you she’s at the Love Nest.” He chortled. “Had you going, bro.”
“So she’s there because…”
“She’s working on something.”
Lane slapped the desktop and Willie jumped up, giving him an irate look before curling up again a few feet away.
“So you’re not only planning to drill on the ranch, you’re putting up employees there without even asking. I thought we had a deal, Eric. The ranch is mine. The company’s yours. Maybe I ought to come over there and take over your office. See how you like it.”
“The Love Nest isn’t yours. It’s not on the ranch.”
“It figures you’d find a technicality. What’s she doing—taking measurements? Plotting out a trailer park for the yahoos you’re going to bring in to work the wells?”
“I hate to tell you this, Lane, but I suspect our workers will raise the level of class and culture in Two Shot.”
“How would you know? You barely talked to anybody there.” Lane slid his rolling desk chair over to the trailer’s mini-fridge and pulled out a Bud Light. Popping the top, he swallowed a good slug, but it didn’t cool the heat of his anger one bit.
“That’s why I’m sending Sarah to get to know the area,” Eric said. “Meet some of the people, get acquainted with the town.”
Lane set his beer can down hard on the desktop. “Hell, Eric, she doesn’t need to get acquainted with Two Shot. She grew up there.”
He closed his eyes and smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. Shit. He needed to erase those words somehow. In the irrational heat of his petty anger, he’d just betrayed Sarah’s secrets.
There was a long silence, which gave Lane plenty of time to curse himself.
“What are you talking about? She’s not from there,” Eric finally said. “She’s from—well, I don’t know where she’s from.” There was another long silence. “If she’s from Two Shot, that puts us way ahead of the game. She’d already know everybody. Wonder why she didn’t mention that when we talked?”
Lane didn’t respond. He’d said more than enough already.
“There’s something strange going on with that girl,” Eric said thoughtfully. Lane could picture him tilting back in his chair, staring up at the plaster medallions on his office ceiling, clicking the pieces of the puzzle together. “If she grew up there, she’s not being honest with me. She let me think…”
“Grew up?” Lane barked out a laugh he hoped sounded halfway convincing. “I said she threw up. I shouldn’t have let that slip, though. I’m sure she’d be embarrassed.”
“She threw up? What did you do the other night—ply her with alcohol and take her home? I can’t believe she’d be that careless about drinking. She…”
“I think it was stomach flu,” Lane said. “She didn’t drink that much.”
There. Now he’d saved her secrets and her reputation.
“Well, whatever. I just thought I’d let you know she’s there. I saw a spark between you two, but maybe you’d better just leave her alone if things ended that way.”
Lane hung up after a few minutes of awkward small talk. His brother was right—he should leave Sarah alone.
But he’d planted a seed with Eric and he needed to warn her. It shouldn’t matter to anybody where Sarah was from—what mattered was who she was now. But Eric was big on class and status. He looked down his nose at Two Shot and the kind of people who lived there. People like Sarah.
He clicked back into the rodeo site and stared at the message again. Rusty Nail would put him on the road to the finals. He was sure of it. But going on with his own life seemed selfish when he might be leaving the wreckage of Sarah’s behind.
A cowboy could “turn out” for a rodeo—opt not to attend—without losing any points or even respect. Some did it when they had a bad draw, leaving the dud bulls for the neophytes who would ride anything anywhere. But you’d have to be crazy to turn out when you drew a bull like Rusty Nail. Crazy, or in love.
Love?
No. He just felt duty-bound to find Sarah and warn her there was a good chance he’d screwed up her life.
He sent a quick message to the rodeo committee bailing on his ride and shrugged into a Carhartt jacket. Grabbing his hat from the table, he tipped it onto his head with a practiced flip and strode from the trailer.
Maybe he could find Sarah before she left town. Otherwise, he’d have to catch her at the Love Nest.
Chapter 22
Sarah rolled