Page 71 of Lost and Found

Inside, the meeting room is fuller than I'd have expected, but I recognize every person in there as a local. Strange that the spectators would protest outside, but not join in the meeting where they could voice their opinions in front of the folks with the power to do something about it.

I wave to Mayor Joyce Trenton and her assistant, Roger Lane. The rest of the town council sits in the audience. I suspect the mayor wants to make the meeting feel less formal in a departure from her predecessor's way of doing things.

Kaia waves me over and I slide into the seat next to her. On her other side are two of her colleagues, who will work with her at the resort. None of the bigwig corporate suits for the resort are here.

I lean across Kaia and shake the hands of her colleagues before I turn my attention to her.

She's beautiful. Her skin is glowing and her eyes are bright. Her fiancé arrived last night, and she's clearly pleased to have him close. I'd expected to meet him tonight, but if he's here, he's not sitting with Kaia.

Shockingly, the idea of meeting Kaia's fiancé doesn't bother me. It should, but until I sat down next to Kaia, I'd forgotten all about her future husband arriving. My thoughts have been full of Dani.

I've texted Dani every night since the cousin games and stopped at the bookstore to buy her pastries every morning. I haven't asked her out on a date again, because I don't want to be a pushy asshole.

I'm willing to wait and convince her I'm not the uptight guy she seems to think I am.

"Hi," I say to my ex. "Quite the crowd outside."

She frowns. "I hope they come inside and give us the chance to win them over. Any luck finding our furry vandal?"

"None. Whoever it is, they're fit and fast."

"And they aren't stupid. Other than that first obvious act of vandalism,they've been doing things we can't prove are caused by a human vandal. Yesterday, our crew arrived to find all the trees they'd cleared rolled back into the cleared area in such a way that it could arguably have been caused by an animal knocking the pile over. The crew hadn't secured the trees they'd loaded onto the flatbed transport truck."

I groan in sympathy. "That had to be a day's work to clean up."

"It was." She riffles through the bag at her feet, pulls out a folder, and hands it to me. "I've been doing some research on the big players in town, business owners, wealthy retirees, realtors, trying to find out who might be our Bigfoot or who might be paying someone to run around as Bigfoot. This is the list I've come up with."

I flip through the folder. Her list is three pages long. "We're going to need proof to get anyone to admit to playing Bigfoot."

Kaia sighs. "I know. But it felt better to do something than sit around waiting for the next attack."

Mayor Joyce stands and calls the meeting to order. She hosts town hall meetings every month, but this is a special meeting to talk about the resort and to quiet any concerns members of the town might have.

It is not an opportunity for anyone to convince Joyce or the council to stop construction of the resort. That decision has been made and won't be unmade under any circumstances.

Kaia speaks first and answers questions about how many jobs the resort will offer, how little impact it will have on the environment, and how many tourists she predicts it will bring to town every year.

The town asks questions of her, but they don't get angry or aggressive. I suspect it helps that Kaia is a local and from a beloved family. Plus, most of the locals have accepted that the resort is going to happen and they might as well make the most of it.

When Kaia's done, it's mayor Joyce who has to respond to the hardball questions.What are you going to do about building more roads to make increased tourist traffic manageable? How are we going to expand our annual winter festival to allow for all the extra visitors? How much of the revenue of the resort will the town get in tax money and how is the town going to use it?

All good questions, but ones I already know the answers to. The roads will be built, the town will expand its festival, and things will change. The tax money will help facilitate those changes, but it will all happen far slower than everyone wants.

"No one's asked why anyone would want to build a ski resort here when the average winter temperatures are increasing," I say, leaning toward Kaia as the meeting ends and folks rise from their seats. "That was my first question when your bosses showed up in my town."

"Yourtown." Kaia snorts and shakes her head. "Skiing is only one small part of this resort, and my bosses see an untapped market down here. Never mind that there are already several ski resorts in Virginia. My bosses believe we can do it better."

"And what do you think?" I twist to face the woman I once believed would be my future.

She meets my gaze head on. "I think weather is as unpredictable as business." She shrugs. "If the skiing is a dud, the corporation has back-up upon back-up plans to bring in tourists."

I'd seen the plans and the back-up plans. "Is the corporation trying to prove themselves outside of the standard ski resort model?"

Kaia smiles. "I always said you were one of the smartest people I knew, Grant Holiday." She leans in closer. "I'm not privy to the secrets of the top execs, but my suspicion is that you are correct. They want to expand into building a new kind of resort, but they're too well known for building ski resorts. I suspect Catalpa Creek is a transition between the old and new for them."

I stand when she does. In the end, it makes no difference if the resort offers skiing or mountain biking or rustic mountain vacations. They're all going to take up the same amount of space. Too much.

"I'll see you next week for our meeting," Kaia says outside the building. The protesters have moved on and all is quiet in downtown Catalpa Creek.

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