6. Shane
CHAPTER 6
Shane
S omeone is absolutely screaming up the driveway. You can see the cloud of dirt from probably a mile away, which is how I notice it from my spot in the farmhouse. The farrier is here, and no one else was scheduled to come up to Wild Spur today.
Frowning, I step out from behind the wall of monitors in front of me. When we moved into the farmhouse here at the Wild Spur, I claimed the top floor attic as mine. It’s a mess of computers, filing cabinets, Wi-Fi routers, and a bed in the corner, but I love it. It’s where I feel the most in control, and that’s what matters.
Landon calls it my evil lair, and Clint pretends it doesn’t exist, but that’s all fine as far as I’m concerned. I might love the two of them to death, but I don’t want them in my space all the time.
Heading down the stairs, which squeak in protest as I go, I walk past Landon right as he’s coming back in. I frown; he looks dusty. “Did you find her?”
“I did.”
“And did you tell her about the contract?”
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Why?”
“Honestly, man, she was about two seconds away from ripping my head off and eating my guts for lunch.”
I roll my eyes. “You probably just needed to be a little firmer with her.”
“Firm? Do you think that hellcat is going to respond to firm?”
I have no idea, but my fingers itch at the prospect of finding out.
“I’ll talk to her,” I grunt, my voice deepening slightly.
Landon’s blue eyes twinkle. “Oh, you want to get firm with her. Easy there, Doctor Evil. We haven’t established territory rights yet.” I give him a baleful look, and he winks at me. “May the best man win, Shane.”
“I will, you little shit.”
Landon laughs, brushing off my insult like it’s nothing. It’s one of the reasons that I like him; no matter how grumpy Clint or I are with him, he’s always down to brush it off and act like nothing happened. It’s something that makes our dynamic work, and I appreciate that.
“Oh, Landon?”
“What?” he calls from the kitchen, where I presume he’s getting a beer.
“Did you have someone coming over today?”
He pokes his head into the living room, where I’m standing in the front window, watching a silver 4Runner that looks like it’s seen better days barrel up the drive. “No, I do not,” Landon says, sipping the beer. “But whoever’s coming over has the fire of hell up their ass.”
“I guess so,” I mutter.
The SUV screeches to a halt, and the door pops open. A familiar brown head emerges.
Landon and I take a look at each other before sprinting for the door.
We meet Nora on the front porch. Her face is twisted in anger, and when she sees Landon, her blue eyes darken.
“You!” she seethes, her teeth bared in a snarl. “You tried to kill me!”
“Excuse me?” Landon says, all hints of humor gone from his voice.
“You came up on me when I was fixing the fence, you messed with my auger, and then it freaking exploded!” she yells. Now that I’m closer to her, I can see that she’s got some ashy-looking burn marks on her clothes. She smells like smoke, too.
“What happened?” I rumble, genuinely concerned .
Nora spins. “Exactly what I said. Your boy here—” She jabs a thumb at Landon, “—tried to kill me.”
“I would literally never do that, Nora,” he says.
She freezes, turning back to both of us. “How do you know my name?” she asks in a dark voice.
I sigh. “Why don’t you come in?”
“Not before you tell me how you know my name. Were you stalking me?”
“Because we’d have to be stupid not to,” I respond. “You can’t walk ten feet in town without hearing about Nora Foster. We’ve been told dozens of stories about you, from everyone who has ever met you. When you said the other day that you were the Foster kid, we put two and two together. No one was stalking you, and no one messed with your shit.”
Nora’s eyes narrow. “I don’t trust you.”
“Good.” She blinks in surprise, and I can tell that I’ve taken some of the wind out of her sails. I continue. “You shouldn’t trust us. I wouldn’t, if I were you. But, since you’re here, and since it sounds like it was pretty unsettling, why don’t you sit down?”
Nora looks like she would rather swallow glass than sit with us.
“I know you were close with the old neighbors. Let’s honor that. Come in. Sit a spell. Let’s be neighborly,” I say in my nicest possible voice.
She wavers. But I know that the appeal to being neighborly is going to hit a nerve.
“Fine,” she says, muttering. “I’ll sit.” She storms past us into the kitchen. Landon looks at me, giving me a shrug, before he follows.
In the kitchen, I try not to look at her. “Can I get you something to drink? Beer? Water?”
“No.”
Fuck, it’s like trying to talk to a stone wall. “Okay then. Just want to remind you that my name is Shane, his is Landon. In case you forgot.” I wink.
She glares at me, no response.
I plop down in one of the chairs and look at her. “So, tell us about yourself.”
“No, thanks. ”
Landon slides in, too. “I wouldn’t have tried to hurt you, Hellcat.”
“Why do you call me that?”
She took the bait. Finally .
Landon smiles. “Because when we saw you out in the field, that’s what you reminded me of. A cat that we stumbled across. One that came straight from hell.”
“Is that meant to be a compliment?” She’s glaring at him, but her tone is lighter.
“Landon doesn’t know how to say a regular compliment,” I say, rolling my eyes at him. “But yes. He’s complimenting you.”
“Manners would be helpful,” she mutters at him.
“Most definitely, they would,” I agree.
There’s an awkward silence for a moment, and Nora looks at the table. “Well, listen, I’m not sure what you wanted to accomplish with this…”
Fuck. Landon isn’t going to tell her. “Landon really didn’t sabotage your auger. I promise he’s not that good with equipment.”
“Hey now, I’m plenty good at fixing shit.”
I give him a look. “Don’t lie to the lady.”
“I’m good at it!”
“He’s not. Not enough to make it explode. Was it running hard to begin with?”
Nora hesitates.
I nod. “Yeah. Well. Things like that can happen without upkeep, especially on small motors like that.”
“My dad did plenty of upkeep,” she snarls.
I shrug. “Okay. Well. All the same. I’d like for you to consider the fact that you might need a little bit of help.”
“From you?”
I sigh. Might as well get to it. I reach for a USB that has the lease document on it, pulling it out of my pocket. “Listen. The Wild Spur is doing a brisk business. We’re on track to add nearly seven hundred new horses by the end of the year, and that’s a rough estimate. We need more space.”
“I heard you have been trying to buy things out from my dad,” Nora spits .
“I’ll admit, it seemed like a good option. I know it was a rough year, just from hearing the gossip in town.”
“We aren’t selling,” she says stiffly.
“Good. That’s good. But would you be open to a lease?”
Nora blinks. It’s time.
“The Wild Spur leases land from some folks a little closer to Bozeman. This is our standard lease agreement that we offer,” I say, pushing it toward her. “It’s not the best, and I’d be open to amending it or mixing it up?—”
“So, this was your agenda.” She stands up, and the chair clatters behind her. “You—” She points at Landon, “came to sabotage my shit to scare me. And you—” She points at me, “you had this all lined up. You knew I’d come here?—”
“Nora. You’re a smart person. Don’t be ridiculous,” I say, my voice low. “We didn’t do anything to break that stupid auger. To be able to figure that out in the amount of time Landon was out there is just not possible.”
“Yeah. Whatever. My dad was right,” she seethes. “You’re just a bunch of assholes.”
With that, she storms out of the kitchen. Her boots clomp on the floor as she walks to the door, then I hear the screen door snap close with a loud bang.
Landon and I stare at the kitchen entry.
“So that went well,” he smirks, turning back to me.
“Fuck you,” I mutter, grabbing the USB drive back.
“Real smooth there, Lex.”
The nickname, which normally doesn’t bother me that much, burns at me. “You think you can do better?”
“At this point, I can’t do worse.”
“Fuck. Off,” I snarl. I shove the USB in my pocket and start stomping back up the stairs.
“You get to tell Clint!” Landon yells back after me.
The whole situation makes me growl with irritation.
In the attic, I slam the door to the stairway shut. I stomp around, well aware that my footsteps are going to echo through the whole house .
Good. I hope they do. I hope Landon is trying to take a fucking nap or something, and this drives him absolutely batshit.
I huff before sliding back in front of my computer. I could open up my trading apps and get going. Make some money with the large sum my parents left me. I don’t have to. But sometimes I do.
I used to be very into day trading. Back after my parents first died, and I wanted to make it feel like their car accident wasn’t just a random act of violence. When I wanted to make some kind of connection. Like they’d approve of me making all of those trades, and like they died to make me better, somehow.
Stupid fucking idea.
I sigh, leaning back and massaging my temples with my hands. The truth is, now that the ranch is doing well, I feel kind of… lost. When we were getting up and running three years ago, I was on top of my game. Landon and Clint needed my connections, my degree, my business acumen. And I needed them to run the place.
Now that we’re so successful? I don’t have anything else to do.
Bored.
That’s definitely it. I’m bored. I could use another challenge…
My eyes drift to the window, where I see a cloud of dirt still from where Nora tore out earlier.
May the best man win .
I grin. Challenge accepted.