Chapter Three
N atalie sat in a booth at the back of Grey’s Saloon, laptop open and scrolling through a day’s worth of emails.
Yes, she should be back at her room in the Bramble House, but the space had been too quiet and Nat far too wired after filling up on coffee all afternoon to combat the time change than to sit still in her room.
So she dumped off her things and set out on foot to find somewhere she could sit and think.
At this hour, the only thing open that fit the bill were the town’s two bars.
Grey’s was the closest.
Nat raised her glass of bourbon on the rocks and took a sip, discretely scanning the rest of the bar.
Tonight, the clientele was slim and, unfortunately, no drama unfolding to distract her from the recap of tonight’s public hearing playing on repeat in her head.
Or that close encounter she’d shared with Sam Miles beforehand.
Holy cowboy.
He’d caught and held her like she weighed nothing, his strong, working man’s hands firm yet gentle. Careful. But it was his green eyes that haunted her still. She’d gotten momentarily lost in their depths, sensing a story there. One of hurt, of distrust.
Of… interest?
Okay, so that angle she’d probably misinterpreted.
Her imagination had been known to run wild from time to time, especially after these long stretches on the road.
Besides, if there’d been interest of some kind, it was probably to get her as far away from him as possible.
After he’d changed out of his soiled shirt, his scowls had been anything but welcoming.
But then he’d brought Nat her purse and almost smiled. Enough of a smile to hint of the wild hidden in the depths of those eyes…
Nat shook her head and took another drink. Jet lag was messing with her head. Men like Sam Miles didn’t look her way. She was a romantic, not some wild child looking for a fling. Besides, she was here for work, no romance allowed.
Not that she had much time for that kind of thing.
The handful of relationships she’d had after her brief, post-college marriage had been one reminder after another that getting to know the other person took time and energy.
Then, just about the time she was starting to feel comfortable enough around them to start thinking long-term, they changed; their true sides came out.
So far, those true sides hadn’t been good matches for her. Over time, it’d just become easier to stay single. Then she started working at Terakion and, well, who had the time to date? It seemed as good a time as any to hit pause on the dating scene and focus solely on her career.
Natalie shifted her focus back to her laptop and the messages in her email inbox.
An email from her boss, Steven Gerig, wishing her luck.
Another email from Steven, asking for an update—that one was dated an hour and a half ago.
She smiled, knowing he was rooting for her to succeed on this project.
Most of her previous bosses would have done what they could to block her advancement, to keep her on their teams. Steven, however, had been an amazing, encouraging boss from day one, saying his goal was to teach her how to fly and then get out of her way.
He had stuck by his word the past four years, coaching her when he had the time, pairing her with other amazing mentors at Terakion when he didn’t, but always helping her grow.
It was a refreshing change from the job she’d held before that. The job she thought she loved, until everything started to go sideways.
Natalie sidestepped that trip down memory lane, choosing to focus on the future, not the past. And while she would have loved to open a webchat with Steven to dissect the part of the meeting that did happen, he was three hours behind Marietta and was likely fast asleep.
So, she sent him a brief summary via email and asked him to give her a call in the morning.
If anyone could work through tonight’s stumbling blocks with the Miles family’s supposed lease arrangement, Steven could.
She took another drink of her bourbon and clicked to open the Marietta folder on her laptop.
Had the land acquisitions team identified the lease as a potential conflict and she’d somehow missed it?
Not likely, but she had to look to be sure.
After ten minutes of careful scrolling, she was confident nothing had been missed on her end.
So, who at corporate had dropped the ball?
She’d worked over three dozen similar projects during her time with Terakion, and not once had her colleagues on the LA team missed something this significant.
Natalie opened Google and did a search on the resort’s future address, zooming in to take a better look at the aerial.
Wait—what were all those buildings on the property directly to the west?
A quick scroll out, and a business name appeared on the screen to clue her in. The Flying J Ranch and Lodge.
Good Lord. They’d missed a lease and a business they might be in direct conflict with?
Right next door? Natalie hung her head. No wonder Sam was so irate when they’d first arrived.
And then she’d stood up in front of the room full of Mariettains and said she’d done her due diligence ahead of coming here.
She wouldn’t make that mistake a second time.
Natalie clicked on the lodge’s website and did a slow and thorough perusal, trying to absorb all it had to offer.
Information about the cattle they raised, the cattle they bred, lodging at the Flying J and its four additional stand-alone cabins.
Fishing, horseback riding, guided trails at the foothills of Yellowstone National Park, a small domestic petting zoo.
The buildings were simple yet beautiful, all built in a similar log-cabin style.
Would the Flying J Lodge lose customers to Terakion’s River Bend Resort?
Possibly. But from what she was seeing in their photo gallery, the Flying J looked more like a dude ranch than a resort.
Yes, they had a lot of outdoorsy offerings, but the Miles’s lodging lacked everything the Rbr would be promoting—luxury accommodations, fine dining, two heated pools—one indoor and one outdoor—and an oversized hot tub that straddled the western wall, allowing guests to drift in or outside as they pleased.
Nat clicked on another photo gallery listed on the site, this one containing what looked like historic photos of nearby Marietta with descriptions shown beneath each. She leaned in to get a better view, impressed by the collection that rivaled that on Marietta’s own tourism page.
Construction of the Bramble House. The Graff Hotel. The train depot. The fairgrounds.
Parades. Festivals. Downtown decorated for the Christmas season through the years.
Miners. Volunteer firemen. Ranchers.
She paused her scrolling to squint at a photo showing several men on horseback beside a wooden arch over a dirt drive.
At the center of the arch was a placard with The Flying J painted on it.
And though the picture was in black and white, the man at the center of the photo was a spitting image of Sam Miles.
The name listed below the image, however, was Elijah Miles.
Eli.
Nat grinned. Sam’s grandfather had been quite the looker in his day. And yes, the mischievous twinkle in his eyes tonight glimmered in the old photo as well. Sunnie had had her hands full with that one.
The adorable older couple—Eli had offered Sunnie his arm as they’d headed out to the parking lot after the hearing disbanded—sent Nat’s thoughts returning to Aunt Sara and Uncle Ralph.
Though younger than Eli and Sunnie, they doted on one another in similar ways.
Again, she counted her blessings that she’d bought a house only two blocks over from them.
Without their help, she’d have had to sell the home she’d spent all those years scrimping and saving to buy.
Of course, when she’d bought the home, Natalie had been at her old job, where she’d rarely if ever traveled.
Three months after closing on the house, her company had been absorbed in a midnight merger, with all the highest paying nonmanagement positions put on the chopping block.
Thirty days’ notice hadn’t been nearly long enough for her to find a suitable replacement.
She’d spent countless hours scouring the internet for jobs and contacting everyone she could think of in the industry, had sent out dozens and dozens and dozens of résumés, but in the end, all she managed to achieve was a handful of online interviews that went nowhere.
Thank God for her sister. If Julianna hadn’t been able to pull some strings at Terakion, who knew where Natalie would be now? And though she’d worried about her house sitting vacant for a good portion of the year, Uncle Ralph and Aunt Sara had come to Natalie’s rescue, as well.
Looking back, what had seemed like the end of the world had really been a blessing in disguise. Now, she was ready to transition into a role with more responsibility and less travel. Though Julianna had questioned her logic.
“Don’t be crazy—there’s no reason in the world for you to ever leave Steven’s group.”
Natalie rattled the ice in her glass, still puzzled by her sister’s response. Yes, working for Steven was great. But why stop here when the company had so much more to offer and her boss had been encouraging her to spread her wings for years?