by Jeannie Watt
He needed to make a deal with the new owner of the Dunlop place.
* * *
ALEX NEARLY DROPPED the dishes she was in the process of unpacking when the sound of an engine hit her ears. The gate across the road was locked—she knew because she’d double-checked after driving through. There was no way anyone should be able to drive into the place.
Unless they had a key.
Or bolt cutters.
Her insides went cold at the thought.
Do not jump to conclusions. Breathe!
Carefully, Alex set the small stack of plates on the freshly washed countertop and then made her way to the dining room, heart pounding. Sure enough, there was a pickup truck parked just outside the picket fence. Montana plates. Okay. That was good. Not terrific, but better than Virginia plates. Or rental car plates.
Alex automatically drew back as the man glanced toward the window, even though she wasn’t close enough for him to spot her standing near the kitchen doorway. He was tall, dark haired, and he moved with athletic grace as he sidestepped puddles and headed for the walk leading to the front door. That was when Alex noticed that his truck was pointed the wrong way. He hadn’t come from the county road—he’d driven in from the back of the property.
Great. Now she was going to have to buy another gate lock.
Alex pulled in a breath and squared her shoulders before crossing the room to meet the stranger at the door. She should have gotten the dog she planned on adopting sooner.
No. You should get a grip. The guy’s wearing a cowboy hat, for Pete’s sake. A black one, true, but good-guy white probably got dirty too quickly in this country.
At the sound of boots on the porch, she pulled the door open and attempted a cool smile. Not an easy thing to accomplish with her heart hammering.
Just a local cowboy. No big deal. She’d just hear him out, then send him on his way and see about getting another lock for the rear of her property.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I help you?”
He took a moment to study her face before he answered, making her wonder what he saw. A nervous woman who didn’t want strangers lurking about? Or a confident woman who could hold her own if push came to shove?
She knew what she saw. One good-looking guy with an almost straight nose that had obviously been broken, an amazing jawline and dark, unreadable eyes. And he looked...nervous.
Huh.
Nervous because he was planning something?
Before she got too far down that track, he said, “Hi. I’m Nick Callahan. I live next door.”
Alex frowned. “I didn’t know there was a next door.”
“Well, two miles next door.”
“Two miles isn’t next door.”
He gave her an odd look, telling her that she was coming off like a city girl. “I know you just arrived and are settling in, but there’s a matter that’s kind of important that I need to discuss with you.”
Alex politely lifted her eyebrows, clueless as to what he might want to talk about, but relieved that he seemed harmless. So far. “What’s that?”
“The bridge to our ranch washed out last month. The only easy access to our place is through your ranch, and I’m here to ask permission—”
“To drive through my...place?” She couldn’t exactly call it a ranch. For one thing, she wasn’t the ranch type. For another, it would never be a ranch again.
“Exactly.”
Alex pulled in a breath, telling herself to get more information before she panicked. “Who would be driving through?” The road went directly between her house and the barn. It wasn’t as if she wouldn’t notice the traffic.
“Me and my family. The ranch hands. When bridge construction begins, the bridge builders.”
“For how long?”
“The way things are moving, I’d say six months. Maybe a few months more.”
Alex’s cheeks tingled as the blood left her face. Six months or more of strangers driving through her property? Six months of not knowing who was on her property?
No. She didn’t see that happening. Not when she was still uncertain as to whether the people who so desperately wanted the money Jason absconded with were going to follow her across the country.
He seemed to sense her uncertainty. “It wouldn’t be a lot of traffic.”
“You must have another means of access.”
“Almost ten miles of unmaintained road.”
“Which I assume you’ve been using to this point.”
“Yes.”
“And could continue to use. It’s not like I’m locking you out of your property. It’s more like I’m saving you time if I granted access.”
“Time is an important commodity.” He shifted his weight, pressed his very nice lips together and stared down at his boots. When he looked up again, she read the light of challenge in his gaze and steeled herself. “It isn’t like everyone and his uncle would drive through. It would just be my family and me. If you want to keep the gate locked, we could share a key.”
“What about the bridge builders?”
“They would need to share the key, too. Otherwise, I’ll be paying them extra to travel the unmaintained road.”
Alex shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I moved here for privacy.” She instantly kicked herself for saying that. What if he did an online search for her? Even though she was going by her first and middle names, it might be enough to pin down her identity, given the coverage Jason’s story had received when he first skipped town with all that money.
“It’s not like we’re going to stop and chat as we drive through.”
“I don’t want people driving through my place, even temporarily.” The next few months were crucial to her as she determined whether or not she was going to continue to be targeted as Jason’s accomplice. “I don’t think that’s unreasonable, given what I spent to buy the property.”
Something shifted in his expression. Something she couldn’t read...and then it struck her. “Were you the other bidder?”
He gave a nod.
She didn’t even think about saying sorry for outbidding him. This was the way business worked—sometimes people got outbid and had to live with the consequences—but there was no way she was voicing that thought to the guy standing in front of her. Once again, she wished she had a big threatening dog standing beside her. Something to kind of hurry this man on his way.
“I apologize for not being able to help you, but I can’t have open access to my property.”
Once again, his mouth tightened, as if he was making an effort to hold back words. As far as Alex was concerned, he could let them out. It wasn’t like it would hurt her feelings or cause her to change her mind.
“We’ll pay for access. Write up a contract.”
“No.” She gripped the edge of the door more tightly. At any other time in her life she would have said yes. But not now, while she was still jumping at shadows. Another apology teetered on her lips, but she held it in. This was her property. Her right.
“Fine.” He pushed the brim of his hat up, allowing her a better look at his chocolate-brown eyes. “If you change your mind and want to discuss matters...” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a wallet and handed over a card. “That’s my cell number.”
Alex took the card and palmed it without looking at it. “I don’t want to be a bad neighbor.” The words slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them.
“Excellent goal. Poor execution.” The man turned and walked down the uneven sidewalk toward his truck.
Despite a desperate need to have him leave her property—now—Alex lifted her chin and called after him. “Do not judge me when you don’t know my circumstances.”
He swung around. “Lady, we all have circumstances. If I could help you with yours, I would.” He curled his lips into an ironic smile
before adding, “You have my number. Call anytime.”
CHAPTER TWO
KATIE WAS AT the kitchen table studying a spreadsheet when Nick walked in the door. She glanced up, a clear question in her eyes, and he shook his head.
“I was tactful.” He jammed his hat onto the hat hook next to the door as he spoke.
“She said no?”
“Unequivocally.” Nick headed for the coffeepot. “Where are the girls?”
“Grandma has them out in the greenhouse.”
His sister was starting an herb business, and his girls loved playing in the greenhouses. Katie slid her empty coffee cup across the table and he picked it up on his way by. After filling both cups, he sat down opposite Katie at the table he’d made when he’d first started his carpentry business.
“She wasn’t very reasonable.”
“I should have gone with you.”
“I don’t know if your human resources magic would have worked on this one.”
“Do not underestimate my abilities,” she replied with mock sternness. Katie had headed the HR department of a decent-sized corporation in the Bay Area before returning home to the ranch. “I might have been able to read her and judge the best way to approach the situation.”
“I read her. The lady is nervous.”
Katie settled her elbows on the table. “Like new-to-the-neighborhood-strange-man-shows-up-at-her-door kind of nervous?”
“Maybe.” He’d considered that on the drive back to the ranch, but while he was certain that may have added to the woman’s demeanor, he wasn’t certain it fully explained her attitude, which had been an odd mix of superiority and jumpiness.
“So what now?”
“I guess we deal with a long drive to Gavin and to paying the construction crew extra travel.”
“G-r-reat.” Katie picked up her cup and leaned back in her chair. “Maybe I can talk to her.”
“I’d give it some time. If you show up today, I think she might call the sheriff.”
“Don’t want that.” Katie sipped her coffee. “Any idea where she’s from or how she happened to buy the property out from under you?”
He’d been digging for that information, but no one—not the real-estate agent or any of the local gossips had any light to shed on the subject. “Not one clue. And trust me, she wasn’t about to let go of any information.”
“What’s she like?”
Nick frowned at the question, and Katie gave a faint shrug. “Is she young or old? Rural or urban?”
“She’s youngish. Your age. Maybe a little older. Nice looking. Unfriendly.” Actually, nice looking was an understatement. She was model pretty, which had instantly made him think that she was used to getting her way because of the way she looked. That wasn’t a fair assumption; he didn’t know enough about her to jump to that conclusion, so he’d stick with what he did know—he’d had a deal to buy the property and she’d somehow zeroed in on said property and finagled the owner to take her bid instead of Nick’s.
Why?
What was so special about the run-down Dunlop place that made her have to have it?
And while he couldn’t say for certain that the woman got her own way because of her looks, he could say with a fair amount of certainty that she was used to getting her way.
Privileged people drove him nuts. As an artisan carpenter, he’d dealt with his fair share of them, and now that the wealthy elite were snapping up ranches in the Gavin area, they were seeing more and more folks who felt they were just a little more special than everyone else because of the size of their bank accounts and portfolios.
“I’m curious to see what happens if she ever needs help from a neighbor,” Katie said in a musing tone.
“We aren’t neighbors,” he said mildly. Katie sent him a frowning look and he explained, “Two miles is too far away to be neighbors.”
Katie laughed and set down her cup. “I guess that answers my urban-rural question.”
Nick grinned at her. “I guess so.”
“It’s not the end of the world,” Katie said softly. “We’ll get past this.”
“But it is annoying. And expensive.”
“Yeah.”
The sound of sneakers on the porch brought a smile to his face. He leaned back in his chair so he could see the door. Seconds later Bailey burst inside, wearing a coat that had once been lavender but was now brown down the front.
“Bailey took a tumble,” Rosalie said as she followed Kendra through the door.
“I fell down.” Bailey wiped her hands down the front of her muddy coat as Nick got to his feet.
“Let’s get you out of that.” He knelt to unzip the jacket and help Bailey pull her arms out of the sleeves.
“Lizzie Belle pushed her down with her head,” Kendra said helpfully as she wiggled out of her own jacket.
Nick took hold of Bailey’s shoulders and looked into eyes that were identical in color to those of his late wife. “You got pushed down by a little goat?” They had two goats on the property, but Wendell, who’d come from the neighboring McGuire ranch, kept a polite distance, while Lizzie Belle tended to make her presence known.
Bailey’s lower lip came out as she gave a solemn nod.
“You know that goats like to push. It’s how they say hello.”
Bailey nodded again, looking none too happy about the communication habits of goats.
“Do you want me to launder it?” Rosalie asked.
Nick shook his head. “I got this. Some spray and a little scrubbing and it should be fine.” He’d always done his own laundry, but having little girls had taught him a lot about stain removal. Kendra in particular did not like having spots on her clothing, so Nick had watched more than one YouTube video on tricky stain removal.
He got to his feet and smiled down at Kendra. “Did you get your seeds planted?”
“We did. And then we’re going to sell flowers in Grandma’s shop when they grow.”
“Spoken like a true entrepreneur,” he said, catching his grandmother’s eye. “But maybe we can plant some of them in by the fence so that we have something nice to look at this summer.”
“We can do that.” Kendra tapped her chin with her forefinger in a thoughtful way.
“Just keep Lizzie Belle away from them,” Katie said. “She loves to munch on flowers.”
“Maybe Lizzie Belle will be back in town by that time,” Rosalie murmured.
Lizzie Belle had been Gloria’s pet until Gloria and Rosalie’s next-door neighbor, miffed that the women wouldn’t sell their property to him, had lodged a complaint about livestock within the city limits. Lizzie Belle came to live on the ranch then, but the neighbor, Vince Taylor, continued to do what he could to make life miserable for Rosalie and Gloria whenever possible. He was also close friends with members of the county commission, which Nick suspected was slowing down the permitting for the bridge that had washed out. Moral of the story? Don’t mess with the privileged few.
Seemed to be something of a theme lately.
“You know that if Lizzie Belle goes to town, we’ll have to do something with Wendell,” Katie said.
Rosalie smiled. “I think we have room for two little goats in that big back yard.”
“Just don’t expect to have any flowers,” Kendra said in a knowing voice.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Rosalie waited until the girls had slipped out of their boots and went to the cookie jar before asking in a low voice, “How’d it go?”
“Not well.” Nick explained the situation as he watched his grandmother’s expression grow increasingly grim.
“I hate that long drive, but I guess we should be grateful that we have a way here at all.”
Nick wasn’t feeling as grateful as Rosalie, because he hated his grandmother making the drive. As the weather warmed, however, she would
be spending most of her time at her garden and gift shop in Gavin. “I can bring the girls into town on Sundays instead of you coming out here for the weekly visit.”
“It will only be for six months,” Katie said.
“Yeah. Doable.” If Vince Taylor didn’t continue to throw his weight around. The problem with dealing with hometown heavyweights is that they had ins with everyone—including the members of the county commission, who were now dragging their feet on the bridge permit. But Nick wasn’t going to ruin his grandmother’s day any more than it already was by questioning the six-month time frame.
The next day, Katie watched the girls while Nick made the trip to town to buy lumber and drop off a handful of business cards at Cooper’s Building Supply and Contracting. He wasn’t ready to hang out an official shingle yet. He’d made a decent amount of money selling his business in California prior to moving back to Montana to manage the family ranch, but he wouldn’t mind the occasional small building or carpentry job. It’d keep his name in the game. He’d have to work around ranching, which was his number one concern now that he was back home. But, being something of a workaholic, he figured he could manage both ranch and carpentry if the right job came his way.
After ordering his lumber, he asked Emmie Cooper, daughter of the soon-to-be-retired owner of the establishment, if he could leave a few cards on the counter and put one on the bulletin board.
“Yeah,” she said easily before she picked up one of his cards and flicked it with her forefinger. “But you know, it would be easier if you went to work for me full-time. Tater is quitting.”
Nick smiled as he leaned on the counter. He and Emmie were old friends, having shared a storage area in shop class three years in a row. “I can’t go to work full-time, Em—not until Brady gets done with his welding course, anyway.” His future brother-in-law was completing a technical course before returning to the Callahan ranch, where he and Katie would be married, but even after he returned, Nick was more interested in being his own boss than working for someone else. “I’m just looking for side gigs to bank some extra money. I have little girls I need to put through college.”