by Erin Wright
“I know,” Bonnie said quietly, serious for the first time in the conversation. “I’m not sure I could do what you do.”
This job had never been something Jennifer loved with all of her heart and soul, but it was quickly descending into outright hatred and disgust. It was so far removed from what she’d originally set out to do, she felt like a failure.
If she couldn’t help Stetson save his farm, she would hate herself even more, and right now, that was really saying something.
Chapter 16
Stetson
He wasn’t going to do it. He went to bed the night before, firm in the conviction that he wasn’t going to be around when Jennifer-the-Accountant-Definitely-Not-a-Banker-Maybe-a-Thief showed up to work. She knew how to find his farm, so she could get to work without him being there to watch her do it.
But, it was raining again – still? – this morning, having not stopped since the first drops began to fall early yesterday morning, so the mud was getting deeper and the gravel was getting more treacherous. She did drive a little Civic; it was possible that her car wouldn’t make it from town to farm without sliding into the borrow pit somewhere along the way. He should make sure that she made it to the farm safely before getting to work for the day. Right?
Why? So you can be sure that she makes it safely to your father’s office and gets right to work stealing your family’s farm away from you?
He grunted in frustration. No, his first instinct was absolutely correct. He shouldn’t be anywhere near the farmhouse when little Miss Boise showed up in her little Honda Civic car and her high heels and her skirts to invade his father’s office once again.
Absolutely not.
Which was why it was a surprise to no one at all, least of all Stetson, when he found himself on the long covered porch at 7:57 a.m., watching Jennifer pull up. Today’s coffee cup read, “You say ‘Raised in a barn like it’s a bad thing,’” which seemed even more appropriate than usual.
He watched as she carefully navigated around the large puddle that had been her nemesis the day before until she found a dry spot – relatively speaking, of course – to park. She got out and walked around the car, slinging her laptop bag over her shoulder as she went, and Stetson’s eyes followed her every movement, sweeping down her slim body, mouth going dry as he stared at her legs beneath the swish of her skirt.
Unbidden, he opened the front door for her, no sarcastic remark to make today. She was on time, and they both knew it. She sent him a flustered smile as she passed, probably trying to figure out what his angle was.
He left her to walk inside by herself, not following behind her so he could continue admiring her ass and legs, but instead forcing himself to do what he should’ve done earlier: Get to work. He still had more fence to ride, even if it was pouring down rain – maybe especially because it was pouring down rain – and staring at the legs and ass of the accountant here to steal his farm away from him wasn’t going to be how that happened.
He forced himself to put his coffee cup down on the porch railing, walk down the front steps, and head for the storage shed again to retrieve his four-wheeler.
He was a farmer, and farmers worked. They did not drool. Not even over the finest legs God ever did send to the earth.
Chapter 17
Jennifer
Jennifer settled down in the Fainting Goat Chair and stared at the piles in front of her. She had gone through the costs of running the Miller Family Farm, and now was the time to start into the income pile. Not surprisingly, this pile of receipts was much smaller. Wasn’t that always how it went?
Hmmm…she picked up a paid invoice for one of the swankiest restaurants in Boise. She looked at the bottom line of the invoice and let out a low whistle. Stetson had to be raising some pretty high-end cows if he was selling them at this price.
“What?” he asked, his deep voice startling her out of her thoughts.
And out of her chair. With a yelp, she tried to spin in the chair towards the office door but instead she found herself on the floor, staring at the ceiling.
Again.
He hurried to her side and helped her onto her feet as she brushed at her clothing.
Again.
“That chair is…temperamental,” Stetson said in way of apology as he stood back and let her try to straighten herself out. “My dad kept saying he was going to get a new chair someday, but he never did, and…well, I didn’t either.” He didn’t say anything else, and Jennifer wondered where that thought would’ve ended if he considered her to be a friend and someone he could talk to. She was pretty sure that there was more there than he was offering up.
“I’m usually more careful in the Fainting Goat Chair, but you startled me,” she admitted with a little laugh, looking up, up, up at him.
He really should stop eating Wheaties in the morning. She was pretty sure he’d already grown all that he should by this point.
“Fainting Goat—” Stetson said with a startled snort of a laugh. “You know, that’s just about the perfect name for it.”
They stopped and stared at each other for a minute. Jennifer was getting a crick in her neck, and had to keep herself from putting her high heels on and then continuing to talk to him. Or insisting that he sit in the chair.
But she wasn’t about to admit weakness.
Never admit weakness.
“So why were you whistling?” Stetson asked, his dark brown eyes ensnaring hers. Trapping her. Making her feel like the most important person he’d ever talked to. Jennifer had the fleeting question of whether everyone felt that way around Stetson, and then dismissed the thought. She needed to concentrate.
“Your cows,” she forced herself to say, focusing on his question. “That’s a damn fine price per pound that you’re selling at, especially on the hoof. Is the restaurant taking care of the butchering step?”
He nodded. “They have a specialty butcher who hangs and cures and does everything the way the restaurant wants. A typical butcher wouldn’t be able to get it just right for them. There’s a reason why a T-bone steak is so damn expensive there.”
“I…I don’t get it,” Jennifer admitted, and then swallowed hard.
Saying something like that out loud – especially to Stetson of all people – burned her biscuit. Truth was, though, she was totally stumped and out of options. She had to ask questions because going in circles while staring at the books was doing her no good at all.
She cleared her throat and plunged on. “I’ve seen your costs. I’ve seen your expenses. I’ve seen some of your income – I just got started on that part today, I’ll admit. But I see how you live. You should be able to make the yearly payment to the bank without breaking a sweat. But you have these huge transfers to your personal account, way more than your lifestyle here would demand. Do you have a bevy of prostitutes or mistresses tucked away somewhere, that you’re keeping in style?”
“A bevy of…” Stetson let out another snort of laughter. “I don’t have a bevy of prostitutes or mistresses or anyone else hidden away. Is that a typical expense that you find while auditing books?”
She glared up at him. He was laughing at her, and she wasn’t quite sure she appreciated that. “So, if it isn’t prostitutes or mistresses, what is it? A gambling problem?”
“Gambling…good Lord. You have a real high opinion of me, don’t you?”
This time, she added crossed arms to the glare. “I just met you three days ago. I don’t think I could have formed an opinion of you – good or bad – by this point.” Well, she had – that he was an overgrown ape with the manners of a caveman – but she wasn’t about to tell him that. She wasn’t going to let him score a point, even if it meant losing out on the chance to insult him.
Which really was too bad, honestly.
“My dad,” he said simply, and then shrugged.
She stared. He stared back. The clock ticked on the wall. A cow lowed in the distance.
“Your dad what?” Jennifer asked, breaking fi
rst. She hated giving in and actually asking him what he meant by his purposefully obtuse statement, but she also hated not knowing.
It was quite the predicament to be in.
“His cancer treatments,” Stetson said simply, as if it were obvious. “That’s what I spent all of the money on. The cows made me enough money to pay for his cancer treatments. My wheat, corn, and hay made me enough money to pay Carmelita, Christian, and my other employees, and cover the costs of my living expenses, scarce as they are, but that’s all the crops I raise. There was no crop left to sell that would bring in money to pay the bank.”
“Oh.” She blinked, her frustration with him slowly deflating as she put it together. Jennifer, you really stepped in it this time. “How long did your father have cancer?” she asked softly.
“Eighteen months. After the first round of chemo, he didn’t want to fight it anymore, but I…I pushed him.” His voice went flat and quiet, and his gaze skittered away from hers. “I wasn’t ready to lose him yet. I talked him into another round, and…I shouldn’t have. It was selfish of me. He was in a lot of pain.”
He was staring at the far wall over her shoulder as he talked, and she swallowed. Hard. She officially felt like an ass, which wasn’t exactly a pleasant feeling.
“So why all of the crops?” she asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards something less painful, which would include almost every topic on the planet at this point.
“Why all of what crops?” he repeated, confused. He was looking at her again, and she suddenly found herself wishing that he’d go back to staring at the wall. He was entirely too handsome for his own good.
Or hers.
“Usually, a rancher raises cows, or a farmer does hay or corn or potatoes or whatever. You do everything. It’s…unusual. I’ve been wondering about that for a couple of days now.”
“Honestly, I shouldn’t.” He shrugged. “Millers are row croppers. Beets, corn, whatever. If it grows in a straight line, that’s our cup of tea. I had a brilliant idea when I was a kid that I wanted to do cows. Wheat was boring, you know? Row after row, field after field…it wasn’t where my heart was. So when I was 17, I finally talked my dad into letting me buy a small herd of cows. He thought I’d lost my ever-lovin’ mind, but he let me do it anyway. I think he expected me to fail and get it out of my system and then go back to doing what Millers were supposed to do.”
He smiled a little, just a small twist of the lips. “Instead, I slowly grew the herd over time, and found a Boise restaurant to sell organic, specialty beef to, and then another restaurant, and…here we are. If Dad had gotten cancer a couple of years later, or if I hadn’t insisted that we do an extra round of treatment, I probably could’ve made my payment to the bank this year.” He shrugged again. “Live and learn, I suppose.”
His dark brown eyes were hooded with pain and Jennifer reached up without thinking about it to stroke his cheek. She shouldn’t have because he was a client and she was an employee of the bank and no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t forget that she may have to recommend foreclosure some day in the future, but none of that mattered in that moment, and her fingers touched his stubbled cheek anyway.
As soon as they did, her breath stopped and she stared, her body on fire from the touch and him and he stared back, unblinking…
And then he was gone, his boots echoing down the hallway as he hurried out of the house and away from her.
Away from the person who was probably going to have to ruin his life.
And she didn’t blame him one bit for running.
Chapter 18
Stetson
He was an idiot. There was no reason for him to tell her everything that he just did. Why did he say it? What was he thinking? She’d been standing there, so small and petite, her huge brilliant green eyes swallowing up her face as she’d bit her lip and looked up at him, and he’d felt, for a moment, that he could trust her. That she was on his team.
Which was ridiculous. She worked for the bank. She was here to steal his farm away.
Her soulful eyes burned through his memories, and he asked himself the question he hadn’t dared to allow himself to ask before – was he sure about that? If she really was here to steal his farm away, she sure was doing a bang-up job of pretending to care.
Of course, this had happened before. Not the part about the banker trying to steal his farm, of course, but the part where the woman pretended to care. All the way up until she didn’t show up at the altar.
That was a hell of a snow job. He still had no idea why Michelle did what she did. What had she been hoping to get out of it?
He figured he’d go to his grave, wondering that.
He looked around, realizing that he’d somehow ended up back in the barn, standing in front of Grandpa’s tractor again. Maybe some small part of his psyche knew that he should fix it so he could move on with his life. Maybe it was some sort of metaphor that only his subconscious understood.
He’d gone into the house to grab his rain slicker so he could do some repair work on a fence, which didn’t explain why he’d gone past the coat alcove and to the door of the office to retrieve it, considering it was in fact in the coat alcove, not the office.
He’d told himself that he just wanted to check up on her; see how she was doing. See if maybe she was searching through the trash cans after all. She wasn’t, dammit all – he could hate her so much easier if she had been – and then she’d let out that low whistle, and he’d had to know.
Well, now he knew: Jennifer knew what the price should be for beef on the hoof – which even he had to admit was impressive – and she had the most gorgeous green eyes he’d ever seen in his life. Like the color of new grass in the spring, pushing up through the mud and the snow to start life anew again.
He wasn’t entirely sure which piece of information was more dangerous, but he did know that combined together, it was a hell of a lethal combination.
And he couldn’t say he was exactly thrilled by that realization.
Chapter 19
Jennifer
Jennifer’s eyes flicked towards the bugling elk on the wall. 4:57…close enough. She’d been a good girl. She’d gotten lots done. She’d sorted through the last of the papers. She’d almost kissed a client.
Hmmm…maybe she’d leave that last part off her report.
She shoved her laptop into her bag and grabbed a stack of papers to work on in the hotel room. She could work on them over dinner, while watching another rerun of Home Improvement. Would Wilson show his face on camera today? She should watch, just in case. Cramming the receipts into the pocket of the computer bag, she lifted the strap over her shoulder just as her phone began to buzz with “Working Overtime.” Dammit. Greg.
At first, the ring tone had been a joke, but now, it was a harbinger of doom. Dinner dates, weekend trips, even movies with friends, all died a swift but painful death when that ring tone played. She had to battle the urge to break her phone every time she heard it, even when it was on the radio.
As she scurried through the house to the front porch, she glanced down and realized that the battery icon was a dangerous red color. She’d forgotten to plug it in the night before after talking to Bonnie for hours, and had meant to plug it in at the Miller house but had forgotten again. Shit. Hopefully there was still enough battery left for this phone call. Her job probably wouldn’t survive her hanging up on her boss, low battery or not.
She swiped her finger across the screen to answer the call even before she was fully on the porch, dumping her computer bag on a rocking chair. “This is Jennifer Kendall,” she got out, trying to hide her breathlessness from her sprint through the house. The pattering of rain on the porch overhang was soothing. The mist drifted towards her and she shivered from the cold. She should put on her jacket, even if it was designed for looks, not warmth. It could only help.
“What the hell takes you so long to answer the damn phone?” Greg snarled, making no attempt to hide his mood.
>
“The reception is poor here,” she said, struggling into the jacket one arm at a time, trying not to drop her phone in the process. She was pretty sure that’d be almost as bad as hanging up on him. “I have to go outside to be able to hear you.”
“What have I told you about excuses? Now is really not the time. Are you done with the audit yet?”
“Of course I’m not done yet.” She tried to keep the frustration out of her voice, but she was pretty sure she was failing. She stared out across the fields, watching the white fence posts march endlessly into the distance. The craggy mountains opposite the farmhouse rose up in the sky, majestic and white-peaked even in July, edging the sides of the wide valley they embraced.
It truly is beautiful out in the country.
“I want this done as quickly as possible. I want options on my desk ASAP,” Greg said, pronouncing the acronym as ‘A-sap’ rather than spelling it out.
“I’m working as fast as I can,” Jennifer responded flatly, her attention on the beauty in front of her. Dark rain clouds hung low in the distance. There was a misty, ethereal quality to the farm, like she’d been dropped into another world. She watched as cows wandered along, giving out low, deep moooo’s to their calves who were not keeping pace.
“I don’t understand what the problem is. Why’s this taking so long?” he demanded.
