by Zoe York
Jennifer’s eyes flicked to the elk clock on the wall. Wow – 3:15 in the afternoon? Where did today go? “I’d love that,” she said. “You have my crust of bread and my glass of water to drink?”
She may or may not have said that with sarcasm dripping off every syllable.
Carmelita sighed as she turned to head back towards the kitchen, her soft slippers making her almost completely silent on the creaky hardwood floors.
“Stetson has not come back in from outside yet, but when he does, we will have a talk about manners,” the housekeeper said over her shoulder in her softly accented voice. “He was not raised by his parents – God rest their souls,” she crossed herself, “to speak to a woman that way. Or anyone at all.”
They’d made it to a cheerful, if cramped, country kitchen, where Carmelita set about making a sandwich for Jennifer, her hands moving rhythmically between the ingredients. There was a small, worn table shoved up against the wall, so Jennifer slipped into a seat, watching the housekeeper at work. Homemade white bread, thick sliced roast beef…her mouth was watering at the sight.
“Are his parents no longer here?” she asked, trying to phrase that in the most tactful way possible. The housekeeper seemed intent on bringing them up, even if Jennifer usually didn’t get involved or even know much about a client’s background. But since Carmelita wanted to talk about it, it was only polite to respond and ask questions.
Nothing more than that.
“No,” Carmelita said sadly, sliding a plate in front of Jennifer along with a glass of milk. Jenn stared at the glass in bewilderment – she hadn’t been served milk to drink since she was a small child. She took a hesitant sip of the super thick, creamy liquid as Carmelita continued, “His mother died 14 years ago in a car accident – hit a deer on the way over to Pocatello to visit Stetson’s older brother, Declan. His father was devastated; they loved each other very much. He never dated or looked at anyone else. He died of cancer last July, or so they say. I think he died of a broken heart. He was never right after Mrs. Miller died.”
She stopped talking just as Jennifer had taken another overly large bite of her glorious sandwich – she’d almost just shoved the whole thing in her mouth because it was so damn delicious, but had settled on only taking a huge bite instead.
Which left her chewing furiously so she could respond without her mouth being full.
Awkwarddddddd…
Finally, she swallowed and said, “That’s a really sad story.”
Which was just about the most lame comment on the planet, but she really wasn’t sure what else to say.
Carmelita pulled out an oversized mixing bowl and canisters, lining them up in preparation to make something delicious, Jennifer was sure of it. It was probably a good thing that an audit only lasted a couple of weeks. She was going to have to be rolled out the front door at this rate on a hand truck if all of Carmelita’s cooking was as delicious as the sandwich had been.
She scrambled for something else to say as Carmelita hummed softly to herself, stirring flour and sugar together in the ceramic mixing bowl.
“So Mr. Miller has an older brother?” She wasn’t sure why she was asking this question, other than out of politeness. It certainly wasn’t any of her business.
She certainly didn’t care.
“Two older brothers,” Carmelita corrected, adding salt into the mixture. “Wyatt is the oldest and then Declan two years later. Stetson was…how do you say? Surprise.” She laughed a little. “Mrs. Miller was so flustered when she found out she was pregnant again. Stetson was eight years after Declan, and they had believed that they were done. She wanted a little girl but of course, he was a boy. Mr. Miller was happy, though, and Stetson never left his side. As soon as he was out of diapers, he spent the whole day with his father. Never complained – his shadow. Two peas in a pod.
“Declan was always closest to Mrs. Miller, and Wyatt…well, I do not know. Wyatt is his own person.”
Which was just about the oddest statement ever, but Jennifer didn’t feel comfortable asking for clarification. She’d already gossiped about her client’s past long enough. It was time to get back to work.
With a barely stifled groan, she pushed back from the worn kitchen table and stood, stretching for just a moment before smiling at the housekeeper. “Thank you for lunch,” she said.
The housekeeper bobbed her head, flashing a quick smile before concentrating on her baking again. Chocolate chips were being added to the bowl now. Jennifer tried not to drool.
Too much, anyway.
“My Stetson – his bark is worse than his bite. He is just worried. He has a good heart. He will be nicer to you next time. I will make him.”
Jennifer let out a snort of laughter at that. The diminutive housekeeper was probably a good two feet shorter than Mr. Miller, but Jennifer was pretty sure that in this case, size wasn’t really what mattered.
“Well…ummm…thanks again,” she said, and headed back to the office.
She was still pretty sure that Stetson Miller was a jackass of the first water, but at least he had good taste in housekeepers. That was one point in his favor.
Even if it was his only one.
Chapter 5
Stetson
Stetson pulled the alternator off the tractor and carried it over to a workbench. Covered in a thick coating of grease and dirt, it didn’t look like much, but he was sure that with a bit of a tune-up, he could make it sing again.
Or at least put-put-put down the field. Wouldn’t that be something – he could start using this tractor around the farm a little again. Machines were meant to be used, not to just sit around under a tarp.
“Hey, Stets, you here?” Declan’s voice called out as the barn door squeaked and rattled open.
Dammit. What is he doing here?
Declan was certainly Stetson’s favorite brother – it wasn’t hard to be declared the winner in that contest, considering the competition – but that didn’t mean he wanted him here on the farm. Not with the damn banker still here. It wasn’t five o’clock yet, so she would still be in their father’s office, doing her best to steal the farm away.
Stetson didn’t want Declan anywhere near Jennifer-the-Thief.
“Hey, Dec!” Stetson called back, as casual as he could. “I’m back here!” He listened to his brother’s cowboy boots echo on the dirty concrete floor, and then he appeared in the doorway, pushing his hat back on his head as he looked around the indoor riding arena that had long ago been turned into a large repair shop.
“Whatcha workin’ on?” he asked, making his way through the random piles scattered about. He got over to Grandpa’s tractor and let out a little laugh. “Is the farm doing so well, you don’t need to worry about working out in the fields anymore? You can take a day to just work on this old thing?”
Stetson shrugged as he fiddled with a nut, pretending to be utterly fascinated by it. He couldn’t meet his brother’s eye. “I just…wanted to do something a little different today. Figured it was ‘bout time someone worked on this.”
“Yeah, Dad would’ve loved to see this up and moving again.”
They both stood in silence, staring at the family relic. “So,” Stetson finally said, clearing his throat and wiping his hands on a grease rag, “what’s up?”
“Just wanted to stop by and talk to you about having a family meeting. Are you free on Friday afternoon? With the drought hitting hard this summer, Wyatt’s dryland wheat is ripening faster than usual. I think he’s anxious to get it out of the fields.”
Stetson bit down on the inside of his cheek. Hard. Since Wyatt was the only dryland farmer in the bunch, his wheat always ripened first, which meant he always harvested first. Which meant he could always destroy farm equipment with impunity and then return it without a care in the world because he was cock-sure his brothers would fix it all before starting into their own harvests.
Which was true, mostly because they had no other choice.
“Wyatt…I
just don’t know,” Stetson hedged, trying to figure out a way to get out of sharing farm equipment this year. “You know we haven’t been getting along lately.”
Or ever.
Stetson decided to leave that part out. “If I have to work with him on harvest again this year, I’m not sure we’d both still be alive by the end of it.”
Declan let out a little laugh. They both knew it was true; Declan was just too nice to say it out loud. “C’mon, brother,” Declan chided him, “you know it’s what Dad would’ve wanted.”
Which was also true, dammit. And it sucked that Declan was willing to play that card, even if it was true.
Of course, he didn’t get the title of peacemaker in the Miller family for nothing. He’d been the liaison between his older brother and younger brother since the day Stetson arrived on the scene, and had finely honed his craft over the years. He was the only reason Stetson and Wyatt ever ended up in the same room together. Without Declan serving as a buffer between his two brothers, they would’ve either stopped talking to each other or killed each other long before now.
It was a toss-up as to which it would’ve been.
Stetson let out a long sigh. “Yeah. You’re right. Fine. Meet me here on Friday? We’ll go over our harvest schedules and put together a plan then.” Hopefully the banker-a-la-thief would be gone by then.
He could only hope.
Declan grinned. “Awesome. See you then.” He turned and started making his way back out of the barn, when he stopped and turned back. “What’s up with the fancy car up at the house?”
Dammit, hell, shit, God almighty—
“Just an accountant I hired to come look at the books. You know, make sure they’re in tip-top shape.” He smiled, trying to act as casual as possible, but he was dying inside. There was no way Declan would fall for that one. It was the stupidest idea known to man. You didn’t deal with paperwork; you just threw it in the office, closed the door, and ignored it.
Everyone knew that.
“Great idea! I’m proud of you for thinking of that. Having someone else take over the books is just what you need to do.”
Or that. Declan could always think it was a grand idea to invite a bookkeeper into their lives. Stetson barely kept from rolling his eyes. His brother had the most ridiculous ideas sometimes.
“Hell,” Declan continued, “I might just go on up to the house and talk to him about coming over to my place and taking a look at my books. Do you—”
“Oh, you shouldn’t bother her! Not ummm…not right now. Maybe later. But she has a lot to go through right now. Lots of…paper.” He waved his hand in the air vaguely.
Shut
the
hell
up
Stetson gave Declan a weak smile.
“She, eh?” Declan arched an eyebrow teasingly. “Is she a looker?”
“Oh no. Ugly. Mole on her nose. A little hair sprouts out of it.”
He had no idea where that came from. Or where any of this was coming from. He shouldn’t be lying to his brother. He knew that. He also couldn’t figure out how to tell him the truth.
And wasn’t that just quite the pickle to find himself in.
“Damn. Well, I better get to work. See you on Friday.” He walked out, his footsteps fading away, and then the creak and squeal of the barn door signaled his exit.
Stetson’s shoulders dropped and he stared unseeingly at the tractor in front of him. He’d just screwed up, and he knew it. He shouldn’t have lied to Declan. His parents had raised him better than that.
But to tell him the truth? That was unthinkable, too.
With an angry growl at himself and the world in general, Stetson gathered up the rags he’d dirtied and carried them to his truck he’d left parked outside the night before. He’d drive the rags back up to the house and make sure that the banker wasn’t doing something she shouldn’t be. Like, snooping around the house, searching through trash cans or something, hoping to find incriminating evidence. Of what, he wasn’t quite sure, but dammit all, she had shifty eyes. He’d seen that this morning. He shouldn’t hide out in the barn any longer; he had to go protect his family’s legacy.
Ummm…work in the barn any longer. Because he sure as hell wasn’t hiding.
He was a man. Men didn’t hide from women.
Chapter 6
Jennifer
Having finished the piles on the desk (and on top of the filing cabinet and in corners, lurking like monsters in a nightmare), Jennifer had moved on to the inside of the filing cabinet.
It wasn’t a typical metal filing cabinet, but rather a beat-up wooden relic with rows of drawers, all neatly labeled in the same spiky handwriting that she’d found on a few papers scattered around. In contrast, most of the papers piled on the desk had been in a blocky handwriting, and Jennifer had spent the afternoon idly trying to figure out which handwriting was the father’s, and which one was the son’s.
She pulled a cabinet drawer open and found file folders, neatly labeled by year, tabs marching through the drawer like soldiers, and instantly knew that this settled it – the son’s handwriting was the blocky one. All of the file folders in here had the spiky handwriting on it, and Jennifer was willing to bet next year’s salary on the fact that Stetson wouldn’t take the time to organize file folders if his life depended on it.
So when the father was alive, he filed and organized, and then once he died and Stetson took over, all of that stopped? Not surprising. The man she’d met that morning didn’t give a rat’s ass about paperwork or bills or filing, of that she was sure. Of course he’d let his paperwork fall into disarray, and then blame the bank for the mess he’d found himself in.
Men.
She started to reach for the first file folder in the drawer when she glanced up at the elk clock on the wall, the bull’s head thrown back as it bugled to the world, a 2 on the tip of its nose. Huh. It’s almost five. If I get started in on another project, I’ll be here hours past when I should be, and God only knows, the bank doesn’t pay overtime. Plus, Mr. Miller was quite clear on my work schedule this morning.
She shoved the drawer closed instead. She could get started on this phase of the excavation tomorrow morning. That would be soon enough. She began gathering up her laptop bag and notepad when her phone started singing out Working Overtime.
With a groan, she grabbed her iPhone and swiped to answer. “This is Jennifer Kendall,” she said in her most professional tone of voice. It was how her boss wanted her to answer the phone, even though he damn well knew who she was.
Just one of his many idiosyncrasies.
“How shhhhsirifks ldislkds,” her boss’ voice chirped in her ear.
“Hold on, Greg, let me get somewhere with better reception.” Jennifer hurried through the farmhouse and out onto the covered porch that stretched the length of the house.
“Can you hear me now?” Jennifer asked, feeling distinctly like she was starring in a Verizon Wireless commercial even as she said it.
“There you are. What took you so long?” Greg sounded annoyed, but then again, everything annoyed him.
“Sorry, I’m way out in the sticks. The signal isn’t very good; I had to go outside.”
“Whatever, just don’t leave me waiting like that again,” Greg huffed on the other end of the call. “Are you making progress?”
“Yes?” she said, more of a question than a statement. “I mean, I got through the piles on the desk today. I’ll get to work on the filing cabi—”
“I don’t need a play-by-play of your workday,” Greg said, cutting her off. “I just need to know if they have the money. The Millers. Are they going to bring their loan current?”
“There’s only one Miller who still lives here, first of all, and second, I have no idea. Like I said, I haven’t even touched the filing cabinet yet and there’s a lot—”
“I want results, not excuses!” Greg interrupted. Again. Jennifer bit down on the inside of her cheek. Hard. There were days…
“Give me a few more days and I can give you more information,” she said politely but firmly.
“I want a status report at noon tomorrow.” And with that, he hung up.
Jennifer stared down at her phone in shock. Even for Greg, he was being inordinately pushy and difficult. He usually didn’t hound her for a status report on an audit until she’d been there for a few days. He’d been in the foreclosure department of the Intermountain West Bank & Loan for longer than she had. He knew what he was asking for was impossible, so why the bee up his bonnet?
There was something not quite right here…
She heard the rumble of a diesel engine and looked up to see Mr. Miller pull up in front of the house, giant tires crunching on the gravel driveway, and then he hopped out, leaning back in to grab something. Unbidden, her eyes followed his legs up to the curve of his ass, his Wranglers cupping it just so – damn, I can’t breathe – and then he straightened up, his hands full of…dirty laundry?
He sauntered towards the house in that loose-hipped swagger that all cowboys seemed to naturally take on at birth, up the two steps and onto the covered porch. With a nod of greeting, he shoved the rags underneath his arm to free up a hand to get the screen and front door open, and then stood back, allowing her to pass by him and into the house.
She headed back down to the office to grab her stuff, and she could swear she could feel his eyes on her ass every step of the way. Which was ridiculous, of course. He thought she was some awful creature, come to steal his farm from him. He certainly wasn’t checking her out.
Just like she hadn’t been checking out his ass. She’d just been studying the fashion trends in Wrangler jeans.
Which was a totally different thing.
She finished shoving her stuff into her bag, slinging it over her shoulder with a grunt at the weight. Someday, she was going to be able to afford a Mac laptop again, instead of these oversized bricks HP liked to call laptops.
