Page 63 of All Autumn
He rose from his chair and walked around his table. “I’d rather see local boys get that property. You and Adam come up with something I can’t refuse, ya hear?”
“I hear.” He’d deliberately told me it was an outsider wanting his land and implied that it was someone with money. Our pencil would have to be sharper than we’d wanted.
After leaving the Humphreys’, I got hamburgers at a drive-through, then drove to the construction site of a log home we were building for a couple retiring to the Blue Ridge Mountains from Minnesota. I found Adam perched at the top of a twenty-foot ladder braced against the stone fireplace. Peering up, I saw that he was installing recessed lighting.
My twin loved building things, had from as far back as I could remember, and the things he built, like our luxury log homes, were beautiful. He was a true artist. I couldn’t build something as simple as a doghouse if my life depended on it. But I could negotiate my way out of a paper bag and sell sawdust to a lumber mill.
We had three crews, the one at this house and at two other log homes we were building. How Adam managed three crews and kept everything on schedule was beyond my understanding. On the other hand, clients, contracts, and keeping the books made him want to crawl into a hole and pull the dirt over him. We were both happy with our roles, and that was all that counted.
“Yo,” I called up to him. “We need to talk.” I held up the bag of burgers. “I brought lunch.”
“Almost done here. Give me a minute.”
The pallets of wood flooring had arrived and were stacked in the middle of the living room. I grabbed two bottles of water from his cooler, then walked over and perched on top of the pallets. A few minutes later Adam hustled down the ladder. He unbuckled his tool belt, dropping it next to me.
“What’s up?”
I handed him one of the burgers and one of the fries. “We have a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone wants the land. Made an offer for it yesterday.”
“Damn. Who? Did he say?”
“Nope, only that whoever it is isn’t a local.”
I finished off my hamburger, wadded up the paper, and dropped it in the bag. “He hasn’t accepted yet, so we still have a chance at it. I told him I’d get back to him by tomorrow. What do you want to do? Go back with a higher offer or forget it?”
“We’ve looked. Nothing else is suitable. That land’s perfect for what we want.”
“I know. So how much should we up it?”
He shrugged. “You decide.”
“Figured you’d say that.” I threw a French fry at him. “You better hope I never run away and join the circus. You’d never manage the business side without me.”
“You join the circus, I’m coming with you.”
“Deal.” I hopped off the pallet. “Old Man Humphrey said I needed to sharpen my pencil, so I guess I’ll go do that.”
“Haven’t seen much of you lately.”
And here we go. I’d been expecting a little brotherly talk. “Been busy.”
“Yeah, with Autumn. She’s our friend, Connor. I don’t want to see her hurt.” Eyes the same blue as mine looked at me with concern. “Or you either.”
“We’re just having a good time together. Neither one of us is going to get hurt.” I understood where he was coming from. Savannah had seriously messed with his head, and he didn’t want to see the same thing happen with me.
“I hope you’re right. Let me know how things go on the land.”
“Of course.”
Adam kept women at a distance, except for Autumn and Jenn. That was only because we’d all grown up together, and he was comfortable with them. He dated as much as me—or as much as I had in the past—but since Savannah, he never went out with the same woman more than once or twice. We used to go carousing in Asheville together, but I hadn’t had the desire to do that since hooking up with Autumn. I’m sure he missed that.
Walking out to my car, I started feeling guilty that I hadn’t spent much time with my brother lately. I called Autumn.
“Hey, beautiful,” I said when she answered.
