“I know.”She stared into the distance, where the piney woods closed off views of the outside world.They were far enough from the interstate that, on a day like today, with just a light breeze, they couldn’t even hear it.
“Should I talk to Nami?”she asked.
“About what?”
“I get the feeling she’s still a little upset about you guys not being read in on the situation with Peyton from the start.”
“She gets it now.I’d let it go.”
Gillian nodded.She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath.The pines here didn’t smell like the woods around the compound in Idaho.They were barely aromatic, but she could smell hints of the salty air from the western breeze over the Gulf, even though they were more than twenty-five miles east of the coast here.
She remembered that day so many years ago when she helped purchase the big house for Dewi, standing in these woods and inhaling, wondering if Dewi would be okay growing up here in these strange pines.
While simultaneously hating that she couldn’t be the one raising her.
“What’s the deal with that new property?”he asked.
She’d pettily gone ahead during Peyton’s frequent trips overseas—before his abduction—and put in an above-market bid on yet another property abutting this large parcel they now owned.She paid more than he would’ve approved—she was fluent in petty—but it wasn’t like it would even come close to breaking the pack.
The land was more cleared, with clusters of cypress wetlands dotting the cattle pastures that the developer had hoped to turn into a housing development.
Okay, so, yes, she’d been on the phone with the guy while Elliot Gelbert, one of their newer Prime Alpha Enforcers, stood in the guy’s office with his hand on the man’s shoulder, and he accepted far less than he would’ve made had he split it up into individual parcels.But they snagged it before he took it to the zoning board, who would’ve accepted the proposal.
She also did it without telling Dewi first, but that was one of the perks of being the Pack Alpha’s mate.And her older sister-in-law.
Gillian didn’t give a shit what the developer’s business partners might have thought about the deal, but it was legal and closed rapidly, the full cash amount transferred once the title search was completed.
She still hadn’t told Peyton about it.She also made an offer to the guy who pastured his cattle there.They’d buy them from him and give him a contract to care for them.Not to ship them to market, though.Just to keep them on the land in perpetuity, and only humanely euthanize them due to natural causes, or injuries that couldn’t be treated, and they were suffering.
That they weren’t for food would mean an argument with Peyton, but again…petty.Hell, she’d give every damned last one of them names, send pictures to Asia’s kids, and then he’d be stuck.
The cattleman would also maintain the fences, feeders, and waterers, and would work with them to set up expense accounts with the appropriate vendors.
It was the perfect cover for having all that land without people asking too many questions.
That deal had already gone through, too.
Gillian smiled.“It’s ours.I had Elliot ‘chat’ with the guy managing the cattle.He knows not to ask questions and to report any issues immediately.
Beck chuckled, shaking his head.“That’s one way to do it, I suppose.The boss know yet?”
“Which boss?”
“Peyton.”
Her smile widened to a grin.“A girl needs to have a few surprises for her mate, right?”
“So why, exactly, cattle?We eating them?”
“Naw.They’re pets and a property tax dodge.Not to mention a buffer zone against development in the area.I don’t know if I can buy the next property over or not.I’ve hired a real estate attorney—a clueless human—and have Elliot working with him about negotiating for it.But the developer had already started the rezoning process with the county.So I’m not sure what hurdles we might need to jump to grab it.”
“If we get it, how much land does that give us?”
“Over three thousand acres.”
He let out a low whistle.“That’s nice.That’ll house a lot of packmates.”
“Exactly.I know we just resettled a bunch of people, but in some areas of the country we have clusters of families who need to relocate soon due to aging out.This is a great solution.Eventually, I’d like to have a compound in the middle of the country so people can cycle through them as needed.”
