The Cowboy's Hunt

by Jamie K. Schmidt

“But is it the windiest place on your ranch?” Jules asked. “The more wind power you have, the more money you’ll make.”

  “I’m not sure,” Emily said, biting her lip. Would her father be willing to give her more land if this didn’t work out? Or would he think she was beating a dead horse about this “wind turbine nonsense”?

  “This plot of land is indicative of the rest of the ranch,” Donovan said. “You don’t need to see any other part of it. In fact, I think you should leave.”

  “Donovan,” Emily gasped. He was always brusque and gruff, but this was damned rude.

  “No, your boyfriend is right. I’ve gotten all I need here. Now it’s up to the computer to let us know if we can start building or not.”

  As they made their way back to the horses, Jules was staring at the ground intently. He nearly vaulted into the saddle.

  “Should I have a crew come out and clear the place to prepare?” Emily asked. “I mean maybe if you don’t get good enough readings, we could try putting up a tower for better readings, like Donovan suggested.”

  She was starting to get worried. What if Donovan was right and Jules was trying to scam her? She only had Bobby’s word that this guy was on the up and up.

  “So what other projects have you worked on around here?” she asked.

  “To tell you the truth, there hasn’t been a lot in the Medina Valley. We had one former vineyard turn unproductive acres into a profitable wind farm, but we had our doubts at first.” Jules shrugged. “Sometimes the wind power just isn’t there. That’s why we test. No sense in laying out all that money if you’re not going to see a decent profit.”

  Emily nodded. There had to be a way to do better on these wind tests. She could hire Sykes construction to come back here with their backhoes and get them ready for the turbines. She had gone to school with Chris Sykes and they’d offered to put her sisters on a payment plan when they hired them to clear land for Janice’s retreat center. Maybe she could convince Jules to install a wind turbine anyway and they could get real-time results. Emily was not ready to give up. Not when she was so close to getting a new revenue stream in for the ranch.

  “I’m positive our software will be accurate.” Jules oozed self-assurance, but Emily didn’t know whether to be confident or worried.

  “I bet you are,” Donovan muttered, and very deliberately took his rifle out of the canvas bag he had attached to the back of his saddle.

  “Donovan?” Emily asked. She glanced around, wondering if there were hogs in the area. Straining her ears, she didn’t hear anything.

  He sighted the rifle and Jules flinched back, even though it wasn’t pointed anywhere near him.

  Pippi danced away at the hard pull on her reins. Emily winced. “Don’t do that,” she said to Jules. “She has a soft mouth.”

  After a second, Donovan lowered the rifle and continued riding.

  “What was that all about?” Jules said, his voice high-pitched.

  “I thought I saw a snake.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot it?”

  Donovan flicked a glance at her. “It slithered away. Be careful out here. They like to hide in plain sight and when you least expect it, they’ll rear up and strike.”

  Emily didn’t know exactly where he was going with this. He had pointed the rifle at a tree and not on the ground. Since she wasn’t planning on climbing a tree that didn’t have a stand in it, she had a feeling he was trying to scare Jules.

  “Knock it off,” she muttered to him.

  “We need to talk.”

  “I’ve been trying to talk to you all week. And don’t think you’re off the hook for the elk hunting. I don’t trust the hunters not to conveniently forget they’re not supposed to trophy hunt a rare elk.”

  “These men are looking for sport, not trophies. They’re using the meat, not only for themselves but they’re also donating it to food kitchens in the city.”

  “Yeah, they’re real saints.”

  “But at least they’re not rooking me out of my hard-earned money, like this asshole.”

  “Donovan, he can hear you.”

  “I know he can. And trust me, he and I are going to have words.” Donovan looked at Jules fiercely.

  “Emily, I don’t want to cause any problems. It seems like you’re not ready to bring in the wind turbines.” Jules gave her a small smile and shook his head.

  “Yes,” Donovan said at the same time she said, “No.”

  “You have my number. When you’re ready to get started, just give me a call.”

  “No,” Emily repeated. “It’s my land. Donovan is being overprotective. When you spend your life as a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

  Chapter Nine

  Donovan was going to show her a hammer all right. When they got back to the barn, he left Emily to deal with taking care of the three horses so he and Jules St. John could have a little talk.

  “Donovan, get back here and help me with these guys,” Emily said, her hands full with the three horses that needed to be watered, untacked, and groomed.

  “I’ll be right back.” He grabbed Jules by the arm and propelled him out of the barn.

  “Donovan,” she warned.

  “It’s all right, Emily. I’m sure he’s just concerned. I’ll put his mind at ease,” Jules said, shaking him off.

  “It’s not his business to be concerned,” Emily grumbled.

  “Wrong,” Donovan told her.

  When they cleared her earshot, Donovan said, “I saw you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jules clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels.

  “You dropped something back there. What was it? A GPS or a tracker so you and your buddies can find your way back here through the forest land and rob us blind?”

  “You, sir, are paranoid.”

  “You’re damn right I am.”

  “Just what am I supposed to steal back there in snake-infested lands? Dirt?”

  Donovan longed to wipe the smirk off his face with a well-timed punch in the jaw. “How about equipment or supplies that disappear from your bogus job site that you’ll bill back to Emily?”

  Jules’s jaw clenched. “I find your accusations insulting.”

  “Let me guess about these tests. You’re not going to find enough wind power, not because it’s not there, but because you don’t have the right equipment. That’s not going to stop you from billing her for another test for another parcel of property.”

  “I’d be more than happy to take you and Miss Sullivan on a tour of our facilities to show you that we have adequate resources.”

  “Let’s go. Right now.”

  Jules sighed. “Very well, get in the car.”

  Donovan had the first ping of doubt. Jules hadn’t seemed to be slick enough to have set up a long-term con complete with office equipment and workers who may or may not be in on the con. That was a lot of work for a four-figure paycheck.

  “Did my father send you?” Donovan asked. If his father was bankrolling this from prison as a means to get a foot into Donovan’s hunting business, Emily’s money would just be an added bonus.

  “I don’t even know your last name, sir.” A slight crease in his brow. Genuine confusion? Then Jules’s face settled back into the haughty mask he was hiding behind. “Now, I can understand that you’re concerned about your girlfriend, but I assure you…”

  “Save it.” Donovan was going to go all in. If he was being paranoid and Jules was an honest businessman, it would come out in Jules’s reactions. Donovan would be able to read his face. If he was dirty, when Donovan turned up the heat on him that would also show in his body language and attitude. “Let me assure you, I know the bank account she wired the five thousand dollars to is shielded and by the time the bank authorizes a reversal of payments, the funds and you will be long gone. Or so you think. You fucked up.” Donovan made himself sound contemptuous to try to prick Jules’s pride.

  “I am an honest businessman
and I resent the implications that I am not. I’m leaving.” Jules took the high road and kept calm. As he lifted his chin at him, Jules’s eyes reflected anger, but not outrage. He didn’t try to convince him that he was innocent. He was gaslighting Donovan.

  “In the rental car?” Donovan said slowly.

  Jules paused with his hand on the driver’s-side door. His eyes flicked to the barn and then back to Donovan. Jules plastered on a friendly smile. “I think there has been a misunderstanding.”

  Gotcha.

  “Yeah. There would have been cameras in the rental office. You and I both know the license you used to rent it was false. But the cameras still caught your face. Or the face of your accomplice. And I took a few cell phone shots of you when you weren’t looking. Like I said, you got sloppy because you thought you found an easy mark in Emily.”

  Jules looked over Donovan’s shoulder again and set his jaw. Donovan figured it was Emily coming to ream him out. But she needed to hear this first. She needed to see that her trust in Jules was misplaced. Jules had preyed on her innocence, just like his father had done with multiple people. Donovan couldn’t change the past, but he could make up for it by shutting this asshole down.

  “I have a business relationship with Miss Sullivan and I plan on honoring it, even with your heinous accusations.”

  “I already know how the scam runs. You’re going to pretend your bullshit data is going to give a result that the land doesn’t give enough kilowatts or whatever it is to justify a wind farm. She’s out five thousand dollars and you close up shop until the next mark comes along. Or—” Donovan said suddenly, “if you thought you could get more money out of her, or if you thought she was going to make a fuss over losing the five thousand dollars, you would tell her that it’s her lucky day and you’ll need another small investment before you start building. And if you were better at this, you could milk the con another couple of months before cleaning her and maybe her family and friends out as well.”

  Jules narrowed his eyes at him. “You can’t prove any of this. I haven’t done any of that. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Yet. Put the money back in her account.”

  “My time is valuable. An agreement was made between myself and Miss Sullivan in good faith.”

  “You haven’t started any work yet. Refund her five thousand dollars.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “It’s not and you know it. It will be unpopular, especially if you’ve got partners in this. But I’ll tell you what’s going to be even more unpopular. Me, getting into your business. If you return her money, leave these people alone, and get out of Texas, I won’t burn your operation to the ground.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Jules sneered. There it was. The face of a cornered rat. But it was an actual question. Jules didn’t know Charlie Lincoln was his father. Donovan didn’t know if that was a relief or not.

  “Someone who has done it before.”

  “Good luck, asshole.” If Jules could throw someone in Donovan’s path to save his own ass, he would have. Instead he leapt into the car fast as a snake.

  Donovan lunged for him, and almost got his fingers slammed in the door. Jules started it up and his tires squealed as he pulled away. Donovan jumped back so he didn’t get his toes run over and glared after him. Whirling, he found Frank Sullivan approaching him at a fast clip. His face was red and he was visibly shaking.

  Shit. This wasn’t good. “How much did you hear?” Donovan asked.

  “Enough. Are we going after him?”

  “Let me handle this.”

  “Don’t coddle me, boy.” Frank was breathing hard.

  “His type doesn’t like being chased down. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll return the money.”

  “We need to call the police, then,” Frank gritted out, but he followed Donovan as he headed toward the ranch house and not the barn. Donovan needed to give Emily the heads-up about this.

  “He hasn’t done anything wrong yet, so the police can’t do anything about it yet. If he’s smart, he’ll return the money and leave. He’s been caught and given a chance to disappear. He’d be an idiot not to take it.” Donovan shook his head. There was no way Jules was going to return the money. Charlie Lincoln wouldn’t have. Donovan hadn’t been that much of a threat for Jules to consider passing up on the easy payday. But he would try his damnedest to track him down and make him regret it. Donovan was a hunter and he’d make sure Jules St. John wouldn’t run an easy con ever again.

  “He didn’t strike me as the smart type,” Frank said.

  Unfortunately, Donovan agreed with him. “The police still can’t do anything until he commits a crime. If he cuts and runs, he’ll make mistakes. The police can catch him that way.” Maybe.

  “What about my daughter’s money?”

  Donovan sighed. “It’s already gone.”

  Frank flinched and went to go toward the barn.

  “Wait. Let me talk with Emily, see if I can get some clues. I might be able to find this guy before he takes off. He’s left some big trails. If I can track him down, I might be able to get Emily’s money back.”

  Frank thought about it. “You beat it out of him if you have to.”

  Donovan gave him a tight nod. It wasn’t his first plan of action, but he wasn’t opposed to it.

  Rubbing his hand over his face, Frank suddenly looked tired and defeated. “If I was ten years younger…”

  Donovan didn’t know what to tell him, but he tried his best. “Men like him don’t discriminate. They use people’s belief that the world is a good place, then they abuse that trust. Emily isn’t at fault here. That’s solely on this Jules St. John guy or whatever his real name is.”

  “Emily should have known better.” Frank shook his head and wearily trudged up the porch stairs. “I thought spending time in the Peace Corps would have made her grow up a little, but instead it just fueled her unrealistic ideals.”

  “She thought she was doing the right thing.” Donovan didn’t want her father to blame Emily. “This asshole is a crook. It’s no different than if he snatched her purse on the street.”

  “I appreciate what you’re doing, Donovan. She needs someone like you to look out for her.”

  Donovan shook his head in disagreement. “No, she can handle herself. I just happened to be around.”

  “Well, thank you for being there anyway.” Frank went into the house, closing the screen door quietly behind him.

  Crap.

  Emily was fuming as she took care of the three horses. She had them watered and had removed their tack, but she was busy grooming Sunflower. “What the hell was that all about? And grab a currycomb while you’re talking.”

  Donovan did and headed for the horse he had been riding.

  “No, do Pippi first. Otherwise she gets unreasonable.”

  “She’s a horse,” Donovan said. “They’re always unreasonable.”

  “Like a lot of men, I know,” she said, glaring at him. “I need these wind turbines to get installed and I don’t have the money to do it. Jules St. John is my last shot at getting this done quickly. I had a look at our ledgers. We need this. Please tell me you didn’t blow it.” She threw down the currycomb she was using. “Please.”

  Donovan saw the desperation in her face and knew that this is what Jules St. John had been preying on.

  “Honey, Jules is a con man.”

  He saw the emotions war for control on her face: disbelief, anger, fear. Snatching up the comb, she went back to her horse. “You don’t know that.”

  Torn between giving her false hope and crushing her with the reality, Donovan avoided the question in her voice. “How did you find out about him?”

  “When I was in West Tigray and my father’s message came in about coming home to say goodbye to the farm before he sold it, I was floored. I didn’t want to lose my home. I went on a mission to save it. I talked to everyone I could about ways to utilize the land to be more profitabl
e. I mean, that’s what we were doing in Africa, right? But farming and irrigation were things we were already doing back here and that wasn’t helping.” Emily continued brushing her horse. “My supervisor suggested the wind turbines, and a friend of mine said that he knew someone who did that sort of thing and I should contact him when I got back to the States.”

  “What was your friend’s name?”

  “Bobby Reeves. He’s a good man. An honest man. He wouldn’t have tried to cheat me.”

  Donovan had his doubts, but it would give the police a place to start looking for Jules if it came to that. “What was his connection to Jules?”

  “A friend of his brother-in-law’s,” Emily said.

  “Walk me through how you contacted Jules and exactly what he said.”

  As he listened, he took care of Pippi, who was such a sweet horse. He gave her a peppermint at the end of her grooming, which earned him the side-eye from a gorgeous Andalusian in the next stall. Emily’s face grew grim when Donovan told her he saw him drop something out in the old pasture.

  “Why didn’t you tell him he dropped it?” she asked.

  “I wanted to come back later and be waiting for whatever he sent.”

  “Are you sure it’s a tracker?”

  “I’m going to go look. And bring it back to the lodge.”

  “Can we use that as evidence?” Emily looked up at him hopefully.

  “Sure, but it doesn’t point to anything unless he acts on it. Which he won’t, because he knows we’re onto him.”

  “Damn it,” she whispered, and hugged Sunflower, burying her face in her neck.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said. The only bright side about any of this was it didn’t appear his father wasn’t behind it. He had been worried because the timing of his father’s letter and the appearance of Jules St. John had been a little too coincidental for him. Still, this was what the Sullivan family had in store if Charlie Lincoln ever got involved with them. He’d have to make sure they knew how to spot a grifter before Donovan’s lease was up. That way, he could leave without worrying about them.

  Walking over to Emily, he gently took her into his arms. “You’re getting Sunflower all wet.”