Bitterroot Lake, Alicia Beckman [good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT] 📗

am so sorry. It was the only way to save the company. If we didn’t get that land, we wouldn’t be able to compete. We’d be forced to sell out to one of the international conglomerates and let control of the company leave not just the family but the valley. I know, the way Deer Park’s grown, not everyone thinks the lumber company matters anymore. But I do. Tourism is great, and I love a good microbrew as much as the next guy, but jobs making burgers and beer will never pay what working in the woods or the mill does. We want this valley to keep growing, we need this company to keep growing so families can afford to stay here. It’s my responsibility. Jeremy understood that. I don’t know why you think the date we gave the Hoyts Porcupine Ridge has any relevance to buying it back, but—”

“What are you talking about? What does Jeremy have to do with any of this?”

“I had to do it.” Connor swiveled his chair toward her and leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, pleading with his hands. “I hated the subterfuge, but Hoyt wouldn’t do business with us directly, and we needed that land. If Lucas hadn’t set things up the way he did—”

“Lucas?”

“Oh, God.” Connor raised his hands. “I told him he should tell you, but he said you’d never agree.”

Somehow, Sarah got to the old oak chair. Somehow, she managed to listen without screaming as her brother told her what he and her husband—her dead, sainted husband—had done. How George Hoyt had asked Lucas to find him a buyer for Porcupine Ridge. How Lucas suggested that the obvious buyer was McCaskill, but Hoyt said no; the McCaskill family cheated his a hundred years ago, leaving them land-rich and cash-poor and refusing to buy Hoyt timber, then forced them out of the business altogether a few decades back, and he’d be damned before he did business with the McCaskills.

“That is prime timber land,” she interjected. “Yes, it’s in poor shape, but that’s on George. He could never be bothered to manage the timber. He let blowdown rot. When fire blackened Lynx Mountain, he could have harvested, then restored the land and planted seedlings, but he did nothing. Dad and Grandpa bought that mill to save George, not to punish him.”

“I know.” Connor stood. “I know. Lucas came to me and said Hoyt wanted to sell, but not to me. I was terrified that one of the internationals would snap it up. Not only would we lose out on the land, we’d be giving a major competitor a foothold in our back yard. Literally, right next to the family’s main holdings.”

“Connor, no. You didn’t put the lodge up as collateral on a loan to buy the Hoyt land.” One of the questions she had come here to ask.

“No, I—”

“And what about Jeremy?”

They stopped, interrupted by a knock on the door. Connor gestured and young Matt Kolsrud, in Carhartts and heavy work boots, opened it, glancing at Sarah before speaking. “Boss, I need to talk to you about that extra time off. You said we’d work it out this afternoon.”

“Right, right. Tell Steph what you need”—he gestured toward the woman watching them from the other side of the window—“and that I said it’s okay.”

“Um, sure. Great. Thanks.” Matt backed out and shut the door.

Connor sank heavily into his chair and it squeaked in protest.

“Lucas knew how badly I wanted that land.” he said. “And that George Hoyt would sell it to the girl making ice cream cones at the Dairy Queen before he’d sell it to me. So, being Lucas, he figured a way around that.”

What would her brother say next? She wanted him to hurry up and explain, explain what Lucas had to do with George Hoyt and Porcupine Ridge and the H of their great-grandmother’s journal. And Jeremy.

And Jeremy.

But at the same time, she wanted him to shut up. To not say another word. To pretend her husband had not kept something so big, so terrible, from her.

“I meant to tell you all this yesterday, when we were in Grandpa’s office at the lodge, but then Holly came in, and I wanted you to know first.” Connor rested his forearms on the desk, on top of the file that documented the company history. “Lucas proposed setting up a shell company to buy the land. Every acre, from the ridge down to the lake, including the Hoyt home place. It was a solid plan. The buyer would have no visible ties to McCaskill Land and Lumber, and George would never know we were behind it.”

“Until you started working on the property.”

“The deal would be long closed by then, and our involvement could be easily explained. The mysterious out-of-state buyer would contract with us to clean up the property, blah blah blah. Happens all the time. Usually it’s eighty acres or a couple hundred, not several thousand, but—same difference. But for a purchase that size, we needed financing.”

A sour heat began to grow in her stomach.

“You borrow money all the time. Businesses finance growth every day.”

He eyed her seriously. “We needed a lot of money. And I was afraid that if we requested a loan that size anywhere in the area, word would get out and one of the big boys would swoop in. So we went to Jeremy.”

“My husband loaned you—this shell company—the money to buy Porcupine Ridge?”

“And funds to upgrade the mill. He understood what we needed to do and why. Gave us good terms, a competitive rate. The land itself was the collateral. If we defaulted, he would take title. And he was my brother-in-law. He wasn’t going to screw me and unload it in a fire sale to Georgia-Pacific.”

“When was this?”

“Last summer. Before he got sick.”

When she couldn’t pretend he was under the influence of stress, or chemo. And not telling her after the deal was done, leaving that gnarly task to her brother? She couldn’t decide if that