A Little Too Late (Madigan Mountain)

REED

After Ava leaves to go to breakfast with the Sharpes, I sit down and check all my messages. There’s nothing new from my client, so I have to man up and call my anxious boss.

It’s a video chat, because he likes to look you in the eye when he tells you all the ways you’ve fucked up. I position the phone where he can’t see the mountain out the window behind me. I don’t want him to think I’ve fucked off to Colorado just for fun.

He answers from the sofa of his high-rise bachelor pad in Palo Alto. His mood has already gone past handwringing to full on Armageddon. “Reed! Your guy got cold feet, and I had to hear about it at the tennis club.”

Oh shit. “What did Deevers do?”

“He took a meeting with Blink Fifty Capital. And you don’t even know about this? Where are you?”

I would explain, but I know he doesn’t actually care. “Family emergency.”

“You have a family?” Prashant rubs his temples. “Just get home. Get a meeting with Deevers for Monday and beat some sense into him. This is the best deal he can find, and he’s wasting our time and making us look like assholes.”

Not actually true, but he doesn’t want to hear that, either. “Okay. I’m on it,” I promise. “I’ll see you Monday morning.” Which is forty-eight hours from now.

He hangs up, and I toss my phone onto the sofa with a shout of irritation.

Nobody else hears it.

Then I leave a message for Sheila, who will have to make travel plans and finagle our Monday schedule. After that, I shower and head downstairs.

It’s an accident of timing that I arrive downstairs just as the doors are closing on the Sharpes’ backsides.

Go me. “Looks like I arranged this perfectly.”

“Well-played,” my father snorts as he turns around.

Ava looks tense. Uh-oh.

“What did the Sharpes have to say for themselves this morning?”

Ava just shakes her head.

My father is the one who answers. “They were exactly as they’ve been before. No more, no less.”

“All right.” I slide a hand into Ava’s. “Dad, can we talk? Maybe in your office?”

“I suppose.” His chilly tone doesn’t help anything, but at least he turns around and heads toward the office suite.

“Should I make myself scarce?” Ava whispers as we follow him.

“No. You’re part of this. I want you there.”

Her glance says she doesn’t quite believe me, but Ava is the whole reason I’m willing to fight for the mountain. Without her, it’s doubtful I’d be willing to spend time steering the resort into its future.

Hell, if I have to, I’ll change my whole life for this place. And for Ava. It’s scary stuff, but I think I’m ready. The last week has taught me a lot about what’s missing from my life.

My father, of all people, should understand.

We crowd into the inner office, and I close the door. My father moves around the big oak desk to take a seat in his chair. The same messy desk was my grandfather’s before it was his. When I was little, I used to play with my action figures on the floor over by the copy machine.

I don’t remember exactly which year my grandfather retired, and the desk became my father’s. I was in grade school. But the transition doesn’t stand out in my memory because my father had worked at the mountain since the day after graduating from Cornell with a hospitality degree.

It occurs to me now to wonder if he always imagined I’d have that desk next—or Weston or Crew. And I wonder exactly when he realized that wasn’t about to happen.

But now maybe it will. I take a deep breath. “First of all, I want you to know that you have options. If you still want to sell, I can help you find another buyer.”

“If I still want to sell,” my father repeats slowly. “Of course I’m selling. I’ve been saying that this whole time. Did you think I was kidding?”

I feel pressure inside my chest. “No,” I say carefully. I have to remember that the Sharpe’s treachery is a disappointment for my father. He thought he had his retirement figured out. He thought it was going to be simple. He still has to get his head around that. “I didn’t think you were kidding. But it makes sense to call Block and ask what he wants. What if there’s a way to expand Madigan Mountain that doesn’t ruin Penny Ridge?”

My father looks down at his hands. “I won’t work with Block. That’s off the table.”

Shit. “Why? What if I could talk him into selling to us?”

His voice turns hard. “Again, you missed the part where I’m retiring. Melody already has an itinerary for us. We’re headed to Hawaii after Christmas. And from there, we’re headed to Japan, Australia, New Zealand…”

“How decadent,” I say, and it’s hard to keep the sneer out of my voice.

He eyes me from behind the desk. “You can think whatever you think, Reed. I can’t do this job forever just because the Sharpes have a plan you don’t like. Your opinion doesn’t matter here.”

I take a slow breath. He’s actively trying to push me away.

I deserve that. And I get it. Sort of.

Okay, I don’t really get it. “Why would you say that? Why would you yell at me for never coming home and then cut me down when I’m trying to help?”

“Because timing matters. I’ve finally got my life sorted out, and now you want to throw a grenade into my plans. You don’t get to do that. Besides, Reed,” he continues, “the Sharpes will never get that project built the way they drew it. The town council will shut down the worst of it. We don’t have to be the bad guys here.”

“Right, because we don’t have to be the bad guys. We don’t want to kill off the Madigan legacy by selling to the worst humans in property development.”

“I’m retiring,” my father says, low and angry. “Ava, would you give us a few minutes, please?”

She’s out of the room and closing the door almost before the words are out of his mouth.

Hell. “Let’s take a step back and talk about your options,” I try.

“My options are to sell, or not to sell,” he snaps. “It’s not that complicated.”

“The third option is to buy the land from Block,” I point out. “I could help you with that. Hear me out. What if you just retire from running the day-to-day operations of the resort? Ava is ready to do that job. You could retire tomorrow, do some traveling, and then come back to work on a deal with Block. Just explore some possibilities.”

“Jesus, Reed,” my father explodes. “I don’t want to deal with Block! I don’t know why you even think that’s an option! I can’t buy him out. I can’t expand the resort without selling the resort because we are asset rich and cash poor. Whatever Block’s land is worth, it’s more than I have in the company checking account.”

“But I’d help you with the financing,” I say. “Funding good ideas is my day job. We’d just need some investors.”

“Investors.” He says the word as if it tastes bad on his tongue. “I don’t want investors. You’re talking about a complex, years-long project without a guarantee of success. That is the opposite of what I am trying to do. How many times do I have to say it?”

“Dad, I’m willing to—”

“Go home to California, Reed. At no point did I ask for your help.”

A cold kind of dread spreads through my chest. I’m losing this fight, even if I don’t really know why. “Why is it so hard for you to admit that I might know a few things? That I can make this work?”

His face turns red. “Why is it so hard for you to admit you’re a decade too late? If you had shown even the slightest interest in this place before last Tuesday, I’d be tempted by this idea. But you can’t ride in here and tell me not to accept the offer of a lifetime. The time for hypothetical solutions is past!”

“It’s not hypothetical,” I snap. “I can do this. I want to do this.”

My father scoffs, and his tone is mean. “You are so full of shit. You are going back to California, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah. But maybe not permanently. I’d like to—”

“Do you not hear what I’m saying? Am I speaking a different language?”

I take a deep, calming breath. And I give it one more try. “I’m standing here because I care, and I want to help. I care what happens to this place.”

“Do you care enough to quit your fancy job today, move back to Colorado, and see it through?”

I hesitate for a second, because I haven’t worked this part out yet. I think it’s possible for me to still do VC work, but also spend significant time here in Penny Ridge.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” my father says with an arrogant snort. “You’re all talk.”

“Dad. Jesus. My whole attitude has shifted, but I need some time to work out the details.”

“Right. When do you go back?”

Fuck. “Very soon, but—”

“And I’m supposed to turn down a check for millions and sit back while you go back to Silicon Valley? So you can forget for another ten years that this place exists?”

“I’m not going to do that.” And I guess it all comes down to one thing. “Do you trust me, or not?”

I regret the question immediately.

“Why the fuck should I trust you?” His anger is so white-hot that it singes my heart. “You walked away from here fourteen years ago. Gone, except for a trail of canceled tuition checks. You showed your brothers the door, and then they did the same damn thing!”

“Wait, you blame me for Weston and Crew, too? How is that fair?”

He doesn’t shout at me again, but his cold, indifferent tone is worse, somehow. “I’ve been making decisions by myself for a decade. You don’t get to walk in here and fuck with me for fun.”

As if this emotional roller coaster is fun. I realize now that I’ve made a terrible mistake. He was never going to listen, and he still doesn’t give a damn. “So you’re going to sell to those sharks just to spite me? That’s an asshole move, even for you.”

His eyes bulge with fury, and then he does shout. “It’s not about you! I made a promise to Melody. I’m not going to break it just because you’re on a wild hair, remembering this place still exists.”

“It’s great to hear you’re loyal to someone, Dad.”

“Fuck you, Reed.”

My chest aches, and I wish I could rewind the last ten seconds. I’d been trying to take the high road and stay there. But Dad just brings out the worst in me. Maybe that’s a sign I shouldn’t have ignored.

This was never going to work.

“The thing about sharks,” he says, sticking the knife in even deeper, “is that they know how to survive. Look at the Sharpes—three generations, working together. I’m sure they’ll make it four and five and six. The mountain’s best chance is with them. Not you.”

“Wow.” I try to hold my poker face, so he won’t see how much that hurts me. This man always hurts me. I don’t know why I expected today to be any different. “Funny how you think it’s my fault your three sons aren’t standing here beside you.”

His face reddens. “That’s enough. Go home, already. I know just where you stand.”

I take another slow breath, but I already know it’s a lost cause. “Once you sign with Sharpe, it’s over. There’s no way to come back from this.”

“Exactly,” he says through clenched teeth.

“Yeah.” I clear my throat. And then I ask one final question. “You think this is what Mom would have wanted? You chasing me out of here forever?”

He clenches his fists. “That is low. And rich coming from you. Like she’d approve of your actions? Towards your brothers? Towards Ava?”

My heart shatters. “At least I’m still trying to come back.”

“Too late,” he says heavily. “Take your big ideas and go home.”

Having no real alternative, that’s what I do.