Page 33 of Paging Dr. Breakup
Mom gave a smile that came across as mildly aggressive. “After I told him we wouldn’t give permission for a survey, your father told him, quote, to ‘go to hell’ when the man kept on talking.”
Pop matched Mom’s tight grin. “Then I grabbed my rifle from inside the front door.”
Cal’s spine went ramrod straight. “That should have taken care of it,” he said. Having to defend their homestead by force. Not the situation he wanted them in. Not at all.
“That’s what I thought,” Mom said.
“I assume he eventually went away.”
“Yes, but he seemed pretty determined.” Worry creased Mom’s forehead as she reached for her shirt pocket. “He left a card.” She fished it out of her pants pocket and handed it to him.
Cal didn’t recognize the name. The information could be easily verified. Looked official enough. An icy finger of dread worked itself through his chest. “You mind if I hold onto this for a bit?”
“What are you going to do, son?”
“Some research. Does he truly represent DNR? Is the request even legitimate?” He would give the guy a stern warning to stay off his family’s homestead. At least at this time. But he held off sharing that part of the plan and instead stowed the card in his vest.
“Who else has property on the Ray Mountain range?” Deirdre asked. “Besides our family’s property, yours, and the Koyukon corporation’s land?”
Mom shook her head. “We have a lot of acres between the three of us. There are three more property owners with tracts on this range.”
Cal looked up. “We were talking about this issue earlier. Could the land speculators actually go around the properties?”
Mom looked at Pop. “That would require making miles of roads to get to the backside of the range. Building bridges strong enough to support large machinery. They’d need to create a work site for all of that equipment as well.”
Deirdre toyed with her glass of water. “We should set up a meeting with all of the involved property owners and the corporation elders. Make sure everyone’s got a unified front so that we’re protected against future incidents. Especially given the persistence of those people, trying to resurvey previously platted land. That’s worrisome. Involve town leadership if need be.”
“That’s a good idea, dear,” Mom said.
Pop grunted but nodded.
Pushing up from the table, Mom grabbed chocolate chip cookies from the countertop and passed them around.
Cal’s head whirled. He loved Yukon Valley and didn’t want outsiders exploiting it for their own gain. Part of him wanted to stand up to those prospectors. Dig in. Fight back.
But his parents couldn’t stay here and neither could Cal. Part of his reason for returning to Yukon Valley was his plans to get them moved and settled in a bigger town like Fairbanks, or better yet, Seattle, near Cal. Maybe if there was a sliver of access outside of his family’s property, that would resolve the fight with the prospector. Remove the conflict.
Make it easier to encourage his parents to move away.
He took in Deirdre’s concerned expression as she chatted with Mom and Pop. Her blue gaze flitted to him, and she shot him a tiny half-smile that warmed him more than the stew.
There might be more to leave in Yukon Valley than the homestead.
Chapter Twelve
Deirdre shook offthe déjà vu from the Garretts’s dining room. The glow of lamplight and the warmth from the wood-burning stove in the living room brought back a rush of memories from high school. She and Elijah and Calvin, sitting at this exact table while they plotted their next adventure. Hanging out in the living room while they made homecoming dance decorations. Every recollection, of course, involved Aggie and Bruce.
Truth be told, she now saw in Bruce and Aggie the parents she no longer had. A sigh caught in her chest.
“Well, it’s getting late,” Aggie murmured.
Bruce grumbled, “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is, dear.” She tilted her head toward Calvin and Deirdre.
They thought—oh, no. A sour taste coated her tongue. Deirdre and Calvin’s deception looked good on paper, but she never thought through how it could truly affect people she cared about.
“I do have to work tomorrow.” Deirdre gave all of them an easy out.
