Ben Nickels shifted his weight, rubbing his shoulder as he leaned against
the half-finished wall. The dull ache had been there for weeks now, a
reminder that hammering nails into wood wasn't something his body was
designed to do forever.
In fact, forty years had been more than enough.
He wasn't that old, not really—fifty-six years last month. But his joints took
every opportunity to remind him that a lifetime of hard labor at double- and
triple-overtime came at a price.
Not just the failed marriage, the children he never had, and the circle of
friends that seemed to be aging even faster than him and dropping like flies
from cancer, heart attacks, and pickled livers, either…
Every day at Westin Construction seemed to bring Ben fresh reminders of
the ways he'd wasted his life, squandering his youth and his health for a
paycheck, only to have squander that, too—first on the ever-growing needs
of his then-wife: big house, new cars, nice clothes, salon hair and nails,
fancy vacations he could never afford to take the time off to accompany her
and her girlfriends on… and then on the expensive divorce after she met someone new, someone who "loved her enough to actually spend time with
her instead of at work."
How and why Cheryl thought he paid for her lavish lifestyle all those years
if he hadn't loved her was one of life's mysteries. Ben had long ago lost
interest in trying to solve it, along with the ambition to try again for a
second chance at love. He couldn't afford to have his heart broken again,
mentally, emotionally, or financially.
More than anything, though, the betrayal of his body failing him after all
this time was the thing that stung the most. It made Ben feel old and
useless, when his usefulness on the job was the only thing bringing purpose
to his lonely life.
A few decades ago, Ben would have shrugged off the pain in his shoulder
and kept working—hell, even five years ago he had more stamina and
recovered faster from injuries—but lately, he found himself taking more
breaks than he liked to admit.
He squinted up at the sky, feeling the sun beating down. Retirement—that's
where his mind always wandered. The thought of putting away the toolbelt
for good was tempting, but without a stash of savings to fall back on, it
wasn't in the cards. Besides, without a hobby to spend his time on or
someone to share his time with, what would be the point?
So here he was, still swinging the damned hammer, pushing through the
pain that got worse every day, because there wasn't any other choice. He'd
spent his life on the job, and he'd probably die here too. He didn't like it
much, but he didn't know what else to do.
The job site buzzed with the usual sounds of clanging metal and shouted
orders. Ben glanced around, watching younger guys heft materials without
a care in the world. They didn't know yet what was waiting for them when
they got older. The slow, inevitable wear and tear.He rolled his shoulder again, trying to ease the stiffness, and sighed.
When he heard the unmistakable click of polished shoes approaching on the
plywood boardwalk that connected Westin Construction's office building to
the worksite, the sigh turned into a groan.
Either someone's brought a call girl to work or I'm about to be blessed by
the presence of the mighty Brock Westin, he thought as the clicking heels
grew louder.
Ben's lips twitched, the urge to smirk almost too hard to resist.
The boss was easy to spot. He inevitably looked out of place on a
construction site, because he always seemed to be wearing something
absurd.
Today, it was a pair of polished brown loafers, khaki trousers with pleats
but no pockets, and a crisp, ironed button-up shirt in a plaid print that
attempted to be casual despite the over-pressed and over-starched look of
the soulless mannequin wearing it.
To top off the ensemble, literally, Westin's brown hair was slicked back
with gel so shiny it practically glowed in the mid-afternoon sun. Ben
wouldn't have been surprised if Westin had never worn a hard hat in his
life, but the shellacked 'do might be hard enough to do the job. He
wondered if it would make a knocking sound if he rapped the overgrown
trust fund baby on the head with his knuckles. For a fleeting second, he was
tempted to try. But it probably wasn't worth his livelihood, pitiful as it was.
"Nickels!" Westin's voice was sharp, laced with a familiar mix of
condescension and faux concern. "Slacking off again, I see?"
Ben straightened up slowly, keeping his face neutral. "Just taking a
breather, boss. Shoulder's acting up again."
Westin tilted his shiny head, eyes narrowing. "That's the problem with guys
like you, isn't it, Nickels? If you put in a bit more effort, maybe you
wouldn't still be swinging a hammer in your golden years. That's the
difference between you and me. I worked smarter, not harder."
Ben resisted the urge to laugh. Worked was a generous way to describe how
Brock Westin had gotten to where he was in life. Twenty years Ben's junior,
Westin had slid into his cushy position as head of the company the moment
his Ivy League diploma hit the frame, probably in underwater basket-
weaving or something equally useless.
Not that it mattered. Ben would have eaten his own toolbelt if it could be
proved Brock Westin had learned anything other than smarmy networking
and the importance of matching sweater-vests at his fancy school. He
suspected Daddy Westin's generous donations to the college had earned the
diploma rather than any actual work on Brock's part.
It was a rotten world, when one's connections bought a ticket to the top of
society and real hard work earned nothing but worn-out joints, aching
muscles, and a mostly-empty apartment in a blue-collar neighborhood. It
was Ben's bad luck to be born without a silver spoon in his mouth, and he'd
spent the rest of his life trying to make up for the lack.
Not that he'd know what to do with a silver spoon if he'd had one. Ben
chuckled to himself at that thought. No, a lifetime of honest work was
worth more in the end, even if it was a rougher ride than floating along on
cloud nine.
He smirked at the spoiled man-child in front of him.
"That's one way of looking at it, I guess," Ben said dryly, keeping his tone polite.
Westin's eyes gleamed, no doubt thinking he'd delivered some kind of
wisdom. "You want to get ahead in life, Nickels, you gotta think bigger. Not
that it matters for you, at this stage… What are you, now, sixty? Too late to
make up for a lifetime of bad choices now."
Ben barely suppressed an eye roll. He'd rather cut off his aching arm than
be anything like Westin. The old boss, now there was a guy who knew the
value of hard work. He'd been pushed aside when Westin came on board,
making the whole place feel more like a vanity project than a construction
company. Ben wondered what old Joe was up to these days…
Westin waved a letter in front of him, interrupting the thought.
"Anyway, here's something for you." He flicked the envelope like it was
some grand gesture. "Personal mail shouldn't be coming to the office,
Nickels. We're running a company, not a post office. This kind of thing is
just a waste of time."
Ben glanced at the letter, which Westin was practically waving in his face
like a carrot on a stick. It was unusual—thick, fancy parchment that seemed
way too elegant to be sitting on the dusty desk of their small HQ. But he
didn't let on his interest, not wanting to give Westin the satisfaction. Ben
gave a curt nod.
"Appreciate you bringing it to me personally," he said. Not that you needed
to waste your precious time doing it, he added to himself silently. Big
important boss man that you are.
Westin scoffed, oblivious to the sarcasm. "Exactly. You know, time is
money, Nickels. Maybe if you thought about that a little more, you'd
understand why I'm so particular about these things."
Ben waited, listening to the lecture with his usual patience. Young Westin
liked to talk. And he really liked to imagine he was running some kind of high-stakes operation instead of a crew that patched up old buildings around
a lackluster boomtown gone bust. It didn't seem to bother him that every
single man on their crew had more experience in the construction trade than
he had, and most of them had more experience with Westin Construction
than he did, too. Nor did it cross his mind that not one of his employees
thought he was worth the dry-cleaning fees of his crisp, beige khakis.
The previous boss had been practical, down-to-earth, someone who knew
the ins and outs of the business. Westin, on the other hand, had probably
never held so much as an allen key in his life.
Ben's eyes flicked back to the letter as Westin rambled on. Something about
the way it looked tugged at him, made him curious. It definitely wasn't a
bill or some junk mail. There was something more to it. But he had to wait,
nodding along to whatever nonsense Westin was spewing.
Finally, Westin seemed satisfied with his little performance. "Anyway, don't
let it happen again. We've got more important things to do than sort through
your personal mail."
Ben nodded once more. "Understood."
"Good. Now, get back to work, and maybe this time, try to pick up the
pace." Westin turned on his heel and marched back along the plywood
boardwalk toward the office, the stench of smugness trailing behind him
like a hot-garbage fart.
As soon as the boss was out of sight, Ben exhaled, looking down at the
letter in his hands. The paper was heavy, the seal on the back waxed with
some kind of crest he didn't recognize.
Something about it didn't sit right, but at the same time, it intrigued him.
"Well, let's see what's so important," Ben muttered to himself, carefully
breaking the seal.
Ben turned the letter over in his hands, feeling the weight of the thick, old-
fashioned paper. As he broke the wax seal and unfolded the parchment, his
brow furrowed. The handwriting was spidery, the kind of thing written with
a fountain pen and displayed in a glass case in a museum, not something
you'd expect in the modern world. As his eyes skimmed the first few lines,
the confusion deepened.
What the hell... this can't be right?
The letter appeared to be from someone claiming to be Nicholas Nicholson
—a name that rang distant bells in Ben's memory. His great-uncle on his
father's side. But that couldn't be. That Nicholas Nicholson had been
estranged from the family since long before Ben was born, some sort of
eccentric recluse who'd disappeared from their lives when Ben's father was
still a young man.
Last anyone had heard, through the twisted grapevine of family gossip, the
man had holed up somewhere in the countryside outside Ben's hometown,
Fortune Springs, Montana. But no one he knew had ever seen him or the
land he supposedly owned up in the hills.
Ben had assumed the old coot was long dead by now. But the letter wasn't
written in the formal tone of a law office or an estate agency, and there was
no sign of legal jargon. So who had sent it?
Just as he was about to re-read the strange opening lines, a shout from the
top of the ramp cut through the air.
"Watch out!"