by Rya Stone
“It doesn’t work that way,” she continued with an eye roll. “It’s like a…a pressure, for lack of a better word. When the barometric pressure drops, I can feel it.” She looked to the late afternoon sky, suddenly serious. “I know that probably doesn’t make sense, but—”
“I get it,” he said. And it was getting late. What a shame. Along comes the most appealing offer to lease he’d ever witnessed…and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He tried not to feel sorry for her and whatever she had riding on his lease. With those looks and that charm she’d have half the Eagle Ford signed by the end of the month. The thought of that made his stomach sour.
“Sure you don’t want me to buy you dinner?” she said, turning toward him, one hand on her door. “We could—”
“Not happening,” he said as he passed her. He leaned into her as he said it and caught that spicy scent he knew he’d be thinking about when he found his bed later.
“But how do I contact you?” she asked.
“You don’t,” he said without looking back.
Damn shame.
Chapter Two
For the second time in as many days, Cassie Mitchum found herself staring down the Lucas driveway. The gate was open, just as it had been the day before. Still, she paused, looking around, half expecting God’s gift to the oil field to step out of the trees all calm-like and cross his big ol’ arms across his big ol’ chest, blocking her path. Another part of her quite liked that idea.
“Not happening,” he’d told her yesterday. And although a denial, the way he’d met her eyes and leaned close as he said it had to be one of the hottest things she’d ever experienced.
That look…
It had been all sex. All rough sex, the kind that leaves you panting and sweaty and sore. The kind you only dream about.
Good God.
Her knuckles drained to white as she gripped the wheel and hit the gas. She was on a mission, one that wasn’t supposed to include a dirty-sexy roughneck. Though she did wonder where he was, and not for the first time since heading out of town that morning. Because whatever waited through the trees ahead had the fine hairs on the back of her neck and arms on full alert. She’d found herself in some off-the-wall places, but anybody living this deep in the boondocks had to be a little off. However off, the Lucas brothers were going to sign the oil and gas lease in her messenger bag, and she was going to land a royalty override.
Then? A shopping spree. Too bad her scary expense list didn’t have room for a new ride, something along the lines of a nicely equipped assault vehicle maybe. You know, for the next time her broker sent her into the dark heart of Marian County. Seriously, it was so dim within the oak-tunnel drive, her headlights clicked on. When she found the dam crossing—yes, an algae-covered dam spanning the only passage across a shallow creek—she wondered who in their right mind lived so far off the beaten path.
Clint Lucas.
That’s who she’d spoken with on the phone two days ago. Well, she’d spoken; he’d listened, growled, and hung up. Things had sounded promising.
Braking to a stop beneath an ancient live oak, she cased the run-down residence to her left. Surely there didn’t exist a more perfect location for the next Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. Mossy limbs stretched over the lawn, clawing and creaking toward the Greek revival. Rotted wood peeked around peeling paint. Rust bled from nails holding up what remained of the shutters, and the upper porch sagged atop Corinthian columns streaked with green-black mold. It was Southern splendor gone wrong, gone…Gothic.
Remake? Scratch that. This place had its own horror story. Cassie clutched the gearshift, thinking she should turn her car around for a hasty getaway. That’s when she saw the ax —the freaking ax—lodged in the top of a woodpile along the side of the house.
Where was that criminally hot roughneck when she really needed him?
Okay, she sucked at changing tires, but the way he’d let her do it without a single misogynistic comment was something she hadn’t needed. Stunts like that got her thinking dangerous things, like decent men actually existed, for instance. But Jason Lucas wasn’t just a decent man. He held the patent on masculinity, dripped sex appeal, and had utterly invaded her dreams last night. Yeah, dangerous.
Stop it, Cass. You don’t need a man. You got this. Remember squirrel-guy? The nudist colony?
The guy who’d been thawing a package of frozen squirrel in his sink turned out to be just a good ol’ boy who’d grown up on grandma’s scrambled eggs and squirrel brains. Gross, but not creep factor five thousand. And the nudists? Some of the best people she’d ever met, once she got past the nudity. Actually, she never got past the nudity. Still, they—
Her heart stopped.
Peering into the driver’s window was the biggest, scariest dude she’d ever seen. The look on his face clearly said murder. His jeans said cowboy.
A killer cowboy in a baseball cap. Nice.
“How’d you get in here?” he yelled.
Uh…over the river and through the woods? Oh, wow, and big, scary cowboy had some crazy pale eyes. Perhaps he used those wannabe baby blues to lure his murder victims back to his rotting mansion before chasing them through the woods with his ax.
Mr. Friendly knuckle-tapped the glass.
It had to be him, Clint Lucas. Genes don’t lie. And yet the differences were startling. Though Jason wore dog tags, Clint had the military cut—short and severe, while his brother’s long, thick locks just begged for a woman’s hands while he went down—
“Roll down this window!”
Oh, yeah, and the eyes. If Jason’s were warm Caribbean waters, Clint’s were Arctic wastes, slanted down at the outer edges. Sloe-eyes. Murderous ones.
“I’m losing my patience, lady.”
And she had a job to do. Her gaze flicked to the ax before reaching a shaky hand to her messenger bag. She didn’t carry a gun like most landmen, but she did have a lot of money in the form of a bank draft—all the ammo she needed.
She swung out of the car, planted her wedges on the grass-patched gravel drive, and took a deep breath. “Mr. Lucas? I’m Cassie Mitchum. We spoke on the phone…?”
He grunted. It could’ve been denial or affirmation.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“Here’s fine. I ain’t got much to say.”
Then he could listen. No way was she going oh-for-two with the Lucas Brothers. This lease was the game changer. Fortunately, she knew how to play this game. “Valhalla Land Services is prepared to offer you two thousand dollars per acre for an oil and gas lease on your property,” she said, cutting right to the gooey black heart of the matter. “And, we’re offering a one-fifth royalty interest on each producing well drilled. The terms and provisions—”
“Valhalla,” he snickered.
“Yes, it’s—”
“A reward for all your raping and pillaging?”
She shrugged like she didn’t have a clue what he meant. “I’m just here to talk to you about an oil and gas lease.”
“Like I said—”
“If we could just—”
“I’m not signing your fucking lease.”
Clint Lucas had one of those raspy voices—the unnerving kind, not the sexy kind. And Cassie wasn’t feeling a damn thing he had to say. “Excuse me?”
“I said, I’m not signing your lease.”
She wasn’t about to lose her override without a fight and grasped onto the Viking reference, imagining herself a Valkyrie. “I believe you said fucking lease, Mr. Lucas.”
One corner of his mouth twitched, as if he was trying to suppress a grin, and she decided to change tactics.
“Do you happen to have any tea?” she asked, smiling sweetly. More flies with honey, right? She needed this override. She’d be damned if her mother spent the last years of her life in a dump of a nursing home. The thought made her sick, and Cassie gritted her teeth behind her dimples. She was a Valkyrie. She was willing to fight for this lease. And she prepa
red herself to walk into the House of Horrors to get it.
Clint Lucas cut his eyes down the dirt road. “I’m going to tell you like I’ve told every other land shark who’s come swimming across my creek. I’m not leasing. Not today. Not next week. Not ever.” He spit on the ground, beating his point dead. “My reasons are my own.” He turned and headed for his moldy house.
Shit.
She’d had no-goes on tiny tracts that didn’t really matter. She’d argued every environmental scenario on the planet to no avail. She’d had crotchety old men nitpick the lease agreement down to the commas before rejecting it, claiming they were too old to enjoy the money and hated their kids too much to leave it to them. But she’d never, ever, had a no from a large landowner. The big dogs always played. This Mr. Lucas owned an undivided half interest in eighteen hundred acres of land. That made him a big dog, and he was going to play, even if his brother wouldn’t.
Cassie scrambled up the rise of the lawn. “I guess we could just leave you be and drill on your neighbor instead…within legal distance from your land, of course.”
With one boot-clad foot on the splintered porch, the broad form in front of her froze.
“You understand that would, in effect, be putting your money in your neighbor’s pocket. I’m not sure how close you are to…” She visualized the huge plat back at the office. “…the Neelys? But I’m sure they wouldn’t mind sharing your wealth. The question is, do you mind sha—”
He turned so fast she stumbled backwards. Arms pinwheeling, she only had time to wonder how she’d go down this time.
Her flailing arm was caught in an iron grip, and she lurched forward into Clint Lucas, landowner from hell. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, releasing his shirt from her balled fist. “I have a bad ankle—”
“Not the kind of shoes you want to be wearing—”
They both broke off. She tried to catch her breath; he narrowed his ice-blue eyes suspiciously. They flicked to her car then back to her shoes, and she went rigid as Clint’s gaze travelled up her body.
“Did my brother put you up to this?”
“I wish,” she muttered.
“You’ve spoken to him.” It wasn’t a question.
“Of course,” she said, trying to sound blasé.
Clint’s fingers bit into her arm. “You shouldn’t be wearing shoes like that out here.”
Got it. Bad footwear choice. She jerked her arm away and almost lost her balance again. “I’ve been to some strange places. I’ve met some crazy people. I’ve even been chased by a Bubba on a four-wheeler, but most of the time, Mr. Lucas, I’m treated with respect. I’m invited in, offered a glass of tea, some homemade muffins. I’ve lugged home my fair share of watermelons and peaches, too, but I’ve never been treated so rudely.” That last part wasn’t exactly true. ATV Bubba had been exceptionally rude, but still.
Clint Lucas smirked. “Yeah, I bet that outfit you’re wearing gets you invited in for lots of muffins.”
“Excuse me?”
“You wear that getup all the time?” His lip curled into a sneer. “Procure a lot of produce that way?”
She glanced down at her slim skirt and darted blouse, the definition of business professional. “What I choose to wear has nothing to do with friendliness.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “It doesn’t?”
Oh, she knew exactly what he implied but chose not to antagonize him further by responding.
“Or maybe you just flash those dimples and hand your victims a pen.”
“Back to raping and pillaging, I see.” She was answered with a snicker. “How can I reach your brother, Mr. Lucas?”
“Without any help from me,” he replied. Then he narrowed his eyes. “I thought you already talked to him.”
Cassie lifted her chin and met Clint Lucas’s stare. “He might not have left his number, but I can definitely say my run-in with your brother left a better taste in my mouth.”
Oh no…that hadn’t come out right. And Clint Lucas’s dark chuckle confirmed it. Yeah, she wasn’t going to deny it. Jason Lucas caused very dirty thoughts—thoughts that had kept her up half the night.
Cheeks aflame, Cassie grimaced and spun. Actually, she turned carefully as not to twist her ankle for a third time. Damn, it hurt. And she limped down the lawn with as much dignity as she could muster. Marshall was going to be ticked, but her broker’s reaction amounted to the least of her problems because now it was back to brother number one. At least he didn’t give off serial killer vibes.
Jason Lucas.
She had a face to put with the name on the deeds in the Lucas folder, but that’s all she had. Well, besides a useless PO Box number in Marian. But Marian was a small town, and she’d find the wickedly handsome Jason Lucas. Her override depended on it. And if she was being totally honest, so did her played-out fantasy file. Jason. Thank God he wasn’t a Delbert. That would have been a fantasy killer. But she had bigger things to worry about than the man’s name. She had to deal with him, professionally, and any thoughts to the contrary needed to stay planted on the fictional side of things.
Clint Lucas barreled past, almost landing her in the record book for most accidental ankle twists in one week. Huffing, she looked up from her measured steps to see a brown SUV with a Marian County Sheriff’s Department decal on the side.
At least Mr. Deputy had been smart enough to drive a Tahoe over the river and through the woods. Unfortunately, he’d blocked her escape route. Jangling her keys, she considered pulling forward and spinning out on the lawn in a gesture of farewell.
“…getting out of control.” She caught this from the rail-thin, Stetson-adorned deputy and leaned a hip into her car door.
“Can’t help you, Slick. You know the rules.”
Clint Lucas didn’t seem like the type to call someone “Slick.” Must be a nickname.
“You can, and you will, Clint. This shit has got to stop. Joel Neely is the second body found floatin’ in the last two weeks.”
More than her ears were pricking now. Neely? Body floating? Good Lord, maybe Clint Lucas was a serial killer.
“Now, I need to talk to your brother, and I know you know where I can find him.”
Oh, great. Maybe the nicer one was the killer. Or both of them together.
“If you know so much, then you know my brother and I aren’t on the best of terms.”
Or maybe not.
“Yep.” The deputy nodded. “Don’t mean you don’t know where he is.”
Clint Lucas flexed his fisted hands. Muscles bunched, rippling across his back and down his arms. Not the most appropriate move while chatting up a cop. “He’s on a rig.”
Despite Clint’s display of aggression, Cassie took a tentative step forward. A rig? Where?
“Which one?” the deputy asked.
She crept closer.
“How should I know?” Clint growled. “They’re littered all over the damn place. You know the name of the company. Drive around and look for their flag.”
Well, that didn’t help much. Her new target’s vehicle had been unmarked.
“I know—”
“You don’t know shit, Slick.”
Clint Lucas spun and began his stalking-off thing. His gaze met hers, and that top lip curled into yet another sneer. She couldn’t wait to return the gesture, but first she had to find Jason Lucas. Because at this point the Lucas lease appeared dead in the water. Not unlike Mr. Neely.
She shuddered and slammed her door.
At least she had hope of resuscitating the lease.
…
Phone to her ear, Cassie pressed the button on her motel room’s dinky coffee maker. It was going to be another long night, just her and the Lucas title. “So, what did they feed you for dinner?”
She pictured her mother propped up in bed, TV on mute, a loose-fitting nightgown slipping off one of her slim shoulders. The nursing home people Cassie paid out the wazoo better be keeping that nightgown clean, too, but she knew not to ask. Rach
el Ann Mitchum could be wearing her dinner and she’d swear it was Dior.
“I…I don’t really remember, honey.” Her mother sighed into the phone. “It all tastes the same, you know?”
No, Cassie didn’t know. She didn’t know what it was like to lose her sense of smell, which, according to her research, accounts for 90 percent of taste. Yeah, another wonderful effect of the bitch known as Parkinson ’s disease.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Cassie said. “I kinda have the same thing going on down here. When you eat every meal out, it all starts tasting the same after a while.”
“You need a home-cooked meal, my girl. I wish I could whip you up some chicken parm or—”
Cassie winced. “Don’t go there. Remember? We talked about this.” Sometimes her mother remembered, sometimes she didn’t. But Cassie knew that beneath her physical pain lived a tremendous amount of guilt. Her mother thought herself a burden, incapable of being a “real” mother since the disease reared its ugly head more than ten years ago. Sometimes Cassie thought the guilt was debilitating her mother faster than the disease.
And Cassie shouldered her fair share of guilt as well. With her father completely MIA for the past two and a half decades, it had eventually fallen to her to keep the family of two afloat. And now? Now she had to find a way to pay for some real care. Not the crap Twin Pines Nursing Home tried to sell. Quality, Comfort, and Care…Just Like Home! her ass.
The nurses were friendly enough, and her mother’s clothes and bedding always appeared clean, but the place didn’t smell good, it didn’t feel good, it was just…what she could afford. Which was a lot. But she wanted better for the woman who had raised her, put her through college, and loved her unconditionally every step of the way. Her mother needed long-term care, and the place Cassie had her eye on was going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. A year.
“You shouldn’t be out there working your butt off for me,” her mother said. “There are other jobs, something…less strenuous.”
There was that guilt again.
Cassie shook her head. “Mom, listen. I’m working on a plan, one we’re both going to like a lot better than Twin Pines.” Although she didn’t know how well that plan was going at the moment, her mother needed to understand why her daughter was “working her butt off.” “My broker promised me a royalty cut on the lease I’m negotiating, an incentive of sorts. It’s a large tract, and the production payout will be substantial. You’re gonna have to hold on, though. The well won’t go online for a few months, and that’s if…” Cassie stared at the percolating caffeine. If she could even land the damn deal… She cleared her throat. “My take will be enough to pay for a private facility, Mom. Top-of-the-line. Better nurses, better rehab, better scenery. The whole nine yards.”
