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“This town isn’t the only thing you’re trying to get reacquainted with.”
He squeezed her hand again. “No, it’s not, but you knew that going in. You assumed you wouldn’t have any trouble managing my interest, but you didn’t count on having interests of your own. Granted, there’s more here than either of us bargained for, but the Sinclair I know was never a coward.”
Okay. That irked. Maybe she wasn’t a free-spirited teenager willing to blindly follow her heart wherever it led, but that didn’t make her a coward. It made her mature. Responsible. Grown-up.
“Before you throw the word coward around, ask yourself which one of us left—”
“Shit,” he said under his breath as they passed the Whitehall Plantation, following the curve of the road that eventually led to the turn for her driveway. He withdrew his hand from hers to hold onto the wheel as he turned to look at the gracious antebellum structure set back from the road, surrounded by walking oaks.
The furrow in his brow suggested he’d moved on from the topic of her alleged cowardice. “What?”
He faced front again, eyes narrowed, as if solving an equation in his head. “If they fortify the creek banks up here, overflow once handled by the flood fringe will be funneled downstream.”
She was no expert, but it seemed logical to her. “I guess so. But there’s nothing much downstream. The Pinkerton Family Trust owns the land, and Mrs. Pinkerton wants the natural beauty preserved. Whenever developers come sniffing around—including those in her own family—she throws down the veto. Thanks to her, it’s pretty much all woodland, except…”
Her words trailed off as he took the turn to her house. He finished for her. “Except your barn.”
Small seeds of concern took root in her stomach. “It’s barely a creek down here. A four-year-old could wade through it half the time. I’m not worried.”
He shook his head. “That’s not the standard we use. Statistically, the area is part of a hundred-year floodplain. Our engineers calculate the displacement and look at the impact of all that water coming downstream.”
The SUV bounced to a halt in front of her barn, and she saw him give the strip of land to the left of her driveway a measuring look—a strip carved over God knew how many years, by the creek that still meandered there, rippling between the bases of tall pines and the branchy trunks of river birch. After a moment, he went on. “I don’t need the engineers to tell me that little bank isn’t enough to hold back a concentrated influx of water from upstream.”
The roots of concern in her gut dug deeper. “Well, what’s the solution?”
“The Pinkertons own this land?”
She nodded. “Yes. I own the barn, but it sits on a land lease. Like, a ninety-nine-year land lease. For all intents and purposes, it’s mine.”
“No, you own the right to peaceful enjoyment of the land, which they won’t be able to deliver if the golf course goes in. They’ll have to buy you out, and you can use the money to purchase another property.” He lifted his phone from the console and began tapping out a note to himself.
“I don’t want another property.” The concern twisted into anger. “I want this property—my barn. It’s not model two of phase three of the latest development, interchangeable with half the houses on the market right now. It’s special. I can’t turn around and find the exact same thing a mile down the road.” She turned in her seat, muscles tensing as if ready for battle. “The resort will have to extend the fortification down past my property, or the city can put in drains, or something.”
Without looking up from his phone, he said, “There’s not enough frontage to build up the bank, and a new drainage system isn’t economically feasible. I don’t see anybody giving that option serious consideration when there’s only one property at stake.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded, for a full minute. He sat there, so rational and unperturbed, oblivious to how he’d just upended her world. “Well, then, they can’t have their golf course. This is my home, dammit. Maybe you can’t understand the concept, since you seem to prefer living out of a suitcase, but I’ve invested my time, money, and my heart in that place—every board and stone—and I’m not walking away because somebody decides it’s the most economically feasible course of action. My home isn’t about economics.”
He put down his phone and turned to face her. “That’s not up to me, Sinclair.” His voice remained maddeningly even, but she detected a degree of frustration in the set of his shoulders. “My job is to identify the risks and offer solutions. The city decides which applications to approve or deny. What I can tell you is the simplest option usually wins the day.”
“Not this time.” She shoved the door open and scrambled down. “I’m not accepting a buyout, and Ricky Pinkerton is about to be advised of that fact in no uncertain terms.”
Chapter Six
Some things never changed. City hall still inhabited the white-brick colonial next to the Presbyterian Church, the American flag still waved from the flagpole in the town square, and Ricky Pinkerton was still an entitled shithead.
Shane stood on the steps of city hall, between Ricky and Mayor Campbell, listening to Ricky offer up a one-sided, utterly uninformed version of the situation with Sinclair’s barn.
“She called me last night in a snit—you know how she is when she’s got a bug up her ass—spouting nonsense about the golf course, and hundred-year floo
ds, and how a contract was a contract, and she wasn’t selling out. When I told her I didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about, she told me this guy”—he jerked a thumb in Shane’s direction—“advised her us putting in the golf course turned her barn into an ark. Now, I was able to calm her down, because we go way back, and she respects me, but we don’t need some outsider creating problems where those of us who’ve lived here all our lives know damn well none exist.”
“Outsider? Since when am I an outsider? I was born here. We went to high school together, and you’ve got the bump in your nose to prove it.”
He wanted to take the last bit back as soon as he uttered it. Reminding people he used to have a habit of solving problems with his fists undermined his ability to do his job effectively, and antagonizing Ricky wouldn’t make the shithead less of a shithead.
Ricky’s jaw jutted. “You’ve been gone for the last ten years. Those of us who stuck around and have family ties here dating back over a century know the Tomochichi Creek never floods.” He folded his arms across the chest of his dark-green Calloway sweater and rocked back on his heels. “Never has. Never will.”
Shane battled the urge to belt him, right in his professionally re-sculpted nose, but Mayor Campbell beat him to the punch, metaphorically.
