CHAPTER 20
COLT
The week that followed the protest was the kind of week that made a man question every decision he’d ever made. Cody and I had both decided our massive property was a very good place to hang out. I was not interested in picking eggshells from my hair again.
Mom had called on Monday and said she and Dad were flying in. She said it would be good for us to have the family together. It was my family circling the wagons. They didn’t say they knew, but I knew they knew shit was going sideways. Charlie had shown up with his wife, Olivia, and their two kids, which added just the right amount of excitement to the house.
Cody had somehow managed to recruit Mom into making her enchiladas, which meant the kitchen smelled like every good memory from our childhood. She was at the stove wearing a red apron. I knew people saw our family and assumed they knew us. They thought a bunch of billionaires must be stuck up. Pretentious. But we were all very normal. We were close. Our mom cooked meals. We had to do the dishes and take out the trash.
I grabbed a beer and went out to the terrace with it, watching the sun go down over the water. I could hear the kids squealing,clearly excited about something. Instead of the noise stressing me out, it helped me relax. I liked spending time with my family.
“Here.” Charlie appeared beside me and handed me a fresh beer without asking if I needed one. “Cody says you’re having some trouble.”
“Cody talks too much.”
“I asked him because I heard some stuff. What’s going on with Judd Mathers?”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“I’m sure it is but you have to know the family name is being talked about.”
I took a deep breath and decided to just be honest with him. He might be able to help. “I want to shut it down,” I said.
“Shut it down,” he repeated.
“The port project. All of it.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Colt.”
“I know.”
“You’ve been building toward this thing for the better part of a year,” he said. “You told me at Christmas this was going to be the one that changed everything.”
“I know. I was wrong.”
“This isn’t something you get to just change your mind about,” he said.
“I’m not taking it lightly.”
“The penalties alone are going to be rough.”
“I know.”
He turned back to the water. “So help me understand,” he said. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re in the home stretch. The investors are still mostly on board. What happened?”
“You know the Tucker farm?” I asked.
He looked at me sideways. “What about it?”
“Imagine an old buddy from high school shows up at the front door,” I said. “Big smile. Expensive suit. He tells you he’s been buying up parcels. Quietly. One at a time. He’s got the Tucker land. He’s buying it all to build a casino.”
Charlie blinked. “It would ruin everything.”
My gaze focused on the water. The glow from a fire down the beach. “It would bring money, and jobs, and we’d have the chance to open our farm up to tourists and locals alike and expand our property, business ventures, and profits. But it would come at a steep cost.”
“The cost of ourhome,” Charlie said.
“Your kids would grow up on a totally different Anderson ranch,” I said. “And that’s what I’d be doing to everyone who lives in Surfside. I’d be taking their homes. Their memories. In ten years, none of it will be recognizable. Parents wouldn’t be able to show their kids the places they had their first kiss or where the kids flew their first kite. Our progress will destroy everything they want to pass on to the next generation.”