Page 4 of A Longtime (and now NFL player) Nemesis

Still, she didn’t leave the room right away. Her mind was coming up with reasons, excuses she should delay. And then worse, it came up with all sorts of scenarios where Carson sneered at her and told her off before she could even explain about Matt.

That probably wouldn’t happen. The two of them weren’t in high school anymore. They were adults now.

Maybe Carson would be understanding.

Although probably not.

Carson Clark had never been known for his empathy.

3

Carson scowled at his phone. He’d called Matt five times today, and the guy still hadn’t responded. Matt was supposed to bring a truck full of hand-scraped hardwood flooring to the cabin this morning so it could start acclimatizing to the house’s humidity. The wood needed to be here for two to three weeks before installation could happen.

Instead, Matt had been a no-show, forcing Carson to fill in for him, ripping off door trim and baseboards. His foot was only a few weeks out of a cast and even though he wore a boot, he was supposed to stay off his foot as much as possible. It was beginning to ache, a sign he’d overdone it.

He shoved his phone in his pocket and limped into the kitchen. He was tired of this injury, tired of it slowing him down. He’d been powerful once, a force to be reckoned with on the field. Now he felt like an old man, and the sharp pains that occasionally shot through his foot were a reminder that his injury might never heal the way it was supposed to. His much-worked-for career in the NFL might already be over.

At first, buying and flipping the 6,000-square-foot cabin had seemed like not only a good investment but a good way to spend his time while he did physical therapy and waited for his foot to recover. Nolan Gordon, the Broncos’ head coach, had mentioned to Carson that his wife wanted to buy a summer home in Montana. A secluded place in the woods with acreage where his family could retreat for a couple of months each year to enjoy nature. Something in the range of five million. He’d thought Carson might know of a place since he was from the state.

So when Carson came back home to Lark Springs and found a fixer-upper near national forest land that had gone into foreclosure for three and a half million dollars, it seemed the perfect project to renovate and sell. The land was beautiful—worth the money alone. The cabin sat nestled on seventy-five acres and was only a couple of hours away from Yellowstone.

Lark Springs, the closest town, was an hour away, and although the town was by no means cosmopolitan, it had a quaint tourist vibe. People came to fish, kayak, or just enjoy the summer sun at the river. The town was big enough to have the things people needed—basic shopping, several restaurants, and medical facilities.

Buying the cabin hadn’t seemed that risky. After all, he knew a fair amount about construction work. Those jobs had always been the highest-paying ones a teenager could get in Lark Springs during the summer, and Carson’s size and strength had always gotten him a place on the crew. Besides, he already had an interested buyer. And Coach Gordon had grown even more interested when Carson showed him pictures of the place.

Perhaps the mountain views and stretches of pine trees had entranced Carson more than they should have. As he made the decision to liquify some of his investments for the bulk of the down payment, he told himself that if Coach Gordon didn’t want the place, maybe he would keep it for himself. Once he started playing football again, he’d have the money to pay it off.

Carson’s father had added two hundred thousand of his savings for the down payment, and Carson had taken out a short-term loan for the rest. When Mrs. Gordon found out that he’d decided to flip the place, she’d sent him a list of design requests—all high-end, including a new deck. But Mr. Gordon assured Carson that if he renovated it to her taste, they’d buy the property.

Even after adding in materials and labor to renovate the place, Carson could give the Gordons a good price and still clear a nice profit. And perhaps the best part, he planned on doubling his father’s investment. His father wasn’t one to take charity, but investments were different.

Choosing Matt Travers as a project manager had turned out to be a mistake. There was no doubt the guy knew his stuff, but in the month and a half they’d been working on the place, he’d fallen behind schedule and frequently left early despite that fact. The idea of working overtime to catch up didn’t seem to occur to him. Matt would’ve never made it on a football team. You showed up to practice whether you were tired or not.

Carson slumped into a folding chair he’d set up by the newly installed kitchen cabinets. They still needed the knobs and drawer pulls attached. Ditto for the ones in the laundry room and all of the bathrooms. But it was after four, and the crew had been here since seven—a long day when you were doing manual labor. He told them he would see them tomorrow and put his foot up on a nearby step-ladder. He’d rest it for a bit before hobbling outside to the two-bedroom guest house he stayed in. The cabinet hardware could wait until tomorrow.

His phone rang.Matt. It had better be Matt with a good excuse for taking the day off.

Instead, the caller ID showed Coach Gordan’s name.

Carson answered the call. “Hey, Coach. How are you doing?”

“Can’t complain,” Mr. Gordon’s booming voice replied. He was a large man in his mid-forties, the sort of person Hollywood would’ve cast as the mayor of some backwater town—a character who never looked completely comfortable in a suit. “I wanted to touch base with you about the cabin. My wife is taking a cruise in mid-July and wants to see it before she leaves. We thought we’d come July fourteenth. I know that’s five days early, but we don’t mind if you’re not finished. You’ll be close enough that we’ll get a good idea of what it will look like.”

“Sure. If that’s what you want.” Carson would have to make sure that the crew was all on their best behavior that day.

“Good. Irena is looking at a couple of other places in the Yellowstone area, but I’m hoping she likes your place best.”

Had he heard that right? “She’s looking at other places?” Carson had known that the deal was always conditional upon whether Mrs. Gordon liked the cabin, but this was the first time he’d heard that she was looking at other places.

“Yes. The woman loves to shop. She can’t buy anything without checking out multiple options.” Mr. Gordon sighed with the toleration of a martyr. “I can’t go clothes shopping with her. She’s got to try on fifteen things before deciding on one.”

Carson remained silent for a moment. He wanted to say, “I thought we had an agreement. You told me as long as I renovated this cabin to your wife’s tastes, we had a deal. You should’ve mentioned all this before I let her pick out expensive flooring, cabinets, and fixtures—not to mention the deck.”

Making Coach Gordon angry wouldn’t increase the chances of a sale, though. Carson rubbed his forehead and tried not to sound irritated. “We’ve spent a lot of effort and money following her instructions.”

“I know you have. I’m sure the place will look great. You would’ve had to pay an interior designer a lot for her suggestions. She’s got talent. Could’ve been a professional.”

That’s how Coach Gordon was spinning this—his wife had just been giving them free design advice? How should Carson respond?

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