Page 10 of The Cowboy’s Reckoning

“Estelle kind of needs a place to stay for a week or two.”

“Why’s that?”

Wade gave him a sheepish look. “Her landlord is selling the house.”

Great. Cosmic irony.

“Has she checked her lease to see if she has to move?”

“As a matter of fact, she has.”

Cold-blooded Wade Matthews, giving his housekeeper a place to stay in her time of need.

“Okay. Sure.” For now.

But he wasn’t sleeping on the bottom.

“It won’t be for long. She already has leads on a few possibilities, but prices have gone up and she has to find something in her range.”

“Maybe she could move into Bailey’s trailer. No.” He tapped the table with his forefinger. “I can move into Bailey’s trailer.”

Jordan’s future sister-in-law was a silversmith and before she’d taken up with his older brother Hayes, she’d used her live-in horse trailer to travel the west, selling her wares at art and gear shows. She was now taking a year-long break while Hayes went to college.

“Well, Bailey’s not using it,” Wade said, looking pleased at the prospect of getting Jordan out of the house. “If you move in there, that’ll make Estelle feel better about accepting the room.”

“She hasn’t accepted yet?”

“She will.”

That was not a given. Estelle was five feet of pure stubbornness, which was why she and Wade got along so well.

Jordan got to his feet. “Good luck with that.” He had his own battle to strategize on.

If he couldn’t talk Lil into taking this deal, which she had yet to hear, then he’d have to contact the broker and tell him it was a no-go, and then he’d have to wait for another buyer. One who wanted an investment property they didn’t mind being tied up for five and a half years. How likely was that?

He hadn’t a clue, and he didn’t want to find out because if this sale went through, he’d be able to help Wade buy the neighboring property, thus rolling over the profits and avoiding capital gains. And he wouldn’t have to be reminded of a father who hadn’t seen fit to acknowledge him.

“What’s on your agenda?” Wade asked after rinsing both coffee cups and putting them to dry on the towel as Estelle had taught him to do.

Jordan sometimes wondered if Wade knew he’d been trained.

“I’m heading back out to the Willow Creek Ranch.”

Wade looked over his shoulder, his bushy gray eyebrows almost touching. “Round two so soon?”

“Nope. I have repairs to make.”

*

Lil had just unsaddled the new mare, aptly named Fancy, when she heard a truck approaching. She stepped out of the tack shed to see Jordan Matthews’s big Ford come into view and her stomach tightened at the sight. What now? Another go at convincing her to leave?

After he’d left, she’d contacted Aubrey to see what he’d done for a living before cowboying for his dad. Aubrey, who was out of the loop having just returned to Marietta after living in Dillon for several years, made a call herself and then reported back. Jordan did technical consulting on big drilling programs. The cowboy was an engineer in disguise. Did that give him an advantage?

You’ve got this.

To make certain of that, she’d called her older sister Maya right after she’d talked to Aubrey. Maya was adamant that it would take an extraordinary circumstance to remove her from the property.

“Define extraordinary,” Lil had replied.