Читать книгу Undeniable Demands - Andrea Laurence - Страница 8

Wade hated the snow. Always had. You’d think a man born and raised in New England would feel differently or leave, but he’d done neither. Every November when the first few flakes started falling, a part of his soul would shrivel up until spring. That was why he’d booked himself a trip to Jamaica for the week before Christmas. He’d planned to return to the Edens’, as always, for the holiday, but the frantic call he’d received from his foster sister, Julianne, had changed everything.

He had been loath to tell his assistant to cancel the trip, but perhaps if all went well, he could use the reservation after Christmas. He could ring in the New Year on a beach, drinking something frothy, with thoughts of his troubles buried deep.

Interesting choice of words.

The BMW SUV wound its way down the two-lane road that led to the Garden of Eden Christmas Tree Farm. Wade preferred to drive his roadster, but rural Connecticut in winter was just not the place for it, so he’d left it in Manhattan. The SUV had snow tires, chains in the back and enough clearance not to scrape on chunks of ice in poorly cleared areas.

Spying the large red apple-shaped sign that marked the entrance to his foster parents’ Christmas tree farm, Wade breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t realized until that moment that he’d been holding his breath. Even under the less-than-ideal circumstances, returning home always made him feel better.

The farm was the only home he’d ever really had. None of the other foster homes had felt like one. He had no warm memories of living with his great-aunt before that, nor of his early years with his mother. But the Garden of Eden was just that: paradise. Especially for an abandoned young boy who could just as easily have become a career criminal as a millionaire in real estate.

The Edens changed everything. For him and every other child who had come to live there. He owed that couple his life. They were his parents, without question. Wade didn’t know who his father was and had only seen his mother once since she dropped him at her aunt’s doorstep as a toddler. When he thought of home and family, he thought of the farm and the family the Edens had pulled together.

They were able to have only one child of their own, their daughter, Julianne. For a time it seemed that their dreams of a house bustling with children who would help on the farm and one day take over the family business had been dashed. But then they decided to renovate an old barn into a bunkhouse perfect for rowdy boys and started taking in foster children.

Wade had been the first. Julianne had been in pigtails when he arrived, dragging her favorite doll behind her. Wade had been in his share of foster homes, and this time just felt different. He was not a burden. Not a way to get a check from the state. He was their son.

Which is why he wished he was visiting them for another reason. In his own mind, disappointing his parents would be the greatest sin he could commit. Even worse than the one he’d committed fifteen years ago that got him into this mess.

Wade turned the SUV into the driveway, then bypassed the parking lot and took the small road behind their large Federal-style house to where the family kept their cars. It was nearing the middle of the afternoon on a Friday, but even so, there were at least ten customer cars in the lot. It was December 21—only a few days until Christmas. His mother, Molly, would be in the gift shop, pushing sugar cookies, cider and hot chocolate on folks while they waited for Ken or one of the employees to haul and bag their new tree.

Wade felt the sudden, familiar urge to start trimming trees and hauling them out to people’s cars. He’d done it for all of his teenage years and every Christmas break from Yale. It came naturally to want to jump back into the work. But first things first. He had to take care of the business that had brought him here instead of the warm beaches of Jamaica.

Julianne’s call had been unexpected. None of the kids were very good about calling or visiting their parents or each other like they should. They were all busy, all successful, the way the Edens had wanted them to be. But their success also made it easy to forget to make time for the important people in their lives.

When Julianne had shown up at the farm for Thanksgiving with little warning, she’d been in for quite the surprise. Their father, Ken, was recovering from a heart attack. They hadn’t called any of the kids because they didn’t want them worrying about it or the crippling hospital bills.

Wade, Heath, Xander, Brody—any of the boys could’ve written a check and taken care of their problems, but Ken and Molly insisted they had it under control. Unfortunately, their solution was to sell a few plots of land they couldn’t use for growing trees. They couldn’t understand why the kids were so upset. And of course, the kids couldn’t tell their parents the truth. That secret needed to remain buried in the past. And Wade was here to make sure it stayed that way.

If he was lucky, he could take one of the four-wheelers out to the property, buy the land back from the new owner and return before Molly could start wondering what he was up to. He wouldn’t keep the purchase a secret from his parents, but he’d certainly rather they not fret over the whole situation until it was done.

Wade found the house empty, as expected. He left a note on the worn kitchen table, slipped into his heavy coat and boots and went out to grab one of the four-wheelers. He could’ve driven his SUV, but he didn’t want to pull up in an expensive car and start waving money around at people.

Heath and Brody had both made visits to the farm since Julianne broke the news. Digging up as much information as they could, they found out that the person who had bought the smallest parcel of land was already living out there in some kind of camper. That sounded positive to him. They might need the money more than the land. But if they thought some rich guy was bullying them to sell it, they’d clamp down. Or jack up the price.

Wade took the four-wheeler down the well-worn path that went through the center of the farm. After selling eighty-five acres, the Edens still had two hundred acres left. Almost all of it was populated with balsam and Fraser fir trees. The northeastern portion of the property was sloped and rocky. They’d never had much success planting trees out there, so he’d understood why Ken had opted to sell it. He just wished his father hadn’t.

By the time he rounded a corner on the trail and neared the border of the Edens’ property, it was a little after two-thirty. The sky was clear and blue and the sun’s rays pounded down on the snow, making it nearly blinding despite his sunglasses. He slowed and pulled out the new surveyor’s map Brody had downloaded. The eighty-five acres that his parents had sold were split into two large tracts and one small one. Comparing the map to the GPS location on his phone, he could tell that just over the rise was the smallest, a ten-acre residential property. He was fairly certain this was the one he was after.

Wade refolded the map and looked around for any familiar landmarks. He’d deliberately chosen a spot he would remember. There had been a crooked maple tree and a rock that looked like a giant turtle. He scanned the landscape, but it appeared to him as though all the trees were crooked, and all the rocks were buried under a foot of snow. It was impossible to know for sure if this chunk of the property was the right one.

Damn. He’d thought for certain that he would know the spot when he saw it. That night fifteen years ago remained etched in his memory no matter how hard he tried to forget it. It was one of those moments that changes your whole life. Where you make a decision, right or wrong, and have to live with it forever.

Still, Wade was certain this was the right area. He didn’t remember traveling far enough to reach the other plots. He’d been in too big a hurry to roam around the property all night trying to find the perfect spot. He eyed another maple tree, this one more crooked than the others. That had to be the one. He’d just have to buy the land back and hope that once spring came around, he would find the turtle rock at its base and know he’d bought the right plot.

Surging forward through the snow, he continued up to the rise and then started descending into the clearing toward what looked like some sort of shimmering silver mirage.

He pulled closer and realized it was the midafternoon sun reflecting off the superbly polished aluminum siding of an old Airstream trailer. You could have got a suntan from the rays coming off that thing. Parked beside it was an old Ford pickup truck with dually tires to haul the twenty-foot monster of a camper.

Wade stopped and killed the engine on the four-wheeler. There was no sign of life from inside the camper yet. Brody had searched online for the property sale records and found the new owner was V. A. Sullivan. Cornwall was a fairly small town, and he didn’t remember any Sullivans when he went to school, so they must be new to the area. That was just as well. He didn’t need to deal with anyone who remembered his troublesome days before the Edens and might give him grief.

His boots crunched through the snow until he reached the rounded doorway. It had a small window in it that he watched for movement when he knocked. Nothing. No sound of people inside, either.

Just great. He’d come all the way out here for nothing.

Wade was about to turn and head back home when he heard the telltale click of a shotgun safety. His head spun to the left, following the sound, and he found himself in the sights. The woman was standing about twenty feet away, bundled just as heavily as he was in a winter coat with a knit cap and sunglasses hiding most of her features. Long strands of fiery red hair peeked out from her hat and blew in the chilly wind. The distinctive color immediately caught his eye. He’d known a woman with hair that color a long time ago. It had been beautiful, like liquid flames. Appropriate, since he was playing with fire now.

On reflex, his hands went up. Getting shot by some overprotective, rural militia type was not on his agenda for the day. “Hey, there,” he called out, trying to sound as friendly and nonthreatening as he could.

The woman hesitated, and then the shotgun dropped slightly. “Can I help you?”

“Are you Mrs. Sullivan?” Hopefully Mr. Sullivan wasn’t out in the woods with a shotgun of his own.

“Miss Sullivan,” she corrected. “What’s it to you?”

A single female. Even better. Wade had a certain charm about him that served him well with the fairer sex. He smiled widely. “My name is Wade Mitchell. I wanted to talk to you about possibly—”

“Arrogant, pigheaded real-estate developer Wade Mitchell?” The woman took a few steps forward.

Wade frowned. She didn’t seem to care for him at all. He wished to God the woman wasn’t so bundled up so he could see who she was. Maybe then he could figure out why the mention of his name seemed to agitate her. Of course, he was wearing just as much winter gear as she was. “Yes, ma’am, although I wouldn’t go so far as to use those adjectives. I wanted to see if you would be interested in …”

His words dropped off as the shotgun rose again. “Aw, hell,” she lamented. “I thought it looked kinda like you under all those layers, but I thought, why would Wade Mitchell be in Cornwall making my life hell again after all this time?”

Wade’s eyes widened behind his dark sunglasses. “I have no intention of making your life hell, Miss Sullivan.”

“Get off my land.”

“I’m sorry, have I done something to you?” He scanned his brain. Had he dated a Sullivan? Beaten up her brother? He had no memory of what he could’ve done to piss this woman off so badly.

The woman stomped across the snow, closing the gap between them with the gun still pointed directly at him. She pulled off her sunglasses to study him more closely, revealing a lovely heart-shaped face and pale eyes. Her skin was creamy, the perfect backdrop to the fiery strands of hair framing her face. When her blue eyes met his, he noticed a challenge there, as though she was daring him not to remember her.

Fortunately, Wade had an excellent memory. One good enough to know that he was in trouble. The fiery redhead glaring at him was a hard woman to forget. He’d certainly tried over the years, but from time to time, she’d slipped into his subconscious and haunted his dreams with her piercing, ice-blue gaze. A gaze that reflected the hurt of betrayal that he couldn’t understand.

Property owner V. A. Sullivan was none other than Victoria Sullivan: green architect, eco-warrior and the employee he’d fired from his company seven years ago.

His stomach instantly sank. Of all the people who could’ve bought this property, it had to be her. Victoria Sullivan. The first person he’d ever fired from his company. It had pained him at the time, but he’d really had no choice. He had a strict policy on ethics violations. She hadn’t taken the news well. And judging by her stiff posture and tightly gripped firearm, she was still upset about it.

“Victoria!” he said with a wide smile, trying to sound pleasantly surprised to see her after all this time. “I had no idea you were living out here now.”

“Miss Sullivan,” she corrected.

Wade nodded. “Of course. Could you please drop the gun? I’m unarmed.”

“You won’t be when the cops come.” Her words were as icy cold as the snow, but eventually the gun disengaged and dropped to her side.

She pushed past him to the front door of the Airstream, pulling it open and climbing the stairs. “What do you want, Mr. Mitchell?”

As she hung at the top of the steps, looking back at him, Wade realized he needed to change his tactic, and fast. His original plan had been to tell the owner that he wanted the property for one of his development projects. If he told her that, she’d refuse him just to ruin his plans.

He’d have to appeal to a different side of her. That is, if he could explain himself before she started shooting.

“Miss Sullivan, I’d like to buy back this property from you.”

Tori hung on the steps, the rage slowly uncoiling in her belly. This man was determined to ruin everything she held dear. He had taken away her reputation and very nearly her career. His turning on her suddenly had also damaged her ability to trust men. Out of the blue, he’d accused her of terrible things and tossed her out. She’d lost her first real apartment after he fired her.

And now that she was trying to settle down and establish herself again, he wanted to destroy her plans for her dream home. She just knew it. Her jaw set firmly, she made her decision before he even asked the question. If he were on fire, she wouldn’t bother to spit on him.

“It’s not for sale.” She slipped inside and let the door slam behind her.

She was pulling off her coat, about to toss it onto the foldout bed, when she heard the door of the trailer open behind her. Tori spun on her heel and found the bastard standing in her tiny kitchen. He’d slipped out of his winter coat and tugged off his hat as he entered. He stood there now in a pair of dress pants and a plaid button-down shirt. The hunter-green of the top made his own green eyes seem even darker and more intriguing than she remembered. Because of the stocking cap he’d worn, his short, dark brown hair was messier than she’d ever seen it.

Without his slick suits and perfect hair, he looked nothing like the real-estate giant who had ruled over his company from the top floor. But he still had a commanding presence. She’d forgotten how tall he was: at least six foot two, with a powerful build. The large man seemed to take up all the space in her trailer, which had always had the perfect amount of room for her. It was as though he’d sucked up all the air, making her oddly warm and her camper uncomfortably small.

And she hated that about him.

Without hesitating, she picked up her shotgun again. Truthfully, it was loaded with shells full of recycled rubber pellets. She carried it with her to the compost bin in case she needed to scare off any foraging critters. She’d caught a black bear in the bin last week. The rubber pellets would send animals scurrying without seriously hurting them. Hopefully it would do the same with Wade Mitchell.

“Do you mind stepping back outside? I spent a lot of money to renovate this trailer and I’m not going to ruin it by shooting you in here.”

Wade had only a momentary flash of alarm in his eyes before he smiled at her in a way that made her cheeks flush and her knees weaken. She remembered feeling that way whenever he would walk down the hallway past her cubicle and greet her with “good morning.” She’d been fresh out of college and in awe of the two young mavericks with their up-and-coming real-estate development company. Alex Stanton was the golden playboy, but she was instantly drawn to the darker, more serious Wade. Then and now, his wide grin and strong, aristocratic features usually got him his way.

If she wasn’t careful, she might fall prey to them again. She knew better than to trust a guy like him.

“Miss Sullivan, can we please talk about this without you constantly threatening to shoot me?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Tori kept the gun in one hand while she pulled off her hat and scarf with the other. She was burning up, and it had nothing to do with her new propane heating system. It was Wade and her overheated and long-ignored libido. She hated that the man who’d betrayed and fired her could still send her pulse racing after all this time. “And it’s rude to come inside uninvited, so you deserve to be shot.”

“I apologize,” he said, laying his coat across the bench seat of her dining table. “But it is imperative that I discuss this with you today.”

Oh, she was sure it was. No doubt he had bought the forty-acre property beside her and wanted her additional ten to add to whatever ridiculous project he was developing out here. There might be an army of backhoes and land movers over the horizon just waiting for her to sign off so they could start their work. But she wasn’t giving up this land. This purchase had been years in the making. Her genealogy research had been what lured her up here, but from the first time she’d set foot in the area, she knew this was where she wanted to build her home.

Finding out the Edens were selling some property had been the chance of a lifetime. The lot was perfect. It sloped down, slightly, but would allow her to design a stilted, multistory home that had a living room with a wide vista of windows overlooking the valley below. Being surrounded by two hundred acres of tree farm on two sides guaranteed she wouldn’t have a strip mall out her back door anytime soon.

She had a couple months in between projects to start designing and building her house. It was the perfect opportunity just when she had the time and money to jump on it. And he couldn’t have it.

“I know that you’re used to getting your way, Mr. Mitchell, but I’m afraid it isn’t going to happen this time.”

On cue, her electric teapot began to chirp on the counter and spit out steam. She’d turned it on before she’d stepped out to put some trash in her compost bin, and now it was ready for her to extend some unintended hospitality. When she turned to look at Wade again, he had seated himself at her dining-table booth, a look of smug expectation in his eyes.

With a sigh, she set down the shotgun. It was hard to make tea when you were holding a heavy, loaded firearm.

“May I ask how much you paid for the land?”

“You may not, although I’m sure it’s public record somewhere if you take the time to have one of the corporate minions you haven’t fired look for it.” She pulled out two teacups from her bamboo plywood cabinet above the sink. She shook her loose leaf tea into two infusers, put them in the cups and poured the hot water over them.

“My guess would be about a hundred and twenty-five thousand. There’re no utilities run out here yet.”

Tori refused to look at him. Of course the real estate guy could nail the price within a few thousand dollars. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that I’ll offer you double what you paid for it.”

At that, Tori fumbled the jar of organic honey and sent it crashing to the Marmoleum floor. Fortunately, it didn’t shatter. She quickly crouched down to grab it, but he had reached out for it as well and beat her to it. He held out the jar to her. Tori looked down at him, only inches away, and felt a familiar and unwelcome tingle deep in her belly. When she took the jar from his hand, her fingers brushed his and the tingle turned into a surge right to her core.

Jerking upright as though she’d been burned by his touch, she quickly recovered and removed the infusers, then added a dollop of the honey to each cup. She plunked his tea down in front of him and took a seat on the opposite side of the table.

“That’s ridiculous.” She said the words knowing she meant both her reaction to him and his offer for her land. Tori knew better than to let herself fall for Wade’s good looks or his seemingly good offer.

“Maybe. But that’s what I’m offering.”

“You’re hiding something,” she accused. “You’re the guy who built your business buying cheap buildings and flipping them for a fortune. No way you’d pay one penny more than is necessary to turn a profit on whatever project you’re wanting to build out here.”

Wade turned to look her in the eye. A lock of brown hair had fallen into his face, giving him a boyish charm she had to steel her resolve against. “I’m not building anything out here. This isn’t about money.”

Tori scoffed. “You don’t get to be a millionaire before you’re thirty unless you’re born into money or driven by it. Either way, everything is about money.”

Wade watched her. He took a sip of his tea before he answered. “This is about family. That’s more important to me than even money. This property belonged to my parents. They sold it without telling me or my other siblings. We never would’ve let them do that if we’d known. They worked too hard their whole lives for this land. We grew up here. Our childhood was here. If we’d known they were having financial problems, I would’ve taken care of things before they resorted to this.”

Tori felt herself being sucked in by his story. The expression on his handsome face was one of sincere concern. The words sounded so convincing. But this was the same man who had praised her potential and work ethic, then fired her the next day. Ryan had also seemed sincere, and nearly every word out of his mouth over the past two years had been a lie.

She had been raised with a naive spirit by hippies who wanted only to experience life and culture. They didn’t have a malicious bone in their bodies and never thought other people did, either.

Life had taught Tori differently. Wade had taught her differently. He had heard her pleas of innocence and turned his back on them. He hadn’t believed her. So why should she believe him now?

The people who had sold her this land—Molly and Ken Eden—were a very sweet older couple. No way they’d spawned a son like Mitchell. They didn’t even have the same last name. It wasn’t even a well-planned lie. She wanted to be insulted by his lack of faith in her ability to see through his crap. Did he think she would just melt into a puddle at his feet the minute he knocked on the door and flashed those deep green eyes at her? Or started waving cash?

She didn’t need Wade’s money. She’d paid cash for this property. She was one of the most highly sought after green architects in America. She’d traveled thousands of miles in this Airstream to build environmentally friendly buildings, homes and businesses. Tori had several large and successful projects in Seattle, Santa Fe and San Francisco. She was wrapping up one in Philadelphia just after the first of the year. She did well enough that she could laugh at his offer. But it couldn’t hurt to push him and see how far he was willing to take this.

“What if I said I would sell it back to you for half a million?” There was no way the land was worth that much unless there was oil, gold or diamonds hidden beneath her feet. She doubted it, though. She’d never heard of Wade Mitchell being interested in any of those things. The only thing about land he cared for was what he could build on top of it.

Wade didn’t even flinch. “I would get out my checkbook and sign on the dotted line so you could find an even better piece of land and everyone would be happy. Let me assure you that nothing is more important than preserving my family and my history.”

Wow. He was certainly desperate for this land. She almost felt bad for him. Any other person might have immediately given in and made his day. Four times the value was a great offer. A crazy offer. One that she was probably crazy to turn down. Even with her success, half a million was quite a lump of cash. Tori could certainly do a lot with it: buy new land, build her dream house without a mortgage attached to it, get a new hybrid pickup truck. She had to admit, if it were any other person sitting across the table from her, she’d probably take the money and tow her trailer off into the sunset.

But it wasn’t any other person. It was Wade Mitchell. And she wasn’t about to sell him this land. Not for any price. Just because it was worth it to watch him squirm. This would be as close to payback as she would ever get. It was his bad luck that he wanted her land.

“You’re really quite good,” she said, nodding and watching her tea instead of his handsome face. She wouldn’t let herself get pulled in and swayed by his mesmerizing eyes and fabricated sob story. She’d already caught herself being a sucker once this year, and that was enough. Maybe if he came around in a few weeks, she’d let him be her dumb mistake of the New Year. “Did you practice that speech long or was that off the cuff?”

Wade stiffened, pushing the half-empty cup of tea aside and shelving the charm. “Is all this animosity over your termination years ago?”

Now it was Tori’s turn to stiffen in her chair. He made her seem petty for holding that over him all these years later. “Absolutely. I don’t take affronts to my reputation lightly.”

“You weren’t worried about your reputation when you slept with one of our suppliers and put my company in jeopardy.”

“I didn’t sleep with anybody. I told you then that I didn’t do any of the things you accused me of. Nothing has changed. Just because you didn’t believe me doesn’t mean I wasn’t telling the truth.”

“They were serious charges, and I needed to deal with them as such. I did what I had to do.”

“And I’m doing what I have to do. I’m keeping this land. It’s mine. Whether or not I like you or resent what you did is irrelevant.”

“This isn’t about me or you and your damaged pride. This is about Ken and Molly Eden and everything they worked for. I want to give them back what’s rightfully theirs.”

Tori straightened and shot him as lethal a gaze as she could manage. “You mean, mine. I signed those papers at the lawyer’s office two months ago. I didn’t hold a gun to their heads and make them sell me this land.”

“Wouldn’t have surprised me if you did,” he said bitterly, glancing over at the shotgun sitting on the counter.

“They sold it all on their own. I paid them full asking price and covered all my own closing expenses, so it’s not like I cheated them, either. I don’t know whether you’re their son or not, Mr. Mitchell, but let me just tell you that if you are their son, you’re a crappy one. They told me about Ken’s heart attack and all their medical expenses. Where have you been? In Manhattan? Worrying about making money?”

“You think I don’t know that?” he challenged. Wade’s eyes flashed with a touch of a temper she’d seen years before. “I’m not proud of it, but I can fix it.”

Tori stood up from her seat. “You’re just going to have to find another way to soothe your conscience. Send them on a cruise or something, because you aren’t going to browbeat me into selling this land. And that’s final. Please leave.”

Wade stood, bringing his head a hairbreadth away from scraping the top of her camper. He took a step toward her, and his body loomed large and intimidating in such close proximity.

Tori couldn’t help the surge of awareness that ran through her body as he came near. Apparently it was far easier to despise him from a distance. It had been a long time since she’d been in the same room as Wade, and she’d certainly never been this close to him, but her body remembered him. With him inches away, looking down at her with a focused, penetrating intensity, her spine wanted to turn to jelly. His warm scent, a familiar mix of spicy cologne and salty skin, swirled around her with every breath she drew into her lungs.

She finally took a step back, pressing herself against the kitchen counter. She didn’t like being this close to Wade. It messed with her focus, and that just made her even more irritated. Tori couldn’t let him use his size or sexuality to intimidate her.

“This isn’t over,” he said, pinning her with his dark green eyes before grabbing his coat and walking out into the cold.