Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
O live had to think quickly.
In three seconds flat, she pulled an earring from her ear and pretended to grab it from the floor. “Oh, here it is! Y’all, I seriously thought I was losing my mind.”
Cowboy Boots continued to stare at her, an incredulous look on his face.
She climbed from beneath the desk and inserted the gold hoop back into her ear. “I thought I was never going to find this thing, and my daddy would kill me if I lost it. It’s an heirloom. Belonged to my grandma’s grandma.”
The men stared at her another moment.
“Olive . . .” Trick said in her ear.
If only Olive could respond. However, she knew Trick and Tevin could hear everything being said right now.
She got her first glance at the men. Cowboy Boots was short with thick, blond hair. Work Boots was tall and lanky with dark hair and craggy features.
Olive wasn’t sure how this situation would play out right now.
“You were down there the whole time?” Work Boots finally chimed in.
“This whole time?” Olive used her best Texas twang. “I came here to grab something for Skip, and then I lost my earring. Thought I was never going to find it.”
Cowboy Boots grunted as he stared at her.
She needed to pivot. “Okay . . . y’all caught me. I was looking for my earring. But I was in here because . . . I had a private little meeting with Skip. You know what I mean?” She winked at Cowboy Boots.
“Private meeting? With Skip?” Disbelief stretched through his voice. “He’s married to my sister!”
Olive’s pivot clearly hadn’t worked. Win some, lose some, she supposed.
The man’s nostrils flared, and he reached for her arm. “You need to come with me.”
“Now, is that any way to handle a lady?” Olive shrugged out of his grip.
He tried again.
It was time to say goodbye to nice girl Olive.
She drew her arm back and threw her elbow into his face.
As Cowboy Boots barked out a curse and grabbed his nose, Olive swung her legs over Skip’s desk and hopped off the other side.
Work Boots tried to grab her, but she ducked out of his reach. He dove onto the desk instead.
Now Olive just had to get to the door without being caught.
“Tevin . . . I need you to be ready,” she murmured.
“I’m on it,” he said. “Get yourself out of there. Now.”
She jerked the door open and darted from the office.
Quickly, she glanced to the left then the right.
To the left there was nothing, to the right a crowd of people.
Both options came with their own risks.
Olive didn’t want to cause a spectacle of herself. But she didn’t think these men wanted to draw any attention to themselves either.
She went right.
Cowboy Boots and Work Boots regained their bearings and were on her heels.
Moving quickly, she wove through the crowd, mumbling apologies to everyone she pushed out of her way. Gasps sounded around her, and the auctioneer paused at all the commotion.
A thin film of sweat spread across Olive’s forehead, and her heart stammered in her chest as adrenaline surged through her.
She could do this. She could get out of here. She’d been in bigger pickles before.
A shout sounded behind her. “Stop, you little . . . !”
Olive didn’t slow down.
The exit waited just ahead.
A gray delivery van pulled to a stop in front of the doors.
She just had to reach the vehicle without being caught. But these guys were close enough to grab her. All they needed was a few more inches . . .
“You two have a problem?” a familiar voice said behind her.
Trick.
He’d left the corral and now blocked these two from reaching Olive.
She couldn’t turn around to see what was happening.
But she heard flesh hitting flesh and knew something close to a barroom brawl had broken out.
A fist fight at the livestock auction hadn’t been a part of Olive’s plan.
But that was exactly what happened.
Olive couldn’t see any details as she darted toward the van. She could only hear the brawl taking place. She heard the shouts. The fists flying. The feet scuffling.
She reached the van as the door opened, and she dove into the back.
Before she closed the door, she glanced inside the sale barn.
Cowboy Boots peered up from the shuffle of flying fists and sent her a death glare. He didn’t have to say a word to make his threat clear. Olive knew too much, and he wasn’t going to let this go.
As the door closed, she released her breath.
Trick was in the middle of that chaos, but he’d be okay. He could handle himself in nearly any situation. Besides, no one could know the two of them were working together. It would make things too complicated.
“That was close,” Tevin said as he sped away from the sale barn.
Olive climbed into the passenger seat and clicked on her seatbelt. Then she pulled her wig off and ran a hand over her hair, which had been pinned into a tight bun. “You can say that again.”
“Those guys weren’t playing.”
“No, but this only confirms that something fishy is going on. I need to find out who those guys are. One of them mentioned his sister was married to Skip Carson.”
“I’ll get right on that. We’ll figure out their identities. I have a system in place for that.”
Thirty-two-year-old Tevin was tall and lanky with curly, dark hair and dark-framed glasses. The man was smart as a whip and was a tech genius. Of everyone in her life, Olive trusted him the most. He was like a brother to her.
She stared at the country road ahead of them, both sides surrounded by open pastures and grazing cattle. The sun was high in the sky, and the early spring breeze added a chill to the air.
“Something is going on here, Tevin,” Olive murmured. “Why were those men putting a gun in Skip’s office?”
“Sounds like there’s more to this, and we’re just skimming the surface.”
Olive rubbed her neck. “Yes, it does. We need to figure out why someone wants Reid Harrison’s property so much. Is it secretly rich with oil or some type of mineral? That’s the first thing that comes to mind.”
“I thought about that too. I’ll see if I can find out if his land is sitting on something valuable. It’s a good starting place, at least.”
“That would be great,” Olive said. “But if not natural resources, then what?”
Tevin twisted his head. “I’m not 100 percent sure. That’s what we’ll need to figure out. I’ve already started a spreadsheet to keep track of everything.”
Next week, she would head to Reid Harrison’s ranch for the rest of her assignment. Today, she’d had to strike while the iron was hot. This had been her opportunity to glean information.
She glanced at the letter she’d taken a picture of.
It detailed the complaint against Reid, claiming some of his employees had purposefully injured livestock belonging to competitors before the last auction in order to garner more money for themselves.
The name of the person who’d filed this complaint, however, had been whited-out and redacted.
She frowned.
Whatever was happening, millions of dollars were at stake. With that much money involved, things got dangerous fast. In fact, some people were willing to kill for it.