"…we are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but the responsibility of our future." George Bernard Shaw

"You can't rewrite history with a bulldozer, Mr. Maxwell!" Annie Crawford said as she picked her way through the dormant grass. She followed the tall developer across the muddy field, hopping here and there to stay on drier ground. For the moment, only Annie and Maxwell occupied the meadow. With the groundbreaking ceremony concluded, most of the other participants had already left the remote mountainous valley to avoid the springtime thunderstorm threatening over the westward mountains.

Maxwell stopped under the temporary canopy and glared down at her. "I don't have to justify my project to you, Miss Crawford. The designs are already approved and filed with the county clerk."

Annie placed her hands on her hips and stood her ground. "But what you're planning is outrageous." She peeked up through her lashes to watch his reaction. What he proposed to do to the land was wrong-in so many ways. Surely he could understand her objections.

Maxwell's chiseled features settled into a scowl. He turned his back on her, pulled the drawings off the easel and rolled them into cardboard tubes. "The property belongs to Maxwell Development. You signed the deeds over a month ago. If you had a problem with the sale, you shouldn't have put the property on the market."

He was right, of course. The major obstacle to her objection was the not-so-little fact that she no longer owned the land. Maxwell's assistant had only invited her to the groundbreaking ceremony as a courtesy. She'd politely sat through the speeches, and silently agreed that the project would bring work to the depressed surrounding townships. She'd even felt proud that she'd helped the process by making the property available. It wasn't until the visual designs were unveiled that she choked back a burst of outrage, not only at the plans, but at herself for selling the land in the first place.