A Little Too Late (Madigan Mountain #1)(51)

Reed is waiting. I feel a flutter in my belly.

A smarter girl would go home to her own apartment now.

But I guess I’m not as smart as I thought I was.





CHAPTER 24




BIGGER THAN A CAT





REED

Halley gives me a piercing stare from behind the bar, and I wait to learn my fate. “Fine,” she says eventually. “I’ll sell you a bottle of the Russian River Cabernet. But I’m charging you full price.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.” I plunk down my credit card. And then I sort out another room-service order—pizza, of course—while she uncorks the wine for me and provides me with two glasses.

“You’re an angel,” I tell her, just because I think it will piss her off. “Pure sweetness and light.”

She scowls. “If you break Ava’s heart, I will end you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Friend of the year. I get it. Night, sweetness.”

I head upstairs to find Sheila still perched in my suite, laptop open, a spreadsheet in front of her. “Hey, boss!” she crows. “Did you find out what the bad guys are up to?”

“Yeah, and it’s even worse than I thought.”

I show her the photos on my phone, and she makes all the appropriate horror-filled gasps. “You and I could make a classier design out of Lego bricks. This shall not stand!”

“That was pretty much my opinion, too. It’s like the evil, awful version of the plan my parents had for that piece of land twenty years ago.”

“Ooh!” She sits up straighter. “What did they want to do?”

I flip to a free page in my notebook and start to sketch. “If you went to the top of Madigan peak, and then skied in the wrong direction, you could get to town. Main Street basically dead ends into the foothills. But Block owns a big tract of land right here…” I draw a shape just to the east of Main Street. “It’s pastureland, even though Block had moved his herd out of town by the time I was in high school. My parents wanted to buy this land and put another ski lift right here.” I draw an arrow up the mountain. “And maybe develop some condos at the edges to pay for it. The other hotels in the area would love this plan. And townies would be walking distance to the lift.”

“Sort of like Park City, Utah?” Sheila asks. “The lift goes right downtown.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I agree. “The town of Penny Ridge has better highway access than the ski resort, and more buildable land.”

Still doodling, I sketch Main Street into the drawing, picturing its Western-style low-slung buildings. When we’d driven through Penny Ridge tonight, I’d noticed how nice all those antique buildings still look. As a teenager, I hadn’t appreciated how rare that is. How picturesque.

In the right hands, this would be a really cool expansion.

There’s a tap on the door. And when I answer it, both Ava and our pizza have arrived. “Happy to see the both of you,” I say cheerfully.

Ava’s smile is a little tight, but she squeezes my arm as she passes into the living room. “Sheila, thank you for lending me the boots. You’re a lifesaver.”

“No problem.”

I collect the pizza, and then get down to the business of pouring the wine. “Who wants a glass of red?”

“Not me,” Sheila says, standing up. “Kids, I’m out of here. Enjoy your wine and pizza.”

“Oh, we always enjoy our pizza.” I give Ava a silly look, and she cracks a smile.

“Hey, boss?” Sheila says as she’s zipping her laptop away. “Prashant is in a mood. I’m supposed to make sure you call him back tonight or first thing tomorrow.”

“Tonight?” I echo as I do the math. It’s Friday night, and VCs are pretty notorious for working like dogs. Even the billionaires.

But a Friday night call from the boss is still a little extreme. Uh-oh.

“He didn’t say exactly why he was calling,” she says softly. “But I fear the worst.”

Shit. “You think Deevers didn’t sign the paperwork? Fuck—is he going to back out?”

Her expression is tense. “I don’t know. Maybe Prashant only wanted a Netflix recommendation. But my mind ran to the worst-case scenario.”

“Fuck.” I slide down on the sofa like a slouching schoolboy. “Thank you for coming to Colorado with me, Sheila. I know you probably have better things to do on a Friday night.”

“The hours of this job suck, Reed, but the entertainment value is high. Besides, the skiing is going to be awesome tomorrow.”

I smile up at the ceiling. “I used to skip school on powder days. My mother would call us in sick, and the secretary at the middle school would joke with her. ‘It’s altitude sickness again, Mrs. Madigan?’ And she’d say, ‘Yeah, it’s really bad this time of year.’”

“And now you don’t miss work even when you are sick,” she points out. “You work most weekends. You only go out for business dinners.”

“Enough, Sheila. You’re making me look bad in front of Ava.”

Sheila just grins. “Call Prashant. Eat some dinner. I’m going to go down to the bar to meet Harper.”