She pushed open the window covering she’d closed to keep the heat in.
Next to her car, in the driveway, was a high-end SUV.
Her smile dropped and she peered through the peephole in the door.
Max? Her heart rate double-timed.
What was Maxwell Banks doing knocking on Dameon’s front door?
He stood far enough away that Grace felt comfortable opening it a crack.
She spoke through a three-inch opening. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, hi . . . ah, is Dameon here? I tried calling him, but the cell service sucks.”
“He’ll be here any minute.”
Max stayed where he was and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “I really need to talk to him. Any chance I could wait inside?”
Grace shook her head. “No. Last I looked, you and Dameon had a falling-out.”
Max blew out a breath. “I know. I get it. I’ll go into town. Can you tell him I was here? He doesn’t owe me anything, but I’d really like to talk with him.”
“I can do that.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” With that, Max pulled up the collar of his jacket and ran back out in the rain.
Grace closed the door and secured the lock and watched Max through the window as he jumped in his car. What the actual hell?
As he backed out of the driveway, she sighed in relief.
Dameon was halfway up the canyon road to the house when the paved roadway became a mess of mud and rock. He understood what Grace had originally told him about the area and the road conditions after a big rain. She wasn’t kidding when she said it could become impassable.
Driving through the area in the rain brought home his need for an investor. This was going to take twice the amount of roadwork and infrastructure to make it work. Not everyone buying a home in his development was going to want to drive a truck . . . or a massive SUV like the one headed toward him.
Driving slow enough to avoid the larger rocks that were being knocked into the road by the rain, Dameon passed the SUV. He made it less than two yards before he recognized the car and the driver and slammed on his brakes.
In the rearview mirror, he saw Max do the same.
What the hell are you doing out here?
The red backup lights went on, and Max slowly pulled his car alongside Dameon’s truck.
They both rolled down their windows.
“What are you doing out here?” Dameon asked over the noise of the drumming rain and the vehicle engines.
For a minute it didn’t seem like Max was going to talk. Then he did. “Lena left me.”
Ah, shit. Much as he wanted to pretend Max’s words meant nothing to him, they had too much history to ignore. But he wasn’t about to say he was sorry. Lena was wrong for Max. All wrong. “That’s hard.”
Max looked out his windshield and then leaned out the window and yelled, “I’m sorry, Dameon. I’ve been a shitty friend.”
Damn. What was he supposed to do with that?
“My dad’s sick. Really sick. It had me thinking.”
The girlfriend card Dameon could pass on, but the dad card? No way. He remembered how Max had been there for him when his own dad died.
Max turned his gaze out his windshield. “I feel like my world is falling apart. Lena called it quits right after Christmas, and I thought she hooked back up with you.”
“That isn’t who I am, Max.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I know. I went to the charity dinner thinking maybe she’d be there. And when I saw you and your girlfriend and the team . . . it’s like I reverted back to a cocky high school kid again.” Max turned his gaze to Dameon. “I just want to talk. I know you don’t owe that to me, but I want to make this right.”
Dameon watched the rain running down his windshield and the ticktock of the wipers.
Grace walked back to her drawings and picked up her pencil. She stared at the plans for two solid minutes and knew her concentration was off.
She moved to the fireplace and stoked the logs. There was some serious cold coming from the back bedrooms. After checking the vents in the main room and feeling heat blowing out, she walked through the hallway to make sure all the windows were closed. Sure enough, in an empty room at the very back of the