The men stare at me, waiting for an answer. Are they serious? “Are you talking to me? You think Coco and I were getting along?”
“You did give her a hard hat,” Isaac points out.
“Yeah, so she wouldn’t die from a freak accident. It would be just my luck an inspector gets killed. And so we’re clear, Ron, that woman and I werenotgetting along.”
We weretotallygetting along, and it pisses me the hell off.
The lambicorn finishes lapping the milk and then curls up beside my chair. For a flicker, I note how cute it is.
Cute for someone else.
I study my hand. Two pair. Nothing that’ll win. “Fold.”
I drop my cards on the table and plow my fingers through my hair. There’s got to be a way to keep the resort on schedule.
Clearly, demanding Coco change her mind won’t budge her. The whole thing makes no sense. There weren’t any restrictions on materials that I know of, yet she’s saying there are.
She’s also saying the ley lines are affected.
Wait a minute . . .
The ley lines.
The police tape.It didn’t burn. It was ignited.
There wasn’t a lighter in her hand, and no one, for the weeks that we’ve been working, has said one damn thing about ley lines.
Excepther.
Because maybe she can somehow sense them.
Maybe she can evenseethem.
Shit.
That’s it.
Coco can see ley lines. She has magic—magic she doesn’t want anyone to discover.
Wait. Before I jump to conclusions, I need to go back and think.
So I replay the entire exchange in my mind, and when I’m finished, only one answer seems possible. My stomach flips. My fingers flex on the table. This is it. This is how I’ll save everything.
Coco Higginbotham, the tables have just turned on you.
Though this feels like victory, another part of me hedges. If what the guys say is true, this could be bad for her.
Don’t worry. Nothing bad will happen to Coco.
Not that I’ll make sure of it. I just don’t think it will.
“Do any of you know where Coco lives?”
Ron eyes me suspiciously. “You’re not going to do anything dumb, are you?”
“No, of course not.”
I’m definitely going to do something dumb.But this isn’t for me. It’s for the project. It’s for my future. I’m protecting what needs to be protected—the resort, which will bring millions in revenue to Mystic Meadows. I’m building, but Coco wants to rip the future apart. Two can play that game.
