“I’m driving one of the ranch trucks.” He clenched his fist, counted to five, and then closed his eyes. “Would you like to drive with me?”
The smile of victory that she didn’t even try to hide did nothing to further his good mood.
“But if you could refrain from strategizing ways to destroy my legacy while in my presence, I would appreciate it.” He indicated that he wanted to push past her, but she stood her ground and crossed her arms.
“Would you stop?” Her eyes narrowed.
“Pardon me?”
She shifted her feet. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I believe I do.”
“Really, ‘cause so far, I’m getting a lot of immature reactions to assumptions you’ve made.”
“You are the person sent here from Synergy Group to recommend my land be totally surrounded by parkland, cutting me off from all major roads?”
When she nodded, he raised his shoulders. “That’s all I need to know.”
“No, that’s not. But if you can’t even hear me out—”
“What more is there to hear? You came here, seduced me with your––your swimsuit and smile...and things––and all the while, you’re spying and planning. I can’t believe I let you up here at all.”
Her eyes turned steely, and he would have regretted his words if he didn’t know he was totally in the right.
She opened her mouth to respond but then closed it. Instead, she whirled around and called over her shoulder, “I’m almost packed. I’ll be down in two minutes.”
Two full days of driving with this fiery tempest, with the spy he couldn’t resist. Heaven help him.
His dad approached. “You sure about this, son?”
“Which part?”
“Driving with her all the way to New York?”
“What do you think is gonna happen?”
His dad’s eyes twinkled. “I wonder if I should chaperone you two.”
“What! Dad, we are grown adults…” Something in his dad’s face made him pause.
“I’m afraid you’ll have promised her the deed to the whole place by the time you cross over into Ohio.” He snorted and then clapped Jed on the back. “She’s a good woman, Jed; just trying to do her job. Probably feels as conflicted as you do.”
Jed wanted to argue but saw no point. It didn’t matter if he and his dad agreed or not on this issue. What did matter is that he would somehow have to make it to New York in one emotional piece.
Chapter 11
Anna threw her suitcase into the back of the truck, and Jed pulled the cover tight across the top of the bed. “I weighed it down in there, in case we do see some snow.”
She nodded, not sure what to say to this man who now trusted her so little and was the worst communicator she’d seen on top of it all. How could he not even let her finish a sentence? Well, he would hear it from her on this trip. She planned to make sure of that. Even if she never spoke to him again afterward, he would know the full weight of his mistakes about her.
The warmth from the heaters blasted into her already cold and shivering body. “I’ve never been so cold.”
“When it gets this low, you’re in danger of frostbite. Here, wrap up.” He tossed her a blanket and closed his door. They took off down the road, Anna waving goodbye to Aunt Julie before the sweet woman hurried back into the house.
They rode in silence, Anna admiring the beauty around her one last time, praying she would be able to save the land, save Jed’s legacy. She peeked at him, his face as cold and stony as the weather outside, hoping he would one day look at her again with appreciation and admiration even. When they left the meadow where the yellow flowers wilted from freezing and headed out on the freeway, she turned her body towards him and asked, “What exactly do you think my plans for your property are?”
The resounding silence lasted so long Anna worried he would refuse to talk to her for the long drive. At last, he exhaled and glanced at her. “Well now, I wouldn’t know, because you never told me anything about it.”
“Fair.” She had been uncomfortable talking to him about anything to do with his land. She wanted to come at him with the full story, which included a happy ending created by her, saving his land. “I would have, soon.”
He hmphed. “When you told me to pack my bags and move somewhere else?”
She pressed her lips together. He had every reason to be suspicious, she knew, but then again, he had every reason to trust her, too. But his accusations hurt. Mostly because she had been planning ways to save him at the jeopardy of her job, one she valued, had worked for, and hoped to keep.
They drove on in silence. She would tell him everything. And perhaps he had further knowledge that could help them both. No matter what, they would talk. But she waited. Mostly because she felt the lump in her throat growing, and suddenly, she didn’t know if she could talk about her worries, her agony over this tough decision without breaking down in great ugly sobs.
At the first pit stop, she washed her face and bought some dried fruit and jerky. They climbed back in the truck. “Let me know when you want me to take a turn.”
He eyed her. Then he nodded.
They drove for a few miles, and then Jed surprised her and spoke. “Do you know what M&M’s remind me of?”
She knew, but she didn’t want to admit it. “What?”
“Blake Sanders.”
“That creep.”
“What’s he doing nowadays?”
“Married. A girl two grades younger than us. They live in Thayer Falls.”
“Reason enough for you not to live there. I find I’m agreeing with your move to New York.”
She laughed. “He did grow up, but not by much.”
Blake had picked on Jed every day for a month, relentlessly. And nothing Jed did would make him stop. He reasoned with him, he bribed him, he even threatened him, but Blake seemed to know nothing stood in his way; and so he broke Jed’s things; he stepped on his toes; he threw his backpack down the hall. He did everything he could to make Jed miserable. Until one day in biology class, Blake had sat next to Jed during the test, threatening him that he better let Blake see his paper or he’d pound Jed after school. Jed had refused, and every time the teacher looked away, he would lean way over to try and get a look at Jed’s paper.
Every time, Anna threw an M&M at the teacher.
Mrs. Lilliworth had whirled around. “Who did that?”
Every student in the room looked up in shock and innocence. She turned back around. Blake tried to look at Jed’s paper, and Anna threw another M&M.
And so it continued for twenty minutes, until Mrs. Lilliworth had had enough. “That is it, students. Please put your hands on your desks. I will be coming through the room to inspect them and discover who is throwing candy.”
While the teacher leaned over the first desk, Anna slipped the bag into Jed’s hand, stretched out behind him, who then slipped them into Blake’s desk.
Shortly after that, she and Jed had met at the Kissing Bridge.
“He so deserved his detention.”
“And his zero on the test.”
Jed eyed her with amusement. “He backed off after that.”
“Sometimes all it takes is to outsmart the bully.”
“Or gang up on him.” He grinned. “Thank you for that.”
She shrugged, relieved they were again on good terms, maybe.
He checked the rearview mirror then eyed her. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”
His question surprised her, totally out of the blue. “Uh, I don’t know. Are we friends? Cause you might use the information against me.”
His chuckle warmed her heart. “Tell me something non-incriminating you’ve never told anyone else.”
“Okay, but then you owe me the same intel.”
“Deal.”
She thought about it and wanted him to understand her situation in Thayer Falls, even if they never spoke again after this tr
ip. “I kind of went a little goth after you left.”
He choked. “Goth? Is that—do girls wear black and thick eyeliner and all that?”
“Yup. I lightened my face and added black around my eyes, dressed in multiple layers of black clothing, black nail polish. I stopped at the nose ring.”
He nodded. “I can’t picture it. But everybody’s gotta express themselves, right?”
She laughed, grateful he was trying to say something congenial about it. “I was just tired of it all. You left. Everyone seemed, I don’t know, boring after that, and they refused to see life any differently than what they’d always known. The world was steeped in problems. I’d bring them up in class, and the teachers would have little patience for me and my comments. Like, “Why can’t she just talk about pleasant things” or something. I don’t know. I felt like the only person who cared about the environment, about the large areas of land the developers were destroying in the name of progress, the inner cities that were being imploded and full of crime. No one else cared. So I became a living, walking rebellion.”
He nodded. “Did you feel better?”
She laughed, surprised at his comment. “Well, no. I only became angrier. But I guess I felt I had no other choice. Like, if I just played along and played nice about things that bothered me, one day I would become one of them, and I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t handle being oblivious to the work, about sitting in nonsensical pretend safety and doing nothing about problems that are all around us.” She forced herself off the soapbox. “I guess I felt better because I was doing something. Even if it wasn’t really anything.” She looked out the window. Talking to Jed about it made her goth phase important and ridiculous at the same time.
“I can respect that.”
Her mouth fell open. “You can?”
“Sure. But I bet dressing as a goth didn’t get you in trouble with all the mamas.”
“No, that was my spray-paint across the stadium grass and my YouTube channel about the Kissing Bridge.”
He coughed. “Am I on YouTube?”
Of course he went straight to that question. “No, you were before my great rebellion.”
“So the other guys’ moms didn’t appreciate their sons’ new fame?”
“Well, it’s not as bad as you think. I thought about rating the kisses, you know, in comparison to yours.” She blushed again, but forced herself to be matter of fact about it. If things were falling apart between her and Jed, she may as well be completely honest about herself.
“What!”
“No really, but I figured it made me seem, like, way more…um, loose, than I am. So instead, I just reported on activity at the Kissing Bridge.”
He leaned back and laughed. “You videoed other people at the bridge?”
“No, do you think I had a death wish? I just talked about the couples who were there. And how some of the guys were repeat visitors, like repeat-every-night visitors.”
He nodded. “And their mothers didn’t appreciate it.”
“No one appreciated it.” She cleared her throat. “So when the whole town was against me, people complaining to my parents, to the principal, people already predisposed to not like a miserable-looking girl in black, I got a little more brazen in my rebellion, and that’s when the spray paint came to be.” She grimaced. “It’s a felony by the way. Damaging school property to the extent I did.” She sighed. “They didn’t press charges, but I had to paint over it in green.” She snorted. “It was right before our big playoff game.”
“Wow, the AnnaMae I knew went a little crazy after seventh grade.”
“I honestly think my parents were glad to see me go.”
His jaw line clenched. “I can see why you work at your current job.”
All the good feelings and humor fled at his mention of the purpose of her trip to Montana.
“You should know I didn’t know who you were when I agreed to come out early to spend some time.”
His mouth pressed together. She couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. Then he was silent so long that she supposed he needed to think about it all. Well, that was fine, because she had a lot to think about too. Like how to save his land. He was lucky she wasn’t still in seventh grade. Given the immaturity that came with everyone’s thirteenth year, there’s no telling what she’d try to do to him. But as it was, she tried to swallow his unfair assumptions and reactions and pulled open her laptop to catch up on the latest email conversations about the situation.
Chapter 12
Jed tried to make himself deaf to the sound of the clicking on her keyboard. Whatever trouble she was causing for him and his family felt worse with every finger press on her computer. She worked quickly and with all her concentration, the tip of her tongue poked out through her lips. He found himself unreasonably distracted by that bit of pink. Ridiculous. He told himself to care for someone who wanted to help protect his land, not strip it from him. But his rebellious curiosity, his interest and reactions to her would not pay attention to anything so sensible.
He wanted to open the windows, letting the icy blast cleanse the air between them, ripping it of anything enticing. But that was too cold. She’d not done well in the few moments climbing into the truck. Her skin had turned bright red immediately. So he didn’t have the heart to ice up the inside of their vehicle, as refreshing as he might think it would be.
After a few more minutes, he couldn’t stand listening to those fingers planning his doom, so he pulled over. “Your turn.”
She looked up. “Oh, okay, you need a break?” She slid her laptop away and then moved across the bench to drive.
Amused, he watched as the electronic chair moved forward and up and she tilted the wheel. At last she put the car in gear.
“Ready?”
“I feel tiny in this truck.”
“You look just right in my truck. On my horse, on my land. If you weren’t trying to take it all away, I might invite you back.” He knew he shouldn’t needle her, but how could he not?
Her face clenched, jaw working back and forth.
“Just spit it out.”
“What?”
“Whatever you gotta say, say it.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “I’m all ears.”
“Oh, now you wanna listen?” She sped up, weaving around unsuspecting travelers going a mere eight miles over the speed limit.
“You wanna slow down?”
She glanced at the speedometer. “Oh! Sorry.”
He nodded. And then he waited.
“Alright. If you’ll listen, I’d love to tell you.” She sniffed, and her face tightened; instantly, he regretted being so hard on her.
“I’m just doing my job.”
He snorted.
“No, now, see, that just hurts my feelings.”
He waved his hand. “Okay, continue. I’ll keep my reactions limited to important responses only.”
She took a breath, and he could tell she felt more in control. “So I came out here early to see you. I didn’t know who you were. I just wanted to spend some time with a hot guy, with Jed McAllister, who’d kissed me on the Kissing Bridge.”
“Hot guy?”
“Oh, stop. Yes. But even before I knew that you and the Svenssons were the same family, I had misgivings about recommending your property be cut off. I could tell the land was in use, suspected people lived on it. And it felt ethically wrong. But I was getting pressure from my boss to push the deal through. So I started this thing already uncomfortable, trying to find a different solution.”
She glanced at him. “When the Wi-Fi started working on my phone and my boss told me to look up the McAllisters, I knew I was on your land, the very land I had come to investigate.”
“And so you made the most of it.”
“I did. I was looking for ways to get out of the deal. Because once I had met you, seen you on your land, watched how important it was to you, I’d vowed to work hard to help you keep it.” She sniffed.
He wa
s about to respond with something snarky saved up for that moment, but then he shook his head. “What did you say?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out a way to save your land.”
He was stunned and relieved and, actually, not surprised. “What do you mean, trying to figure out a way?”
“Well, something else is going down. My boss won’t tell me what. But there’s someone who wants your land, I can tell, and so you’re being pushed off.”
He raised a hand. “I got this one. Oil. Devlin Oil wants to pump gas up to Canada. I’m the straightest, cheapest line.”
She tipped her head back. “Ah, the missing piece.” Then she frowned. “But this is terrible news. They’re a huge client. I don’t know if we can stop the wheels from rolling on this one.”
“Oh, we can stop them.” Jed frowned. “You’re not the only piece in play.”
“I realize that. I’m just telling you that I’ve seen these things go down and this one doesn’t look good.”
He brushed off his jeans, kicked his boots out in front of him, and thought for a moment. Then he grinned. “You’re not trying to sabotage my land!”
“Of course not.” She hated it, but her face crinkled up a little before she could smooth it out again, and a tear fell down her cheek.
“Oh, AnnaMae. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He reached over and wiped her tear. Then he unclicked from his seatbelt and scooted right over as close as he could get to her. “I’m sure going up against your boss and everybody else is hard. You’ve been alone and stressed about this. I’m sorry I thought the worst, wouldn’t listen.” He tried to hug her, but it was awkward while she drove. So he leaned over and pressed his lips to her neck. “More of that later.” Pleased when her soft hairs stood on end down along her neck, he scooted back to his place in the truck. “But now that we trust each other again, can we work together?”
Her hesitation was not lost on Jed.
“I can’t just go rogue. I have to work a deal that everyone is happy with.”
“I’m not gonna be happy giving up my land. They don’t belong anywhere near it.”
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