Page 77 of Guarded by My Gargoyle

And then she set her own terms, the way Cornelia set terms, with an invitation that was both a wall and an open door.

I would love nothing more than for Toby to know you both deeply, and often. So please—come to us for Christmas. Fairhaven is beautiful in the snow, and the Inn is very comfortable, and Toby has been asking when you’re coming back since the moment your car left the drive. There is a great deal here I’d like you to see properly, without a festival crowd. Come and stay as often as you can. You will always, always have a place at our table.

The part she didn’t write was equally true. You’re welcome on my terms. In my town. In the life I’m keeping.

She read it over once. It was gracious. It was warm. It was entirely genuine. And it gave up not one single inch of ground, and did it so softly that Cornelia would have to read it twice to understand what had happened. She signed it before she could read it a fourth time.

She sealed it, and set it by the door to mail on the way to fetch Toby.

Then she picked up the Ashby prospectus, walked it to the recycling bin under the sink, and dropped it in.

CHAPTER 26

“Show me the water again.”

Ruggiero had a developer’s hands—soft, ringed, quick—and he tapped the survey where the seep line ran, the way a man taps a figure he suspects of lying to him. Across the study, on the long oak table Garrick had cleared of everything else, the two site plans lay side by side. Hollow Ridge on the left. The new parcel on the right.

“The seep’s here.” He moved one clawed finger along it. “On the ridge, that’s a problem. Every foundation you pour sits above it, so you’re pumping and lining and monitoring for the life of the building, and one bad spring you’re on the front page for it.” He drew the finger across to the right-hand plan. “On the Riverstone parcel, the water’s downhill of everything you’d build. It’s an amenity. You don’t fight it. You put a pond where it wants to be and sell the units around it for more.”

Ruggiero grunted. He didn’t look convinced. He looked like a man who had been dragged out to a county he was tired of and wanted, above all, to leave without losing money.

“That’s geography,” he said. “I don’t pay for geography. Geography’s free. Talk to me about the numbers, Stonehaven. You told me eight weeks ago the ridge was the only site that worked. Now you’re telling me it doesn’t. One of you was lying and I’d like to know which so I know what I’m buying.”

“The first one,” Garrick said calmly.

Ruggiero blinked.

“I hadn’t looked at the alternate properly. Also, most of the preliminary work we’ve done for Hollow Ridge is still valid.” He turned the folder around and slid it across. “Your building designs move. Your unit mix moves. The architecture, the branding, the vertical package—all of it transfers to Riverstone untouched. What dies is the geotech, the grading plan for that specific slope, and one survey. That’s it. The loss is a third of what I’d anticipated.”

“A third?”

“Yes. And the Riverstone parcel already has infrastructure in the ground.” He pulled out the second folder. “A firm went bankrupt out there and left the bones behind. Graded pads. A stormwater system that’s oversized because they planned bigger than they could pay for. A water main stubbed to the property line. Somebody already spent the money you’d have spent, and then went under before they could enjoy it. You’d be buying it at pennies.”

Ruggiero was quiet, his soft fingers tapping the folder thoughtfully.

“So the alternate’s cheaper than the ridge?”

“Once you fold in what’s already in the ground? Yes.”

“You’re aware,” Ruggiero said slowly, “that you just talked me out of the deal you spent two months bidding.”

“I’m aware.”

“And you told your board that?”

“They didn’t take it well.”

By the window, Aidan made a sound that was almost a cough. He’d been leaning against the casement with his arms folded through the whole meeting, in his ranger’s green, doing an unconvincing impression of someone who was only there by accident.

Ruggiero caught it and turned. “And you. Remind me why the county’s got a park ranger in the room while I’m being told how to spend fourteen million dollars.”

“Because I’m the reason the ridge is a headline waiting to happen,” Aidan said cheerfully. “There’s a plant up there that only grows in a couple of places. You’d have found that out from a lawyer instead of from me, and lawyers cost more than I do.”

Ruggiero looked at him a long moment, then at Garrick, then down at the numbers. Garrick watched him run his own calculations.

“All right.” The developer sat back. “The Riverstone site. I’ll do it. Not for the flower.” He said flower the way Fernando had said it on the board call, faintly amused, as if it were the punchline to a joke he didn’t need explained. “I’ve got lawyers too. I’ll do it because the numbers work. And because you showed me your hand, which either makes you a fool or the only builder in this county I can trust. I already know you’re not a fool.”

“Thank you.”