by Merry Farmer
Laura deflated all the same. “Aren’t there employment laws that say you can’t interfere in my personal life?”
Howie shrugged. “Probably. Feel free to sue me. I’m sure Sandy will take the case.”
Laura didn’t know whether to growl in frustration or laugh. It was wrong. The whole thing was wrong. But then, she should be used to wrong right now. Everything about her life had been wrong lately.
So why had it all felt perfect? And why did she feel like it was her dad and not her boss’s boss sitting across the conference table from her now?
“Listen, Laura,” Howie said, leaning toward her in a way that only made the paternal feeling grow stronger. “I care about each and every one of my employees. I care about everyone in this town too. Yes, the Haskells are all a little nuts, but we have always had a vested interest in our community. I don’t know why you’re trying so hard to make such a big mistake. Maybe you really are doing the right thing. That’s your prerogative. But I’ve got to try to help where I can.”
“Thanks?” Laura was so far beyond knowing what to think or feel about the situation.
“As for these letters and that meeting at the bank,” he went on. “Whether you use it as an opportunity to change your mind about Ted or not, take these and get over there.” His expression positively glowed with mischief. “Every man needs to be rescued by a beautiful woman now and then.”
Laura snorted. “You almost had me until you called me beautiful.”
“Beauty comes in all sorts of forms,” Howie countered. “Yours takes a little digging up, like a precious fossil buried in ground that needs excavating.”
Heat flooded Laura’s face and her heart squeezed with the compliment, but she crossed her arms and sent Howie a flat stare. “You’ve been working on that line for a while, haven’t you?”
“Weeks,” he said with a wink. “I’m just glad I finally got to use it.”
There was a pause as they sat there grinning at each other. Laura had never been so happy to have taken a chance on a quirky start-up company. Even if things with Ted exploded in disastrous fashion, she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to quit PSF or to leave Haskell. She’d been roped into the Haskell family good and proper.
“Okay,” she said at last with a sigh, taking up the pile of old letters. “I’ll rush over there like a redeeming angel and save the day.” She rolled her eyes and made it sound like a chore as she stood.
“Good.” Howie stood with her, fixing her with a proud smile. “Save your own day while you’re at it too.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, warning him not to overstep his bounds. But her heart wasn’t in it. She still believed dating Ted was a mistake, but dammit all, Howie had planted a seed of hope and possibility in her that she wasn’t going to be able to ignore.
Chapter Eighteen
“The fossil has been part of our property for years,” Ted argued from his side of the long conference table in the bank’s private conference room. “The documentation I’ve provided is proof of that.” He nodded to Roscoe as he made his claim. Roscoe nodded back in agreement.
“Well, I’m not so sure about that.” Richard Bonneville sat back in his chair as though it were at the head of the table and he was running a board meeting. Everything about the man screamed that he’d come to play hardball. His suit was obviously hand-tailored, and the diamond pin in his tie was a sharp contrast to the worn clothes Ted had pulled out of his closet. In fact, he was wearing the same outfit Casey had made him wear for that first date with Laura.
Laura. He wished she was there, fighting in his corner. It was a relief to have his dad there, especially when he knew Roscoe would rather have mucked out a hundred stables than get dressed up to attend a meeting in a bank. But Laura’s tenacity was just what they needed to cut through the crap that Richard and Ronny Bonneville and their lawyer had been throwing at them for the last half-hour. But the more Ted thought about Laura, the more his chest squeezed and his stomach clenched, making it impossible to think.
“Obviously, the fossil has been part of the land for millions of years,” the Bonneville’s lawyer smirked. He looked at Ted as though he were a slack-jawed yokel. “Fossils take millions of years to form, son.”
Roscoe grumbled and shifted in his chair, but held his peace.
“That kind of language is uncalled for, Mr. Behr,” Sandy snapped at the lawyer. She’d been slowly losing her patience with the arguments from the moment the meeting started.
“Now, now. Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Miss Templesmith.” Mr. Behr’s smirk widened, as if he wanted far more to do with Sandy’s panties than bunching them.
The man disgusted Ted, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was doing it on purpose, to get both him and Sandy too riled up to fight the lawsuit. He took his cue from his dad and swallowed the rash of insults he wanted to hurl at the man.
Sandy stared at Mr. Behr as if she too could see right through his tactics. “Facts are facts. The fossil was discovered on the Flint’s property long before the bank became involved.” She drove a finger onto the facsimile of the letter from 1917. “Therefore, the bank has no claim whatsoever to the fossil or any proceeds of the sale thereof.”
Mr. Behr exchanged a look with Richard that said, “Isn’t she cute.” Richard returned the look with a chuckle.
“If that’s the case, then who says the Flints have any claim to the fossil to begin with?” Ronny asked. He wore his own brand of smirk, but his words had more of an air of trying to please daddy about them. Especially since Richard and Mr. Behr had so far cut him out of the whole discussion. “We all know the fossil has been in the ground for millions of years, so why shouldn’t the proceeds from its sale go to, I don’t know, the local Native American tribes. Didn’t they own the land first?”
Richard swiveled in his chair and narrowed his eyes at his son. “The Indians had no concept of land ownership,” he growled. “So keep your mouth shut.”
“I—” Ronny gaped for a second before frowning and sitting back in his chair.
Ted was not in the mood to enjoy the man’s humiliation. Nothing about the meeting was going well. Nothing about his life had gone well since Laura had slammed the proverbial door on him three days before. And as valuable and true as he knew his dad’s advice to take things slow in his efforts to win Laura back was, he wasn’t a particularly patient person.
“We could go around and around about this all day,” Sandy said, pressing a hand to her forehead. “We could argue about who owned the Flint ranch and when. But the fact remains, the fossil was discovered to be what it is after the mortgage was paid off. The bank has no claim to a discovery that was made once the Flint family paid off its obligation to the bank. Historical evidence suggests that the presence of the fossil was known long before the mortgage was taken out.”
“What I don’t understand,” Mr. Behr interrupted, “is why you’re so all-fired determined to cheat your own daddy out of his share of millions of dollars.”
“Does your father know you’re involved in this case, young lady?” Richard asked as though Sandy had thrown eggs at his house instead of taken on a lawsuit.
“Yes, he does,” she answered through clenched teeth. “In fact, he came to me for legal advice when you and your cronies on the board attempted to override his authority as owner of the bank.”
“I didn’t attempt anything, sweetie.” Richard grinned at her like a feral wolf.
Beside him, Ronny snorted. Ted and Roscoe both glared at him. The sniveling idiot was enjoying the scene a little too much.
“Let’s keep the discussion about the fossil,” Ted said.
“No.” Sandy held up a hand. Her composure was amazing, all things considered. “No, I think it’s worth addressing this.” She sat forward in her chair, folded her hands on the marble tabletop in front of her, and met Richard’s eyes with fierce calm. “Your attempts to take over both the bank and other institutions in Haskell have not gone unnoticed, Mr.
Bonneville. You may have swayed enough votes on the board of trustees in your favor, but opinions, like the weather, are changeable. Don’t think for one second that you can steal away a bank that has been in my family for generations.”
Richard met Sandy’s determination with a grin that made Ted’s skin crawl. “Why ever would you think the Bonneville family has designs on your bank?” he asked in a low, menacing tone.
Sandy didn’t rush to answer. The air in the room crackled with tension that was as old as the town itself. Ted held his breath, waiting for Sandy to answer, but there was no more of a way to answer Richard’s question than there was to explain the complex history of the town and its rivalries in one sentence, or even one college course.
“Our position is clear,” Sandy said at last, her tone and body-language rigid with her will to fight. “The fossil is the sole property of the Flint family. The evidence we have provided is proof that the fossil’s presence has been known for a hundred years.”
“And your position is that your ‘proof,’ as you call it, is nothing more than a blurry photograph and a letter referencing a dead cow,” Richard countered. “The fossil was discovered during the time that the bank owned the property, and as such, remains the property of the bank.”
“We are prepared to take this to court,” Mr. Behr went on. “Does the Flint family have the resources to see the dispute all the way to its conclusion?”
It was the one question that Ted dreaded the most. Because the answer was a clear “No”. It also explained why the Bonnevilles were pushing so hard. They knew that the Flints were no match for them financially. Ted and Roscoe exchanged doleful looks that said they both knew where they stood. Even with the money Scott had paid to buy a piece of their property, they didn’t have enough to fight a lawsuit against the bank. Not without mortgaging the ranch all over again. And knowing the Bonnevilles and their true aims, that would be a sure-fire way to lose the ranch entirely. Which was probably what Richard wanted. In fact, the fossil was probably just a convenient excuse to make a play for the entire Flint ranch. As far as Ted could see things, they were damned no matter what they did.
“We’re more than willing to take this all the way,” Sandy said, still as tough as nails. It would crush her when he told her there was no way they could afford to fight, even if she took the case for free, which he wouldn’t let her do. “We’ll fight this all the way—”
A knock on the conference door cut her off. Sandy’s secretary cracked open the door and said, “Excuse me, Miss Templesmith, Miss Kincade is here.”
“Laura?” Ted’s heart leapt involuntarily, and he sat straighter. Had she changed her mind about the meeting? About him? Roscoe merely smiled and relaxed into his chair.
“Show her in,” Sandy said with the same sort of enthusiastic curiosity that Ted felt.
“Now, hold on a minute there.” Richard stopped Sandy’s secretary with his raised voice. “This is a private meeting. No one should intrude.”
“I….” Sandy’s secretary looked to her for an answer.
Sandy frowned. “Laura Kincade is as much a part of this as anyone. She’s the one who discovered the fossil for what it is.” She turned to her secretary. “By all means, show her in.”
“This is highly irregular,” Mr. Behr protested as Sandy’s secretary nodded and backed out of the room. “If anyone is going to be added to this meeting, we should have the right to review who they are and what their involvement in the case is.”
“Miss Kincade should be barred from these proceedings,” Richard agreed.
They were too late. Laura burst into the room with a shock of energy that brought a smile to Ted’s face. Her eyes were bright, almost wild, and she wore a smile like Ted hadn’t seen on her in weeks.
“Stop the presses,” she said. She marched up to the table and all but threw down a pile of old letters.
Ted ignored the fact that her words didn’t fit the situation. The presses were stopped, as far as he was concerned. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Morning, sweetie,” Roscoe greeted her with a paternal grin.
“Hey, Roscoe.” She returned his smile with one of her own, then turned all of that fondness on Ted. Their eyes met. Laura’s excitement was so potent that the anxiety that had hung over Ted for more than a week crumbled as though it had been blasted to pieces. His blood pumped through his veins, and his groin grew suddenly tight, in spite of the inappropriate situation.
“What is this?” Ronny asked, his face scrunched into a grimace. He reached for the pile of letters, but Richard grabbed them first.
“Careful with those.” Laura broke eye-contact with Ted and turned to Richard. “They’re old. A hundred and thirty-odd years old, to be exact.”
“But what are they?” Sandy asked, echoing everyone else, but with a different kind of excitement in her eyes.
“Howie just gave them to me,” Laura explained as Richard opened the first letter and started to scan through it. His expression instantly dropped to red-faced fury. “They’re from the 1880s,” Laura went on. “Not only did they know about the fossil back then, the original Howard Haskell sent for a paleontologist from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia to come look at it.” She nodded to the letter in Richard’s hand. “Right there are the letters that the paleontologist sent back, confirming the find and recommending excavation.”
“You mean, they knew about everything way back at the beginning of the ranch?” Ted asked, his heart thumping even faster.
“Why didn’t they do anything about it?” Sandy asked.
“Virginia Piedmont died, and your ancestor—” Laura glanced back to Ted. “—had too many other things on his hands to worry about excavating a fossil. After that, they just forgot about it.”
“They forgot about it?” Sandy looked incredulous.
“Well, that was back in the very early days of fossil discovery,” Laura explained. “It hadn’t really become a thing yet. They wouldn’t have known how important the discovery was.”
“This doesn’t prove anything,” Ronny said, but mostly just for show.
Richard finished scanning the first letter, but instead of handing it to his son—whose hands were stretched out, almost begging to be included—Mr. Behr took it.
“These letters will have to be authenticated,” Mr. Behr said. His sly, almost disdainful grin faded with each line of the first letter that he read. “They’ll definitely have to be authenticated,” he went on in a disappointed voice.
They’d won. Ted knew even without the trouble of authenticating the letters that they’d won. Richard Bonneville’s face said it all. The man was a wolf and as slick as they came, but he was intelligent. Intelligent enough to know when he’d been beat. Roscoe folded his hands over his belly, shoulders shaking in silent laughter.
“You haven’t heard the end of this,” Richard told Sandy in a low voice. The two of them stared each other down across the table. “Howie may have come to your rescue this time, but I still have a controlling interest in the bank.”
“You sit on the board of trustees,” Sandy reminded him with a confident shrug. “A lot of people sit on the board of trustees.”
“And a lot of them will vote the way I tell them to vote, even if they’re voting to remove people from key positions within the bank.” Richard’s smile was more predatory than ever.
“You have no reason to call for any such vote,” Sandy warned him. “And there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to continue influencing the people you think you have control over.”
“We’ll see.” Richard punctuated his comment with a wink and stood. “You go running back to your daddy and tell him this is all far from over. The board will be mighty interested in hearing about how the CEO’s daughter cheated the bank’s shareholders out of millions of dollars.”
Sandy stood, undeterred. “The board will also be interested to hear how their votes are being manipulated to menace the good citizens of Haskell.”
> Richard huffed a laugh. He broke eye contact with Sandy as if slamming a door in her face. With a muttered comment to Mr. Behr, he marched out of the room. Ronny scrambled to follow him. It was a relief when they were finally out of the room.
Chapter Nineteen
Cool, sparkling relief flooded through Laura as the Bonneville contingent left the room. She felt it slide through every part of her, settling her anxious stomach and zipping along her arms and legs. The feeling was so palpable that she sagged against one of the conference chairs, letting out a breath on a weak laugh.
“Thank God,” she said, shaking her head. “I thought Howie was out of his mind to give those letters to me so late in the game, but the man certainly does have a flare for the dramatic.”
“Howie gave those to you?” Ted asked. He stood and took a step toward Laura.
All at once, the prickling, nervous feelings that Ted always gave her—good and bad—shoved in, pushing her relief aside. He looked so good. He was wearing the same outfit he’d worn on their first date—an outfit he’d peeled off in spectacular fashion before diving into her bed. He was smiling for a change too, smiling with hope in his eyes.
And why shouldn’t he look hopeful? The bank couldn’t pursue their efforts to claim ownership of the fossil, which meant that the Flints owned it completely. And as far as she knew, the offer from The Field Museum still stood. That wasn’t even counting any other offers that might be made. Ted probably knew he was about to become a multi-millionaire. Of course he would look hopeful.
It had nothing to do with her.
“Howie was sitting on those letters this whole time?” Sandy asked, prompting Laura back to reality.
“Yeah.” She blinked and mentally shook herself, turning to Sandy. “Well, the case hasn’t been going on for that long. I do think he planned his timing specifically so that I could swoop in and save the day.” She rolled her eyes, but also snuck a peek at Ted.
