Morning. It stole into the room while Valerie was sleeping with her head on her keyboard. She was so tired that only the beep her machine made when an email came into her inbox, woke her.
She was up to her armpits in notes and photos. Sun Valley was beautiful and the people were friendly and lively. They were also bears. But that seemed a lot less important now, than the fact that they were people who were about to lose their homes.
They worked hard on other people’s ranches as hired labor at a reduced rate, to pay off some old stupid debt that was owed since the wild west days. It was like they were cursed or something. Valerie got the impression that the deck had been stacked against the bears for a long time. This meant it was unlikely that there was anything short of something silly and radical, that would change this. But what did she have that was silly and radical?
Kyle was counting on her. The whole valley was sure, but Kyle’s faith was the one she didn’t want to lose. She wanted to be his hero. She wanted to make him happy and have him hold her and whisper a lot of sexy nothings into her ears. Valerie realized that what she wanted more than anything in the whole world was for Kyle to love her, and she would do anything to get that. She would lose her job over this—no actually she would quit. Submit the final report and quit.
But that was the problem right? That final report. What if she didn’t submit it? They would just send Calvin down anyway and he would submit it no problem.
And then it hit her.
“Of course! You can be so stupid you know?” she yelled at herself and punched the air. Of course, why didn’t she realize it before. The report, that final piece of red tape. That was going to save them. And not by some strange clerical error, or by Valerie not doing her job properly, oh no! She was going to do her job by the book and to the letter.
With a huge grin she began to type.
Three hours and multiple cups of coffee later, Valerie met with Kyle, Ryan, Wyatt and Jess at The Lemon Drop Café. The storm had left puddles on the sidewalk and there was a chill in the air even though the sun was shining.
When she came in and sat down next to Kyle they all turned strained faces to her. Jess looked haggard and spent. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed like she’d been crying. Valerie smiled and placed a hand over hers.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said.
“How?” Ryan asked in his calm measured voice. “Have you done something?”
Valerie beamed at them. “It’s not a fix. I have to tell you that outright. But it will buy you, us, some time.” She took Kyle’s hand in hers.
He squeezed her fingers.
“What did you do?” Wyatt asked.
“Nothing, my job,” Valerie said.
“I’m lost,” Jess said. “How does you doing your job solve our problem? I thought you doing your job was the problem?”
“So did I,” Valerie said. “And then I realized that if I did my job to the letter, then this process would take a lot longer.”
“What did you do?” Kyle asked smiling.
“I sent in the report,” Valerie said, “A copy goes to Mr. Petersen, and one to Mr. Snow and then another to the council. In it I have raised concerns about the land, what it is intended for and how that will affect the fauna and flora, some of which I suspect may be endangered, or at least in need of conservation.”
“Hold on, you’ve gummed up the works with your report?” Jess asked.
“Yup,” Valerie smiled as Kyle kissed her temple and put his arm around her shoulders.
“That’s my girl,” he said proudly and Valerie felt her heart flutter in her chest.
“They will have to do a full environmental impact survey and those take time. I’ll send a copy of the report to your grandpa, Kyle, if you give me his email address. That way if they do anything without that report you can report them to the authorities. It won’t hold them off for long, but maybe it will buy enough time.” She shrugged.
“You can send it to me,” Kyle said. “Is this girl a genius or what?”
He turned to her then and took her face in his hands and kissed her. She melted into him as all his friends made the usual mocking noises, but she didn’t care at all.