“Of course not.”
“Then why do you need a lawyer?”
He reached behind himself and braced a hand on the wooden rail. “He’s a corporate lawyer.”
“So you’re dissolving the Whiskey Bay Neo location.” She knew it was a long shot, but she figured she might as well go for the brass ring.
Caleb gave her a crooked frown. It was kind of endearing. No, no, no. She didn’t want him to be endearing.
“My lawyer was looking at the land survey of your property.”
“You can’t have my land, Caleb.”
“I don’t want your land. Okay, I’d take your land if you didn’t want it. Would you sell it to me?”
“And then I couldn’t build the Crab Shack.”
“Brilliant deduction.”
“Don’t get all superior on me.”
“I’m not superior. I’m trying to tell you something.”
“Then spit it out. Put some nouns and verbs together that make sense.”
“I would if you’d be quiet for a minute.”
Jules might not like his hostility. But her keeping quiet was the only way he could tell her what was on his mind. She made a show of zipping her lips shut. Then she folded her arms across her chest and waited.
Caleb’s chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “There’s no easy way to say this.”
“I’m getting that impression,” she muttered.
“I thought your lips were zipped.”
She rezipped them.
“You have an easement. It’s for your access road, and it goes across my land.” He looked toward the shore, and she followed the direction of his gaze. “If I revoke the easement, nobody can get to the Crab Shack.”
It took a minute for his words to penetrate.
When they did, she couldn’t accept them. What he was saying didn’t make sense.
“No,” she said simply.
He had to be lying.
“It would take me a while to give you all the details,” he said. “But it is the truth.”
“I want the details.”
He reached for his inside pocket and handed her an envelope. “This isn’t a bluff.”
“It can’t possibly be true.”
“Stroke of a pen, Jules. It’s my land, and I can revoke your rights. Even if you build the Crab Shack, nobody will be able to come.”
She felt the world shift beneath her. “You wouldn’t.”
“I don’t want to.”
“It can’t be legal. I’m getting my own lawyer.”
“That’s your choice.”
“You bet it’s my choice.” Like he could stop her.
“But I’d rather we worked together and made both places a success.” He looked completely unfazed by her threat.
“You think you can scare me into removing the noncompete clause.” She tilted forward, trying to look tough.
“I’m not trying to scare you. I’m attempting to appeal to your sense of reason and logic.”
“By threatening me?”
“It’s not a threat.” But then he paused, obviously framing his answer, obviously knowing, as she did, that it was a threat. “Remove the noncompete, and I’ll give you the easement. It’s a mutual win.”
“You call that mutual?”
He might win, but she sure wouldn’t.
“I want to help you,” he finally said.
“No, you don’t.” Of that she was certain.
“I like you, Jules.”
She scoffed in disbelief.
“Last night—” he began.
“We are not talking about last night.” She sure wasn’t going to let him use her colossal lack of judgment against her.
“I knew last night. I knew about the easement last night. I couldn’t...” He raked a hand through his short hair. “I couldn’t let things go any further between us before I was honest.”
“You want points for that?”
“I want you to know why I stopped.”
Even through her anger, she had to admit it was the honorable thing to do.
But she couldn’t give him credit for a single honorable thing. She wouldn’t give him credit for that. He was still trying to destroy her dream by any means possible. And that was far, far below the bar anyone would set for honorable.
Four
Caleb forced himself to keep his distance for a few days in order to let Jules think things through. Though he was anxious to hear her answer—which he had to believe would be an agreement to work together—he didn’t want to press too hard. She might be stubborn, but she was smart enough to know that any other approach would be just plain foolish.
He made it to Thursday evening before he cracked. Then he sought her out, knocking unannounced on the door of her house. The lights were blazing, and he could hear a Blake Shelton tune through the open windows.