10. Silas
TEN
SILAS
The biggest threat Pine Ridge has ever had.
The words are barely out of Atlas’s mouth, and suddenly this isn’t a leisurely lunch. This is a fact-finding mission.
“What kind of threat?” I ask, and then temper my voice, striving for casual. “Tourists getting overexcited in the gift shop across the road?”
Atlas laughs. “I wish.”
“The wooden bears are a lot,” Kai agrees.
Atlas mock punches him in the gut. “Hey, my brother carved those bears.”
“They’re beautiful and totally not scary or weird bears, baby. I’m sorry I hurt Marco’s feelings even if he’s not here.”
Atlas rolls his eyes at Kai. “I’m going to grab us coffee and sandwiches. We can eat in the park if the weather holds. The usual?”
“Please,” Kai says, giving him a small kiss on the lips, and even though my mind is focused on this so-called threat they fought, I can’t help feeling a little envious. What would it be like to kiss Vaughn like that, just because I could?
I force myself to look away, but I still see the way Kai gazes at Atlas as he enters the café.
“So, tell me about this threat,” I say.
Kai pulls up a chair from a nearby table and sits down.
“A company called HelixGen Corporation came to Pine Ridge about a year ago. Presented themselves as investors, focusing on community development. They wanted to partner with the library’s oral history project, which is my project, as a way of building what they called a community profile. ”
“A community profile?”
He nods. “Atlas used to live in Denver, but he was here for a family event. That’s when we met.
” He glances toward the café, where Atlas is talking to the person taking his order.
“He used to work for HelixGen, and he told me they target small, economically vulnerable towns like Pine Ridge with promises of investment and revitalization, while in reality they want to harvest data to build demographic profiles so they can buy undervalued rural properties. Before the towns realize it, they’re owned by a big corporation.
Old buildings are torn down, making way for data centers.
The kind that drains the local water supply and pushes the power grid past what it was built for.
Apartment complexes follow, priced for people who aren’t from here.
The shops that have been in place for generations become the franchised shops you see everywhere. The town loses its soul.”
I scan Main Street. The bears in the gift shop. The baskets with flowers hanging by the front door of each business. The people going in and out of those doors greeting each other.
“How far did they get?” I ask.
“Far enough,” Kai says. “The mayor was cooperating with them, so we had to build a case and take it to a town meeting to force a vote.”
He pats Vaughn’s shoulder. “Your man here helped us out.”
Vaughn coughs. “I’m not— He’s not.”
“And you won,” I say, trying to stay on track, but not unloving Kai’s assumption.
“We sure did,” Kai says. “They left, and that was the end of it.”
“What’s the company called again?”
“HelixGen Corp,” Kai says.
The door to the café opens, and Atlas reappears, managing two paper coffee cups and a paper bag with what I’m guessing is their lunch. Kai stands up and takes the bag from Atlas.
Vaughn leans forward. “By the way, how are you both settling in after the move?”
Atlas lights up. “It’s perfectly perfect.”
“It definitely is,” Kai says, returning Atlas’s smile before turning to me. “After we met, Atlas never went back to Denver, but he was living back in his parents’ house.”
“Atlas is Teresa’s son,” Vaughn says. “From the hardware store. You met her earlier.”
“Ah, yes. She’s really lovely. Also a little intimidating.”
Atlas laughs. “Let me guess. The festival is coming, and you’re coming. You also don’t know if it’s because you want to or if interventions will be staged if you don’t.”
“Something like that,” I say. “It’s a good thing I was already planning on staying that long.”
“She’s also an amazing cook,” Kai says. “You’ll find that Pine Ridge runs on baked goods and good intentions. It’s surprisingly effective.”
“Are you saying you’re with me because of my mother’s cooking?”
Kai says, “Absolutely not,” while nodding.
Atlas bumps Kai’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s have lunch and leave the happy couple to it.”
I catch Vaughn’s expression at Atlas’s words, but the guys are too quick to leave, and then the café door opens again and David emerges, this time carrying a tray. He sets it on our table.
“Butternut squash soup,” he says, placing a bowl in front of me. “And the beet salad.” This goes in front of Vaughn. “Sourdough on the side. And here are your drinks. Shout if you need anything.”
For a few minutes, I just sit here in the sun and eat soup with Vaughn Reeves across a café table in Pine Ridge, Colorado, and try not to think about how much I want to stay for real.
The soup is, as promised, extraordinary.
We eat without rushing. I enjoy the sourdough and try the beet salad from Vaughn’s plate when he offers it across the table. The afternoon moves around us in an unhurried pace, and for a moment I manage not to think about anything pressing.
Then Vaughn finishes his salad and sets down his fork, and the stretch ends.
“Can I ask you something?” I say after finishing my drink.
“Of course.”
“How did you end up here? Pine Ridge specifically.”
“I needed somewhere that felt like mine,” he says.
“I had the Denver apartment, but Rowan needs his space and I didn’t want him to have to buy a place when I wasn’t that attached to it.
I grew up in farming country, and I always wanted to leave the city.
Besides, this is the perfect location for my research.
I looked around, and Pine Ridge just fit the bill. ”
“That makes a lot of sense. You’re close enough to Rowan, but then you have the space. This community.”
He nods. “Tess showed up maybe three days after I moved in,” he says. “I hadn’t met her yet. She just knocked on the door with a loaf and said welcome to the valley. I hadn’t had that since I moved to Denver with Rowan.”
I think about that for a moment. About what it would be like to have someone knock on your door with bread just because you were new and they wanted you to feel welcome. It happens in a world I have always considered as parallel to mine. Except now I’m here.
“I can definitely see the appeal.”
Vaughn’s expression suggests he sees more than I’ve said, but he doesn’t press.
“Ready?” he asks.
“I am. Do you mind if I check out the gift shop?”
“Not at all. I need to go to the hardware store to get a few supplies.” He points to the shop down the street. “I’ll meet you at the truck?”
“Ten minutes?”
He nods before heading off down Main Street. I watch him go for exactly as long as it takes to be certain he’s not going to turn back, and then I pull out my phone.
Zuza picks up on the second ring.
“You know how time zones work, right?”
Shit. “I’m so sorry, Zee. I forgot.”
“It’s okay. I was going to the gym anyway.”
I chuckle. “No, you weren’t.”
“I was thinking about it.” I hear rustling and then the sound of her coffee machine.
“I have news, but I have to be quick.”
“Shoot.”
“I need you to look into HelixGen Corp,” I say. “They’re based in Denver. I don’t know much more yet, but they’re sharks. They go to small towns with the guise of investing but end up buying land and properties cheaper than they’re worth to develop.”
A brief silence. “I’ll start on it now. Have you had a chance to go through anything at Vaughn’s house? Office, paperwork, anything that might tell us why specifically he was targeted?”
I let out a breath. “Not yet,” I say.
“Silas—”
“I know.” Down the street, a family is leaving the bakery. A dog is sitting outside the bookshop waiting for its owner. “I’ll find a way.”
Zuza is quiet for a moment. “You’re struggling with it, aren’t you? Do you want me to fly in? I can pretend to be a tourist, search the house while you’re out.”
“He trusts me,” I say. “He’s let me into his house and his lab and … I feel like I’m lying and deceiving.”
“You’re doing it to protect him,” Zuza says.
“I know that too.”
“I’ll email you what I find,” she says. “And Silas, you’re doing the right thing.”
“I know,” I say for the third time, and hang up, crossing the road to buy something in the gift shop to keep my cover.
Peak Treasures smells like cedar and beeswax candles. It’s the size of a large living room, and it’s filled with so much stock, I’m afraid to sneeze and break something.
Small replicas of the big wooden bear are all over the store. Each wears a different accessory. Scarves. Hats. Umbrellas, and even one with a tiny pair of glasses.
I pick up the medium-sized bear with the scarf.
The woman behind the counter smiles at me. “Good choice. This is hand-carved by a local artist. If you’re here through to the festival, I recommend visiting his stall.”
“Thank you.” The woman is so friendly, I also take a pine-and-cedar-scented candle, which seems appropriate.
And then I can’t resist a small piece of pottery that turns out to be a thumb pot made in a high school ceramics class, the proceeds of which go toward the school’s art program.
I pay for all three, and the woman wraps them in tissue paper while describing the long list of craft stalls I absolutely must visit at the festival.
Holding the paper bag with my Pine Ridge treasures, I walk back to the truck and think about where I’m going to put them in my apartment. The apartment I barely live in.
Vaughn is already at the truck when I get there, leaning against the driver’s side with his phone in his hand and an expression on his face that he smooths out when he sees me coming.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing important,” he says, pocketing the phone.
Trying hard not to press, I get in the passenger side, set the paper bag at my feet, and buckle in. Vaughn’s life—other than making sure he keeps it—isn’t my business. I need to remember that.
The drive is mostly silent, the radio playing some kind of country music in the background. The valley opens up around us as we leave the town behind.
“I’m going to the lab for the rest of the afternoon,” he says as the farm comes into view. “I’ve got some readings to go through.”
“I’ll stay here,” I say. “I want to spend some time with your squashes.”
He glances at me. “My squashes?”
“I think you could have a few contenders for the dick competition.”
He laughs. “I am not entering the dick— phallic vegetable competition.”
“We’ll see.”
Vaughn pulls up in front of the house but doesn’t cut the engine. He turns to me. “See you later?”
“You bet. Might even have a dick or two for you.”
I get out of the truck and collect the paper bag from the footwell. I don’t look back, but I hear him laugh before the sound of the reversing truck drowns out the sound.
With Vaughn out of sight, it’s time to get to work. Sadly, the squash boxes are not the direction my feet take me in.