Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Emily
One month later
The mountain air has a sharper bite to it than it did a month ago, and it serves as a quiet warning that the Montana autumn is well underway.
“Emily Callahan. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?”
I can’t help the wide, genuine smile that breaks across my face at the sound of that voice. Thomas Weston looks exactly the same as the last time I saw him on a job site in Portland. He’s weather-beaten, wearing a vest with too many pockets, and carrying a surveyor’s transit like it’s a relic.
“Hi, Thomas,” I say, stepping into his bear hug.
Thomas was the first person to take me seriously when I was a twenty-two-year-old rookie on a job site run by men.
A father of four girls himself, he’d stepped into a father figure role I didn’t even know I was looking for back then.
Having him here, on this dirt, feels like the worlds I’ve been trying to bridge are finally starting to align.
Beside me, I feel the shift in the air. Wyatt is standing a few paces back, his thumbs hooked into his belt loops, and his hat pulled low.
He’s so dang cute right now, and I can’t fight the grin that creeps over my face.
He’s been ‘Good Morning, Baby’ Wyatt for a month straight, but the second a strange man puts his arms around me, the territorial streak flares up.
I can practically feel the heat radiating off him.
We’re standing on the ridge by the carriage house where Kassie lives. It’s a beautiful, secluded spot by the creek that makes the state’s proposal of steel towers and bulldozers feel like a desecration.
“Thomas, this is Wyatt Miller,” I say, stepping back and gesturing to the man who has spent the last month rocking my world to its core. “And his sister, Kassie. This is her home.”
Thomas tips his cap, his eyes already scanning the horizon, looking for the loopholes we’re so desperate to find. “Nice to meet you both. Emily says you’ve got a bit of a David and Goliath situation on your hands.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Wyatt grunts. His voice is steady, but he moves to stand closer to me, his shoulder brushing mine.
“Well,” Thomas says, setting his tripod down with a decisive thud. “I’ve spent twenty-five years finding things the government tried to hide. Let’s see if we can’t find a reason to keep their towers off your ridgeline.”
“Thank you for coming all this way, Thomas,” Kassie says, offering him a small, weary smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
She glances back at the carriage house, the place where she’s finally started to breathe again after her divorce.
“Emily speaks the world of you. I’m just hoping you can find the one thing they missed, because I don’t know where else I’d go if they win this. ”
“Well, I won’t make any promises, darlin’, but between us we’ll see what we can find,” he says reassuringly.
I turn to him, my mind already spinning with the data. “Did you look at the file I sent over?”
“I did. And the first thing that struck me was the survey,” Thomas says, his eyes narrowing as he looks at the ridge. “It’s been done based on old land records and satellite imaging. You know what that usually means, Em?”
“I sure do.” I nod, a cold feeling settling in my chest.
Wyatt furrows his brow, looking between us. “What does it mean?”
“It means that when the state signs a contract, they’re trusting the firm to do a full, boots-on-the-ground report,” I explain.
“But to keep costs low and profits high, a shady company will just pull a satellite report and call it ‘expertise.’ They won’t actually send a human being into the dirt unless a landowner puts up a specific legal challenge. ”
“I’m still not getting it,” Wyatt admits, his jaw tightening.
“It means they’re faking the data until they get caught,” I say bluntly. “They bet on the fact that by the time a full report is actually required, the landowners have usually folded or been paid off. They don’t have to take out injunctions or licenses to step onto the land.”
Thomas chuckles. “That’s because most landowners don’t have a live-in structural engineer.”
Wyatt’s lips pull into a small smile as he looks at me. “No. I guess they don’t.”
“It’s shady as hell,” Thomas adds, reaching for his gear. “Usually a sign of a bottom-tier firm, but the everyday person doesn’t know any different. They just see a government seal and assume the math is right.”
Thomas moves further down the creek, his movements methodical as he gets to work. I haven’t had the chance to do a deep dive into the soil myself yet, but I know one thing for certain. What Thomas Weston doesn’t know about this land isn’t worth knowing.
We head into Kassie’s house to give him some space, but the tension in the room is thick enough to choke on.
“You think he’ll find anything?” Kassie asks, chewing her lip raw.
I answer cautiously. “Thomas is the best. The fact that the state hasn’t set foot on this land yet tells me everything I need to know about the firm they hired. They’re lazy, Kass.”
“You’re so hot when you’re being a boss,” Wyatt teases, leaning against the counter.
“Ew.” Kassie glares, though there’s a faint smile on her face. “I mean, I’m glad you’re not scowling for sport anymore, little brother, but you two seriously disgust me.” She gags.
Wyatt winks at me, clearly thriving on the chance to rile up his big sister.
The teasing is cut short by a knock at the door. Kassie opens it to find Thomas standing there, his face flushed from the climb.
“I won’t dirty the floor,” he says, glancing at his muddy boots, “but I think you might want to come see this, Emily.”
The three of us follow Thomas down to the shoreline, right to the point where the blueprints map out the first tension tower.
As we reach the bank, the low rumble of a diesel engine vibrates through the air.
I glance back to see Owen’s truck kicking up a cloud of dust as he pulls into the drive, fresh back from town.
Thomas doesn’t say a word. He sinks his shovel into the bank and unearths a heavy clod of dark, saturated earth.
My eyes widen. “Motherf—” I catch myself and drop to my knees in the dirt.
Thomas nods.
“You wanna maybe fill us in?” Wyatt asks sheepishly.
“See that, Wyatt?” I point to a dark, shimmering patch of earth clinging to the side of the ridge. It looks like a muddy puddle, but to an engineer, it’s a ticking time bomb. “That’s not rain or glacial runoff. That’s an artesian seep.”
Wyatt frowns, squatting down to touch the damp soil. “Meaning what, exactly? It’s a wet hill, Emily.”
“Meaning there’s a pressurized underground spring sitting right below this shelf of shale,” I explain, my voice gaining that clinical, educated edge.
“The reports say this is solid granite. Whoever this company is, they’re telling the state they can sink fifty-foot concrete piers into this ridge.
They think it’ll hold the weight of those massive towers. ”
I shake my head, professional fury sparking in my gut. “They’re lying. Or they’re lazy. They haven’t done a single test drill here. They just looked at a twenty-year-old map in a city office and signed off on it to save a few thousand dollars in survey costs and win a contract.”
Owen shifts his weight, his eyes narrowing. “What happens if they drill, sweetheart?”
“They hit that water,” I say simply. “The pressure from the spring will liquefy the soil. In plain English? The whole bank, and Kassie’s back porch, will slide into the creek.
The tower will lean, the lines will snap, and you’ll have a catastrophic wildfire before the state can even file the paperwork. ”
The silence that follows is deafening. Wyatt stares at me like he’s just seen the face of God.
For a month, I’ve been the woman in Wyatt’s bed, the girl who loves his son.
But right now, I’m the engineer who just found the one thing that can stop a multi-million dollar government project in its tracks.
“It’s not just something a risk assessment will cover, Wyatt. It’s physics. This is a massive structural liability. If they push this through, they’re looking at criminal charges.”
Owen turns to Wyatt and mutters under his breath, “You’d better marry that woman.”
Wyatt smirks, raising an eyebrow. “Already on it, Dad.”
Owen steps over to Thomas. “I owe you a big one. You let me know the cost of your services, and I’ll cut that check, no hesitation.”
Thomas shakes his head. “Mr. Miller, seeing young Emily happy and settled is payment enough.” He smiles fondly at me. “Just make sure you look after her.”
“There’s no doubt about that, sir,” Wyatt says, shaking his hand firmly.
“Oh, Emily, before I leave,” Thomas adds, his tone shifting. “Did you get the name of that engineering firm that won the state contract?”
“Yeah, hold on.” I pull up the file on my phone. “It’s Newfound Structural Engineering. It says they’re a new company. I couldn’t find much info on them.”
Thomas stops cold. He looks almost horrified. “Emily…” he starts. “That’s the new inc. for Peterson’s. They formed it after the bankruptcy.”
Wyatt’s brow furrows, his hand dropping to the small of my back. “Who is that, baby?”
I feel the blood drain from my face as the name tastes like ash in my mouth. “Rick.”