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“I’m fine, thanks,” she protested.
He was handsome in a used-car-salesman kind of way. Too smooth for her taste, but when he put his hand on her lower back and walked her toward his office, she didn’t protest. If he wanted her charmed, she’d act charmed.
“What happened to your arm, Lori?”
“It’s my hand, actually.” She watched him from the corner of her eye. “There was an accident at my shop.”
“Yikes. That sounds ominous.”
“This is the worst of it.”
He looked guileless as he led her into his office, but used-car salesmen usually did. “So,” he said as he took a seat behind his shiny desk. “I’m hoping you’re here to talk about your land. Not that I wouldn’t welcome a visit otherwise.”
“Right. Well, lucky for you, Iamhere to talk about the land.”
“Wow. I can’t thank you enough for coming to me with this.”
“No problem, but you might not be thanking me in a minute.”
His smile didn’t budge. “Why not?”
“Because I know about the talk of reclassifying highway nineteen.”
This time, the smile definitely dropped a notch. “The what?”
Lori crossed her legs and wished she’d thought to wear a dress and heels so she could play the part of high-powered landowner more convincingly. “Come on, Chris. If you want to play games with me, I’ll go to Anton/Bliss. They seem pretty serious about getting that lot. Maybe they’ll be willing to treat me with respect.”
The smile headed down two more notches and became a straight line. “I take this seriously. What do you want?”
“I want a legitimate offer, not the crap I’ve been handed before.” She brushed a piece of imaginary lint off her pant leg. “We both know this reclassification could change everything.”
“Jesus. How did you find out about it?”
“How did I find out that you’ve been trying to cheat me?”
Chris leaned back in his chair, looking a bit deflated as he reached into a desk drawer for a bottle of water. “Look, I wasn’t trying to cheat you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Give me a break, Lori. There’s no guarantee the state will agree to improvements. Winter maintenance alone could approach a million a year. Buying your land is still a huge gamble at this point. It could all fall through.”
Winter maintenance? Whoa! “They’re going to keep the pass open all year,” she breathed, not quite believing it. If they opened the pass, that would change everything, and not just for her.
He stared at her for a long moment, a bit of the color leaving his face. “Goddamn it. I can’t believe I just did that. You didn’t know, did you? You totally played me.”
“I knew something, just not everything. And it’s my damn land anyway, so pardon me for screwing you over.”
He had the decency to smile at her, even if it did border on a smirk. “Hell, I wasn’t going to get the land anyway. Anton/Bliss has a heck of a lot more capital and clout than my firm does. My best hope was that you’d sell to me because I’ve known you for years.”
“Huh. Well, I don’t really play by the hearts and unicorns rules of business, so you wouldn’t have had much luck there.”
His wide smile was back. “It was bound to get out anyway. Too many people know about the rumors already. Offers are being made to other landowners. You got hit first because yours was the best undeveloped lot. Riverfront, totally level, right-of-way access that runs through public land, large enough to be broken up into two dozen lots, if need be.”
She nodded, trying to absorb it all.
“Fly-fishing cottages are the new thing for the wealthy. Skiing in the winter. Fishing in the summer. All of it within commuting distance of an airport and five-star restaurants. Of course, these rich guys always overestimate the amount of free time they have. The caretakers spend more time in the house than they do.”
Well, the mystery was solved then, but not the right mystery. She couldn’t imagine this had anything to do with what had happened to her dad a decade before. “How long has this talk been going around?”
