Max didn’t respond and Trevor looked to me.
“You Nina?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“I’m Trevor,” he told me.
“Yes,” I smiled at him, “I did hear your name read in the will.”
He smiled back but my smile died when he spoke. “Rumor has it you caught the uncatchable.” He jerked his head to Max, I was startled by his words and didn’t have the chance to recover when he went on. “Talk to his stubborn ass. Get him to see sense.”
“Um…” I began, my muscles growing tight.
“Trevor, shut it,” Max growled.
“Curt’s gone, Max, someone’s gotta step into his shoes,” Trevor told him.
“That’d be you,” Max returned.
“Ain’t me and we both know it,” Trevor replied, leaned closer and said low, “Now, you’d be doin’ it for Bitsy.” Max made no response, his face was stony and Trevor regarded him for several seconds before he finished. “’Spect, you think on that awhile, I’ll see you at the office.” He nodded to me, mumbled a, “Pleasure to meet you,” and walked away.
I turned to Max and asked, “Darling, are you okay?”
Max looked down at me and said, “Gave me the acreage around my land.”
“Sorry?”
“That fifteen acres? It’s acres he bought up for what he was plannin’ for my land. That’s what he gave me.”
I leaned into him and put my hand on his bicep as I whispered, “Oh my.”
A muscle leaped in Max’s jaw, he bent closer to me and whispered back, “Ain’t what you think, babe, the inheritance tax on that land’s gonna be crippling.”
My hand flexed on his bicep as my heart squeezed and I breathed, “Max.”
“I pay it, it’ll cut deep and it’ll be hard for me to keep all of it. Means I’ll have to sell it. I’ll make a whack on it but whoever I sell it to isn’t gonna keep it clean. They’ll build. Means I’ll have condos or houses or somethin’ restin’ at the edge of my land. Land that’s been unspoiled for… fuckin’… ever.”
“Darling,” I whispered.
“And it’s the land that butts the edge of the bluff.”
My fingers spasmed on his bicep, my stomach dropped in an unpleasant way and I stared at him.
Then I got closer and said, “Max, you can’t sell it.”
“He f**ked me, babe. He said I won but that was his sick joke. He f**ked me. Instead of givin’ that land to Trev or Bitsy, who’d have to do somethin’ with it themselves which wouldn’t be on me, he gave it to me knowin’ I’d have to sell, knowin’ he’d be makin’ me ruin my mountain, destroy my bluff. When if I stayed with him years ago, I’d have my land, that land and I’d be in a position to afford to keep both just like it is.”
I felt my heart begin to race as that red started seeping over my eyes. I didn’t even know him, but I hated Curtis Dodd.
“You can’t sell,” I declared.
“Got no choice, Duchess.”
“I’ll help you.”
Max’s already stony face turned to granite.
Then he growled, “Not gonna happen.”