Chapter 20
COLT
The week that followed the protest was the kind of week that made a man question every decision he’d ever made. Cody and I had both decided our massive property was a very good place to hang out. I was not interested in picking eggshells from my hair again.
Mom had called on Monday and said she and Dad were flying in.
She said it would be good for us to have the family together.
It was my family circling the wagons. They didn’t say they knew, but I knew they knew shit was going sideways.
Charlie had shown up with his wife, Olivia, and their two kids, which added just the right amount of excitement to the house.
Cody had somehow managed to recruit Mom into making her enchiladas, which meant the kitchen smelled like every good memory from our childhood.
She was at the stove wearing a red apron.
I knew people saw our family and assumed they knew us.
They thought a bunch of billionaires must be stuck up.
Pretentious. But we were all very normal.
We were close. Our mom cooked meals. We had to do the dishes and take out the trash.
I grabbed a beer and went out to the terrace with it, watching the sun go down over the water. I could hear the kids squealing, clearly excited about something. Instead of the noise stressing me out, it helped me relax. I liked spending time with my family.
“Here.” Charlie appeared beside me and handed me a fresh beer without asking if I needed one. “Cody says you’re having some trouble.”
“Cody talks too much.”
“I asked him because I heard some stuff. What’s going on with Judd Mathers?”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“I’m sure it is but you have to know the family name is being talked about.”
I took a deep breath and decided to just be honest with him. He might be able to help. “I want to shut it down,” I said.
“Shut it down,” he repeated.
“The port project. All of it.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Colt.”
“I know.”
“You’ve been building toward this thing for the better part of a year,” he said. “You told me at Christmas this was going to be the one that changed everything.”
“I know. I was wrong.”
“This isn’t something you get to just change your mind about,” he said.
“I’m not taking it lightly.”
“The penalties alone are going to be rough.”
“I know.”
He turned back to the water. “So help me understand,” he said. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re in the home stretch. The investors are still mostly on board. What happened?”
“You know the Tucker farm?” I asked.
He looked at me sideways. “What about it?”
“Imagine an old buddy from high school shows up at the front door,” I said. “Big smile. Expensive suit. He tells you he’s been buying up parcels. Quietly. One at a time. He’s got the Tucker land. He’s buying it all to build a casino.”
Charlie blinked. “It would ruin everything.”
My gaze focused on the water. The glow from a fire down the beach. “It would bring money, and jobs, and we’d have the chance to open our farm up to tourists and locals alike and expand our property, business ventures, and profits. But it would come at a steep cost.”
“The cost of our home,” Charlie said.
“Your kids would grow up on a totally different Anderson ranch,” I said.
“And that’s what I’d be doing to everyone who lives in Surfside.
I’d be taking their homes. Their memories.
In ten years, none of it will be recognizable.
Parents wouldn’t be able to show their kids the places they had their first kiss or where the kids flew their first kite.
Our progress will destroy everything they want to pass on to the next generation. ”
Charlie whistled. “You’re up to your eyeballs in shit, little brother.”
I sighed. “I know. It’s a huge mess. I don’t know where to start to fix it. I don’t even know if I can fix it. I don’t know where to start.”
“Have you talked to Judd?”
“No. He’s pissed. Still got the lawyers finding ways to screw with the locals.”
“You know you have more money and power,” Charlie said. “You know I’m not about flaunting the family wealth, but sometimes it’s necessary.”
“I know. Cody is on the same page. He’s going to stay in Surfside with me a while longer to see if we can get this figured out.”
“Do you need me to stay?” he asked. “I can call Mason and Wyatt. You know they’re always up for a good time.”
I smiled. All of us together would be a force to be reckoned with. Judd Mathers wouldn’t even know what hit him if we gathered our forces together.
“Thanks, but I think we’ve got this,” I said. “If it looks like things are going bad, I’ll definitely give you a call.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. You’ve got a family that needs you. Olivia would murder me if I took her partner away from her and she had to play single mom.”
Charlie chuckled. “Fair point.”
Mom called everyone to the table. Cody was already pulling out a chair. Olivia came in with the kids. Mom had gone all out with the enchiladas. She made fresh guacamole and the Spanish rice that was always perfectly cooked.
The enchiladas were perfect. She made her own sauce. There was something about your mother’s food that made everything better. The apocalypse could be happening and a homecooked meal would make it all okay. I loaded my plate, slapping on some guac to cut through the spice.
“The weather tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful,” Mom said, unfolding her napkin. “I was thinking we could take the kids down to the beach in the morning. Pack a lunch. Make a day of it.”
“The kids would love that,” Olivia said. She looked across the table at Charlie and something passed between them. One of those silent conversations married people had that nobody else could follow.
“I’ll make sandwiches,” Mom announced. “And those little lemon cookies the kids like.”
“Can we look for crabs?” one of the kids asked.
“You can look,” Olivia said. “No bringing them home.”
I ate and listened and let the noise of it wash over me. This was what I’d needed without knowing I’d needed it. Not a solution to anything. Just my family and knowing they were there if I needed them.
Cody caught my eye across the table and raised his beer slightly. I raised mine back. I suspected he’d called Dad. Let him know things weren’t great. Mom would pretend it was totally random that they showed up. I knew better.
After dinner, Charlie leaned over to Olivia and said something quiet. She nodded and pushed back her chair. He did the same. They gathered the kids, said goodnight, and headed upstairs.
Mom was cleaning up, refusing to let us help.
Dad, Cody, and I sat in the living room.
I could hear the chaos upstairs. The kids were wild, but it wasn’t their fault.
Charlie was getting them fired up. It sounded like a herd of elephants with Charlie chasing them.
From what I could hear, it was a full-on tickle-fest. I could hear Olivia’s laughter.
I sat there listening to them and mulled over my own life. There were some odd feelings happening. It wasn’t sadness exactly. It wasn’t longing. It was more like want. Not want like I wanted sex with Summer. Want as in wanting air. Wanting to run on the beach.
Another burst of laughter from upstairs. A thump that was probably someone falling off a bed. More laughter. Charlie had a beautiful family. A woman who looked at him like he hung the moon.
The laughter upstairs went quiet. It was like they all ran out of gas and just collapsed. I picked up my beer and took a long drink.
Did I want that?
I was thirty-four years old and I had never once contemplated that for me.
When Charlie got married, it worked. I was happy for him.
But I never imagined I would want that. Kids screaming when I walked through the door after a long day.
Kids jumping on the bed and waking me up too early on a Sunday morning.
I thought about Summer. I couldn’t help it. She was the only person I could ever imagine having children with. And that was odd because we weren’t even talking. We were a long way from kids.
I thought about those stick figures on the back of Becca’s SUV. Would Summer drive something like that? She’d be a hot soccer mom. Except she would want a truck to put all the surfboards in.
My heard did an odd little somersault at the thought of kids that were a blend of our looks. Their eyes would almost surely be some shade of green.
“Everything okay?” Mom asked.
“Just tired,” I said.
Mom looked at me with a soft smile. “The air here is good for you,” she said. She reached over and patted my hand once. “You need to sleep.”
“I am.”
“No, I don’t think you are,” she said. “You been running again?”
“I was, but given the way things are right now, I haven’t dared.”
She clicked her tongue. “It really is a shame. These people know us. They know we would never do anything to ruin this place.”
“But I am,” I said. “Or I was. I didn’t see the bigger picture. I really wish they would listen to me when I tell them I didn’t mean them any harm.”
“They will,” she said confidently.
“I don’t know about that. Judd is making things difficult.”
“We’ll handle Judd,” Cody said.
“I could make some calls,” Dad offered.
“Not yet. Let me see if I can dig myself out of this mess.”
“Cody,” Mom said, setting down her tea. “Tell me honestly. How bad was it?”
I looked at my brother and silently begged him not to say anything.
“How bad was what?” I asked.
“The protest,” Dad said. He was leaning back in his chair with his feet up, calm as ever. “We saw the videos. We’re not that old. We know how to use social media.”
I closed my eyes.
“It has a lot of views,” Cody offered helpfully.
“Cody, I swear to God, I will kill you as soon as they leave.”
Mom laughed. She was used to our empty threats.
“I haven’t seen the video and I don’t want to,” I said. “I was there. I remember it all very well.”
“Colt stood up there and just took it. He never even tried to dodge the tomatoes. Or the eggs.”
“Cody,” I warned.
He ignored me completely.
“Where were you?” Mom asked Cody.
“Oh, I stayed quiet,” Cody said. “I am not letting raw egg touch me. Gross.”
“You should have stood up for him,” Dad said.
I smiled at Cody. His little attempt to humiliate me backfired.
“We were in disguise, but Judd saw Colt,” Cody said. “I don’t think they cared about me. Judd was their target. Colt just got caught in the line of fire.”
“I can’t believe they threw eggs at you,” she said. “It’s really not funny. Someone could have been hurt.”
“I agree,” I said.
Dad rubbed his jaw and looked at the ceiling. “But you have it handled?”
“I do,” I said. “I will.”
“Good.”