“Vale?”
“Yes.”
“Richard Vale?”
“Your daughter-in-law’s father.”
I stood so abruptly my chair scraped the floor.
“That’s impossible.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t.”
“Does Vanessa know?”
“We don’t know what she knows.”
“Does Jared?”
Eleanor hesitated.
“I think that is a question you should ask him.”
I stared out the window.
The beautiful mountains no longer looked quite so peaceful.
“What do they want from Thomas’s land?”
“Access.”
“Access to what?”
“An undeveloped basin north of your property.
Richard Vale’s company has spent years acquiring surrounding land for a luxury resort with private residences, a golf course, and an artificial lake.”
“And?”
“The most economically practical route for the resort’s main access road crosses Hawthorne Ridge.”
I looked toward the driveway.
“Through my land?”
“Through a section of it.”
“Can they force me to sell?”
“Not simply because they want to build a resort.”
