Arizona Homecoming (9 page)

Randall easily slid into the booth, placing his briefcase beside him.

Last night, after talking with the man, Donovan did his homework and looked at the Tucker Organization website. At first glance, the real estate portion of Tucker’s company wasn’t obvious. Randall’s father, Rudy Tucker, had started the business. Rudy seemed more inclined to promote his political moves, television appearances and self-help book than the business that had made him a multimillionaire.

Randall had two older brothers. They looked to be following in their father’s footsteps: aggressive, shrewd and rebounding well.

Randall was a bit of a black sheep, not in behavior, but in business leanings. For the past twenty-odd years, he’d been in the business of tearing down the old and putting up the new and always in small towns. There was an odd four-year gap, just a few years ago, where he’d simply lived in San Diego and apparently backed away from the real estate business.

“Just got here myself,” Donovan said, noting that the man hadn’t said sorry.

The waitress, Jane de la Rosa, placed water and menus in front of them and walked off without asking if they were ready. The faintest pursing of her lips told Donovan that she disapproved of their meeting.

No doubt she’d be texting Emily.

A friend, not a business acquaintance.

“Glad you could meet me,” Randall said. “I went out to the Baer place yesterday and walked around. I’m surprised you weren’t at work. It’s been cleared, what with the body and all.”

Donovan didn’t know if Randall was fishing, clueless or already knew that Baer no longer wanted to live in Apache Creek. “Things are a bit up in the air right now.”

Randall didn’t even pause. “I ate at the Lost Dutchman Ranch earlier in the week. Jacob showed me the plans you drew up for Tinytown. Impressive.”

“It will be a nice change. I like being creative.”

“Karl told me you thought his place would be perfect for a belowground-level home.”

“I shared with him a gut reaction when he mentioned that he might sell. I’d have to do some preliminary studies to see if such a structure would really work there.”

“It would work.” Randall raised his hand, beckoning Jane over. Quickly he ordered, and then looked at Donovan, clearly expecting the same.

“I’ll just have iced tea,” Donovan told Jane. Then, he mused, “It probably would work, but would it sell, be low maintenance, increase in value?”

“Not in the current economy and locale.”

“What’s the occupancy ratio of your apartment building?” Donovan asked.

“Forty percent. Apache Creek is a slow-growth area, and I’m confident that in the next two years we’ll go to a hundred percent. Plus, this isn’t a migrant area. People who move in will stay. There won’t be a high turnover.”

“You make money from high turnover,” Donovan pointed out.

“Only if there’s someone next in line to rent.”

Jane came and put drinks in front of the men.

“You didn’t call me to talk apartments,” Donovan said. “Why did you call me?”

“I’m in the process of buying land for a development. I have my own people, but, quite frankly, I think if I’d made the apartment complex match the historic feel of Apache Creek, I’d have sixty percent occupancy. I can gloat over projections, but I’m used to a quicker return for my investment.”

“And?”

“I know George Baer personally.”

That answered one question. Randall wasn’t fishing or clueless. He knew about the radon gas and why Baer had halted construction.

“I’ve been in both his other homes.”

Donovan had, too. They were lavish, ridiculous and seldom occupied.
Sterile
was the word that came to mind.

“I could tell,” Randall continued, “how you influenced his choices of open space and options. The other two homes, the builder gave George whatever he asked for. You, however, managed to convince him that quality is better than quantity.”

Since the Baer home was fifteen thousand square feet, quantity was a given and quality secondary.

“I thought about making Baer an offer,” Tucker said, “but the radon gas made the newspaper. It will be a while before the stigma disappears. Never mind that every house has radon gas.”

Donovan hated to think of the Baer home being a half-finished monument, a pimple on the skin of...

Whoa, he was starting to think like Emily.

“I’ve sent George Baer some ideas on how to bring the levels down,” Donovan shared. “He’s not answered yet.”

“If I know Baer,” Tucker said, “he’ll move on to bigger and better things. In this case, not better—you built a beautiful home—but he’ll go bigger.”

Emily would be happy about this news.

“Here’s the thing,” Tucker continued. “I’ve got plans for this little town. The place is ripe for a subdivision or two, reasonably priced of course.”

Donovan looked out the restaurant’s window. For the most part, this section of Apache Creek was dirt colored. The Main Street hosted a convenience store, bar and grill, fast food restaurant, an auto repair shop, and a park. A lone tumbleweed crossed the road, a time traveler from a distant era.

“Even for Arizona, this town’s Western. I don’t see a growth spurt in its future. For one thing, no jobs, and for anoth—”

“I’m not really thinking of families. I’m thinking more of retirees. If you look across this portion of Arizona, we’ve got lots of retirement communities. There’s Sun City, Scottsdale, Prescott.”

“All have a cost of living much higher than here.”

“My point exactly. If you look at where people are planning to retire present day, you’ll see Yuma, Nogales, places much like Apache Creek.”

“You do see the big picture,” Donovan admitted, pausing as Jane set breakfast in front of Tucker. Now that he thought about it, Tucker’s plan made perfect sense. “But, why are you telling me? I work for Tate Luxury Homes, and I’m not planning on quitting anytime soon.”

“Not for two years.”

Donovan finished his tea in one long gulp. “I take it you know Nolan Tate, too.”

“His father and mine are friends. I can’t say that I’m overly fond of him.”

“He’s my employer, and I have a few contracts to finish before I can even think about a career move.”

Tucker nodded and took a few bites of his biscuits and gravy. Then, he said, “I’d like to pay off your debt to him, put you in my employ and let you design my masterpiece. I’ll give you plenty of say. I like the originality you put into the homes you built in Cannes, Nebraska.”

It had been a long time since Donovan thought about Cannes. He’d designed three blocks of homes, all virtually the same size and all different. The town’s critics didn’t appreciate how just one neighborhood didn’t fit into the cookie-cutter mold. The people who purchased the homes loved that they wouldn’t accidentally pull into the wrong driveway at ten at night because every house looked the same.

“Masterpiece, huh?”

Emily, Donovan knew, wouldn’t call it a masterpiece. She’d called it a monstrosity.

“Let me show you,” Tucker said. He opened his briefcase, took out some blueprints and soon Donovan was looking at the type of development that was a dime a dozen in almost every city.

“Tract housing,” Donovan noted.

“It’s easy, it’s affordable, it’s quick,” Randall shot back.

“Like your apartment building with forty percent occupancy.”

“See,” Randall said, “that’s why I’m talking to you. I think, together, we can come up with something that will do this town good.”

“I don’t do the Levittown concept.”

“And, if we can come up with a plan, I’d like to stay away from that concept myself. Think about it. Quite honestly, somewhere in this town, I’ll establish a housing development. With or without you. If you sign on, I promise I’ll listen to your design ideas.”

“So, instead of being in debt to Nolan Tate, I’d be in debt to you.” Donovan didn’t phrase it as a question but as a statement.

“Difference being, I like your style. I might even hire you to build me a tree house. Also, someday I’ll be wanting a partner and I guarantee, I’ll not go bankrupt. If that was going to happen, it would have happened by now. Also, I’ll garnish your wages for repayment, but when you’ve paid off the debt, if you’re not happy, you can walk away knowing that the places you built had your stamp on them and that it wasn’t just the wealthy who could afford them. Difference being, you won’t have to constantly deal with an angry almost father-in-law.”

Donovan wanted to say
better the enemy you know than the enemy you don’t
, but held his tongue. He’d gotten further in this business than some of his peers by not reacting rashly. “Let me think about it.”

Chapter Nine

M
onday morning, no need for an alarm clock, Donovan rolled out of bed bright and early. Some habits were hard to break. Five was way too early for breakfast but perfect for soul-searching. He dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed the thriller he’d started a good month ago, and headed outside to sit on the porch in the early hour. A somewhat cool breeze greeted him, bending a few limbs and rippling the grass. From what he’d heard from his crew and now the Hubrechts, in a few weeks the cool would cease to be.

The rocking chair creaked under his weight as he pushed it close to the porch railing so he could put his feet up. Setting his book on the ground, he turned on his phone and checked his emails. Nothing from Nolan Tate. If the man wanted, he’d have Donovan clocking in. There wasn’t a crew that couldn’t use a good worker. This was just a way to prolong the agony and let Donovan know who had the power. Didn’t matter. Donovan was doing the right thing, paying off his debt, being the bigger man. There was nothing from Randall Tucker, either. No surprise. Donovan figured the man would wait until Donovan came to him. And how he wanted to. Imagine severing his connection to Nolan Tate, not having a constant reminder of Olivia and having a little more say in what he was doing. Tucker was correct. Apache Creek would be an awesome place to retire. The Superstition Mountains alone were worth the move. Add to that the Lost Dutchman Ranch, the museum and the sixty-year-old library... And a five-foot-nothing dark-haired beauty who’d hate him forever if he built a tract of residential homes right next door to her.

Donovan shook his head. He was getting soft. He’d only been on her good side for less than a week, so keeping on her good side shouldn’t be an incentive. She was buried all the way to her knees in Apache Creek’s soil. He was more a shake-the-dust-from-the-bottom-of-his-feet kind of guy. As much as she spouted the Word, he doubted she’d appreciate the comparison. Come to think of it, he didn’t appreciate the comparison. If he was shaking the dust from his feet, it meant he found the place, the Lost Dutchman Ranch, unworthy, lacking, doomed. He remembered more of his childhood Sunday school than he’d thought. His parents couldn’t get him home from after-school baseball practice or to games, so he didn’t get to play. But every Sunday morning—except for life-or-death matters—they were at church.

Donovan shifted his focus back to the phone. Three emails waited for him. One was from an electrician he’d worked with a year ago. The man wanted a job. Donovan responded with a
sorry
and
if anything comes up, I’ll let you know
. Another was from a man looking for someone to build a tree house for his son. Donovan emailed that he was booked for two years but could recommend another builder. The last was from Olivia. It had been over a month since her last text. He opened her missive and studied the photo of her posed on a beach in Aruba. A man stood beside her. The sun was behind them, the waves curving.

Olivia didn’t include text. Her message was clear:
here’s what you’re missing
. Smiling, hoping the ground didn’t open up and swallow him, Donovan bowed his head.
Thank You, Father. Thank You for bringing me to this place, letting me see what I was missing and putting me back in the company of sane people. Amen.

Immediately after saying amen, he wondered just how long those sane people would remain his friends should he take Tucker up on his offer.

Distant laughter echoed. A horse whinnied and then came laughter. Picking up his book, Donovan headed back inside the cabin and looked at the Lost Dutchman Ranch notebook on his dresser. There was a morning ride, supposedly leaving at five thirty. Judging by the laughter, it was still in the prep stage. All he really needed were his socks and shoes, which he quickly tugged on before heading back outside. When he rounded the corner of the barn, Jacob was starting down the trail with seven people following him. Emily was number seven.

“Got room for one more?” he shouted.

She reined her horse, nodding to her father, and turned back to him.

“You know how to ride?”

“Do you know how to tell a story?”

She smiled, still looking a bit sleepy eyed. This morning she wore an old DC Talk T-shirt and jeans. Her boots were brown and worn. Her hair, in a ponytail, swayed slightly as she dismounted and looked him up and down.

“Been a while?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Would you rate yourself highly experienced, average or low?”

No way did he want to rate himself average in front of Emily Hubrecht. “I’m experienced.”

“Had horses on that Nebraska farm?”

“Yes.”

She gave him Cinderella.

“I like her,” Donovan said, stroking the brown nose all the way up to the white square on the horse’s forehead. Some would call it a star, but Donovan figured if it was a star, then it had been stepped on. “Is she the one with focus issues?”

“Don’t get too relaxed,” she warned him.

Together they saddled Cinderella and then both nudged their horses to a trot in order to catch up with Jacob, who was well out of sight.

“I’ve been wanting to ask—” Donovan angled his horse so he was next to Emily and her horse “—have the police spoken with your father any more? They’ve not contacted me with questions in over a week.”

“Elise says that with no witness to the possible crime and no fingerprints on the knife, there’s nothing that can be done.”

“Your dad’s probably relieved.”

She looked ahead of him, at the distant curving line of horses, acting a little more withdrawn than she had yesterday. “He is. We all are. But, the skeleton belongs to somebody’s son, brother, father, husband. We don’t know. That means there’s someone else out there who doesn’t know.”

“With DNA sampling, it’s likely we’ll have a name soon enough.”

She shook her head. “Only on television. In real life, it could be years before our skeleton gets tested. Then, too, we don’t know if anyone from his family has ever had their DNA taken. Often, especially with children or those who have no family members who’ve served in the military, you get a DNA profile, but there is no match.”

She was just as good at talking dead bodies as she was telling stories about corn maidens or pointing out history in her museum.

They caught up with the other riders and easily took the rear position. Jilly Greenhouse rode ahead closer to Jacob, who was explaining, “In the winter, we take longer rides. I’ve gone on all-day outings that took us from the ponderosa pines to the desert and saguaro cactus. We don’t do that in June.”

Donovan studied the landscape. He’d gone on only a few escorted trail rides, usually with buyers who wanted to see their purchasing options. He’d never been impressed because he’d always felt that the horses, following the same dirt trail day after day, were moving in rote. The guides, too, although some were better than others.

Not so with Jacob Hubrecht. The dirt underneath the horses was a path for only the first fifteen minutes. Then, it was a mixture of grass, dirt and sand, whichever way Jacob or even one of the guests decided to go. Jacob was a natural guide, pointing out flora and fauna—juniper, piñon pine and manzanita—as well as animals. Rabbits seemed the most common but about an hour into the ride, they stumbled across three mule deer.

They came to a shady spot with a downed tree that someone had chopped so it acted more like a bench than anything else. Jacob nodded at Emily and they dismounted, helped the inexperienced riders down, and then took a break.

Jacob gave everyone bottled water, and Emily handed out fruit and crackers. Two teenagers took off exploring. Their parents did the same. Donovan figured they were really keeping their kids in sight. Jilly and the other rider stayed close to Jacob. Donovan watched as the man, who he figured was an advanced beginner when it came to sitting a horse, asked questions and wrote things down in a small spiral notebook.

“I think he’s a writer,” Emily shared, sitting on the log with Donovan and opening her bottled water. “We get quite a few. I guess in the romance world, cowboys are pretty popular.”

Donovan might be willing to put on a cowboy hat if Emily were willing to get a little closer.

“He doesn’t look like a romance writer,” Donovan observed.

“No, he’s probably true crime or maybe even into the whole Jacob Waltz legend.”

“You get a lot of people asking about Waltz?”

“Yes, because my dad named the ranch after the legend.”

They both watched for a few minutes as Emily’s dad told some story with lots of hand movements and Jilly butted in every once in a while. Jacob didn’t seem to mind.

Looking away from them, Emily focused on Donovan and said, “You’re not a bad rider. I wasn’t sure what to expect.”

“I had my own horse growing up. Risky Business. I think my dad gave him to me when I was about four. I rode him almost every day until I turned sixteen.”

“Then you weren’t interested anymore?”

“No, I was still interested. I rode him three or four times a week, but I wanted to play baseball and go to town more often. Then, Risky developed laminitis.”

“Did you put him down?”

“My father did. We didn’t have extra money, and he’d been thinking about the upkeep. The horse was old when given to me. I remember my dad saying he had a good life.”

She seemed to soften toward him a bit. For a moment, he thought she might reach out, touch his hand. He’d have liked that.

“Growing up on a dairy farm must have been hard.”

“I can’t imagine anything that requires more time and energy,” he agreed. “It wasn’t the life for me. Not only do I not want to be tied down, but at heart I’m a city boy.”

Maybe he imagined it, but when Emily Hubrecht nodded as if understanding what he meant, she looked a little sad.

And he’d made her feel that way again.

* * *

Emily’s dad was still talking. This two-hour ride might turn into three, but none of the riders seemed to care. Especially Jilly, who opened a bottled water and held it out to Jacob, making sure he drank some.

Looking at Donovan, Emily figured she might as well kill some time. She was stuck with him for about a month and a half, and then the city boy would no longer be tied down to Apache Creek.

“How did you get into building?”

“I already told you about the tree house my dad and I built, the one that fell apart.”

“How old were you?”

“Probably eight or nine. I didn’t build another until my third year of college. I knew then that I’d be majoring in architecture. I went home with one of my roommates. He lived on a farm, too, in Melbourne, Iowa, except his place was crops only. I got paid as a field hand, and in our spare hours, he and I built his little brother a tree house that was so much more.”

She knew the details because his best friend now kept a blog. She’d actually found a copy of the newspaper article that showed the elaborate tree house.

“After that, Keith and I did two more, this time for pay, in the same small town. If I’d have been smarter, I’d have finished college and started my own small business right then. But I thought that working for someone established and building custom homes and businesses would pay more.”

“Does it?” Emily asked. “Because I found a photo on the web of a tree house you built in Burlington, Iowa, just five years ago, and it looked expensive.”

“It was, for a tree house, but tree houses don’t take nearly as long as real houses. I’d make up the cost by sheer number of projects. Plus, I’d never get bored.”

“I’m rarely bored. There’s always something to do here.”

“I believe you, but will you feel the same in ten years when you realize that you’ll live and die where you’ve always lived, seldom seeing how others lived?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“My dad was born and raised in the house he still lives in. He’s been to Iowa and Illinois. Both times because a close relative passed away. I don’t mind hard work. Matter of fact, my dad taught me its value. But, it’s so much more satisfying to have fun while you’re working hard.”

“So, to you, building the Baer house was fun.”

She felt some satisfaction when he took a moment to answer. “Many years ago, I signed on as designer and project manager for a company that built one-of-a-kind custom homes. They were up-and-coming. They hired me on because I told them I’d like to build homes that had tree houses connected to them. Within six months, I joined as a partner. It didn’t mean a raise in pay. The two brothers who started the company were just a little older than me, dreamers, and they’d sunk all their money into it. I knew it was a risk, but, Emily, if it had taken off...”

It was truly the first time she’d seen him this passionate. “What was the company’s name?” She’d found no mention of it online.

“Brewster and Brewster. Then, Brewster and Russell. They were trying hard to get a network interested in following one of us as we built a unique home, one meant for families to live in and enjoy.”

“What happened?”

“Plain and simple, we went bankrupt. I lost everything.”

Emily couldn’t imagine losing everything. Part of her wasn’t even sure what everything might be. Probably the worst scenario would be the Lost Dutchman Ranch, but with her father and Eva’s leadership, the place was doing better than ever, even in the summer. And, really, it was a place. What made it special was the people.

Kinda like church.

She could lose her museum job. She always worried about that. Unlike Donovan, though, she’d not be heartbroken over lack of funds, because she had the ranch and her storytelling. Well, if the museum closed down, she’d be heartbroken over the loss of history, both current and what she could add in the future.

“So,” she said, “how did you wind up with Tate Luxury Homes?”

“Isn’t it about time to start riding again?” He stood, finishing the last of his water and looking around. Emily stood, too. The reporter was sitting, leaning against the tree and writing all by himself. Her dad and Jilly were walking together, following the path the family had taken.

Emily and Donovan were pretty much alone.