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I’d been telling myself that this couldn’t happen. I was her boss.
Now… That didn’t seem to matter as much as making hermine.
ChapterFourteen
Moira
How could I have been so stupid?
Kissing Grant…Jesus, what was wrong with me? In my defense, he was partly at fault… Walking around in nothing but shorts and sopping wet, making dinner, and tucking my son into bed like he’d always been in Day’s life.
The entire night had felt… natural, like I was meant to be sitting on thatgoddamnporch swing watching my son go absolutely feral in the brush and thickets of trees surrounding Grant’s farmhouse. I was meant to smile over the lip of the bottle of beer Grant had cracked open for me, watching him cut Day’s steak into pieces.
I was meant to stand on my tiptoes and kiss him… and much harder than I actually had.
And that was why I hadn’t talked to him at all since it happened and after I’d tried to apologize the next morning. I couldn’t. Not when my heart was a dead weight in my chest and my stomach tied in a tight knot every time I even thought of Grant.
It’d been a week since the kiss. Thankfully, the week had been insanely busy and I’d been out and about trying to put together the report to give to not only Grant, but the EPA.
I’d been pulling out all of the stops to get my hands on information regarding the dam, what was left of Gold Cord Creek, and how Grant’s neighbors played into the drama.
It took some major bribery, but I’d finally been granted access to the private property on the other side of the infamous ravine.
“Call me crazy,” Charmaine Parks, Grant’s sixty-nine-year-old neighbor, said as she poured me a glass of lemonade, “but I like to mix mine with a little bit of… tea, for flavor.” She proceeded to pour the so-called tea into my lemonade from an ancient flask she pulled out of her apron, a sideways smile on her surprisingly young face.
I’d bumped into her by chance at the ice cream parlor just outside of Hot Springs proper. She’d taken a liking to Day, who found her house fascinating because it was full of her late husband’s things…
He’d been an astronaut, so Day was in heaven.
Charmaine had no children or grandchildren and was “broody,” as she called it. Day’s company was the trade-off for the interviews I’d been scheduling with her over the past week, and Day himself didn’t complain, not in the slightest.
He was currently sprawled out on her rose-colored carpet, looking through a box of baseball cards her husband collected over the years, while I tried not to wrinkle my nose at the heavy dose of gin Charmaine had dumped into my lemonade.
“It’ll keep you young, my dear,” she said playfully as she sat gracefully down in a floral print armchair across from me, crossing her lean legs. She didn’t look a day over fifty, in my opinion.
I sipped the eternal youth concoction and gave her a smile.
“I want to talk to you about the options for the ravine,” I began, pulling a few blueprints out of my purse. “Gold Cord Creek used to travel through the ravine, but we recently found out the creek was illegally rerouted to funnel into the pasture south of Grant’s property.”
“Oh, that parcel used to belong to the Ashtons,” Charmaine said with a nod. “They died.”
“Do you know who owns it now?” I asked, smiling a bit at the way she’d deadpanned they died, like it was a common occurrence and didn’t faze her in the slightest.
“Their sons split it into two properties from what I remember. That was years ago now. Thomas Ashton’s half falls along my property as well as Grant’s.” She gestured with her hands to form a T. “The ravine runs right down the middle of where our three properties touch.”
“I didn’t see anything about a Thomas Ashton in the reports—”
“Oh, I doubt you would have. He sold his parcel to developers last year, long before the EPA came sniffing around. One of the lawyers for the company came right up to my front porch, totally ignoring the no-trespassing signs and gave me an earful, I’ll tell you what. Oh, what was her name…” Charmaine pursed her lips, shaking her head as she dug through her mind for the name that was alluding her. “Oh, Shelby something, I believe—”
“ShelbyfuckingFrancis,” I practically growled, then blushed deeply as Charmaine brows shot up. “Sorry, I have the mouth of a sailor.”
“All interesting women do,” she clucked, smiling slyly at me. “Then you know who I’m talking about? That snide little witch woman who has been trying to bully me into selling my property—”
“I saw the EPA report,” I cut in, shaking my head, “and it said Shelby was the one who complained about the ravine to the EPA in the first place. She sent in three separate complaints about the ravine area before the EPA did their investigation.”
“Not surprising,” Charmaine mused, sipping from her glass. “You can see the ravine from the old Ashton property.”
I leaned back in my chair, scoffing.
