Chapter Six #2
Whatever the news might be—it might be something trivial—she hoped the warm beer she’d popped into the freezer didn’t explode before he got here.
If he got there. He’d said he would be here at six.
It was now ten minutes past … not that she was nervously watching the clock or anything.
Things happened. People got waylaid. Beer exploded.
Lil went into the house and took the now cold bottles of beer out of the freezer and popped them in the fridge.
She looked around the neat kitchen, felt the need to move, and headed back outside to check the cattle that didn’t need to be checked.
They were grazing peacefully on the correct side of the fence today.
She’d ridden the perimeter on the ATV that morning after finishing the chores.
No breaks. No loose wire. No strangers. She’d scanned the trees as she drove past the place where she’d seen the hiker, but there was no sign of anyone having returned to the area.
The boot print was fading from the soft soil and there were no new prints.
Maybe it had been a coincidence, several fence breaks in a row. Her cattle trespassing on land where they could be held for lien if caught by the owner. An actual lien was a stretch, but she could still be heavily fined. She didn’t have a heavy-fine category in her budget book.
After riding the fence, she’d put in extra time on Dudley and decided that she was making headway despite their trauma the day before.
Would he revert to old habits once he went back to his owner?
Judging from what she’d seen of the owner’s riding capabilities, probably.
But that wasn’t something she could control.
All she could do was return the gelding and hope for the best.
She was about to head into the barn to feed the kitten Meg had adopted a couple of weeks ago as part of their future rodent control program, when she heard a truck pulling in.
She hurried into the barn, scooped food into a dish and set it on a low stack of hay so that Betty the Pyrenees didn’t help herself if she happened by.
The kitten emerged from cracks between the bales and rushed the dish.
By the time she left the barn, Jordan’s truck was pulling to a stop. The truck door slammed hard because the window was down, and Jordan’s boots crunched on the gravel as he came around the hood, little details that jumped out as Lil waited for him to tell her about this landlord business.
“I’m not selling to this buyer,” he said simply. “You can stay put without a hassle.”
For a moment she stared at him, hesitant to believe she’d heard correctly, that Maya could sheath her lawyer claws.
“You okay?” he asked.
She let out a shaky laugh. “I thought you were going to make me wait for beer.”
His answering smile was borderline breathtaking. “I’m not that kind of guy.”
Which begged the question, what kind of guy was he?
There was a definite difference in the man now standing in front of her, as if a weight had also been lifted off his shoulders. How? He’d just put a stop to a sale which, by his own account, made his life easier on a couple of fronts.
“What happened with the potential buyer?”
“There was something about this deal that felt off from the beginning.”
What about the deal hadn’t he liked?
Lil went with the probable answer. “Do you think someone was messing with us on purpose? Giving us reason to leave?”
Late at night, when she couldn’t sleep, she wondered about the culvert and the potential road washout. The problem hydrants and the barn troubles. If someone cost them enough money, they’d have to accept a buyout and move.
“Don’t know.” He frowned at the ground. “There were other concerns that killed the deal.”
He hesitated, then asked, “Do you have enemies? Pissed anyone off lately?”
“Meg has a jerk of an ex, and he has no great love for me either, but he’s in Alaska.”
His gaze sharpened. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.” Lil crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t leave the ranch often enough to make an enemy.” Just the occasional night out with Meg and Aubrey. “The last time I left, I hazed loose cattle.”
He coughed. “Right. Don’t know anything about that.”
“I really have to meet this Burke person.”
“At your own risk.”
She gave a short laugh, then sobered. “I have no enemies that I know of. I haven’t been here long enough to make any.” She pulled in a breath, debated about confessing the Shane-stalking-Meg matter, then let it go.
Shane wasn’t even in the state; she trusted that Meg was correct and he was in Alaska.
“Keep it that way,” he said.
“I’ll do my best.”
They both fell silent. Lil raised her eyebrows, hoping to trigger something from him. All she got was a raise of eyebrows in return. Damn but he was good-looking with his dark eyes and chiseled features. The broken nose only added to the package.
He smiled as if reading her thoughts, which kind of horrified her.
She brought her hands together in front of her in a loose clap. “How about that beer?”
“I could use one.”
“So could l,” she murmured.
Lil led the way into the house, took the unexploded beers out of the fridge, opened them, and set one in front of each of their places at the big kitchen table.
Jordan held out his bottle for her to tap with her own, then took a drink.
She took a longer one. Like she’d said, she needed it.
She wiped the moisture away from her lips with the back of her fingers, noting that his gaze followed the movement.
“You’ll still be trying to sell?”
“To someone who understands the terms of the lease.” Jordan set the bottle on the table. “How did your sister come to work for Jordan Enterprises?”
Lil shrugged, imagining that he’d come up with some theories of his own. “Through a mutual acquaintance in Missoula where she went to law school. I don’t know the particulars. Networking, I guess you call it.”
“Did you go to college?”
Lil glanced toward her boots for a split second as the familiar pang of regret shot through her brain. Touchy subject for her, but he had no way of knowing that.
“I had to drop out after three semesters because of the ranch situation and never had a need to go back. But Meg finished her education degree and now she has a teaching position, which starts in August.”
“Leaving you to manage the ranch alone.”
She cocked her head. “Do you know any small ranches where one of the partners doesn’t work an outside job?
” He thought, then shook his head. “Right. And now that school is out, we have a helper. Dakota. He’ll come three times a week.
It’s enough to get things done that need to be done and not break the bank. ”
“He’s afraid he’s going to lose his job,” Jordan said.
She felt her eyes go wide. “You’ve talked to him?” Why?
“He told a guy who told a guy who told Burke. Burke told me.”
Liz rubbed her neck, then took hold of her beer again.
The town grapevine was an amazing thing sometimes. “I’ll tell him things are okay.”
“Good.” Jordan pulled in a breath as he studied the table next to his beer. “You asked if I knew Carl Jordan well.”
Lil set the beer she’d been about to lift to her lips back on the table, a little jolt going through her. “I did.”