Timber Creek (Sierra Falls 2)

She swept out and just about crashed into Hope on the porch. “There you are!”

The woman had become Laura’s favorite person the moment she’d let on what she used to do for a living.

“I work for CalEPA,” Hope had said quietly. “In the governor’s office. On the Air Resources Board. ” She’d been a soft-spoken thing in high school, too. Good at her studies, not super popular, though not unpretty, either. “I oversaw the Fine Particulate Matter Monitoring Program. ”

Laura had tried not to gape. So that was what bookish girls did when they grew up. “Fascinating. ” Not. “Why’d you leave? To work here?” She’d looked at her sister, fighting a growing panic. “She knows she’ll be making beds and stuff like that, right?”

But Hope had laughed it off, apparently eager to do exactly stuff like take reservations and make beds if it meant she could get her environmental journalism blog up and running.

From there, it hadn’t taken Laura long to put two and two together: people who once worked in the governor’s office were people with connections.

Laura gave a tug to her jeans skirt. She’d been in a rush but was anxious to hear what their new employee had found out. “Did you call Sacramento? Can they do anything about the permit?” She turned to her sister, explaining, “Stupid Eddie is now going to build a stupid pool. Apparently, Fairview is adding kickboards and waterslides to their death blow. ”

“They can’t do that,” Hope said.

“Yeah! Right?” Laura nodded in vehement agreement.

“No,” Hope said, “I mean it’s possible they really can’t do that. ”

Sorrow frowned. “As in, they’re not allowed to do it?”

“I couldn’t make headway on the permit issue, but I did find out that El Dorado County just approved a ten-million-dollar bond for watershed protection purposes. ”

“What the heck does that mean?” asked Sorrow.

Laura grinned. “It means Eddie is doing something illegal. ”

Hope backpedaled, looking panicked. “I didn’t say that. I only spoke with a friend who worked on the legislation. I don’t how it’s enforced or what it means. ”

Laura headed to her car, ready to storm his job site, and the women followed her into the lot. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, that creek might be protected. Might. I don’t know for sure. You could ask Eddie. Does he know anything about it?”

“Believe me. I’m about to find out. ”

Sixteen

Eddie sat on a boulder on the bank of the creek and checked his watch. Eleven thirty was early for a lunch break—he knew by late afternoon he’d regret having scarfed down his ham and cheese so soon—but he couldn’t focus.

Something about this project still didn’t smell right, and he’d been dragging his feet. But he’d looked and looked and couldn’t find anything to back up his suspicions. He’d analyzed the property, and while the creek was on conservancy land, the ranch wasn’t, and rules about preexisting structures protected him anyhow.

He’d also double-checked the historic register and that adaptive reuse paperwork, too, but it all seemed to add up.

“Eddie. ” It was Laura, and by the sound of her voice, she’d come with guns blazing. “We have something to discuss. ”

He grinned. The day was looking up.

Turning, he sized her up, and his grin turned dark. She wore an outfit that should’ve been on a deadly weapons list. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite ray of sunshine. ” He didn’t know where to look, and his eyes eagerly grazed up a sleek pair of legs, to a tight little skirt, up to her flimsy yellow top. Her shirt didn’t have sleeves, and he wondered if her bra straps might be peeking out—hell, maybe she wasn’t even wearing a bra. A man could hope. “You look all healed. You here for some afternoon delight?”

“What do you think?” She was a little spitfire, and man how he loved to goad her. “Come closer and I’ll tell you why I’m here. ”

“You’re just in time for lunch. ” He smiled wide as he held up his sandwich. “Join me. If you’re good, I’ll give you half. ”

“Just come here. ” Scowling, she scanned the field between her and the creek bank. “You know I’m not stepping one foot closer to you. ”

He held a hand to his ear. “Can’t hear you. ”

“Liar. You can hear every word I’m saying, so listen up. Guess who’s doing construction on watershed protected land? You need to stop what you’re doing. ” She waved a bunch of papers in the air. “I have signatures from members of the community who agree. This isn’t just about your stupid hotel—it’s the whole ecology of the Sacramento River Basin we’re talking about. This is something we need to look into. ”