Page 66 of Into the Lion's Den (Secrets of the Northland Shifters)

She picked up a piece of paper from a stack on the bar and asked the bartender a question that I couldn’t hear. She turned the paper over, and the bartender handed her a pen.

What was she up to? For the last few weeks, she’d been disappearing for hours at a time. Sam had mentioned her borrowing the Jeep and heading to town the other day too.

The bartender said something, and she scribbled on the back of the paper while biting down on her lower lip.

My gut clenched, having wanted to bite down on that lip myself for far too long.

She folded the paper and slipped it into her back pocket, thanking the bartender, then leaving.

“Reese?”

I snapped my attention back to the table and found my siblings were all staring at me.

“Right,” I said. “Short story: we’re being offered five million for the business and assets, assuming all debts. That’s one million for each of us.”

“You’re alpha. You wouldn’t take more?” Sam asked.

“I haven’t been your alpha long enough to have earned more than a one-fifth share.”

“Would they keep the lodge that Dad built?” Mel asked quietly.

“He said they wanted to keep the business running, but they also want to expand the area. Build condominiums, a golf course, and a—”

“Golf course?” Toby interrupted. “Does Uncle Joe know about this?”

“He’s familiar with this development group. He designed a course for them near Ely.”

“Doeshethink we should sell?”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter what he thinks. He’s not a member of this family.”

“I don’t like the idea of the trees being torn down,” Angel said.

“I don’t either,” I said.

“If we sell, what becomes of us?” Sam asked. “Do we stick together, or go our separate ways?”

It wasn’t a totally unexpected question. True mountain lions were solitary creatures. There was a little bit of that in all of us.

“That would be up to each of you,” I said, and Melanie’s head jerked toward me, her eyebrows raised.

“Dad would want us to stick together,” Toby said. “And if we leave Evergreen, we may never find out what really happened to him.”

“I share your concern,” I said. “But the likelihood of us ever learning anything useful isn’t high enough for it to be a factor in our decision making.”

The table went silent. Sam pushed his plate away. Angel drained his bottle of beer. Toby stared at his plate as if the answers lay in his burger, while Mel twisted the paper wrapper from her straw tighter and tighter around her little finger.

“Listen,” I said. “We don’t have to make a decision here, or even today. But the offer won’t be on the table forever. And one more disaster could either lower our value so much that the offer drops significantly, or its retracted altogether. If that happens and we end up losing the resort…”

“You’re thinking bankruptcy?” Angel asked. “Fucking beautiful.”

“Maybe Dad sent us this real estate developer,” Toby said.

“Toby,what?” I asked impatiently, not in the mood for whatever it was he was trying to say.

“Like…heaven sent. You know? Like Dad knows we’re in trouble, and he’s throwing us a lifeline from the beyond.”

“Sounds like him,” Melanie murmured.

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