No wonder Maggie was skeptical of his intentions. That must have been what Sherri had been alluding to. It certainly explained a lot. Michael had a sudden, fierce urge to make Spencer Dumas pay for making Maggie doubt herself.
“Maggie broke off the engagement and quit on the spot, leaving Dumas to explain to daddy how he fucked up royally. Apparently the company had been depending heavily on acquiring her land. Immediately after she showed Dumas her backside on the way out, the shit hit the fan. Several partner companies backed out of a few key projects and DI stock took a decent hit.”
“That had to hurt.”
Ian laughed. “Yeah, a little. Spencer’s been trying to cozy back up to her, saying he’s seen the error of his ways, he’s a changed man, blah, blah, blah, but she’s having no part of it. Actually threatened to slap a restraining order on him if he didn’t leave her in peace.”
Michael’s chest swelled with pride while a possessive fury burned simultaneously in his blood. He barely kept his lip from curling back in a snarl. There was no way in hell Spencer Dumas – or any other man for that matter – would be cozying up to Maggie again.
The unfamiliar surge gave him pause. He had met Maggie less than twenty-four hours earlier, and knew next to nothing about her. Michael was neither impulsive nor prone to such strong, visceral emotions.
“So what is she doing now?” he asked, trying to inject some note of rationality into his voice.
Ian swiveled back to the computer, his fingers a blur. “Looks like she picks up some consulting jobs on the side. She’s building up a good reputation, but that takes time, especially if you don’t have a lot of connections. Ten to one Dumas isn’t stoked about singing her praises, and I doubt she’d use him as a reference anyway. If her last tax return is accurate, she’s barely making ends meet. The property’s hers, but the taxes alone on that much acreage are substantial.”
“How much are we talking about?”
Ian’s fingers danced over the keys. “Two hundred acres at least, all prime agricultural land on the south-facing side of the mountain,” he reported. “Maggie’s family has been acquiring the land quietly in parcels over the better part of the last century.”
Ian paused, looking thoughtful. “Hey – I know that place. Mom used to take us there when we were little to pick our own apples and shit. Had the biggest goddamned pumpkins for Halloween carving, too.”
Michael remembered that, too. “Older couple? We used to go on hayrides there every fall.”
“Yeah! Man, that property has got to be worth a fortune. Southern exposure, overlooks the lake. No wonder Dumas wants it.”
Well, at least now Michael understood why Maggie had agreed to dance – she needed the money. It was the one thing that he just couldn’t reconcile.
“Thanks, man,” he said, pushing the last few cookies toward Ian.
Michael looked up to find his brother watching him intently. Ian whistled softly. “So it’s like that, huh?”
“Like what?”
Ian grinned. “Right. The denial stage. I remember it well.”
––––––––
The snow started falling somewhere around noon. Michael was already showered and dressed, hanging downstairs in the bar room with Jake and Ian. The crowd was small, consisting mostly of a few of the locals, grabbing a few and talking about the impending storm. What was originally supposed to only be a few inches from a quickly moving clipper was now forecast as an all-out blizzard. Eyes were drawn toward the mounted flat screens as each subsequent weather update seemed worse than the last.
By four o’clock Michael couldn’t sit still any longer. He still had two hours before he was expected at Maggie’s, but simply waiting, biding his time wasn’t working for him. He felt anxious, and news of the powerful nor’easter bearing down on them was doing nothing to ease that. Everything Ian had told him was weighing heavily on his mind as well. All he could think about was Maggie. In the house, alone, injured.
“I’m heading out,” Michael said, convincing himself that there really was no good reason to delay any longer. He’d already thrown an overnight bag in the back of the truck, temporarily exchanging his Jag for one of the many vehicles they kept at his brother Sean’s garage. If things went the way he wanted them to, he wouldn’t be back this evening.
He was glad he left when he did. What should have been a thirty minute drive quickly surpassed an hour before he’d even gone halfway. Clearly the reporters urging people to get their errands done before the bulk of the storm hit were not broadcasting from the mountain, where the roads were fast becoming treacherous, the visibility measured in mere feet instead of yards.