Animal Prints: Sweet Small Town Contemporary Romance (Michigan Moonlight Book 1) (23 page)

Lexy brought three large slices of cake garnished with whipped topping to the table. “You should stay with Nate and me until…”

“No. I’m not leaving the farm. I’ll be fine,” Colette repeated and ran her finger down the list in her book. “We’ve got plans to finalize. Let’s focus on those.” She took a bite of cake. With chocolate and sugar racing through her system, they worked through the final details of who was responsible for getting the donated items from area merchants, picking up the wines from the local wineries, and making the last minute contact with the musicians.
 

By the end of the evening and an entire cake, the three agreed on a schedule covering every day from now until the event and an hour-by-hour schedule for the day before and day of the fundraiser.
 

Ian gripped the steering wheel and squinted through the wet windshield. Lakeshore Drive in Chicago was a rotten road on any day, but the torrential rain from a thunderstorm made it a blur of streaming water and brake lights. Ian would have preferred having this meeting at his father’s home, north of the city, and not downtown late on a Friday afternoon. The only good news was that most of the traffic was headed out, while he was headed in.

He parked in the garage under the Michigan Avenue building housing his father’s offices and took the elevator to the twentieth floor. As a kid, he’d loved coming to the office building and spending hours looking out the window at the busy street below. Now, a pit grew in his stomach as the elevator rose the last stories, as if the view were a ledge to walk off.

Before he reached his father’s corner office, he could already hear the old man blustering at his assistant through the half open door. “Tell him to go back and try the brother again. Have Brickner talk to the one’s husband. Men will understand this better.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but he’s already spoken to the brother and gotten nowhere. Perhaps…”

“The brother’s obviously an idiot. Do I have to go myself?” Ian pushed the door open all the way, nodding to the assistant as he scurried from the room.
 

Behind the huge desk, his father appeared tiny. His heavily-lined face drooped under its perpetual scowl. His carefully-trimmed, snow-white hair remained thick. Ian had only seen him a few times in recent years. Each time, he was physically smaller, yet his eyes remained piercing. “Ian.” His father gestured him to a chair. Not even a handshake in welcome, Ian noted. A hug or word of greeting was completely out of the question.

“Hi, Dad. It’s good to see you.” Ian could say it even if his father wouldn’t. Ian waited a few seconds for a response that didn’t come. “Were you talking about the Peterson Property just now?”

“You know damn well I was. If you had done the job I hired you to do, this would be over. What the hell are you doing out there?”

“That’s what I came to talk to you about.” Ian kept his tone calm to prevent his father’s temper from flaring any worse. “They aren’t going to sell no matter what you offer them.”

“Bull crap,” Mr. Kroft yelled and slammed his fist on the desk. Ian was careful not to react. Reaction was what his father wanted.

“Everyone’s got a price. I told Brickner to offer twelve million.”

“And?”
 

“They turned it down.”

“As I said, they aren’t selling. I’ve had time to watch them, gotten to know them. You won’t change their minds.”
 

“Brickner will keep on them. Unlike you, he knows when to go for the kill.” Kroft dug around on his desk. “You never were worth a damn. I should’ve known not to trust you.”
 

“Then why’d you hire me to do this job?” Ian snapped back. “What are you really after?”

“Thought maybe you were a man now after all these years,” his father grumbled. “Someone I could work with, like your brother was before he got soft.”
 

“That doesn’t answer my question. Were you treating me like a son or just using me to get what you want?”

He found a paper and shoved it at Ian with a glare. “I had legal draw this up. Sign it.”

Ian leaned forward to read the paper. It was a document breaking the verbal agreement between Ian and his father about the purchase of Cherry Ridge Farm. He’d promised himself in the car that he wouldn’t lose his temper and yell at his father so he swallowed his anger. Grabbing the pen his father held out to him, he signed his name with a flourish and pushed the paper back across the desk. “Out of curiosity, now that you’ve fired me, why does it have to be that property? I sent you information on properties in the area better suited to development and cheaper. What else is going on here?”

“None of your damn business,” the old man snapped, his scowl contorting into a grimace for a second.

“Dad, there’s a reason you want that property. What is it?” The elder Kroft said nothing, just stared at Ian with his sharp eyes.
 

Ian stared back. “I saw a picture of you with Trevor Peterson. Must have been taken while you were in France during the war. Does this have something to do—”

“Get out of here!” his father jumped to his feet and roared. “I don’t ever want to see you, hear from you again. Do you understand me? Out!”

Ian got to his feet. He should have felt anger; maybe petulance or fear, but all that came to him was a bitter resignation. “All right, Dad, I’m going,” he said from the doorway, giving his dad one last look.

In the drizzly rain left from the storm, Ian caught up with the remains of rush hour headed out of the city. It was already too late to make it back to Petoskey tonight. He might as well stay somewhere and interview the veteran in Gary, Indiana, tomorrow before heading back.
 

He tried not to dwell on the incident in his father’s office, but several things about his life were obvious. His shitty relationship with his father wasn’t going to resolve itself any time soon, probably never. Although his hopes had never been high for a reconciliation, the disappointment was palpable. And it wasn’t even because he wanted it. It was because he’d made a promise to someone else who had wanted it for him more—someone who wasn’t even there anymore. So the crushing honesty of failure was utterly inescapable, and forgiveness impossible.

Financially, he’d be lucky to have enough cash flow left to finish the book unless funding came through from a different source. He should probably pour what money he had into establishing a studio. Gripping the steering wheel, he had a moment of complete honesty with himself. His book was important, but it wasn’t going to get him love.

He pictured Colette coming out of the barn, headed for the house after the last check on the animals for the night. With Romeo and Prospero at her side, she’d stroll through the little garden behind the house before entering.
 

Just thinking of her on the farm brought some peace to him, but it would all go to hell if she found out who his father was and what his intentions had been. He had to tell her himself before she found out some other way. He wouldn’t put it past his father to call Colette or one of the other family members directly, out of spite. If he introduced himself as Liam Kroft, they’d connect his father to him in less than a second.
 

But he couldn’t tell Colette yet. In a couple weeks after her fundraiser, he resolved, he’d explain it all to her and hope like hell she didn’t hate him forever. He reached for his cell phone to call her; hearing her voice even if only for a few minutes might take the edge off. The phone rang several times before going to voice mail. He swore silently and thumped the steering wheel with his fist. With no other option, he left a message asking her to call him.

The next evening he pulled into the long driveway of Cherry Ridge Farms, tired from his trip, but happy to be where Colette was. Headlights bounced toward him on the narrow lane. He dropped off the edge for the unfamiliar car to pass, catching a glimpse of the other driver. Not someone he knew, which pointed to one conclusion. The belligerent-looking man was Brickner, his father’s agent. The guy looked like the type the old man would hire. The fact that he was on Colette’s farm this late in the day on a Saturday did not bode well.

When he reached the farm house, Colette stood on the front porch with an aluminum baseball bat in one hand and a cell phone in the other, her face clouded with anger and defiance. For a second, he thought she knew the truth about him, but the wrinkles on her forehead smoothed when he stepped from his car.

“What’s the matter?” He strode toward her, still feeling a little unsure. She never had returned his call last night.

“Nothing,” she said too quickly.

“Like hell. Who was that leaving?”
 

“A representative from the company who’s trying to buy my property.” She shoved her cell phone in her pocket and rested the tip of the bat on the porch floor. “He’s been around for the past few days pestering Lexy and me. Tonight he went too far.”
 

Cold laced through Ian. “What’d he do?”

“He came here.” She tapped the bat against the wood. “I had to ask him to go.”

“I see.” He waited on the steps below her, the night humming around him. Should he take her in his arms as he’d imagined for the past hundred miles of his trip? “I worried about you being alone out here, but I guess you can take care of yourself.”
 

“What is this lately? Everyone thinks I can’t live here by myself anymore.” Her tone expressed exasperation. “Mom wanted me to stay with her, so did Lexy.”
 

“I didn’t say that,” he held up his hands, “but I can’t help worrying about you.”
 

She studied him for a moment from her post on the porch. “I think Brickner’s gone, hopefully for good.” She walked down the steps to stand in front of him with her head cocked to the side. “You look tired and a little sad.” She reached a hand up to trace along his jaw. He nodded, wanting to turn his head into her hand, but still hesitant. “Your interview didn’t go well?”

“It was all right.” He grasped her hand and pulled it to his lips, kissing her palm. A light brightened in her eyes at the contact. “It was a long trip.”

She clutched his shirt front and tugged him to her. “I’m glad you’re back,” she whispered, her face close to his.

“Me too.” He buried his face in her hair and breathed in her scent. The realization that he never wanted to be anywhere other than in her arms on this farm took hold of him body and soul. He wanted to claim her as his. It was a sensation dredged up from the basest of human relations, but that didn’t lessen its intensity. “Is it too early to go to bed?”

She smiled for the first time since he got there. “We can claim we need our beauty rest.”

“I don’t plan to sleep or to let you.” He nipped at her lower lip where the scar sliced through her flesh. “At least not for a while.”

Chapter Fourteen