Lawfully Unwed (Return To The Double C Book 17)

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Unlike the “long-lost” relative of Otis’s who’d surfaced after his death.

  If it had been left to Martin’s manipulations, the smarmy Louis Snead would have inherited the entire mountain including the ranch, and he would have sold it all off by now to a mining company for his own quick, huge profit.

  Even though that hadn’t come to pass, Nell still felt guilty by association. She finished her juice and squeezed the thin plastic bottle between her fingers. It crinkled loudly, which helped drown out the sound of the boys still arguing from inside the room next door.

  The light fixture above her door gave a few fizzy snaps, then blinked to life.

  What she needed to do was worry less about what Martin had been up to and worry more about formulating a plan to get Vivian’s library completed.

  She took the empty juice bottle inside the room and tossed it in the trash, then pulled her yellow legal pad out of the briefcase that had been sitting in the room untouched since she’d unpacked it three nights ago.

  She carried it back to the chair outside because the yelling still going on next door was less noticeable there, and clicked her pen as she studied the Stay/Go list that she still hadn’t torn off and thrown away.

  She tapped the end of her pen against the pad. On the Go side, she wrote in Vivian’s name.

  The list was purely pointless, of course.

  Nell had already made the move from Cheyenne. Aside from the boxes left in a second-floor storage unit, there was nothing there for her anymore.

  She hoped the day that she felt convinced she’d done the right thing would come sooner rather than later.

  Sighing a little, she flipped to a clean page and wrote down all of the arguments she could think of supporting the new library. There were very few reasons not to support it. Most had to do with local taxes and finding either an existing building that was suitable or a parcel of land on which to build one.

  To Nell’s mind, raising the necessary funds seemed the least of the hurdles. For one, Vivian had already raised nearly half of the estimated cost. If she hadn’t realized the importance of a buy-in from the entire community, she would have already personally donated the rest of the needed capital.

  When she became really frustrated with the project’s progress, Nell knew it took considerable self-control on Vivian’s part not to simply throw more money on the table with the expectation that it would flatten any hurdles standing in her way.

  And while that was often true in some places, it wasn’t necessarily true right here in this small town.

  She heard her cell phone ring and only then noticed that the argument next door had finally ceased. She pushed out of her seat again and went inside to grab her phone. She glanced at the name on the display before she answered. “Good evening, Vivian,” she greeted.

  Her new boss didn’t mince words. “Do you have a cocktail dress? Or just a closetful of those shapeless suits you’re always wearing?”

  Nell winced. She couldn’t help sliding a look toward the bar where she’d hung three of her work suits. She turned her back on them and returned to her salmon-colored chair. “Why do I need a cocktail dress?”

  “I’ve decided to have a little soiree on Friday evening for the town council members. It’ll be here at the house, of course.”

  Nell grimaced. Bugs had begun buzzing around the light above her head. She swiped at a moth that flew past her face. “Are you certain that’s wise, Vivian?” Nell was certain it was not, but she also wasn’t sure her boss of two days was ready for such bluntness to begin going both ways.

  “Why wouldn’t it be wise?”

  The moth flew past Nell’s face again and she waved her hand at it, grimacing when her wrist made contact with the chalky body.

  She gave up the fight against nature and went inside the room again. She didn’t close the door, but she did turn off the lamp so as not to draw the beasties inside. “Because of the optics,” she told Vivian as she wet a washcloth and wiped off her wrist. “Even though the library seems like an effort that the entire community would support, the council members need to be objective. Or at least give the appearance of remaining objective. If they don’t, they’ll be out of their positions when the next vote occurs in September.”

  “I ran a few years ago,” Vivian said. “I nearly won, too.”

  Nell was glad Vivian couldn’t see her smile over the obvious consternation in her boss’s tone. “You didn’t want to try again?”

  “I decided there were better ways to accomplish what I want than by sitting on a dreary committee. But had I won, I would have kept Squire Clay from doing so. He still holds the seat he won against me. You can relax, though, because I’m not intending to bribe any of the council members.”

  Nell was glad Vivian couldn’t see her wince.

  “And you still haven’t answered my question. Cocktail dress. Yes or no?”

  “No,” she admitted. “I don’t have a cocktail dress.”

  “Get one. There’s no time to call one of my designers but you can visit Classic Charms.”

  Designers? Nell shook her head a little as the thought lodged in her brain.

  “It’s on Main Street not far from the sheriff’s office,” Vivian continued. “An odd little shop, but I’ve found what it carries at the very least to be of good quality. Montrose can give you the exact address.”

  Montrose, whose attitude darkened toward Nell with every task that Vivian put on his plate. As if Nell were the one at fault.

  “I know where it’s located.” She was still a little distracted by the fact that Vivian had designers. “I drove by it twice today.” There had been an eclectic collection of furniture in the storefront window. Learning they had clothes was something of a surprise.

  “Tell them to establish an account with your name on it and send the bill to me. Come in tomorrow after you’ve taken care of that. I won’t need you in the morning for anything else.”

  Before Nell had a chance to respond, Vivian ended the call.

  Nell looked at her screen, not entirely sure she hadn’t simply lost the connection.

  When the phone vibrated again a moment later, she decided she’d been right. “Sorry I lost you.”

  “You’ve never lost me, Cornelia,” a deep voice said.

  Nell’s phone slid from her suddenly nerveless fingers, landing on the bed. She eyed the screen that bore a number that was not Vivian Templeton’s, but instead belonged to the woman’s grandson.

  “I thought you were Vivian,” she told Archer when she’d picked up the phone again. She flipped on the lamp because talking to Archer while sitting in the dark just didn’t seem like a thing she ought to do. “What do you want?”

  “Still haven’t learned the art of pleasant chitchat, have you?”

  A moth dared to enter the room and she swatted the air around it with her legal pad, encouraging it to reconsider. “Archer,” she said warningly.

  “How’s it going with the cat?”

  The moth flew up to the ceiling and landed there, upside down.

  She really hated moths.

  “The food is getting eaten by something,” she allowed. “But I’m still not convinced it’s being eaten by your mysterious cat.” She kicked off her tennis shoes and climbed up onto the mattress. It was overly soft and dipped deeply wherever she placed her feet, which meant it was an exercise in balance just to keep from tipping over.

  “Tired of driving out there yet?”

  She steadied herself with her fingertips against the wall above the fake-wood slab of a headboard and stretched higher with the pad of paper. But the moth was still out of reach. “I’m not tired of anything except your harping about it.” She went up on her toes to try again but missed when the moth flitted a couple of inches farther away.

  Nell’s precarious stance wobbled. Her shoulder hit the wal
l and her breath rushed out of her lungs.

  She was pretty sure the moth was taunting her.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” When the phone refused to stay tucked between her shoulder and ear, she hit the speaker button and tossed the phone down onto the bed. “I have a moth in my room.”

  “At Vivian’s?”

  “Just because you talked about all the rooms she has doesn’t mean I’m automatically using one of them.” She gingerly adjusted her stance on the mattress and tossed her notepad toward the moth. She didn’t really want to smash it and leave moth bits clinging to the ceiling. That was as unappealing as having a living one clinging to the ceiling. She just wanted it to decide to go elsewhere.

  The pages fluttered and the notepad plummeted downward, knocking into the lampshade and sending it askew. The moth’s wings didn’t move an inch. The chalky thing remained right where it was.

  “You found an apartment already? That was fast.”

  She gave the moth a baleful look.

  The jouncing of the mattress had sent her phone skittering off the side and onto the outdated shag carpet. She hopped off the bed. “I’m at the Cozy Night,” she said a little breathlessly. She moved the phone to the nightstand, ignoring the blue oath her announcement earned.

  “Does my grandmother know that?”

  Nell wrinkled her nose at the phone as if he were able to see her. “I haven’t hidden it if that’s what you’re implying.”

  He swore again, sounding genuinely irritated. “I’m not implying anything. The Cozy Night’s a dive.”

  Annoyance bubbled inside her, too. “Just because it’s not up to your lofty standards doesn’t mean there is a single thing wrong with it. It’s clean, affordable and—”

  “—and riddled with moths.”

  She glared up at the grayish body clinging to the ceiling. “One moth,” she argued, “and they throw themselves against lights in even the finest places.” She yanked her hair out of her eyes, feeling like she wanted to yank it out of her skull. “And how is it that I get drawn into the most ridiculous debates with you?”

  “Because you’re lucky?”

  “Is there anything else you wanted, Archer? Besides my assurance that I’m feeding your invisible cat, that is.”

  “If you only—” He broke off with a sound that she didn’t have a hope of interpreting. “No,” he finally said. “There’s nothing else.”

  She picked up the phone, moistened her lips. “Then good night, Archer.” Before she could second-guess herself, she brushed her finger over the screen, ending the call.

  And told herself she imagined hearing “for now” in the moment before the phone disconnected.

  Chapter Six

  “Everything good in Weaver?”

  They were sitting in Gage Stanton’s Denver office and Archer looked over at his friend. He was sitting behind his desk, feet propped on the edge as he continued making notes on the Rambling Mountain material that he and Archer had been reviewing all that day.

  “No.” He pocketed his phone and plucked a slice of pizza from the box that Gage’s secretary had delivered earlier before she’d left for the day. “But it’s good enough.”

  He didn’t like the idea of Nell staying at that cheap motel but he didn’t know how on earth he’d be able to change the situation.

  Irritated with himself as much as with her, he sank his teeth into the pizza and tore off the tip. The slice was cold. Colder now than the bottle of beer he’d been nursing for the last hour.

  Gage dropped his feet to the floor. He scrubbed his hand down his face and tossed aside his pen. “Why did I think it was a good idea to develop a guest ranch on Rambling Mountain?”

  “Because you’re a sucker for a pretty face?”

  Gage grunted. “Sucker for a good employee who has defected on me, more like.” He reached for his own slice of cold pizza. “April quit working for me more than a month ago, remember? She’s busy with Jed now planning their wedding. She dumped all that money into this guest ranch business and can’t think about anything else except orange blossoms and wedding dresses.”

  Archer figured that was somewhat of an exaggeration.

  He knew the wedding planning was well in the works, all right. He’d gotten the invitation from April Reed a few weeks ago with her handwritten note saying that she fully expected him to be there to help her and Jed celebrate.

  Or else.

  Typical April. If it weren’t for her, Gage would have scrapped his interest in the mountain that Otis Lambert had owned and moved on by now. And Archer, who’d been on retainer with Stanton Development for years now, would be focusing on something else that wasn’t a constant reminder of Nell Brewster.

  When the ailing Otis Lambert had contacted Gage earlier that year, the developer had immediately started envisioning one of his trademark luxury resorts on Rambling Mountain—which had always been privately owned land. But once Otis died, ostensibly intestate, Gage had determined that the development wasn’t worth the cost—not after he’d learned there was a mining company prepared to outbid him.

  But April—who’d been sent to Weaver by Gage in hopes of getting a jump on the deal—had instead fallen hard for Otis’s right-hand man, Jed Dalloway.

  Then Otis died and it looked as though a distant relative of his would inherit it all. Gage had determined then that the development wasn’t worth the cost—not after he’d learned about the mining company’s interest.

  April, though, had other ideas. Jed had worked Lambert’s mountain ranch, and once his boss’s will had actually been found, it was clear that Lambert had wanted the proceeds from the sale of the Rambling Rad to go to Jed. Otis also—despite a lifetime of hoarding the rest of his mountain—had bequeathed everything except the ranch to the state of Wyoming for the purpose of establishing a state park.

  Rather than see the man she’d fallen for lose the home that had come to mean so much to him, April convinced Gage to reconsider his interest in the mountain ranch. Instead of razing it all and starting fresh—which had been his initial idea—she talked her boss into saving it. She’d even kicked in her own trust fund to sweeten the deal and ensure that he succeeded.

  Now, instead of a luxury resort, Gage was looking down the barrel of a guest ranch plan for a property that clung to the side of the Wyoming mountain. And a guest ranch was something he’d be the first to admit he knew nothing about. Jed and April were set to live on the ranch, with Jed running the operations the same way he had when Otis was alive, but adding in the element of guests.

  It was the type of nightmare that hazard insurance agents salivated over.

  The ranch sale still hadn’t made it through all the red tape, and the state’s powers that be still hadn’t decided whether they could—or even wanted to—establish a new state park with the rest of the land. If that answer turned out to be a polite “no thank you,” then the responsibility for the mountain would be tossed squarely into the lap of the town of Weaver.

  Either way, Otis’s intention was that his pristine land become available for public use. And people would come to Rambling Mountain. It was a sportsman’s paradise just waiting to happen. Whether they stayed at the planned guest ranch to play at herding cattle and God only knew what, or crowded into dive motels like the Cozy Night in Weaver, they would come.

  It was simply a matter of time.

  But until then, Gage was keeping Archer busy navigating through all the moving parts, hedging against the worst-case scenarios while laying groundwork for the best-case one.

  Generally, Archer appreciated a challenge. But his mind kept drifting away from the business at hand to Nell.

  He didn’t exactly blame her for it, but he wasn’t thrilled by the distraction.

  Until Lambert’s will was discovered, she’d been assisting the attorney assigned to ad
minister the estate. She’d also unexpectedly been the one to give Archer the heads-up that Winemeier Mining was working with Louis Snead, who would have inherited the land if not for that will being found, literally at the eleventh hour. Snead, whose only interest in his dearly departed relative was the mountain, would have signed off on a sale to the mining company while the ink was still drying on the court’s decision. If that had happened, the mountain would have been sliced and diced until none of its natural resources remained.

  Archer still was surprised by Nell’s actions. Not that she’d been breaking any rules. There’d been no confidentiality breach. But all the same, she’d approached him. And usually, she avoided him even more than his stepsister did. She had ever since he’d made the mistake of making more out of their furtive friendship than she had.

  “I need something stronger than a warm beer,” he muttered, more to himself than the other man.

  “Amen to that.” Gage immediately shoved away from his desk and stretched as he stood. “The lounge or my place?”

  “The lounge,” Archer said immediately. It was three floors down from Gage’s high-rise office. Closer than his penthouse that was five floors up.

  It helped that the man owned Stanton Tower from the ground floor to the top.

  They took the elevator down to the restaurant, which in reality was one of the best in the city. And—not surprisingly—also owned by Gage Stanton.

  Gage greeted the hostess as they passed her on the way to the private club where one needed an official invitation to enter. There were a few patrons sprinkled around the tables. Nobody gave them any attention as they walked through to the open-air patio hugging the corner of the building.