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“Don’t like the idea that someone from the outside may have paid off Jonathan with nefarious reasons.” Noah paused and drank. “Except they did not use the word nefarious. So, Vivian is spot-on. That was their primary concern. The rest, they figure, is just details. Cam is literally a nationwide renowned expert, so he’ll take care of that. They’re more than happy with Vivian taking care of the internals and—” He raised a hand before she could jump in. “They realize you have your own workload. They want to know if you want town-sponsored help or to have them handle shifting some of the jobs.”
Cam glanced at Vivian and could see this all running through her head. The woman thought lightning fast.
But he also saw fear and uncertainty clear as day and wondered if the others saw it as well.
“They also realize,” Noah continued, “that you’ve worked incredibly hard to overcome some barriers because people can be jackasses and they’re more than willing to throw their weight behind you during and after this project since you’ve proven yourself to be an incredible mechanic and businesswoman.”
“I need to think about it,” Vivian said, which just went to show how smart she was.
Cam would have felt like he needed to make a decision right then and then probably made the wrong one. Now that he’d made a name for himself, he only wanted to think about his art and could make people wait.
Vivian had to think about running a business.
Man, she was smart.
He grinned at her like an idiot.
“Why are you grinning at me like an idiot?”
See? So smart.
“I’m just always impressed with your business savvy. Maybe you want to run my business too?”
Vivian snorted. “You couldn’t afford me.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Jamie glanced around the table.
Cam knew him well enough to know an hour of sitting over tea and beers probably felt like four weeks to this guy.
Noah sat back and glanced around the table. Cam feared he knew what was coming.
“They’ve suggested we might be able to figure out who this client is and why Jonathan thinks he can just take town power because of it.”
Lyra sat up straight. “Like a mystery. We’re going to solve a mystery.”
“Actually…” Noah gave her a smile, the kind that only Lyra got from pretty much everyone. “I was thinking, Spence is going to solve a mystery.”
“Me?” Spence sat up straighter for a second, glancing around to see if everyone was as surprised as he was.
“You. Congratulations, you’ve just become two new things. An investigative journalist and accepted by the lairds.”
Cam glanced at Spence, who had the stupidest grin on his face. He wouldn’t even try to guess which one of those things was more important.
“Okay, I can do that.” He was already on his phone doing who knows what.
“You two.” Noah shifted back to Cam and Vivian. “Are you able to get this done in two weeks?”
Vivian glanced at him, prepared to let him answer first.
“Here’s the thing. I can get it done. And Vivian can get it done. But I’m not going to promise that date as art recovery is more important than having our schedule uninterrupted.”
He glanced at Vivian who was nodding along with him.
“And,” she spoke up, “there’s going to be a lot of situations where only one of us can be working at a time. We need to plan for that.”
Noah nodded along, putting some notes in a notebook he usually carried at work.
“Okay, we’ll go with that for now.”
