The Black Sheep and the Princess (13 page)

She'd inherited millions in assets and was going to rely on a bank loan to finance her camp? “I still say you should have held on to a hell of a lot more than that.”

“I did what was right for me.”

Mac didn't say anything to that, knowing she had a point. “So, she knew you were interested in leasing the property before she died?”

Kate nodded. “I'd approached her with a lease agreement proposal before she died. Well, I approached her attorney. She took ill before we could set anything up.”

“But she knew you wanted it.”

She nodded. “If I had any doubts, the inheritance sort of cemented that.”

“Which begs the question of why you'd go back and willingly tie yourself to her in any way again. Why give her that hold over you again after so many years? If she knew you really wanted it, wouldn't she have taken advantage of that? Obviously she would have, seeing what she did with her will.”

“I'm sure she would have, but I felt I could handle it now, as an adult. And I guess a part of me thought maybe we'd all grown up enough that it was time to make some inroads into at least being civil with one another. I'd long since come to accept my family situation, but that doesn't mean I was content with it. The lake property was perfect for what I wanted to do. I didn't have the kind of resources I needed to lease any other property. It seemed like a good olive branch and a wise business decision.”

“And if you hadn't made contact, would Shelby have notified you of her illness?”

“Hard to say, but I'm guessing I'd have likely read about it in the papers, same as you. Or from a family attorney when the will was slated to be read.”

Ouch
. She was speaking matter-of-factly, much the same way he did when talking about his past. Which he made a point never to do. And for her this was far more recent. He knew firsthand that it was likely costing her more than she was letting on. Who'd have thought he'd have so much in common with Kate Sutherland after all?

“I'm sorry.”

“Thanks,” she said, sounding a little surprised by his sentiment, but then, so was he. “Like I said, though, I made peace with my less than lovely circumstances with my family a long time ago. Does that suck in a lot of ways? Yes. But you know better than anyone that family life can suck for a lot of people. I have no room to complain, and I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a career that I'm very passionate about, and the drive to make a particular dream of mine come true. All I needed was the resources, and although that didn't happen quite the way I expected, it looks like it will come to pass. My mother is gone, and this won't bring Shelby and I any closer, but I realize now that nothing will ever do that. At least I tried, and I have whatever peace of mind there is to be gained out of knowing he has what he wanted so badly. All in all, not much to complain about from where I sit.”

“Except someone still doesn't want you to have your camp. We're just not sure who.”

She didn't say anything for a few seconds, then finally let out a reluctant sigh. “No. It's not all going according to plan. Not exactly. I need to talk to Shelby. I'm sure there's a simple explanation for things with him. Then we'll talk to Gilby and see what we can get from him. I guess I just have a hard time buying into any deep conspiracy theory here. I know there are a lot of things going on simultaneously that make it appear to be fishy, but you know, there could be simple explanations for all of it.”

“There could,” he agreed.

She glanced at him, eyebrow raised, but he merely said, “You were in the city yesterday. Why not talk to Shelby then?”

“We were supposed to. We had an appointment to finalize the paperwork, transferring the inheritances. He didn't show.”

“And you don't find that a little suspicious?”

She slowed and turned into the vast parking lot of the shopping mall. “Not really. Shelby is a major pain in the ass about almost everything. For all I know, it conflicted with his biweekly spa treatment. You never know with him. But until I talk to him myself, I'm not going to jump to any nefarious assumptions.”

“Were there any hang-ups with the contract?”

“Oh, there were dozens. It's taken us months to hammer this out, with almost constant communication, but we're both satisfied with the result. In fact, up until yesterday, I'd have said the rest was a mere formality. I mean, he knows I've moved in up here and that I'm doing the preliminary work on starting the restoration. If he had any real beef with the settlement, he'd have never let me take physical hold of the property.”

“You've already taken out the loan, then?”

She shook her head. “No, I won't have the stock collateral until the papers are signed. What little I've done so far, mostly to make my cabin habitable, has come from my own pocket.”

“Do you think Shelby will pick up where your mother left off, in terms of trying to leverage you even after the agreement is signed? You're giving him a lot of power.”

“I don't see why he'd care what I do once he has what he wants. Yes, it was his father's, but he was personally involved with it only because it positioned him at Louisa's right elbow. He has no use for it now. Honestly, I think the only thing he really hates is that he has to trade it away to me, rather than sell it to me. But that's Shelby for you. As long as I end up with the camp and a way to get it up and running, frankly, I don't much care about the rest.”

“So why isn't he signing off? Something tells me that a guy like Shelby is going to make sure his schedule is clear when it comes to securing his multimillion-dollar inheritance. No call, nothing?”

She shook her head. “I haven't tried yet today. I was still pretty upset when I got home last night, and then—”

“I show up.” He smiled.

She managed a smile in return. “I know I've been dealing with some problems at the camp. I—I hadn't really connected it to Shelby, or anything else really, because there was no reason to.”

“But?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Now I don't know. I feel like I'm being paranoid, but—” She broke off, didn't continue.

“But what? Trust your instincts.”

“Well, the stuff going on at camp…now you've got me wondering if maybe there's something more going on with that and the reluctance of the townspeople to help me. It seems so ridiculous to me. I mean, they don't even know me and, if anything, when the camp was up and running before, it helped Ralston economically. So all I can figure is that there is something pending out there that could help them even more. What else would make them so resentful?”

“You mean the rumored resort development deal?”

“Do you know anything else about that?”

“Not yet.” He paused, then said, “I know you're taking in a lot here, but I really want you to think about the possibility that Shelby not signing yesterday might be tied up with that, too.”

She sighed wearily, but she didn't argue. “I tried to push Stan in that direction a little this morning.”

Mac sat up a little straighter. “And? What did you say?”

“I asked him if he'd spoken to Shelby, and he had no idea what I was talking about. But I'm telling you, the whole conversation was weird. I kept thinking it was because you planted those seeds in my mind and I was just imagining things, but I really think something is going on with the townsfolk. Or some of them anyway.”

“Why? What did he say?”

“It was more what he didn't say. He just sort of spouted the party line and pretended to be helpful and interested, but the entire time I couldn't shake the feeling he was lying to me. About what, I don't know. Or hiding something. I had to go track him down; he wasn't even in the office to meet me. He acted like he knew nothing about me, and I know that's not true.” She shrugged. “It's just not adding up, but I can't give you anything specific.”

“Never ignore gut instincts. They might not be dead accurate, but they're usually grounded in something.” Sort of like his instincts about Kate being someone special. He'd gotten all hung up on the superficial stuff way back when and let it dull those burgeoning instincts. Now? Now he was just all hung up. “Something's going on, and my money is on there being a better than average chance that Stan, possibly his father, Timberline, and Shelby could all be a part of it.”

He popped his seat belt off, opened the door and climbed out.

“Wait! You're going to just drop that little bomb on me, then go off shopping?”

He bent back down and looked into the cab. “No. I'm dropping that little bomb, and you're coming shopping with me.” He smiled. “It was your idea.”

She stared at him, shoulders set, jaw momentarily mutinous, then relented and popped her seat belt buckle. “Fine. But you start picking out cartoon clothing and I'm not holding back my opinions.”

He closed the door and looked at her over the cab roof as she got out. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”

She made a noise that clearly stated she found him completely insufferable. He could be, so there was no point attempting to change her mind. But before the day was over, she'd also find out he was doggedly determined about getting the job done.

“We need to do more research on Timberline, and I need to get a hold of Shelby, so I don't want to take too long here,” she said, setting off across the parking lot with long, determined strides. “I still have to get in Gilby's face, too, about the most recent round of graffiti, but I'm thinking now maybe that should wait until we know more. I don't know if we should snoop around town any more at this point. We need to find a way to dig a little, but discreetly. Maybe I could head back into the city and—”

Mac just smiled and pulled his satellite phone from the clip on his belt. He punched a number in, waited a second, then said, “Things are getting interesting. I'm going to need to update that list a little.”

Finn just hummed his little I-told-you-so hum.

Mac knew he deserved nothing less. “I'll have a shipping address for you by tonight, but in the meantime, I need a few more reports run.” He reeled off some of the same names Kate had just mentioned. “Anything you can find connecting them together wins you the bonus prize.”

“Do I get to pick?” Finn shot back. “Because I was doing some research today on another little project and stumbled across this unbelievably sweet little deal on a new toy we really need to have. It'll make some of our current jobs much easier and allow us to expand our—”

Mac grinned as he clicked the phone off cutting his partner off mid-drool. Finn definitely used his vast asset base to do good deeds, but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy an interesting perk or two. Or three. They were always business-related investments, but only Finn could find a way to turn something like, oh, say, buying a small island into a business investment. God only knew what he was eyeballing now. Lately he'd gotten rather…creative.

Mac looked at a worried Kate and thought, if Finn could dig up some information that would help him take away the fear in those baby blues of hers, he'd personally see to it that Finn had whatever toy he wanted.

He shot Kate a wide smile meant to reassure and distract. Not necessarily in that order. “Discreet enough for you?” He crooked an elbow and held it out to her. “Come on, let's spend some more of Finn's money.”

“Mac—”

He brightened at her automatic use of his nickname. “See? You're already getting with the program.” He took her hand and tucked it through his arm, clamping down a little so she couldn't pull it back. He tugged her a few steps across the parking lot before she gave up and fell into step beside him. “Trust me, Kate,” he said, more serious than he'd intended. “You're not fighting this alone. Whatever we dig up, you've got Trinity behind you all the way.”

She shook her head. “I still can't believe you used that as your company name.”

“Hey, at least we left the ‘unholy' part off the letterhead.”

He got a wry smile for that. “Something tells me your clients figure out that part all on their own. Probably within five seconds of meeting any one of the three of you.” She tried to tug her hand free.

He kept it easily pinned to his side. “True. But no complaints so far.”

“I bet.”

He grinned. “We get the job done.”

She shot him a sideways glance, lips quirking slightly. “Like I said…” She tugged harder this time, and he let her hand go.

“How did I suddenly get to be the bad guy again?”

“Bad boy is more like it,” she said as she walked in front of him.

He took her elbow and gently swung her back around to face him. “I thought we cleared this up back in the truck.”

“We did. You're an unrepentant womanizer, and you have a strong work ethic, so I bargained your integrity against your libido, and won. Now you're already reneging on the deal.”

“How?” he asked, honestly perplexed. “I'm playing by the rules. Your rules.”