilt was making me nauseated, but I pushed it down.
I parked the SUV and grabbed my bag from the back seat, steeling myself for whatever reception I was about to get at the lodge. The guilt was already eating at me, and I hadn’t even made it through the front door yet.
The moment I stepped inside, I spotted Stacy behind the reception desk. She looked up from whatever paperwork she was reviewing, and her expression immediately shifted from neutral professionalism to something considerably less welcoming.
“Well, look who’s back,” she said, her voice carrying just enough edge to let me know I was on thin ice. “Are you planning on saying goodbye this time, or should we just expect you to vanish into thin air again?”
The direct hit landed exactly where she’d intended. I had said goodbye to Sylvie, but I guessed my chilly departure had been a topic of discussion while I was gone.
“I apologize for that,” I said, approaching the desk with what I hoped was appropriate contrition. “I had to leave in a hurry. Family emergency.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. Hudson’s call had certainly felt like an emergency at the time, even if it was more about business than any actual crisis. But I couldn’t exactly explain that my brother had called to remind me I was supposed to be working instead of sleeping with their sister.
Stacy stared at me as if trying to determine whether my apology was genuine or just convenient bullshit. Whatever she saw there must have been enough to earn me a grudging acceptance because she reached under the counter and produced a key.
“Same room,” she said, sliding it across the wooden surface. “No one else has used it.”
“That’s fine. Thank you.”
I started to turn toward the stairs, but her voice stopped me. “Kent?”
I looked back at her, noting the protective big-sister expression that had settled over her features. It was the same look I’d seen from my own brothers when they thought someone might be messing with family.
“Sylvie’s been through enough disappointment lately,” she said quietly. “She doesn’t need any more.”
The message was crystal clear. Don’t hurt her again. I wasn’t sure if she told them exactly what happened between us. I doubted it. If she had, there would probably be a shotgun aimed at me.
“Understood,” I said.
I made my way upstairs to room twelve, the same space I’d occupied during my first stay.
Nothing had changed. The same rustic furniture, the same view of the Christmas tree farm through the window, the same sense of warmth and history that permeated every corner of this place. The sheets had been washed, though.
I dropped my bag on the bed and stood at the window for a moment, looking out at the rows of evergreens.
In a few weeks, if everything went according to my father’s plan, all of this would be gone.
The trees, the lodge, the traditions that had been passed down through generations of Northwoods, all of it would be bulldozed to make way for drilling equipment and industrial infrastructure.
I shook my head, pushing away thoughts I couldn’t afford to entertain. I had a job to do, and the sooner I got it done, the sooner everyone could start their new lives.
I headed back out to the farm. Sylvie was trying to help a customer. When she saw me, she blessed me with another one of those brilliant smiles.
I had volunteered to help at the right time, it turned out, since Ozzo chose that moment to have his latest accident. I watched in horrified fascination as he somehow managed to poke himself in the eye with a low-hanging tree branch while trying to help a customer load their fir.
“Ow! Shit! Sorry, excuse my French,” Ozzo said, stumbling backward while holding his hand over his injured eye. “I can’t see! I think I’m bleeding!”
One of the customers, a middle-aged woman with the take-charge attitude of someone used to handling a crisis, immediately stepped in to help.
“I’m a nurse,” she said. “Let me see it.”
Ozzo uncovered his eye and she made a face. “Is it bad, ma’am?” he asked, voice quivering. It was easy to forget how young he was because of his size. He was still just a big kid.
“I think you might have scratched your cornea,” the woman said. “Just to be safe, I can drive you to the emergency clinic in town. I was heading that way anyway for my shift.”
Sylvie looked torn between concern for Ozzo and the practical reality that we now had customers to serve and were down a person.
“Go,” I told Ozzo. “Get that looked at. We can handle things here.”
He went off with the nurse, sniffling, and she said soft soothing things to him, telling him he was going to be alright.
I got busy helping families find their perfect trees while trying not to think about the fact that this might be one of the last times anyone would buy a tree from this lot.