“Don’t give up. Not yet.”
A murmur of voices told him the crowds he’d seen on television gathered at Base Camp hadn’t thinned yet. If anything, they’d grown. He realized the search parties must have come to join the women who’d saved the tiny houses. It looked like all of Chance Creek was here to greet Avery’s safe return.
As they approached the community, the floodlights lit up the bulldozers still strewn around the hillside. Women were perched on them, inside and out. More were milling around, setting up tables of food and drinks, holding babies, wrangling children they’d brought along with them, dressed in pajamas.
The men of Base Camp stood gathered together, speaking in low voices, already planning their next steps, Walker assumed. This was too dynamic a group for there not to be next steps, but like Avery said, it would be hard to leave Base Camp after everything that had happened here.
“Walker! Avery!” Jericho called out, and instantly they were swarmed. Avery submitted to the hugs of her friends. Walker shook Jericho’s hand, then Clay’s.
“I can’t believe we didn’t find you sooner,” Clay said. “I can’t believe that vacation rental wasn’t on our list.”
“It’s okay. It’s over,” Walker told them.
“It really is,” Boone said, running a hand through his short-cropped hair and looking around them. Everyone went quiet, all of them counting their regrets.
“No one can say we didn’t try,” Clay pronounced roughly. “We gave it everything we had.”
“We did the right thing protecting Elizabeth, too,” Jericho said. “Maybe we lost the ranch, but she persuaded those guys in the Senate. That’s something.”
Walker was grateful for his friends’ support, but he knew everyone was hurting and would continue to do so long after the high of defeating the legislation ebbed away.
“I’ll be right back.” Avery went up on tiptoe to press a kiss to his cheek. “Just need the washroom.”
“Your parents are on the way,” Clay told her. “They’re with the Russells.”
“Thanks.”
Walker watched her until she disappeared into the bunkroom, wanting to follow her there and guard the door, finding it hard to believe the threat to their lives was really over.
“We’ll figure out something,” Greg told him. “With so many of us working together, there has to be a way to recreate what we have here.”
Murmurs of assent came from all around.
“We can start fresh. Learn from past mistakes,” Kai said.
“Hell, it’s Fulsom,” Harris said wearily, pointing. “I don’t know if I have the patience to listen to that windbag right now.”
There were a few chuckles as they shifted to make way for the man to speak to them.
Walker wished the night was over and all was said and done. He was ready to cut his losses and move forward—with Avery.
Wherever they might go next.
It was all her fault, Avery decided as she splashed cold water on her face and tried to hide the traces of her fresh tears. If she had never come to Westfield in the first place, Walker probably would have cut a deal with Elizabeth and married her in exchange for protecting her until the hearing. If she hadn’t been so restless at the Russells’, she wouldn’t have been kidnapped. Either way you looked at it, it was her fault they were going to lose everything they’d worked so hard to build.
Had this been Fulsom’s plan all along—to make them lose? To make their audience so angry they’d finally fight for the changes they needed to keep carbon emissions low?
If so, Avery thought it would backfire. People were already tired. They were overwhelmed with bad news and too much information. They were struggling to hold their own lives together, let alone try to save the world.
As she slipped out of the bunkhouse into the surrounding crowd, she spotted a new surge of people approaching from the parking area: Fulsom and his entourage. She fought an urge to go right back into the bunkhouse and hide. Instead she made her way to them and quietly joined the group around the billionaire.
“I thought we agreed at least two houses would be damaged,” Fulsom was saying to an aide as they walked toward the gathered crowd. “There was supposed to be drama!”
“The pregnant women in danger were the drama, sir,” his aide pointed out. “Not to mention the kidnapping.”
“She’s back, right? Don’t need any deaths on my hands.”
Anger kindled in Avery’s belly. At least two of the tiny houses were supposed to be damaged? So Fulsom knew all about Montague’s attempt to bulldoze them early? He knew about her kidnapping, and he’d only just made it here? Had he tried to help find her at all?
“Here she is. Right here! Get those lights over here.”
A woman’s hand closed around her arm, and Avery looked up to see Marla and the rest of the Star News crew focused on her.
“Can I get a statement about the spectacular failure of Base Camp to accomplish anything?” Marla asked.
Avery yanked free of her grip. “What are you doing here? Who gave you permission to film on our land?”
“It’s not your land anymore, is it?” Marla persisted. “We’re here on the invitation of Martin Fulsom, the colossally reckless billionaire who started this whole thing. I saw him walk past just now. What would you like to say to him?”
Avery turned away. Had Fulsom been feeding stories to Star News all this time?
It was another kick in the gut.
By the time she recovered herself and caught up to Walker and the others again, Fulsom was miced up and addressing the crowd. Anger and indignation built inside her with each passing moment. He’d risked their homes—their lives.
“Thank you all for being here tonight. First I want to welcome everyone to this special place and say a few words about what’s happened here. We took on something big when we started Base Camp.”
“We?” Avery called out in indignation. “What did you do? We’re the ones who spent a year building this community.”
If her interruption surprised him, Fulsom recovered quickly. “We aimed for the
