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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781733044363 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Leslie Helm, Author |
| Publication date: | 12/02/2020 |
| Series: | Riverwood , #1 |
| Pages: | 340 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.71(d) |
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Ronnie Chandler pulled into the Jones Bones BBQ parking lot right on time. Her stomach had been in a knot for the past hour. She needed to eat soon, but she was exceptionally nervous. She and her partners would be meeting with their potential investors, and she wanted it to go well.
She had dressed carefully to make a good first impression. Ronnie was one of the lucky few whose hair had turned not gray, but silver, and she spent good money to have it cut every six weeks. The shiny strands grazed her collar in back and framed her oval face with two long graceful curves that ended in precise points. She always looked sleek and elegant, even in the faded jeans that were part of her signature look.
Today, she wore faded, straight-legged Levis with a cashmere turtleneck in a color that could only be called wisteria. She'd never particularly liked purples but had changed her palette to add dramatic contrast to her striking hair. Her violet eyes were courtesy of tinted contacts, and she had an entire wardrobe of those.
A navy belt circled her waist and its simple silver buckle was mirrored by the wide silver bangle on her wrist. She wore smooth gray leather western-style boots and pulled it all together with a densely-woven tweed jacket in shades of deep purple, burgundy, navy, and pale gray. When she'd looked into her full-length mirror earlier that morning, she was pleased with what she saw, satisfied that she'd achieved what she'd intended which was to have dressed up more than usual without appearing to have tried too hard.
She pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head, taking a moment to let her eyes adjust to the restaurant's interior after coming in from the strong noontime sun. Rickie and Andee were already seated at a table with three men. Two had their backs to her but all three stood as she approached.
Ronnie pulled the navy leather glove off her right hand and extended it, sucking in a breath as she stood facing the handsomest man she'd ever seen. Of the group, she recognized Charles Walker Westlake immediately because he was the older of the three. She knew one of the others was his son, Chip, and quickly identified him as well by the unmistakable likeness to his father.
Shaking hands with the senior Mr. Westlake, she gave her name as Veronica Chandler but told him everyone called her Ronnie. He grinned and responded, "And everyone calls me CW." As introductions were made, she learned that the third man, the one whose extraordinary good looks almost took her breath away, was Luc Deschaines.
Charles Walker Westlake had a patrician profile and both his appearance and his demeanor telegraphed the power he possessed in the real estate world. He had carefully mentored his son, Chip, and the in-joke in financial circles was that Chip was indeed a "chip off the old block." The Westlake Group's reputation preceded them, and the three realtors understood that investors worked with facts and analyses; in their business, it all came down to the numbers.
The twelve hundred acres was too extensive to cover in the few hours between driving up from Nashville and the BBQ lunch. Once or twice, Ronnie caught a look that flashed between father and son and again between the two younger men. Ronnie was confident that Andee had planned the tour to give the would-be investors the best sample of the property's geographic features?the deep gorges and ravines, panoramic views from high bluffs, clear creeks, hidden ponds, and endless rolling terrain prime for pasture. Andee had said the day before that she intended to let the land "sell itself" as she was sure it would and now, listening to the lively discussion that had begun as soon as their party was seated, Ronnie was gratified to learn that Andee's exuberance for the scenery had the investors assessing the possibilities for a lucrative return.
As agents at Horse Country Real Estate, Ronnie and her partners made it a point to keep up with new listings or for-sale-by-owner properties and to be knowledgeable well beyond the often-meager description in the Multiple Listing Service. Ronnie, in particular, hated it when agents blatted that everything was pristine, everything was unique. Those words just about made her blood boil when she heard them or saw them in ads. Her pet peeve was agents who thought that any piece of land was a horse property. Who wasted space in the description by saying "Build your dream home" or "Bring your horses!" Her partners had often heard her rail against them.
Sometimes gates were too narrow and trying to get a horse trailer through them would be like threading a needle. Or they were set too close to the road so there wasn't enough distance to straighten a big rig before getting through the gates. Or there was nowhere to park a horse trailer, or to turn a flatbed loaded with hay around so it could back in. Ronnie had a long list of pitfalls that they would avoid in creating their equestrian community.
Knowing Andee as she did, Ronnie was sure that she had replayed the site visit in her mind over and over as she drove to the restaurant, examining each sentence, each expression, reading between the lines and getting a sense of the trio's group dynamic.
"We saw a selection of the property's features, a good representation," Charles had offered, noncommittally, as soon as the entire group was seated. Ronnie suspected that he played his cards close to the proverbial vest and they shouldn't expect much more from him at this point.
Now, as the group waited to place their orders, Ronnie turned to study the men. The relationship between two of the three, father and son, was pretty clear but what about the third guy? Was he an equal partner? Junior partner?
Sitting diagonally across from him, Ronnie found Luc's good looks extremely appealing. Smooth black eyebrows drew her attention to his dark blue eyes and long sooty eyelashes; with his thick ebony hair, she guessed that his lineage was Black Irish, although his name sounded French. His worn jeans had clearly been ironed and she guessed that his western boots were handmade. She bit her lip to keep herself from grinning because she had already assessed his tweed jacket and pegged it as perfectly tailored, had already approved of the crisp white shirt, the good belt, and the huge chronometer on his wrist.
His eyes followed her gaze, and he held out his arm. "This watch was a gift from Charles and his wife, Julia, when I graduated from Horvath Business School and joined the firm," he told her. "He gave one to Chip and one to me. It's my most treasured possession, and I only take it off to have it cleaned, once in a while."
Ronnie heard the pride and affection in his voice and knew that these three men shared a bond a lot like hers with her partners. She liked that and hoped this venture went forward. It wasn't if, she reminded herself — it was when.
Ronnie quickly eyed Luc's left hand, noting the absence of a wedding ring. Andee was happily married, and Rickie hadn't been in a relationship for the past several years. But her partners often accused her of having shadows in her eyes and hiding her loneliness. Stop speculating and concentrate.
Ronnie forced her attention back to the conversation. "It's all good, but my preference is the baby back ribs," she heard Rickie telling Chip. "We've got about an hour and a half before we need to meet the helicopter, so take your time."
"You're flying back tonight?" Ronnie asked, a little embarrassed to have let her thoughts wander. She struggled now to re-engage.
"Well, it all depends on what we see today," Charles said as he motioned to the waiter that he was paying for the whole table. "My pilot is in Nashville with our corporate plane; we were there on another potential venture yesterday. We have far more flexibility with our schedule than if we were flying commercial. Flexibility is crucial in our business."
The afternoon's overflight should provide all the information the investors needed to make a decision but there was so much that could make or break the presentation. If this venture was successful, it would put Horse Country Real Estate on the map. Creating an equestrian development from a vision and a raw piece of land was a real departure from selling tiny cabins to weekend riders or one-acre or two-acre lots where commuters could set up a crude horse camp. If it went forward, this project would require an enormous commitment of time.
It was a project that would earn the Horse Country agents both the admiration and enmity of their peers. Not that they needed any more animosity. This was an aspect the three realtors had discussed at length. Ronnie had laid their trepidation out on the table when the concept was first broached. In a profession where any high-school graduate could get a license, there was too little competence, too little oversight, and too much back-stabbing.
Two servers approached the table, one carrying the drinks and the other a large tray. There's no graceful way to eat barbecue and the ice was soon broken as everyone shared the side dishes and enjoyed the meal.
"Is the barbecue sauce tomato or vinegar based?" Chip had asked a short while later.
"Does it matter?" Luc asked.
"I've spent a fair amount of time in North Carolina, and the state considers itself 'the cradle of cue,' the Barbecue Capital of the World — and I've certainly eaten my fair share of barbecue along the way," Chip said.
"Vinegar is the secret ingredient of Carolina barbecue," he told the group, "but, curiously, North Carolina is divided on the issue of sauce and as you travel farther west, barbecue sauce moves from the thin vinegar-based variety particular to the eastern part of the state to the thicker tomato-based sauces in western North Carolina.
"You could say that the North Carolina Barbecue Sauce Feud has been — smokin' — since the early 1800s," he joked.
He'd successfully put everyone at ease with his barbecue trivia.
"Aren't words great?" Ronnie contributed. "Look at the word barbecue. It's both a noun and a verb; you barbecue the meat to produce barbecue and you invite friends over for a barbecue. There's a barbecue joint in every town, usually more than one, where you can grab a side of ribs or a pulled-pork sandwich."
Barbecue wasn't a New England specialty so Ronnie didn't pass up many opportunities to enjoy it, once she'd sampled both varieties and discovered that she liked them equally. "The best way of summing up the experience is this;" she continued, "your fingers are your fork!" Ronnie herself wanted the investors relaxed and enjoying themselves because not only were she, Rickie, and Andee selling the concept, they were selling the area.
She and her partners had been together for six years. She and Rickie had worked in large general-practice real estate agencies. Although they were considered independent contractors, they were nonetheless bound by the management style practiced by each managing broker. They had learned what they liked — and didn't like — and what they themselves would do differently, given the opportunity. Changing agencies is difficult because so many loose ends refuse to be tied up simultaneously, but realtors do often change agencies. The grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence?until, one day, it is.
Ronnie had worked long and hard to get a doctorate in English Literature, a prerequisite for a serious career in academia, and had never — not for an instant — envisioned herself as a real estate agent. She'd never imagined her marriage shattering or leaving New England, but both had happened and she was living proof that when one door closes another opens. The past was firmly where it belonged — in the past — and Ronnie found that she enjoyed the myriad facets of listing and selling property.
Rickie and she had had a number of closings together and always appreciated each other's similar work ethic. One day, when the attorney conducting the closing was detained in court and the buyers and sellers were waiting in the conference room, desultorily making small talk, Rickie suggested that she and Ronnie step outside. "What would you think about opening an office together?" Rickie proposed to Ronnie.
Andee was the newcomer to real estate. She was a professional landscape architect and had worked in an architect's office, where she felt valued and fulfilled. Rickie and Andee had met at a trailhead several years earlier and stood for a few minutes, discussing the recent rains and the possibility of trail washouts ahead. They'd ridden together that day and many times again over the next few years. After Rickie introduced Ronnie to Andee, the three women had enjoyed many hours on horseback together. When Ronnie and Rickie decided the time had come to throw in together and open an office, they persuaded Andee to get a real estate license.
Andee's forte was selling land, and she shied away from residential listings. She was, more often than not, engaged by buyers to work up a site plan for their purchase because she was so knowledgeable about things like drainage, or how and where to build a retaining wall. When her expertise and ideas saved hundreds and thousands of dollars in site prep, she compiled an impressive list of satisfied customers who were only too happy to recommend her services.
Each woman brought talents to the table that complemented the others. They were, for the most part, on the proverbial same page and pulled in the same direction. They had agreed early on that they would list and sell only horse properties. All three were avid riders and they knew that the Big South Fork was a natural draw for horsemen. On their website, In the Heart of Horse Country, they culled all of the mobile homes, little brick ranchers and anything that didn't have enough land to make it viable for horse ownership, leaving a comprehensive collection of equestrian properties.
Their plans for the tract of land in Emery Pond were an ambitious project by anyone's standards. There were a number of equestrian communities in Tennessee and they intended to combine the best features of each. They'd done their homework, looking at the layout and style of each, the trails and stabling, the common areas and amenities. In particular, they intended to utilize several of the features they'd found appealing at Trail's End.
Ronnie took two fliers out of her portfolio and handed them to CW. "Split Rock and Seven Oaks are two of our local equestrian communities," she explained. "The entrances to both subdivisions are so dramatic that the fliers are a great sales tool. The developer has cleverly used a huge cracked-open boulder instead of trying to move it and he called the development Split Rock. Once people see it, it sells itself!" She was pleased to see CW nodding approvingly as he passed the two fliers to Chip. "It looks like he did the same with those huge trees in Seven Oaks," Charles noted. "I'm guessing the same developer did both subdivisions." At that moment, Charles pulled his cell phone from his breast pocket and held it to his ear.
He must have had it set to vibrate, but he wouldn't have taken the call if it wasn't important. Glancing over, Ronnie saw that Andee was literally holding her breath and she shot her gaze toward Andee's plate, silently signaling that she should just continue eating. But what if they just bagged the whole idea and flew back later this afternoon? So much effort had gone into this showing. Long hours of planning, scouting, scheduling the time, checking with the seller. So many times, that was the scenario in real estate. Eager buyers often came and kicked the tires, used up time, gas, and energy, leaving the realtor with nothing to show for it.
"I understand," Charles said, succinctly. "No, tomorrow. Well, let's give it until close of business." Chip raised an eyebrow but Charles shook his head slightly from side to side, indicating that there was no immediate crisis.
* * *
When the meal ended, Charles had taken the bill, calculated the tip, and laid the exact amount on the table. In the parking lot, Andee directed the three men into Ronnie's SUV because her truck was still towing the small flatbed trailer with the ATVs and would be left behind with Ronnie and Rickie until they returned. Arrangements had been made to meet the helicopter in a field a short distance from the restaurant.
Rickie and Ronnie waited in Rickie's vehicle for the hour the overflight would take. The civilian helicopter they'd chartered was not only very comfortable but well suited for this task. Though it could accommodate six, only Andee went up with the three investors and the pilot. Thoroughly prepared as always, she carried her topo's and was easily able to help the other passengers correlate what they had seen on the ground with this magnificent bird's-eye view.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Fool Me Once"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Linnhe McCarron.
Excerpted by permission of The Wild Rose Press, Inc..
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