The Rancher's Fake Girlfriend - Leslie North Page 0,39

the secrets she seemed to hold so close to the chest.

Chad said his goodbyes and headed for the door, head still full of questions on how to fix what was wrong between him and Hannah.

“Chad!”

The voice rang out from behind him and he knew exactly who it was without even needing to turn around.

“Later, Tripp,” he responded with a wave, still heading to his truck.

“Hey, I need to talk to you for a minute.”

Chad could hear Tripp’s boots crunching along the gravel parking lot behind him.

“What?”

Tripp walked over to him looking cocky. Chad immediately wanted to wipe the grin off his face. Whatever he was selling, Chad wasn’t buying.

“Turns out I learned some stuff about our mutual friend.”

Chad clenched his fists again but took a deep breath to try to calm himself.

“I wouldn’t call her your friend, Tripp.”

“She might not be your friend either after you hear this.”

Tripp crossed his arms and leaned against a truck. Any good cowboy knew that you never touched another man’s hat or his transportation, but Tripp seemed to think gentlemen’s rules didn’t apply to him.

“Spit it out, Hamilton,” Chad said through gritted teeth.

“Okay, okay,” Tripp replied, raising his hands in the air in a patronizing, calming motion that always seemed to make Chad even angrier. “Hannah had me take a photo of her and Aria together when we were at the library planting event and I—”

Chad cut him off. “That’s not how it went. Total revisionist history. You grabbed her phone from Mrs. O’Neill. But anyway. Continue.”

Tripp scowled. “Anyway. I noticed something in the photo on her lock screen. It was an old photo of Aria when she was younger. It was blurry, but I could see that she was wearing a T-shirt and name tag. The logo on the shirt was for Green Spaces, and the name tag said Kaley.”

He said it in a way that suggested the information would mean something to Chad, but he had no clue what Tripp was getting at.

“And?”

“Don’t you remember what happened with Green Spaces a few years back?”

Chad scowled. “You drunk or something?”

He made an exasperated noise. “That eco-terrorism group, Green Spaces?”

Chad squinted. “Oh, yeah, yeah, I heard about what happened with that river and the trial, sure. Who didn’t?” It had been a big scandal. The group had staged some stunt that went massively wrong, actually harming the plants and animals they claimed they wanted to protect. It had led to criminal charges, and the guy in charge had gone to jail. “Still don’t see your point, though.”

“Yeah, well, I did a little digging and discovered your little girlfriend isn’t who you think she is.” Tripp pulled out his phone and scrolled to a photo, then pointed the screen at Chad.

He leaned closer and stared at the screen. It was a photo of Hannah looking gorgeous but unlike the Hannah he knew, with blonde hair, standing next to a model-handsome guy. He felt his hackles go up, partly because he hated the thought of her with another man, and partly because the guy looked familiar. If he had just seen the photo in passing, he might not have put the pieces together, but since the story was already on his mind, he saw at once what Tripp was getting at.

“Wait a sec … she knew that Green Spaces dude? The one who went to jail?”

Tripp laughed. “Oh, she more than knew him.” He scrolled to another photo and showed it to Chad.

It was a screencap of an article titled, “How Much Did She Know and When? Amanda Hastings Heads to Trial in the Green Spaces River Poisoning Case.” There was a small photo with it of a woman holding her coat in front of her face, but he could tell it was blonde-Hannah.

“That’s her. Her real name is Amanda Hastings, and she was implicated in the whole thing. She was the guy’s girlfriend—joined up with Green Spaces when it was still just beginning and ended up in some high-level position. She played a major role in what happened. The only reason she’s not in jail is because she turned on the guy.” Tripp smiled. “I always knew there was something off about her.”

The details of the trial came flooding back to Chad. Green Spaces was protesting the construction of a new factory being built near a river, saying the runoff from manufacturing waste would poison the water and wildlife that lived there. The group wanted to call attention to what they thought was going to