Page 33 of Finding Home

“I hope it’s enough,” she said quietly.

“It will be.” He paused. “Before you came along, I was running out of options. I want you to know that.”

Julie looked down at the papers on the table. “Before I started helping you, I’d started to wonder if I still had it. Whether what I used to be good at had just... gone.” She glanced up. “It turns out it hadn’t.”

“No,” he said. “It hadn’t.”

She smiled. “Before all this, I couldn’t work out who was stealing my socks, let alone unravel a corporate conspiracy.”

Cole raised an eyebrow. “Someone’s stealing your socks?”

“My neighbor’s Siamese cat. His name is Pickles. He jumps higher than any cat I’ve ever met and looks suspiciously smug every time I see him.”

Cole laughed. It was a real one, the kind that loosened something in his chest he hadn’t realized was tight. “I almost feel sorry for him.”

“Don’t. He gets plenty of love and cuddles.” Julie’s smile softened and the laughter faded as she held Cole’s gaze.

Cole reached over and took her hand in his. She didn’t pull away.

He looked at her before turning over the words he wanted to say and discarding most of them. He wasn’t good at this. He’d never been good at this.

“I’ve built things my whole life,” he said finally. “Hotels, resorts, developments. I’d finish one and move on to the next before the paint was dry. I told myself that was just how I was wired.” He paused. “What I didn’t see was that I was always building for other people. Never for myself.”

Julie was watching him quietly.

“You’re the first person who’s made me want something that isn’t on a blueprint,” he said. “I don’t quite know what to do with that.”

The corner of Julie’s mouth lifted. “You’re doing all right so far.”

Cole sighed. “I didn’t think I’d meet someone who made me realize what’s been missing in my life, but you have.”

“Maybe we both needed to find our way here first,” she said.

Cole leaned forward. When he kissed Julie, it was unhurried and gentle—the kind of kiss that had been waiting for the right moment.

And they’d finally found it.

Chapter 21

The conference room above the county planning office had no windows, which was probably intentional. Three hours without natural light had a way of making a person feel like whatever was happening in the room was the only thing happening anywhere.

Julie sat at the far end of the table. Beside her, Cole’s attorney, Madeline Forsythe, had the careful stillness of someone who’d been in worse rooms than this.

Across from them sat two county commissioners, the building inspector, and a man from the insurance carrier’s regional office who’d introduced himself as Randall Voss and hadn’t spoken since.

It was Cole who occupied most of Julie’s attention.

He sat at the head of the table, his hands resting flat on the surface in front of him. From the moment the commissioners had confirmed that the county was suspending the Finley Point permits pending a full review, Cole had been very still.

And that worried Julie.

Pete Sawyer was in jail. As soon as Cole and Julie had spoken to Sheriff Thompson, she’d brought him into the station for questioning. He’d told them everything, and he’d been charged with a number of serious offenses.

The Sargeson Group had funneled money through a shell company to cover the cost of someone damaging the equipment. Pete had been the one willing to take the money. Marcus Harmon, who ran the Group, was already working with a lawyer in Missoula and hadn’t been charged with anything yet.

There was an arrest, evidence, and a clear line from Harmon to Pete Sawyer, but none of it had stopped this meeting from happening.

“The complaint filings were submitted before any arrests were made,” one of the commissioners said. “The review process is procedural at this point. It operates independently of the criminal investigation.”