Chapter 42
COLT
We walked up from the beach side by side, boards under our arms, sand in everything and everywhere. I could feel it clinging to my back, scalp, and every other inch of me. The back porch light was still on, throwing that warm yellow glow across the steps. I was dragging.
We put our boards against the side of the house. Her hair was a salt-crusted disaster. She had sand on her cheek. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my entire life.
“Thanks for the surf lesson,” I said.
“You still need work on that pop-up.”
“Brutal.”
“Honest.” She smiled up at me. I stepped in close and tucked a piece of wet hair behind her ear. She let me. “You’re getting better though. I’ll give you that.”
“High praise.”
“Don’t push it.”
I kissed her. It lacked the usual heat and passion but it was filled with love. I pulled her closer, one arm around her waist. She tasted like the ocean. I was never going to be able to smell salt air again without thinking about her.
She pulled back slightly and looked up at me with heavy eyes. She was exhausted. I was exhausted. We’d done considerably more today than just surf.
“You should go inside,” I said.
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved.
I kissed her again. She laughed against my mouth this time, which turned the kiss into something softer and more ridiculous and somehow better.
My hand found the curve of her jaw. Her fingers slid up my neck into my hair.
I forgot I was tired. I could slip inside her and just lay there all night. It would be enough.
The back screen door swung open with a bang. We both jumped about a foot off the ground.
“What in the—” Becca appeared on the back step with a broom held up at shoulder height like she was prepared to bring it down on something. Her hair was piled on top of her head. Her eyes found us. She blinked and lowered the broom.
“Summer,” she said.
“Becca,” Summer replied.
A long pause. Becca looked at me and then her sister. We both looked like we’d been through hell. A good hell, but the whole rode hard thing was very real. We were fried.
“I thought you were a raccoon,” Becca said.
“I’m not a raccoon,” Summer said with a laugh.
“No,” Becca said slowly. “You are definitely not a raccoon.” She tilted her head. “You’re something else entirely. You’re more like what a raccoon would drag out of the trash.”
“Go to bed, Becca,” Summer said.
“I came out here with a broom,” Becca said. “I was ready to do battle. Prepared to face whatever manner of creature was lurking on my porch to protect my children. And look at that, it’s my sister making out with her boyfriend. I guess it’s better than finding you hanging off the lattice.”
“Becca,” Summer groaned.
“Colt.” Becca nodded at me.
“Becca,” I said. “Sorry about the raccoon confusion. And the lattice. I’ll fix it.”
She laughed.
“We were just saying goodnight,” Summer said.
“Oh yes,” Becca said. “The standard dueling tongue goodbye.”
“Go away,” Summer said.
“Alright, alright. Don’t let me stop you.” She pulled the door open, paused, looked back over her shoulder at us both. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” I said.
She disappeared inside. The screen door bounced shut behind her. I heard her laughing all the way down the hallway before it faded.
Summer turned back to me. “She’s never going to let me live this down,” she said.
“She’s got two kids,” I reminded her. “I think she has an idea what two people might do together.”
“I should actually go inside,” she said. “I’m dead on my feet.”
“I get it. Me too. I’ll text you tomorrow.”
I kissed her again and watched her disappear inside. And then with every ounce of energy I could muster, I dragged my ass next door. I was drained. I climbed the stairs to my room and thought about falling into bed, but the sand between my cheeks was promising a lovely rash if I ignored it.
It took me all of three minutes to rinse the salt and sand away. I put on a pair of briefs and fell face first into my bed.
The alarm on my phone went off at seven thirty. I wasn’t getting up. I silenced it without opening my eyes. I needed to sleep for another hour. Every muscle ached in the best possible way. I closed my eyes and had started to fall asleep again when there was a loud pounding on the door.
“Colt. Get up.”
“Go away.”
“I’m serious. Get your ass out of bed right now.”
I opened my eyes. Something in his voice cut through the fog faster than the alarm had. Cody didn’t knock like that unless something was actually wrong. I sat up and pushed my hair back from my face. “What happened?”
“There’s a guy downstairs.” A pause. “With papers.”
I was out of bed before he finished the sentence.
I came down the stairs in my briefs and a T-shirt I’d grabbed off the floor. I didn’t have to guess what it meant. I’d been served before. I wasn’t going to dress up for him.
Cody smirked when he saw me. The man standing on the other side of the screen door looked surprised and uncomfortable. I didn’t care. He was about to ruin my day. I could wear whatever the hell I wanted to.
He looked at me. “Colt Anderson?”
“That’s me.”
He held out the envelope. I took it. He turned and walked down the stairs. I stood in the entryway and looked down at the envelope in my hand.
I carried the envelope into the kitchen and dropped it on the island. Cody poured me a cup of coffee and slid it across the counter to me.
He said nothing as I took my first sip.
“Shots fired,” Cody said.
“Yep.”
I opened the envelope and was not surprised. Judd Mathers was suing me for breach of contract, tortious interference, and defamation. The filing was not unexpected.
“How bad?” Cody asked.
“He’s going scorched earth,” I said. “And defamation. That was not something I expected.”
“Defamation.” Cody repeated the word like he was tasting it. “For the video?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Is any of it going to stick?”
“The breach of contract claim has the most teeth. I pulled out of a signed agreement. I paid the penalty but he’s arguing the penalty clause doesn’t cover consequential damages. His lawyers are going to say my withdrawal caused a cascade that cost him the whole project.”
“Did it?”
“Probably.” I pushed the papers away. “But I didn’t do anything illegal. I followed the contract. The penalty clause was negotiated and agreed to by both parties. He wants more than what we agreed to and he’s hoping a lawsuit scares me into settling.”
“Will it?”
I looked at my brother. “What do you think?”
He smiled slowly. “I think I’m calling the boys.”
I laughed. “We pulling the family card?”
“Yep.”
“Sit down and eat something. I’ll make the call. Mathers is going to learn the hard way you don’t fuck with the Anderson family. That guy thinks he’s all high and mighty. Texas boys don’t play.”
I didn’t argue. “I’m going to call the legal team. They knew this was coming.”
“How exciting,” Cody said. “Been a while since we got to play ball.”
I wasn’t sure I was as excited as he was, but I was ready to fight back because now I had real skin in the game. I called my attorney first. He was on retainer and I paid him a small fortune to be on call. I gave him the recap while I read through the filing more carefully.
“Send me the documents,” he said.
“On it.”
“Colt, the defamation claim is going to be very hard for him to make stick because everything you said in that video was either verifiably true or clearly stated as personal opinion. He’s fishing.”
“I know. He’s just trying to make this worse. See if he can shame me into giving him what he wants.”
“He wants you distracted and spending resources. Don’t let him have that.”
“I don’t intend to.”
We talked for another fifteen minutes. By the time I hung up, Cody was back in the kitchen. “The cavalry is ready,” he said.
“Thanks for calling them.”
“And what did the lawyer say?”
“I need to scan the paperwork and get it to him,” I said. “He’s not worried.”
“Good.”
My father was making calls of his own to people he’d known forever. The kind of people who had long memories and short tolerances for exactly the kind of behavior Judd Mathers was currently trying to engage in.
“He’s going to lose,” Cody said simply. “You know that.”
“I know. He’s just going to create a shitstorm.”
“He picked the wrong Anderson to mess with,” Cody said with a grin.
“They all would have been the wrong one,” I said.
Cody grinned. “True.”
The entire day was sucked up by Judd’s bullshit. My phone rang while I was jotting down notes for my attorney. Things that occurred to me from some of the meetings with Judd. I didn’t recognize the number but it had a Texas area code. Could be my attorney calling from another line.
“Colt Anderson,” I answered.
“Mr. Anderson.” The voice was older and unfamiliar. “My name is Gerald Morrison. I’m an investor in the Surfside port development project.”
I went still. I knew him. Not personally, but we’d been on plenty of calls together. “Mr. Morrison.”
“I’ll keep this brief because I don’t imagine either of us wants this conversation to be longer than it needs to be.” He paused. “I wanted to call you as a courtesy. You did me a courtesy when you reached out to warn me about the direction things were heading. I felt I owed you the same.”
“I appreciate that,” I said carefully.
“Judd Mathers has retained a firm that specializes in online reputation management,” Fitch said.
“And I use that term loosely because what they actually do is the opposite. They’re very good at generating a particular kind of online narrative.
Coordinated. It looks organic but it isn’t.
” Another pause. “He’s planning to go after your family publicly.
Your business history. Personal matters if he can find them.
He wants to position himself as the victim of a coordinated smear campaign by a powerful family because a member of said family got cold feet.
I understand there might be another angle. ”
I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Another angle?”
“He’s going to try to make you the villain of his story,” he continued.
“And he’s going to do it at scale. Social media and interviews with a few journalists he has relationships with.
He wants to get ahead of whatever legal proceedings are coming and shape how the public sees it before you have a chance to respond. ”
“When?” I asked.
“My understanding is soon. Days, not weeks.”
I exhaled slowly through my nose. “Why are you telling me this?”
A brief silence. “Because I’ve been in business for forty years and I know the difference between a man who made a mistake and corrected it and a man who never intended to do right by anyone.
You can guess which category I feel you fall in.
” He exhaled loudly. “And because I’ve already made my own calls this morning.
I’m out of the project. Two others are following.
Mathers is going to find himself very short on capital. A wounded animal will attack.”
“I understand.”
“Watch your back, son. And watch your family.”
“I will. Thank you.”
The call ended and I was still standing there in my underwear.