“It affects HOA property.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
She gave me the same patient smile she used whenever she thought the other person simply had not yet understood her authority.
“You should be thanking us, Jack. Your land finally has a view.”
I turned.
Through the gap where my father’s trees had stood, I could now see Lake Hartwell.
More importantly, the six luxury homes in Silver Ridge could now see straight across my property toward the water.
They could also see something else.
My fabrication yard.
Stacks of aluminum dock framing.
Steel posts.
A compact excavator.
Two trailers.
A rack of boat-lift beams.
Three unfinished dock sections.
A pallet of galvanized hardware.
A welding cart.
And the rear of a twenty-year-old service truck that had not been photogenic the day it rolled off the assembly line.
Vanessa’s expression changed when she noticed all of it.
“What is that?”
“My business.”
“That equipment is visible from Silver Ridge.”
“Now it is.”
Her eyes moved across the yard.
“You’ll need screening.”
I actually laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
“I had screening.”
She did not answer.
For a moment, I wanted to do something reckless.
I wanted to line every ugly piece of equipment I owned along that property line. I wanted to install floodlights facing west. I wanted to put up the tallest legal fence the county would allow and paint it a color Vanessa would have nightmares about.
Instead, I looked at the stumps again.
My father had planted every one of those trees.
That mattered more than Vanessa understood.
And more than I wanted her to know while I was angry.
So I made myself slow down.
I turned back to the foreman.
“I need your company information and the work order before you leave.”
Vanessa stepped between us verbally before he could answer.