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It’s solid advice. “Fine. Thanks, Luke. I’ll talk to you later.”
I end the call. I can shut my mouth, but that doesn’t mean I have to just sit around and hope for the best. I can take action. Imusttake action or my dream of sharing the mountain with the community is going to evaporate.
Idling where the parking lot meets the road, I debate going home to my family’s mansion or to town to start day drinking.
Or…heading to Shinglepuss’s property.
Possession is nine-tenths of the law, after all.
Notactually, because if that were the case, I would now have ownership of Kayley’s body, but having possession means ownership is considered more likely.
Which means I’m moving to the mountain.
* * *
Shinglepuss isn’t just a land shark, he’s a cheap son of a bitch with a penchant for hoarding. I stand in front of his house—a generous term for the shack I’m eyeing with horror—and struggle to find the door. It’s a structure cobbled together from construction debris, with wood, tin, stones, and even cardboard all affixed with no rhyme or reason.
Suddenly, part of it explodes outward and a certain sexy redhead spills out.
I’ve found the door.
Though it appears Kayley found it first.
I wait for her to see me, hands on my hips.
“You!” she says, brushing her hair back and stomping her feet in the snow. “What are you doing here?”
“I own this land,” I say, because in my mind that’s the truth.
“Don’t you own enough?” she says, trying to stride toward me, but getting a foot stuck in a drift. She angrily yanks her foot out but screams when her foot comes up bare.
Her shoe is stuck in the snow.
I didn’t notice her shoes in the lawyer’s office but clearly, she’s not wearing boots. She tries to hop and bend at the same time, losing her balance.
Stepping in, I move to help her just as her hand spirals backward. “Don’t grab the—”
She gets a grip on the cardboard flap, but it rips off in her hand and she winds up on her knees, hands sinking forward into the snow.
“Door,” I finish, too late.
She looks like she’s frozen in a yoga pose. She arches her spine, making sounds of distress. Cat and cow. That’s the position. She’s not going anywhere as I lumber through the drift and attempt to help her up. I grab her arm but only succeed in throwing her off balance.
“What are you doing?” she shrieks. “Damn it, this is cold!”
“I’m trying to pick you up.”
Her hair is in her face and all I’ve managed to do is kick snow on her and spin her sideways.
“Well, you’re doing a horrible job of it,” she says, trying to yank her arm out of my grip.
“Stop fighting me, Kay.”
“In the snow or over the land?” she says wryly.
But she does go still and finally, with a fair amount of tugging, I manage to get her upper body upright. “Take both of my hands.”
For a second, I think she’s going to stay knee deep in snow rather than touch me, but then she begrudgingly holds out her hands. They’re pink and wet from the snow and I massage them a little as I get a firm hold. “On three. One. Two. Three.”
