Knotted (Trails of Sin 1)

“Yes, but the verbiage is incomprehensible.”

Naked Conor makes conversation incomprehensible.

Toned legs, sinuous curves, raveled red hair, perky tits, and goddamn, that freckle… My jeans aren’t big enough for the length of my reaction to her.

Giving her a bath right now was a terrible idea.

I scoop her up and lower her into the tub. “I couldn’t make sense of the trust, either. The attorney spelled it out for me. Dunk your head.”

As she slips under the water, I reach into my jeans and adjust. The belt is gone. The zipper’s undone, and I have nowhere to go with my erection, except…

She comes up for air, clears her face, and her gaze falls directly on my lap. “Are you joining me in here?”

“Not if you want to finish this discussion.” I grab the shampoo and focus my hands on washing her hair. “Your mom’s trust created hoops for you and Lorne to jump through, meaning you have to meet certain requirements to revoke the Power of Attorney.”

“Revoke what Power of Attorney?”

“Rinse your hair.” I pick up the conditioner and wait for her to resurface.

“I’ll do this.” She takes the bottle from me. “Keep talking.”

“You own the land, but your mom created a Power of Attorney that appointed our dads as the agents in the event of her death. This granted them the power to manage any and all business transactions and decisions related to the property.”

She finishes washing as she absorbs my words. “You’re saying Lorne and I own ten-thousand acres, but we have no power over it?”

“You can sell it. That decision still belongs to you and your brother. Not my father.”

“We wouldn’t.” She rubs her brow, frowning and nibbling her lip as she thinks.

Christ, I love watching her cunning mind at work.

“The drilling.” Her head pops up, and her jaw tightens. “The Power of Attorney allowed your dad to turn the ranch into an oil field without approval from Lorne or me. Approval we would’ve never given.”

“Exactly.”

“But you said we could revoke his power?”

“Not until you meet certain requirements. Those are the hoops I mentioned.”

“What are they?” She grips the edge of the tub.

“You must be eighteen, pass a drug test, and show proof of your residency on the property.”

“Residency on the property,” she echoes quietly, her gaze clouding, turning inward.

“You have to live here, Conor.”

“Oh my God.” A whisper. She grabs the plug for the drain and yanks it hard. “Is that why you kept me away? To stop me from revoking his power? For what? So he could drill the land? And you—”

I spear her with a glare that ends her accusations. “I kept you away, because there were multiple hits on your life if you returned. My father, among others, would’ve killed you before they allowed you to live here and file that revocation. And you would’ve filed it. The moment they started drilling, you would’ve looked into land ownership and discovered what everyone was keeping from you.”

Her eyes stay with mine, tunneling into me as I help her out of the tub and dry her off. Then I wrap the towel around her and guide her into the bedroom.

She sits on the bed, staring at her scarred palm. “The night of my sixteenth birthday…”

“Lorne was the concern.” I lower onto the mattress beside her. “He just turned eighteen and met all the requirements to revoke the power from our dads. Dalton and John couldn’t let that happen, because they made some crooked deals over the years with some dangerous men. Deals that involved borrowing money they couldn’t pay back.”

“Money for what?”

“Their extravagant lifestyle and poor business decisions.” I sweep an arm around, indicating the estate. “After our moms died, they lived like oil barons, with the finest furnishings, countless luxury trucks, new outbuildings and equipment. They spent and spent, as if the cattle operation was booming. But it wasn’t. The ranch was barely breaking even. This went on for fourteen years and reached its snapping point around the night of your birthday. They weren’t just going to lose the ranch. They were going to lose their lives at the hands of the men they owed money to.”

“But they were sitting on land rich in oil and natural gas.”

“Yes.”

Her nostrils flare. “Land that didn’t belong to them.”

“Land they could drill on and profit from as long as you and Lorne didn’t live here.”

The air clots in my lungs, so heavy and thick I wrestle with it.

“Dalton was involved in this?” The pain in her voice cuts me.

“Your dad made bad decisions with bad men, but he wasn’t involved in the threats against your life. He was going to tell Lorne about the Power of Attorney. My dad was not okay with that.”

“Because Lorne would’ve never allowed the drilling. So your dad hired men to kill us. Problem solved.” She closes her eyes as a violent quake crashes over her tiny frame. “Do you know how fucked up that is?”