Wealthy Real Estate Tycoon Buying Up Local Properties for Hotel Chain, it read.The subheading was a little less subtle:What you need to know to protect your land and family.
A match ignited in Aurelie’s chest, the flame fanned with each word she read.The article was damning, and the town was in grave danger if there was any truth to it.
Had Owen and Paige seen this?What would they think?
Aurelie devoured the article, retaining every word so she could be sure to spare no details with her friends later.It seemed that not only was some billionaire real estate company coming in and buying up properties to build a slew of hotel chains in the Elks Ridge Valley, but he was preying on weak farms that were hit by the dry weather of the last four growing seasons.Not all of them were as lucky as the Connors, who were at least protected by the mountain-fed streams to subsidize their water when the rest of the town dried up.
Apparently, the whole operation was run by one man who seemed hell-bent on making the Valley his version of Jackson Hole.So not only was the guy turning Banberry into a tourist trap, he was stealing the land from less-fortunate farms.
In fact, now that she thought about it, there was a sign on the neighboring ranch, the Michaels’s property, marking it for sale.
Was this mystery buyer headed there next?
The regularBanberry Newsmentioned recent sales but no speculation about who was purchasing the defunct properties.It did, however, mention that a new clinic and women’s shelter site was under investigation for zoning issues, and if found to be in violation, the property would go to the next bidder—the buyer mentioned previously.
Fire coursed through her, raging so strong that she wanted the real estate tycoon in front of her so she could watch him burn with a single touch of her hand.She was no stranger to the world discovering a secret haven of hers, throwing up a shoddy hotel that housed thousands, kicking locals out in the process.She also wasn’t a stranger to what that did to the land.Her favorite cay on North Caicos, where she’d lived her whole life before relocating to Banberry, was overrun by tourists from every corner of the globe.She had no problem sharing the places she loved, but when the land was raped, abused, left trashed by those who didn’t care like she did?That’s where she drew the line.She couldn’t let that happen here.She’d use every resource available to her to stop this from happening to her home, to her friends’ land.
Starting with getting her team of people mobilized.Maybe they could start a picket line or file injunctions.There had to be something…
Careful.Your visa is already delayed.Don’t do something that could get you kicked out of the country, not when things are finally falling into place with the clinic.
Spring might be a time of rebirth and growth for some, but like some of the more complicated deliveries she assisted with as a rural Montana OB nurse, it appeared that Banberry’s—and by proxy, her own—delivery would be painful.
Just hopefully not fatal.
Ugh.Why couldn’t tourists stop interfering with the land and towns they visited?Sure, it was hypocritical to call herself anything other than an outsider, but she’d made a home here without wrecking everything in her wake.In fact, she’d done her best—Nightingale Pledge and her personal value system—to do no harm and give back to Banberry in every way she could.
This?She reread the gossip paper searching for more clues that might have been excluded from the town’s actual paper.She thought of her new moms that week, all ranchers’ wives, all in city hospitals.If their husbands had to go to the city to care for them, leaving their property exposed and vulnerable, were their ranches at risk of being poached?Especially those that had endured the winter harder than others?The Michaels’s ranch was an example, but so were the Brown’s and Liamson’s.
This was an evisceration that would bleed them all dry if left unchecked.
Thankfully, her nursing education had taught Aurelie where and how to stop a bad bleed.A pressing need to find the source of the cuts to her community filled her, and she knew part of the clotting agent was at home, preparing the weekly Sunday family dinner.She didn’t want to bother them with this, but…
With everything they loved at risk, wasn’t it worth a little discomfort to keep it safe?That was her mantra as she signed out of her shift at the hospital, changed, and began her walk home, bags of her week’s worth of dirty scrubs in her hand.
On her way, she made a mental list of everything she could do to help; her immigration status might be at risk in her country of choice, but she had to do something.
This was her home now, andno onewas going to take it from her.
She began by calling Miranda, her boss at the hospital.First things first, she needed to figure out what to do about her ability to work in the United States.Without that, she couldn’t stay.Once that was under control, she’d organize her friends and get them working on a plan to protect their friends’ properties.
“Aury?Thanks for calling—” Miranda started.
“Ouch!”Aurelie protested, rubbing at a spot as a prick of pain welled up on her neck.“What the devil?”she said, more to herself.It didn’t take long to figure out the cause as a sports car sped by her at over sixty miles an hour, at least twenty over the limit, the sound jarring her out of her reverie and spraying her with gravel that hit her on the shoulder and cheek.
The interruption was a minor annoyance until she was almost forced to dive into the ditch when the car’s back wheels found a patch of gravel on the road and spun out, inches from hitting Aurelie.
Driven by instinct, she threw her bags into the ditch and jumped backward, screaming at the driver, who most likely couldn’t hear her based on the thumping of the bass coming from his Porsche.
“Vell hell, you cracky goat!”Aurelie spat at the back of the car.Only when she was at the apex of a stressful situation did she revert to her island slang, and Christ, was she there now.
“Aury?Aury!”a small voice called from the phone that lay with a cracked screen on the ground beside the road.Aurelie barely heard the sound, all her energy focused on the asshole who’d almost killed her.
Who the hell drives a car like that on roads like this?Her pulse and hair were wild with the brief, albeit petrifying, encounter.The thing is, she knew exactly who would do such a thing.The cocky son of a bitch who almost ran her off the road—in an asinine car no less—had to be that big city prick who wanted to put high rises in the middle of the Valley.
That realization only made his driving more unforgivable.
Then, his car slowed, and turned into the driveway just past Paige and Owen’s.To the Michaels’s property.
