Days of texting like I’m just some kind of client or something. Right after he kissed me half stupid and set my whole world on fire.
Not one word about the kiss, about…well, anything.
So I decide I’ll take it to his doorstep. Have that talk.
Figure out why we kissed like that, and what we’re gonna do about it.
Yeah. So much for that plan.
I’m fuming away so white-hot it’s a minor miracle I don’t start a brush fire with the heat simmering off me on the drive home.
See if I ever pick up the phone for Holt again.
Hell, I even tried calling him earlier today and he just let it go to voicemail.
I get it now.
I read him loud and crystal clear.
This man plays a certain kind of game.
Shame I’m not the kinda girl who likes being toyed with.
By the time I get home, though, I’ve got another reason to be furious.
Reid Cherish’s decommissioned military Jeep is parked in my driveway.
It’s his lucky day.
My fuse is about a micron long.
He’s standing outside in one of his three-piece suits, so crisp and cool I don’t think he even sweats in this heat. Gecko man just watches me with those flinty eyes, adjusting his cuffs as I pull up.
If he pushes my buttons, there’s gonna be a second body in that ghost town.
I hop out of my truck, stink eye flying.
“The hell are you doing here?” I demand.
“Miss Potter,” he starts, and I slice a hand out, cutting him off.
“Don’t. I’m so not in the mood for your Jeeves shit today,” I snarl. “Get straight to the point, and then leave.”
He sighs. Long and slow. Like he’s drawing it out just to annoy me.
My eye twitches.
“Miss Potter, you still haven’t called to schedule a meeting about—”
“I haven’t called, and I ain’t gonna.” I stalk closer, glaring up at him. “You came out here to try that old song and dance again? I told you. I’m not interested in anything that makes it easier for y’all to get your dirty fingers all over my ranch.”
I know, I know, I’m being a banshee.
But now, more than ever, I can’t let him find out about that body.
It’s scaring me more because now Holt knows about it, too, and he’s already proven he’s willing to play games with my heart. Surely he isn’t willing to mess with my secrets, too?
“I,” Reid says primly, “am not trying to get my ‘dirty fingers’ all over anything. I’m trying to help you.”
I almost laugh at the precise, formal way he lies.
But I’m still simmering, and it’s enough to make me explode.
“Funny, I’m plain sick of you, and of every other fool barging in here trying to fix my problems,” I spit. “If it’s not you, it’s Declan, or Holt—and all y’all do is make more mess!” I point at his Jeep, glaring sternly. “You get in that Jeep right now.”
Reid actually looks pained. “Miss Potter—”
“I said git!”
I don’t know if it’s my grammar or my insistence, but his weird, strained look only deepens, like I flat-out belted him.
Don’t think I ain’t tempted.
Then he sighs his annoying freaking sigh again and nods. “Very well. However, you can’t chase away your problems forever.”
Maybe not, no.
But I can push some off a little longer.
I don’t move until he’s good and gone, backing his Jeep out around my truck and then taking off down the road. I pull my truck in and park it in the barn where it belongs, then spend a few hours working out my rage by washing stalls and lugging hay bales and doing all the chores that need doing.
I don’t have any riding classes today. Nobody stopping by to check up on their animals, so I throw myself into making my barns as spotless as can be, sweeping and mopping until my arms want to fall off and I’m soaked with sweat.
Doesn’t fix much.
Doesn’t fix anything, really.
At least I feel better.
Wiping my brow, I head inside for a shower. After it, I dig out my laptop and flop down at the kitchen table, resting my sore body and sucking down a tall, cold glass of lemonade while I get to Googling.
I can’t rely on Holt Silverton for this.
So I start researching how to apply for protected status. If that ghost town really is Ursa, I need proof.
What little record I can find online says Ursa was a town of Dutch settlers who migrated west and brought a lot of now-lost traditions with them. Could be a lot with archaeological value in studying the buildings, the tools, even the patterns on old faded blankets.
Trouble is, there’s nothing that says how to get to Ursa, or where it was—only that it was in these mountains. Just like any number of tiny forgotten towns that had their boom and then went bust.
Maybe Holt got the town’s name wrong in his memories.