by Jennie Marts
“You know, if we do this thing, I’m going to be around a lot more,” he said, testing the waters to see how Cody felt about that. He didn’t want to completely jump the gun. Just because he liked the kid, that didn’t necessarily mean those feelings were reciprocated.
The boy picked up a set of cords and strapped them together the way Adam had taught him. “I know. That’s cool with me.”
Well, there you go. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and he turned away so the kid wouldn’t see him grinning like a fool and think he was an idiot.
The gnawing feeling in his gut eased. He’d crossed the first hurdle.
Cody loved his ideas and wanted him around. Now he just had to get Skye’s approval. He could only hope she’d buy in to all of their ideas.
In fact, he was a little worried that she wouldn’t go for all the electronics they had set up. He hadn’t realized how much stuff there was until he started unpacking it all. He’d fired off an email to his assistant with a quick layout of the ranch, telling her to go into the stockroom and just send what she thought they would need.
And his assistant hadn’t left anything out. She’d sent up a couple of PC’s for Skye’s office and the reception area, and included laptops for both Cody and Skye. She’d even thrown in a few desk organizers.
With Cody’s tools and his eager willingness to help, they spent the next few hours running cable and Ethernet cords and installing wireless routers. Now, Skye’s apartment, the reception desk, and the main guest areas of the lodge all had access to wifi.
Adam was cleaning up the boxes in Skye’s office when she walked in the door.
“What’s all this?”
“Isn’t it awesome?” Cody said. “We’ve been working all afternoon. Wait till you see all the new cool stuff.”
“Who’s we? Cody, where did all of this stuff come from?”
“From Adam.”
“Surprise,” he said, as he stepped out of her office. But the surprise was on him. Instead of excited shock and enthusiasm, he was met with chilly indifference.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m setting up the computer equipment. Like we talked about.” He spoke slowly, sensing that a firestorm was simmering behind her narrowed eyes.
“I mean what are you doing here? At the ranch. I was told that you left.”
“I did leave. I hitched a ride into town with Wade to pick all of this up. I got an email yesterday saying that it had been delivered to the Cotton Creek post office.”
Damn. He knew he should have left a note.
“But Cal said he saw you take your bags. And I looked in the cabin and your stuff was gone.”
“Well then, you didn’t look very hard. Because my clothes are still in the dresser and my toothbrush is sitting on the sink. I emptied out my bags and took them with me so I’d have something to carry all of these boxes in.”
Her brows knit together, as if she was having trouble processing all of this information. “Then you didn’t leave?” she said softly, almost as if asking herself.
“No, of course not. I wouldn’t do that.” He crossed the room and held out his arms to give her a hug, but she took a step back. Just like she’d done the night before.
Patience.
He didn’t know a lot about animals, but he knew enough to understand that you had to use caution when approaching a particularly skittish one. And Skye was acting as skittish as a caged dog. Her eyes were wide and unfocused, and she kept shaking her head slowly, as if engaging in some internal debate.
“Cody, would you mind giving me and your mom a few minutes?”
The boy looked to his mom for confirmation. When she nodded, he shrugged, then went into his room and shut the door.
Even though he wanted to pull her into his arms, Adam leaned on the corner of the sofa, trying to give her the space she needed. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“I thought you were gone—that you’d left. I’ve spent the afternoon nursing my broken heart and writing you out of my life.”
Yeah, he really should have left a note.
“Skye, I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you are. You already said you were going back to California. I thought I could do this. I thought I was strong enough. But I’m just not. This afternoon, I thought I might actually be having a heart attack, the pain in my chest hurt that bad. I was so sure that you’d left, because that’s what the men in my life do, and this afternoon, I suffered as if you had left. I don’t think I can go through that again. I don’t think I want to.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I can’t handle losing you again. That I can’t risk putting my heart out there again. I can’t take it. I’d rather be alone.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” Her voice was soft and held so much misery that it tore at his own heart. “I think you should just go. The camp ends tomorrow anyway, so you can go back to California and forget that we ever met.”
“I could not and will not ever forget you. And I don’t want to.” He took a step toward her, but she cringed, hugging her arms around her middle, and his heart broke in two.
“Just go,” she whispered.
Bewildered and heartbroken, he crossed the room. She just needed some time. That was all. He just needed to give her some space.
He pulled open the door, but then turned back. “I need to tell you something before I go. I was in the bank today, and I overheard Clint talking to the banker about a loan Clint had coming due. Clint assured him that he was working on a plan—a plan to marry you and merge your properties, then sell off a portion of your land.”
She shook her head. “Marry me? Sell off my land? What are you talking about?”
“That’s what Clint said. And he also mentioned that some of the financial setbacks you’ve had lately might not have been ‘accidents.’ He told the banker that he had plans for another one, something that would send you running straight to him to rescue you. It sounds to me like he’s in even more financial trouble than you are.”
“You’re wrong. You must not have heard him correctly. I don’t need anyone to rescue me. And there’s no way Clint would do that to me. He’s my friend.”
“Skye. I know what I heard. You may think he’s your friend, but he’s not. He’s using the friendship between your fathers and the fact that you grew up together to get you to turn to him. But believe me when I tell you, he doesn’t care about you, or Cody. He’s only interested in getting his hands on your property. He told the banker that he had other plans for this place.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t believe you. Why are you saying these things? I’ve known Clint all of my life. I’ve known you less than a week. Why should I believe you?”
He took a deep breath, his chest aching, terrified at what he was about to say, but unable to stop himself. “Because I love you, and he doesn’t.”
A sob tore from her throat, and she sunk to the floor, her knees collapsing under her.
He reached for her, but she shook her head. “Just go.”
He hesitated. His heart ached to pick her up, cradle her in his lap, brush back the tendrils of hair that were clinging to the tears on her face.
“GO!” she yelled.
Emotion clogging his throat, he turned and pulled the door shut behind him.
Chapter Sixteen
Skye curled into a ball on the floor, hugging her arms around her knees as she cried. She wanted to sob, to wail, to let out the sorrowful beast that was filling her chest with pain.
But she didn’t want to scare Cody. Didn’t want him to see her like this. Because he was the one who mattered—the one she needed to be strong for.
She took a deep breath and pushed up off the floor. Swiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, she dragged herself into the bathroom and splashed cold water onto her face.
She took a hard look at herself in the mirror
. Dark rings of mascara smudged her red-rimmed eyes, and her hair hung in loose strands around her face. She evidently was not one of those pretty criers.
She wet a washcloth and held it to her eyes, then used it to wipe away the smeared makeup as she replayed what Adam had said in her head.
What the hell was he talking about? Clint may have wanted more of a relationship, but he’d always been her friend. He’d always been there for her. Hadn’t he? Especially in the last few years, when things at the ranch had started to take a turn for the worse.
She tried to think back to the things that had happened—could they have been acts of deliberate sabotage? Racking her brain, she tried to think of when her financial downturn had started.
It was after her dad had died, and she was trying to keep the place going on her own. The first accident had been an electrical fire that had burned one of the cabins down. But surely Clint couldn’t have been responsible for that. He wouldn’t.
She tried to recall the other things—there’d been that whole section of fence that had been destroyed in what they’d thought was a storm, and one of the sturdy ranch trucks broke down after being dependable for years. She’d had a rash of sick cattle that the vet had attributed to some type of weed or moldy hay that they might have ingested.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized that any of those things could have been caused by someone with malicious intent.
But would Clint really do that? She couldn’t believe it.
There was only one way to find out.
Grabbing a hairbrush from the drawer, she yanked it through her hair and pulled it up into a high ponytail. Tucking in her shirt, she strode from the bathroom, yelling at Cody. “I’m heading over to Clint’s. Be back in a bit.”
“See ya,” he yelled back, without bothering to open the door.
…
Skye’s temper was still high as she marched up Clint’s porch steps and banged on his door.
His ranch hand, Buck, walked around the side of the house. “Hey, Skye. Something I can help you with?”
“Hey, Buck. I’m lookin’ for Clint. Is he around?”
“Sure, he’s just putting out some hay for the horses. He’ll be back in a few.” He gestured to the front door. “Go on in and make yourself at home. I’ll go tell him you’re here.”
He took a few steps toward the barn then stopped and turned back. “You know, there’s something that’s been bothering me, and I think I need to get it off my chest.”
“Okay.”
“It’s about that computer fella that you’ve got staying there. The one that Clint calls Mr. Gamer Guy or something.”
She rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. “You mean Adam Clark?”
“Yeah, that’s his name, I think. Well, you know last night when Clint told you to head up to Elephant Rock to find Cody, and everyone was so amazed that he knew where to look for the kids?”
“Yeah.”
He lowered his voice and squinted toward the barn, apparently wanting to make sure no one else was listening. “Well, if you ever tell Clint I told you, I’ll deny it, but it wasn’t him that knew where to look for Cody. It was that Clark fella.”
“Adam? How would he even know about Elephant Rock?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but he said he had his staff hack Cody’s phone’s GPS or something. And he handed Clint a map with the spot marked and asked him if he knew where it was. Clint recognized Elephant Rock and radioed you before that other guy had a chance to tell you himself.”
Her mind was spinning. Adam was the one responsible for finding the kids? “But he didn’t say anything. He just let Clint take all the credit.”
Buck pushed a hand under his hat brim and scratched his head. “I know. That’s what’s been buggin’ me. He seems like a fairly decent guy—like all that mattered to him was that we found those kids. It didn’t seem right that he was gettin’ the short end of the stick, when it was him that really found Cody and that girl.”
She opened then closed her mouth. She didn’t know what to say.
“I’ve been debatin’ if I should tell you or not, but the fact that you showed up like this here tonight made me feel like I needed to speak up.”
“I’m glad you did. And don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone that you told me.”
“I’d appreciate it.” He tipped a finger to his hat. “I’ll go find Clint for ya.”
Her thoughts were a jumbled mess as she pushed open the front door and stepped into the living room that was almost as familiar as her own. This house had been like a second home to her growing up, and Miss Martha, Clint’s mama, had been like the mother that she’d always wished she’d had.
She and Clint had both lost their parents at too young an age, and that grief had reinforced their bond of friendship.
Or so she’d thought.
Had he been playing her all along? She couldn’t believe it.
Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she crossed the room, heading for the sink to get a glass of water.
Passing the den on the way to the kitchen, she slowed and peered into the room. He’d seen the stack of unpaid bills in her office. Maybe he had a similar stack on his desk.
After glancing out the front windows and not seeing any sign of Clint, she slipped into his den. A large desk sat in the middle of the room, and Skye walked behind it, running her fingers across the piles of mail and file folders strewn across the top.
A folded topographical map caught her eye, and she pulled it out from underneath a manila folder. Unfolding the map, she gaped at what she saw.
All of the property belonging to both her and Clint had been combined and outlined in red marker. Segments of the land around the edges—of her property—had been shaded in light blue and marked with property value and estimated sale prices.
She shook her head, trying to comprehend what she was seeing, trying to come up with another solution, a plausible explanation that would make some kind of sense.
She couldn’t breathe. Her pulse pounded through the vein in her neck as her teeth ground together.
This couldn’t be right. He couldn’t be planning to sell off part of her land.
Not Clint. He was her friend. She trusted him. He wouldn’t do this to her.
Would he?
The front door opened with a bang, and Skye let out a yelp and almost dropped the map.
“Hey there, sugar,” Clint called, offering her a flirty grin as he stepped into the office. “What brings you to my house?” His smile fell as he saw the map clutched in her hands.
“Don’t sugar me. What the hell is this?”
Please have a good explanation.
“I wish you hadn’t seen that.”
That was not the response she was hoping for. “Yeah, I’ll bet not.”
Her hands curled into fists as her bewilderment quickly changed to anger.
“Now, don’t go getting all upset. I’m sure it’s not what you think.”
She raised an eyebrow at him and planted one fist on her hip. “Oh really? It’s not? I realize I’m just a poor helpless female, but it certainly appears to be an outline of portions of my land that you are apparently planning to sell.”
“All right, simmer down. I was hoping to present this idea to you in a different setting, like maybe with some candlelight, a little mood music, some champagne, and a pretty little diamond ring.”
“A diamond ring?” she sputtered. Holy shit. Adam had been right. About everything.
Stop it. She couldn’t think about Adam right now. She needed to focus on the task at hand, the task of bringing Clint Carson to his dirty-rotten, filthy knees.
“Come on now. Surely this can’t come as too much of a surprise to you. You know that I’ve always had a thing for you, and our dads had been talking about us getting together for years. It just makes sense. Besides being a sound business decision that’s mutually beneficial to us both, we’d be a great match. We have so much in common. Hell, we practi
cally grew up in the same house.”
“Not exactly, because evidently my daddy raised me better than yours did.”
“Now, Skye, there’s no call for that.”
“Oh yes, there is. There is exactly a call for that. Because if you think for one minute that I would ever marry a cheating, lying, double-crossing back-stabber like you, you’ve got another think coming. When, and if, I ever get married, it will not be because it’s a sound business decision. Especially one that is so clearly one-sided.”
“Skye, you’re just being emotional now. If you’d just calm down and think about this rationally, you’d see that this could help both of us. You know I’ve always cared about you, and merging our properties could save us both.”
If I could just calm down and think rationally? Had he really just said that?
Her nails dug into the insides of her palms, and she could practically feel her blood boiling beneath her skin. Crumpling the map into a ball, she threw it on the desk. “That’s what I think of your smart business decision. And if you think you are ever going to get your hands on my land, you are sorely mistaken. I have no intention of selling any of my land now, or ever. You will never get your slimy hands on me or my property.”
She turned on her heel and strode from the room, calling over her shoulder, “And you can take your smart business decision and stuff it.”
…
The nerve of that guy, she thought as she let herself back into her apartment. Her hands were still shaking.
“Hey, Mom,” Cody said, coming out of his room with a laptop in his hands. His easy smile fell when he saw her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Me—” She’d started to say “men” then caught herself, since Cody was one of them. She didn’t want him to feel like she was negative toward all men…just those dirty snakes who tried to use her.
She amended what she was going to say. “Many things. Many, many.” She slumped onto the sofa, patting the seat next to her. “Come sit with me a minute. I could use a friend.”
“You’re kind of weird, Mom,” Cody said, but he plopped onto the couch next to her.
“What’s with the laptop? Who’d you borrow that from?”