A Billionaire for Christmas

Chapter One

Marcus

July

Rifle, Colorado

I have great friends. But they’re also jerks, and I tell them as much when they call me as a group from the Hamptons.

It turns out two of them have big news.

Had you told me that you were getting engaged, I’d have maybe flown out for the weekend, I tell Jake Aston. And you… I point at Toby Hunt, who’s sporting a giant shit-eating grin. Married?"

Ben Russo shakes his head on my phone’s screen. I know. They both kept good secrets. Too good. Sorry you aren’t here, man.

Yeah, well… I flip the camera around on my own phone and show them the mountain top I’m currently looking at across a gorge just outside my office. That’s my view, you assholes, so I’m not too sad.

They howl with laughter, then Jake makes me promise to come back out east for the wedding.

I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Now I have to get back to work. Leave me alone, I growl. But I’m grinning, and that smile doesn’t drop off my face until I arrive back at the National Park Service-owned cabin where I work.

Whoever she is, the stacked brunette with the perky ponytail and open-toed sandals peering in the windows of my office isn’t from around here. Which is a shame, because I like perky ponytails.

The sandals are an interesting choice in the Rocky Mountains, but to each their own.

I don’t like industrious outsiders who drive halfway up a mountain to find me, though.

And I don’t need to make it easy for her now.

Can I help you? I ask in that probably not, but say your piece anyway voice that usually sends people running.

She straightens and turns around, a polite smile on her face. Perhaps you can. I’m looking for Marcus Dane. Do you know him?

Like I’m your stereotypical bearded mountain man who knows everyone in the national park, but couldn’t possible be the guy she’s looking for. She’s right on the former point, and too bad for her, very wrong on the latter.

Not sure anyone really knows Marcus Dane.

That’s what I’ve heard.

Well that’s not good. Are you here on official business or… I leer at her, because it’s both effective and fun. When was the last time I got a good leer in? College, probably. Something more personal?

Sadly, the leer I’m so proud of doesn’t send her shrieking for the hills. She gives me a bland look and hands over a business card. Business, Mr. Dane. Nice beard, by the way. Killer disguise.

I sigh as I read the card. Her name is Poppy Lisowski and she’s a journalist. Her card lists a few different places she’s been published. I recognize The Washington Record, and I think Poindexter is a blog I’ve heard about on the morning news.

So she’s not here about anything good, then.

It’s not a disguise, I say slowly, taking my time so I can figure out something, anything more about her. It’s just my face. Which you looked at and appeared not to recognize, and since I was just about to take a coffee break, Ms. Lisowski, I thought I’d better find out if your reason for being here was more important than caffeine.

Do you use Twitter, Mr. Dane?

Ah. That kind of question. I take a deep breath and cross my arms over my chest. That’s none of your God damned business.

Chapter Two

Poppy

The beard definitely helps him look pissed off. It’s close-cropped, so I can see the hard cut of his jaw as he grits his teeth. He’s clearly uncomfortable with being hunted down, and part of me feels bad—just for a second—about poking this particular bear.

It’s not like I don’t have sympathy for the ideals he claims to protect. It’s just that the truth is more important than political ideology.

I take a deep breath and try again. Do you know Toby Hunt?

We went to college together.

And you have visited him in San Francisco recently. Not a question. I’ve done my research.

Technically he lives in Palo Alto, not San Francisco.

Thank you for confirming your close relationship—

Go away, Ms. Lisowski. Nothing good will come of your nosing around here. He drops his hands to his sides, and the muscles in his shoulders bunch and roll, big and strong.

How big and strong he is doesn’t matter in the least. I shouldn’t notice that he’s super tall, either. I’m not short, and he dwarfs me. So it’s not the smartest idea to march forward and get right into his space, but that’s what I do. I pull out my recorder, and ignoring the obvious shake in my hand, I turn it on. Would you repeat that on the record?

He leans in, his brown eyes sparkling for a split second before he shutters his gaze and directs his voice to the mic. Go. Away. Ms. Lisowski.

And the threat?

I didn’t threaten you.

You said nothing good will come of me nosing around here.

Mighty big stretch to call that a threat. He shrugs. But sure, I said that. On the record and everything.

What do you mean, nothing good?

He straightens up and props his hands on his hips now. He’s constantly in motion, this park ranger. This rebel. This likely resistance leader. What do you think you’re going to find here, little one?

I roll my eyes. First he tried to perv on me—which totally didn’t work—and now he’s being condescending? You need to work on your scare tactics.

He grins unexpectedly. But you are little.

Not to most people.

Ah. He winks. Well, Poppy. I think you’re going to discover I am not most people. Now, I’ve decided this conversation isn’t more important than caffeine, so if you’ll excuse me, it’s my coffee break.

He brushes past me and heads into his office.

That’s his prerogative, but I wouldn’t be a half-decent reporter if I left it at that. Also, there’s no way I’d be able to justify my flight to Colorado.

I’ve got two options. I can chase after him and keep asking him questions he doesn’t want to answer, or I can wait him out.

I like door number two.

I plop my butt down on the porch outside his little log building and pull out my phone. I wonder what Mr. Alt Park Service is tweeting about right now?

They’re all the same, these alt accounts. Morally outraged, full of righteous indignation. Half of them shams to drum up extremist rhetoric and disguise the rapid dismantling of the bureaucratic state. The other half are preaching to the choir. That story has been written. It’s inspiring for the liberal base, and intriguing for journalists—for a hot minute.

But now what he’s tweeting isn’t nearly as important as where he’s tweeting from—this particular account gave a couple of subtle and accidental clues in early tweets, right after the election, that point to this group of national parks west of Denver—and how he’s doing it without getting caught.

Also, given the connections I’ve discovered in his background, who has helped him along the way.

Marcus Dane has some very wealthy friends.

Are the rules different when you’re besties with billionaires?

While I wait for him to tweet, or not tweet, because maybe I’ve pissed him off and he’s going to try and throw me off his scent, I pull up the dossier I’ve compiled on him.

I can’t concentrate on the words, though. There’s no maybe about the pissing him off part. I’ve definitely gotten under his skin. I pushed a little too hard.

Besides, I don’t need to go over the dossier again. I’ve memorized every single word in it.

Marcus Dane went to MIT, where he met and befriended Jake Aston and Toby Hunt, when they were ordinary young men with extraordinarily big dreams.

Reading between the lines, it would be easy to assume that Marcus was a third young man with equally big dreams, but the career that follows belies that hypothesis.

After graduating, Marcus and Toby headed to California. But where Toby used seed money from Gladiator Inc’s young CEO, Ben Russo, to start his own company, Marcus got a job as a software engineer.

A regular job.

Because Marcus Dane, best friend to billionaires, was a regular Joe—hypothesis number two.

But after a few years of chasing the tech 401k dream, he walked away from the suburban house and workplace-with-a-gym-and-smoothie-bar, for…

I glance around me.

Nothing, really.

Maybe everything.

Trees. Fresh air.

Painfully high altitude that sort of makes me faint, although that could also be attributed to the clash of wills with the bearded mountain man.

Freedom.

Hypothesis number three, should anyone still care about Marcus Dane after he disappeared up a mountain, is that he’s seen the inside workings of capitalist, tech-worshiping America, and he doesn’t like it. In fact, he hates it, and now that society has broken down to the point of chaos, he’s going to use whatever platform he can find to ensure the things that really matter to him—the environment, protection of the land and animals, water—have a voice.

No matter what official edict gets handed down from on high, Mr. Alt Park Service won’t be silenced.

As far as I know, nobody has looked at Marcus Dane but me. I’ve run the story in the loosest of terms