Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
A t five minutes before two, Ry and Freddy walked into the lobby of Frontier Savings and Loan. He’d assured her that after a shower at the hotel and the use of a comb and lipstick from her purse, she didn’t look as if she’d just spent two hours making love.
More specifically, a stranger wouldn’t know it, he amended to himself as he ushered her past a large Remington sculpture of a cattle stampede and over to a cluster of desks to the right of the teller windows.
He had only to gaze into her languorous eyes to read the aftermath of passion written there.
The merest brush of her sleeve against his and scenes flashed through his mind — Freddy tossing her underwear across the room, Freddy stretching out on the bed and inviting him to make good on his boast, Freddy arching in surrender at the moment of climax.
They’d discovered paradise in that hotel room, and he still carried a bit of it with him.
“We’ll wait,” Freddy said, nudging him. “Won’t we, Mr. McGuinnes?”
He snapped out of his daze long enough to realize Freddy had been communicating with the loan officer at the desk nearest Ballesteros’s empty one. And Ry had been out to lunch — literally. He cleared his throat. “Of course.”
“Would either of you care for coffee?” the woman asked.
He glanced at Freddy, who shook her head. “No, thanks,” he said. “We’ll just have a seat until Mr. Ballesteros arrives.” Ry wondered if Ballesteros was engaged in a little rendezvous of his own. Probably not. Just because Ry was in an erotic fog didn’t mean everyone else was.
As they sat in imitation-leather chairs, Freddy leaned toward him. “You’ll have to sharpen up, there, McGuinnes,” she said in a low voice. “If you stand around staring off into space, people will wonder what you’ve been up to.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “You’re a powerful force, Miss Singleton. I’m not sure I realized what I was letting myself in for.”
“Ah.” She studied him, a wary look in her eyes. “Second thoughts?”
“Yes. I was trying to figure out how we could have managed this meeting with simply a phone call so we wouldn’t have had to leave the room.”
Her lips curved provocatively. He wanted to kiss off every bit of her newly applied lipstick.
“Miss Singleton? Mr. McGuinnes? I’m Jose Ballesteros. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Ry looked up as a short, round man with an olive complexion held out his hand. Apparently, they’d missed his entrance into the building. They really would have to pay better attention to the world around them.
“No problem.” Ry stood and shook his hand firmly. Freddy followed suit, and Ballesteros took a seat behind his cluttered desk. “Were you able to find out anything about the petroleum drums?” he asked, pawing through the papers on his desk.
“The drums were taken out,” Freddy said, leaning forward. “I was there. I saw the trucks loaded with the drums pull away and drive down the road.”
“Well, that’s good,” Ballesteros said cautiously, glancing up at her. “Do you have any documentation as to when that was done?”
Ry shifted in his seat. “We’re running into some difficulty with that and we thought you might be able to take a notarized statement from Miss Singleton.”
Ballesteros met his gaze. “Not a good idea. We can do that, but she’d have to sign a statement that she’s responsible for anything that’s found buried there, ever. That kind of liability is too broad, in my opinion.”
“You’re right.” Ry shook his head in frustration. “I guess we have to find that receipt.”
“What if we don’t?” Freddy asked.
“Then I’m afraid, in order to get financing, we have to dig.”
“Who’s we?” she persisted.
“Well...” Ballesteros obviously wasn’t enjoying his role as the bearer of bad news.
“The present owners claim they have no responsibility in the matter, and technically they don’t.
I’m afraid the expense of either proving the drums aren’t there, or getting them out and cleaning up the area if they are, will fall to the person who was the owner at the time the drums were installed. ”
Ry had figured that one out, but he wanted Ballesteros to deliver the message instead of him. And he wanted her to realize just what a jerk Whitlock was turning out to be.
“So, since my father and mother are dead, the responsibility falls to me,” Freddy said in a surprisingly calm voice.
Ballesteros steepled his fingers. “I’m afraid so.
If I were you, I’d do everything I could to find a receipt or locate the trucking company.
In the meantime, the financing decisions will be put on hold.
I’m sorry. This is a very hot subject right now.
And you’d better hope that if the drums are down there, they didn’t pollute the water supply. ”
“They’re not down there,” Freddy said, an edge to her voice.
“Let’s hope not.”
Ry stood. “We’ll find a way to prove it. Thanks for your time.”
As they left the building in a much less euphoric mood than when they’d arrived, Ry reflected that there was nothing that spoiled paradise quicker than a snake.
On the way back to the True Love, he glanced at Freddy’s rigid profile. “Now do you see what your friend and neighbor has done? He’s not only thrown a monkey wrench into the sale, he may have set you up for a very costly procedure.”
“Which I couldn’t begin to pay for on what I make as foreman of the ranch.”
“You won’t pay for it. I will.”
“That’s crazy. It’s not your responsibility, and it’s bad business besides! I won’t let you do that.”
“I want the ranch, Freddy.” And the foreman, if she’ll have me. “Whitlock may think this will discourage me from pursuing the sale, but he’s mistaken.”
“I still can’t believe that Eb?—”
“Be realistic, Freddy. This was all calculated by him. He knows the drums aren’t there, but my partners and I don’t.
If you can’t pay to have it checked out, then we’d have to, and we have no idea what sort of pollution problem we might run into.
Any logical businessperson would back out of a sale with that sort of snag.
If the drums have polluted the groundwater, the property’s value will drop drastically. ”
“But none of that’s true!”
“I know, and the one thing Whitlock didn’t count on was that I’d credit the memory of a ten-year-old girl over that of a grown man.”
Her voice softened. “And you do?”
“Absolutely.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said with a chuckle.
“It makes sense. A couple of weeks ago, you would have resorted to almost anything, including rumors of buried petroleum drums, to scare me off the True Love. If you really wanted Whitlock to have the property, you’d agree the stuff was down there, and I’d ride off into the sunset. ”
Her throat moved convulsively. “I guess I don’t want that anymore.”
“Good.” His heart squeezed. She hadn’t made a passionate declaration, but it was a beginning.
He had a long way to go, however, and he still hadn’t confessed his plans for selling the property.
Guilt nagged him, but caution held him back.
Before he confessed, he wanted her to care more about him than she did about the True Love Ranch.