Chapter One #2
Her gaze flashed to his, mere inches separating them. There was an intensity in the depths of his green eyes that hadn’t been there before. “I… Yes. Thank you.”
“Snacks and a show,” Eli said beside them with a chuckle. “We need to come to public hearings more often.”
The comment pulled her out of whatever handsome-cowboy stupor she’d fallen into, and Natalie scrambled to put some space between them and get her wits about her. “Sam, I am so , so sorry. Here, let me find something to clean this up.”
She hurried across the room for napkins, stumbling as her heel caught on another bare spot in the floor. If this kept up, she’d be kicking off her shoes and going barefoot the rest of the night.
“Don’t worry about it.” Sam rose from his seat. “I’ve got an extra shirt in the truck.”
His grandmother nodded. “Good. But don’t you go getting any crazy ideas about leaving and not coming back. We need you here.”
On a grunt, he strode from the room without another look back. Natalie’s heart sank. So much for winning over the early attendees.
“Don’t you worry about Sam,” his grandmother said. “A little punch won’t make him melt.”
“That’s good to know,” Nat said, trying to smile.
But it might make winning over this crowd a little tougher.
*
Sam Miles sat in a wrinkled Luke Bryan T-shirt he’d pulled from the back of his truck, glaring at Natalie’s slideshow.
Not because she’d ruined his favorite American Eagle shirt—clothes were just clothes, nothing worth getting upset over—but because her company’s ridiculous development was about to undermine the ranch land his family had worked for five generations.
He’d planned to come here tonight and get the other locals riled up, get them to fight back.
But then Natalie had gone and fallen into his arms, and damn if the clumsy, curvy, out-of-towner hadn’t managed to stir feelings inside him that had long been dormant.
Needy feelings. Hungry feelings.
Feelings he had no business having here or now.
And definitely not with the woman sent here to convince the town that big business was in their best interest. Which was wrong, by the way.
This River Bend Resort of hers would both take farming land away from the Flying J Ranch and be in direct competition with their own lodge and small collection of cabins.
Surely, she had to know that. And if she did and was still here pushing for some new resort to be built, then she wasn’t someone he wanted to be interested in.
Too bad his libido didn’t seem to be listening.
“The resort will offer our clients a mixture of luxury with the Big Sky country rustic feel. And when they’re ready to step outside and explore their surroundings, that’s when we steer them to you.
To your shops, your restaurants, your locally owned excursions.
We don’t want to be just another resort; we want to be your partner in the hospitality industry. ”
Natalie offered the group another megawatt smile.
It was no wonder those big-city yahoos had hired her.
Between that smile and those curves, it was tough to stay focused on the proposal he was here to fight.
Hell, those hip-hugging gray dress slacks of hers could well be illegal in ten states.
And that purple top? His hands could still feel its silky touch.
But it was that accidental peek of cleavage he’d caught trying to keep her upright that had sent his thoughts spiraling.
And his thoughts hadn’t spiraled like this in a good, long while. She waved a hand toward the screen before them and turned, the view of her profile sending his thoughts back to their close encounter earlier. To how soft she felt in his grasp, how subtle her lavender perfume had been…
Sam dragged a hand down the side of his face. Good God, man, get it together.
If his parents hadn’t scheduled their anniversary vacation for this month, they would be here tonight instead of him.
His father would have smooth talked the other locals out of listening to Natalie’s proposal, and Sam might have never crossed paths with the woman.
So why didn’t that thought make him feel any better?
As if sensing his internal struggle, his daughter Madison’s voice joined the current jumble of thoughts.
“ You need to get out there and date, Dad. No one said marriage had to be a one and done deal. Look how happy Mom is. ”
As if that was supposed to make him feel better.
Sure, he wanted Sasha to be happy, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear about it over and over every time Madison came home from visiting her mother in Northern California.
Especially not when his replacement was such a dweeb.
And marriages should be a one-and-done deal, dammit.
Wasn’t that what they stood up before the preacher and pledged to begin with?
Resentment cleared the desire from his mind, allowing Sam to focus on the task at hand—blocking the proposed development.
He studied the presentation’s current slide, displaying big-city business mumbo jumbo like poised for growth and robust offerings .
Hank Nelson would be rolling over in his freshly dug grave if he knew what his money-grubbing son, Jack, was about to do with the land that had been in their family for more than a hundred years.
Sure, everyone knew Jack wasn’t exactly the farming type, but he could have gifted the land to his kids—they’d always loved spending time with their grandpa on his sprawling farm.
Of course, everyone also knew how much Jack loved to make a quick buck so he could turn around and bet it on the ponies.
“I grew up in a small town in Indiana, so I understand how important it is not to disturb that sense of community,” Natalie said. “Terakion Enterprises understands it, as well—I wouldn’t be working for them if I didn’t believe that.”
That girl-next-door charm of hers was appealing, he’d give her that. But Marietta was a town proud of its heritage. Surely, everyone would stick to their guns that they didn’t need some fancy resort coming in and disrupting their cozy, small-town atmosphere.
He cast a subtle glance around the room to confirm as much.
But wait—what was this? People were nodding and smiling?
Hells bells, even the mayor was over there looking like he was ready to sign the town over to her.
And were the county commissioners actually smiling ?
Something had to be done before his family lost everything.
Sam spoke up. “With all due respect, Miss Natalie, things out here are different from in the Midwest. What your company is proposing will bring all sorts of unwanted change to our area. Increased traffic, noise, air pollution, and light pollution, just to name a few.”
Natalie picked up a pen and paper. “Thank you for that feedback, Sam. Part of my job tonight is to collect your concerns and take them back to our team at Terakion so we can do everything possible to address them.”
More like be the pretty face, sent ahead of the wolves. “Great, then have them also figure out a way to let my family keep farming their westernmost fifty acres, just like Henry Nelson did the last decade.”
Murmuring sounded around him. Sam was pleased to see a few of the other ranchers nodding in agreement. Come on, friends and neighbors, don’t fail us now.
Natalie tipped her head, her lips pursed in a look of sympathy. “I don’t believe we’d heard about such an arrangement. Was this a verbal agreement between the two families?”
Like those fancy tennis matches on TV, heads turned from her direction to his.
“No. We had a lease. In writing.”
The collective looked back to her for a rebuttal. Sam felt a tiny bit satisfied to see Natalie’s megawatt smile dim.
“You leased the land from Mr. Nelson?” She moved to the podium and began flipping through pages in a fancy notebook. “For how long?”
Heads around him turned left. “Ten years.”
Heads turned right. Natalie was frowning now. “That is definitely an agreement we were unaware of, but I’ll make sure we look into it.”
The murmuring around him grew, and Sam felt the tide begin to change. He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “I thought you said you’d done extensive research on the area?”
Something came down hard on his boot. Sam turned a surprised look to his gran, who sat to his left.
“Manners,” she mouthed.
He arched a brow. Suzanne “Sunnie” Miles had never been the type of woman to hold her tongue or to pull the manners card in the middle of a town hall discussion. So why change now? The look she gave him in return warned that he best not argue.
“I assure you, a significant amount of time and research went into the Marietta site location selection.”
Someone across the room asked about their own past agreement with Hank Nelson.
Followed by another of his neighbors. Hank had been a kindhearted man, offering use of his land to many of the area residents—some for farming, some for lumber, some for housing animals.
Sam’s family, however, was the only one who had been leasing from Hank. On paper, anyway.
Natalie looked genuinely flustered now, a lovely shade of pink tinting her cheeks.
Part of him felt bad about stirring the pot, but Sam tamped down that guilt.
He would do whatever it took to protect his family and his land.
Besides, Natalie would always have another project to chase after. His family only had one ranch.
“Yes, thank you, I have a note here to look into that. Yes. And everyone, please, remember our key points from tonight. While our new resort may bring some initial changes to the area, the benefits of those changes will—”
An alarm sounded from the back of the room, loud as a dozen bull elk bucks in heat.
“Fire alarm,” Lyle Tate yelled over the noise, rising to his feet. “Everyone out.”
At the front of the room, Natalie paled. “But—”
“No time for buts, Miss Wright.” Mayor Gleeson guided her toward the door with the others. “As old as this building is, we don’t take alarms lightly. It could be anything.”
Or nothing. Sam smirked. He got his grandparents to their feet and ushered them toward the door, filing through the cramped space like the cattle he herded daily.
Up ahead, he could see Natalie, her neck craned as she pointed back toward the podium.
That was when he saw her purse still sitting on a chair near the refreshment table.
Sam had been married long enough to know how important it was for a woman not to lose her purse.
She was probably in a panic, thinking that if the building was truly on fire, she’d lose everything in it.
The jaded cowboy in him wanted to look the other way.
The gentleman he’d been raised to be made him turn around to get it for her.
Besides, if he rescued her purse, maybe Natalie would stay true to her word and get her company to look into his existing lease of the Nelson property. Surely, they couldn’t develop while that was still in place. If that happened, his family would lose this season’s crops.
Or worse—all crops on that land going forward, forever. That’d be one helluva financial hit to the Miles family.
“Be right back,” he told Gramps, then stepped to the wall and squeezed his way against the flow to take one for the team.