“We do?”
“He’s in Wilde’s Crossing. To be specific, he’s at the Chambers ranch. The Hilton ranch.”
“The McDowell ranch.”
Travis shook his head. “It’s the Wilde ranch now. Jake bought it for two million five. That’s the only reason I know about it. He wrote a check on his account with my firm and now he owns the place, lock, stock and downed fence posts.”
Caleb frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense. He turned down the General’s offer—your offer, sir—to take over at El Sueño. He left Wilde’s Crossing. For all we know, he left Texas. Why would he buy the Chambers place?”
“The Wilde place. That’s how he refers to it. And I have no idea. He won’t answer the phone.”
Caleb shot to his feet. “Hell!”
“Exactly.”
“You don’t think he’d do something stupid—”
“I think he’s done a lot of stupid things,” Travis said. He stood up. “Like denying that he’s one hell of a brave dude. Like refusing to let any of us help him.”
“Like walk away from a woman who cared for him.”
“Assuming she did.”
“People saw them together. They say what they saw was a woman who was crazy about a guy and a guy who was crazy about her.”
“Are you two finished with this discussion?”
Surprised, the brothers turned toward the General. Had anyone asked, they’d have said it was impossible to forget he was in the room….
But they just had.
The brothers made eye contact with each other and mentally agreed things had gone crazy.
“Because we don’t have time for speculation.” Their father rose to his feet. “We must get to the airport as quickly as possible.”
Travis narrowed his eyes. “Because, of course,” he said coolly, “you have a plane to catch?”
“Because,” the General said, “we’re flying to Wilde’s Crossing.”
Jake heard the truck coming minutes before he saw it.
Sounds carried pretty clearly on a still day, especially the sound of a truck. Or an SUV. Something good-sized and fast-moving.
People in a hurry to see him, he thought with a tight smile, and he was sure he knew who they were.
He’d been expecting his brothers to show up for a couple of days, ever since he’d taken ownership of the ranch.
The noise grew louder, and now he could see a plume of dust rising against the pale blue sky.
The cavalry, riding to the rescue.
He sighed, sat back on his heels, grabbed his discarded T-shirt and mopped his face with it. He looked the shirt over. It was stained, holey, it bore yellow smudges of pollen….
“The hell with it,” he said, and pulled it on.
He’d been working outside most of the day, first dealing with the barn, then with the sagging porch steps.