“Then, we have a deal.” He thrust out his hand, and I shook it. His grip was firm as always, and it was over in a heartbeat.
“So where would you start this whole battling-the-town thing?” I asked, returning to my salad.
Dad looked to Dorothy, who shook her head, dabbing at her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re looking at me, Arthur Daniels. I can’t remember the last time you took my advice on anything.”
“Come on, Dorothy,” Dad cajoled.
“You already know what I’m thinking.”
“The Historical Society,” he guessed.
Every road around here seemed to lead back to that damn organization.
“It’s the fastest way to remind this town who he is and where he comes from. Out of the thirty-five voting members, there are only five founders living in Alba, and your boy comes from one.” She turned to me. “But you have to start acting like you don’t hate everyone and everything this town stands for.”
“I can do that.” I didn’t hate everyone. Just the majority of Alba.
“And cover those up.” She motioned toward my tattoos. “Long sleeves for at least a month. You’re scaring the little kids.”
I laughed, thinking of Rose and her absolute lack of fear as I used her unicorn ice pack. “You mean I’m offending the morning crew at Ivy’s.”
She scoffed. “Don’t underestimate the power of gossiping old women and a morning hair routine.”
“And how exactly do you want me to win over the Historical Society when I’m aware that Xander is already using your vote and sitting in your council seat? Plus, they already despise me.” Xander and I wouldn’t qualify for our own voting memberships until Dad passed on, and even then, I had zero personal property to contribute to the historical district. It was all owned by the mining company.
His eyes narrowed in thought as he looked out the window, over the ridge that led to my house and beyond. “Setting fire to the bunkhouse definitely didn’t make you many friends in the society.”
My jaw locked.
“You have to give them something they’ve wanted for years,” he finished slowly.
Dorothy’s eyes widened. “You said it was too dangerous.”
Dad shrugged. “For the majority of the property, it is. But I know it better than anyone else in the county, and the only person who comes a close second is Camden.”
I followed his line of sight and felt the blood leave my face. “You can’t be serious. That place is a damned disaster.”
“It is. But it’s the one piece of property they’ve never been able to access, and you’re the only one who can give it to them. That’s the crown jewel in their tourist tiara.”
“And when Xander blocks that, too? He’ll never go for it. He’s always said it was too dangerous, and you and I both know that place scares the shit out of him. Always has. I might have been given Uncle Cal’s shares in RR, but Xander controls yours.” The twists and turns of the Rose Rowan Mine were almost completely impossible to navigate unless you knew it like the back of your hand, and Xander had never bothered to try. It had been my haven. My playground. My first experience with tempting fate.
“You ever read the paperwork when Cal died? Or was that too boring for you?” Dad challenged. “Go home and read the damn file, Camden. Not just the will but the mining company papers. Property sales. All of it. Then offer the mine to the town and trust me.”
“You really want me to reopen the mine.”
“No, but it’s the only way they’ll see you as anything other than a dangerous nuisance.”
Shit. That mine had been closed to visitors for the last thirty years, and with good reason. Some of the supports dated from the last gasp of the mine in the fifties, but other places were the original 1880 timbers. It was a maze of crumbling floors, cave-ins, bad air, and God only knew what else.
“Do you know how much money it’s going to take to restore it?”
“You just let me handle that,” Dorothy said with a smile. “I’m expecting a call from the State Historical Fund board, and I might be able to redirect some things.”
“This is insane.”
“You can design and build things all over Afghanistan and Somalia and wherever else, but you don’t think you can do it in your own backyard?” Dad challenged.
“I thought you didn’t know where I was?”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you going to do it or not? Because I’m expecting Xander to ship me down to the old folks’ home at any minute.”
But then it hit me. Opening the mine would kill two birds with one stone.
“I’ll do it.”
Hours later, when I’d finished reading all of Uncle Cal’s documents, a chill of apprehension raced down my spine.
The town might love me for what I was about to offer, but they could just as easily hate me for what I was about to do to my brother.
Chapter Eight
Willow
“Every year we petition for caramel corn, and every year you give it to the Halversons,” Peter Mayville argued at the wooden podium, facing down the almighty Alba Historical Society Council. The town council might handle the administration of the town, but the real power was held by the council of the Historical Society.
Usually, society meetings were held once a month, but with only seven weeks until the opening of the season, they happened weekly. Attendance skyrocketed, too, as families who didn’t winter here came back in preparation for opening weekend. Town Hall, which was pretty much the multipurpose building of modern Alba, was heating up quickly with nearly a hundred bodies straining her capacity.
Every person in this room either owned a building in the ghost town—civic or commercial—which gave them a vote in the society, or their income was directly linked to the money the tourist season brought in.
Gotta love small-town Friday nights.
“Now, Peter, I hear what you’re saying. I do. But it’s not about us giving them the caramel corn as much as it is them keeping it. It’s unfair to take their time-honored tradition when they’ve perfected it over the last fifty years,” Walter Robinson responded, peering over his reading glasses from the center of the horseshoe-shaped dais where the council sat.
I shifted in my folding chair in the back of the room and glanced over this week’s agenda. We were twenty minutes into the meeting and still dealing with item number three, where voting members requested changes to their summer business plans. Luckily, I had snacks, because it could get Survivor in here real quick, and I had to make it to item seven to present my new Alba logo for the marketing plan.