At Any Price(117)

I blew out a breath of disgust. “I refuse to talk about ‘natural urges’ with you. And don’t you dare decide to go all cougar on me, please!”

She shrugged and laughed at me. Shaking my head, I left the kitchen for the stables, ready to throw myself into my work for the day.

He was gone most of the morning and did not return until after lunch. Not like I was keeping track or anything. Though, I might have glanced down the road a few thousand times while I was working with the horses in the arena.

On his way back in, at around two o’clock, he took the long way to his cabin, walking near the arena where I was lunging Tate. I had on my jeans, boots and my old hat.

He smiled and waved. “Howdy, cowgirl.”

I waved in return.

A few hours later, my mom told me that she had seen him take off on a trail and asked me to run some clean towels over to the cabin. Mom usually did this job and I really, really wished she would do it today. The thought of going into his cabin—of possibly being seen entering his bedroom…

So I ran over as quickly as I could with the stack, knocked on the door, waited and knocked again. When no answer was forthcoming, I used the master key with some relief, and entered.

I left the fresh towels on the counter in the bathroom while I gathered up a few of the used ones and draped them over my arm.

I collected some empty water bottles on the desk to put in the recycling, figuring I’d better take the opportunity to tidy up a little. As I grabbed one of the bottles, I inadvertently knocked over a stack of papers that fell to the floor. Cursing, I threw the towels and bottles just outside the front door and then went back inside to pick up the papers.

I gathered them and then reordered them, forcing myself not to violate his privacy by looking. Many of them were trail guides and local information, some flyers and menus from the few diners in town.

But I started when I saw the unfolded sheaf of papers with letterhead from Pohlman’s Law Office —a lawyer whose name I recognized. Not long ago, I’d looked over similar paperwork handed to me by my mother. The letterhead of my mom’s lawyer.

This was the same lawyer—one of only two in town—who had officiated the paperwork for my mom’s anonymous benefactor. The one who had invested in the ranch as a silent partner, taking a mere twenty percent of any profits accrued, if and when we ever stood to make a profit.

My hands shook. Because now I had to find out why Adam had my mom’s paperwork. But as I read on, I discovered that it wasn’t Mom’s paperwork. It was Adam’s. Because Adam was Mom’s benefactor. And at the bottom of the page, his signature said so, and the date, showing he’d signed those papers today.

My heart thumped so hard it was painful. The deal had been initiated before the auction. Weeks before we’d ever met in person. I felt like the coyote in that old cartoon who’d had the floor sawed out from under him. He stood there waiting—waiting for the fall. And the room spun from my disorientation and my hands shook.

I dropped the paperwork onto the desk and scurried out of that room as fast as I possibly could, stooping to pick up the towels and bottles. But I wasn’t fast enough because Adam stepped onto the porch at that moment and I jumped so hard I dropped everything. Towels went flying and bottles went bouncing.

“Here, let me get those,” he said.

“No!” I shrieked, still shaking. “No. I’ve got it.” And I bustled around like a freak trying to pick up every last thing while he watched me with the most obvious puzzlement I’d ever seen on his face.

“Emilia, what’s wrong?”

“Mia—” My mom showed up right behind me. “I’ll get the towels.” And with a huff of frustration, and still shaking as if it was forty below outside instead of a toasty ninety-five, I shoved them into my mom’s arms and walked away.

“I gotta…I need to be alone for a while,” I gasped and then headed out toward the front of the house. What I really wanted to do was get in my car and screech the hell out of the driveway, but I wasn’t about to stop everything, go inside and start searching for my car keys. So I set foot to the highway instead.

I walked for about ten minutes before I noticed a long shadow moving up behind me. The way it moved, the way it gained on me even when I stepped up my pace, I knew exactly who it was.

I stopped so abruptly that he almost ran into me. We were standing on the roadside along an empty lot. I ducked through the ranch-style fence into the field. Of course, he followed me.

“What has you so freaked, Emilia?”

I kept walking, this time, not trying to outpace him but the words were rolling around in my head so that I could hardly round them up to form a coherent sentence.