Brock stared at the man who was an older, more elegant version of himself. “I believe we have a mutual interest in this land, considering it belongs to our family.”
Murmured disquiet was met with one shallow gasp.
“Mr. Gallagher.” The man with the reddened complexion stepped forward and nodded to Brock. “Do you know this young man?”
Aidan adjusted the bright purple tie at his neck and gave it a gentle tug. His smile was wide, jovial, and forced. “Indeed I do. This is my son, Brockton Gallagher.”
“Aidan.” The older man with the stumbling gait ambled toward them. “I didn’t know you had a son.”
“Strange how those things work sometimes,” Brock mused. A cold gust of wind from off the coast swept over them and kicked up the sand-covered dunes, but he didn’t even flinch. “For a while, I didn’t know I had a father.”
“Kelly.” His father’s voice was a low rumble of warning.
Brock locked his arms at his sides and fisted his hands until his nails bit into the coarse skin of his palms. His father wasn’t going to win this round. He didn’t get to pretend like they were a close-knit family just to earn points with his colleagues. He certainly no longer had the opportunity to call him by his childhood nickname. He lost that right when he stopped showing up, when he quit on him.
Oddly enough, that was more or less exactly what Juliette had said to him.
The razor-sharp realization cut to the bone.
Painful silence settled between the group, broken up only by the random call of seagulls mid-flight.
“Right.” Aidan turned to the people in his company and flashed another painfully bright smile. “Why don’t the three of you head back to the car? I’ll be there in just a minute, and then we can discuss possible terms as well as length of contract and conditions. I need to have a word with my son.” His leveled gaze slid toward Brock.
Brock didn’t even wait for them to get into the Mercedes before he cut the distance in half between himself and his father.
“You’re wasting your time. I told you this morning, I will do everything I can to make sure Yaya doesn’t sell the beach house.”
Especially not to him.
“Look at the place, Brockton. There’s no saving it. Even if you could remodel the house, what does a house renovation offer Mystic Cove?” Aidan spread his arms wide, gesturing to the property at length. “Nothing. It gives nothing back to the community you love so much.”
“Mystic Cove doesn’t want a massive hotel conglomerate clogging its streets with tourists,” Brock retorted, crossing his arms over his chest.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Aidan countered, adjusting his cufflinks again. “Tourists equal money.”
“Tourists equal traffic and trash. You build the condo and then what?” Brock pointed to the expanse of pristine beach behind him. “Then you’ll need restaurants and shops so they have places to eat and things to do. Before we know it, Mystic Cove will have lost its allure. It’ll lose its small-town charm. It will become nothing more than an extension of Virginia Beach. Another place for spring breakers to wreck and ruin.”
Aidan loosed a tempered sigh, and his breath billowed out in front of him in a puff of frosty air. “I wish I could make you see its potential.”
“I already do. Except my vision for it is better.” Brock nodded to the car full of people parked at the end of the drive. “You and your associates?—”
“Investors,” Aidan corrected.
“Whatever. You and your investors can find some other place to destroy.”
They stood staring at each other, neither refusing to give their ground, for what seemed like the longest stretch of eternity. Until Aidan finally turned on his heel and headed back to his car.
The last thing Brock wanted to see was Mystic Cove waste away. He didn’t want his hometown to dissolve into another overpriced tourist destination, where the best months of the yearwere packed with crowds clamoring for the nicest spots on the sand, where the locals fled the summer season only to return after the chaos.
“If she sells…” Anders’s low voice carried on the wind.
Brock didn’t want to think about it. “I know.”
Anders crossed his arms and bristled against the harsh sting of the cold breeze. “Your dad knows people in D.C., right? Is eminent domain a possibility?”
“Let’s hope not.” Brock hated that Anders might have a valid point. “Otherwise we’ll need a good lawyer.”
This was his home. And he was going to find a way to protect it and keep it in his family, no matter the cost.
