It was shelter

Sure, the doors still weren’t hung, the water supply and electricity weren’t hooked up and the inside shelves she’d planned weren’t installed, but this was a place to work. A place where her dreams could come true.

She walked around the corner of the house to see Brandon, shirtless, standing at an outside spigot, water rushing into his open hands. He didn’t hear her at first as he splashed water on himself.

The twilight revealed a well-built body, not an ounce of spare fat anywhere. Not the gym-sculpted, steroid-assisted six-pack she’d grown accustomed to in New York. No, this was the real thing, form beautifully following function.

An urge to sculpt such a body overtook Penelope—as well as the urge to explore those planes and angles with her hands.

The splashing halted abruptly as Brandon caught her staring at him

“You, um, could have come in the house. I have hot water inside, you know.”

“Well…soap and hot water would be nice.”

“C’mon.” She indicated the house with a jerk of her head and turned to hide her scarlet face. What was the matter with her? She, who’d painted and sculpted nude, well-built male models, was acting like a schoolgirl. How could this man’s bare chest undo her?

Dear Reader,

Ever fall in love with someone at first sight? Well, I did. I fell in love with the character of Uncle Jake when he came to life in Where Love Grows, the first book I wrote about the nefarious Richard Murphy. I couldn’t let Uncle Jake go without justice, and his nephew Brandon seemed to me the perfect hero to help him get that justice.

Who should Brandon’s heroine be, though? What woman was feisty enough to take him down a peg or two? And what chasm could be almost too big for Brandon to negotiate in order to win his happily-ever-after?

I discovered that heroine to be not a Southern girl at all, but one who is far different in mind-set from me. She proved to be a challenge from day one, mainly because she isn’t Southern. I’ve come to the conclusion that we Southern women view the world—and our men—from a unique perspective. Love, however, is universal!

I hope you enjoy Brandon and Penelope’s story. Let me know via my Web site, www.cynthiareese.net.

Cynthia Reese

Not on Her Own
Cynthia Reese

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cynthia Reese lives with her husband and their daughter in south Georgia, along with their two dogs, three cats and however many strays show up for morning muster. She has been scribbling since she was knee-high to a grasshopper and reading even before that. A former journalist, teacher and college English instructor, she also enjoys cooking, traveling and photography when she gets the chance. Not on Her Own is her third book.

To two very special women:

to Laura Shin, for making my dreams come true,

and to my mom, who battled back against the

odds and is with me still.

May these women have the best

that life can offer them.

This book would not be a reality without the intensive help I received from my wonderful editor, Victoria Curran. She literally saved this project. I’d also like to thank my sister, Donna, for helping me through the early planning stages, and my critique partners, Tawna Fenske, Cindy Miles, Stephanie Bose and Nelsa Roberto. Thanks also to my dad, who helped answer some of the technical aspects of welding, and to Tawna and her friends Larie and Minta for helping me with how Oregonians plan weddings—

all errors are mine!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER ONE

N O GOOD DEED ever goes unpunished, and Brandon Wilkes, who’d sworn to serve and protect the good people of Brazelton County, Georgia, was living proof of that.

“You sure? Brandon, are you positively sure?”

Brandon clamped his jaw shut, trying not, in his effort to get to work on time, to lose his patience with Prentice O’Keefe. The man had the comprehension of an eight-year-old, and the comic-book-violence imagination to go with it.

“Prentice, I swear. No aliens are going to come down here and get you and take you back to their planet. It was just a movie. Okay? Just make-believe.”

“But they could, couldn’t they? I mean, they were big, Brandon and…” Here Prentice’s lower lip trembled. “Scary. Bad scary.”

Prentice’s older sister, Ella, pushed open the raggedy screen door. “Prentice, he’s told you that there’s no such thing as aliens! Now why can’t you believe him? Man’s got to get to work and he’s come all this way out of town to tell you not to believe such garbage!”

“It’s okay, Ella,” Brandon said, suppressing an urge to look at his watch. His boss might not agree that reassuring Prentice justified Brandon’s being late, but Brandon knew, for Ella’s sake, it was important. “Coming by here was on my way to see my uncle—and I’ve got time before I have to clock in at the sheriff’s department. Besides, I don’t want Prentice worrying about things. I know how he gets his mind fixed.”

“Tell me about it. Those so-called friends of his—filling his head with such nonsense and letting him watch crazy movies. He’ll be going on about this for days.” Ella threw up her hands, pulled open the screen door that barely hung on its hinges, and went inside. “I give up.”

Prentice poked out his bottom lip even more. “I ain’t stupid. I know things. Y’all don’t tell me things, but I can figure it out.”

Brandon’s impatience melted away. Prentice was his age, thirty, and Brandon had seen others tease him all through school. The least he could do was not belittle Prentice’s fears.

“Here, I’ve got something in the car that will fix you right up, Prentice.” Brandon jogged to the cruiser, yanked open the glove compartment and dug out a toy plastic star from a packet of dozens of identical plastic stars he kept for kids. Then he crossed the weedy front yard back to the O’Keefes’ porch.

“Okay, Prentice, you know what this is, right?”

Prentice’s eyes rounded. “Ooh, boy, Brandon! That’s a badge! Like yours!” He reached out to touch it, then snatched his hand back.

“No, no, it’s yours. But wait. We’ve got to make this official. Hold up your right hand.” Brandon led Prentice through a halting oath of office, using a lot of invention when his memory failed him. “Okay, then. If any aliens come around in their flying saucers, you tell ’em you’re a sure enough Brazelton County deputy, and they’d better leave you alone.”

“Ha! I will, Brandon! Yes, sir! Hey, Ella! Brandon made me a deputy! And he says there is, too, aliens, and they won’t mess with me—”

Brandon shook his head as Prentice disappeared into the house.

He didn’t linger, though. He was late for work already, and his planned trip by Uncle Jake’s would have to be put off—he’d never dreamed Ella’s request would take up so much time.

A WOMAN STOOD in the middle of the highway.

Brandon groaned. This day was already shaping up to be a beaut. What was it? A full moon or something? He pulled the sheriff’s cruiser to a stop, rolled down the window and poked his head out.

“Ma’am?”

The woman didn’t seem to notice. Not him. Not the fact that the bumper of his Crown Vic was less than three feet from her. Certainly not that she was standing at the base of a hill, on a curve, square in the middle of the double-yellow line.

“Ma’am!”

This time she turned, her dark ringlets sliding back over shoulders bare except for the thin straps of her sundress. She was a little thing, no bigger than five-two, and that was with help from the high-heeled sandals she wore.

Brandon tore his gaze from her tanned legs—surprisingly long for a gal as short as she was—and her toned arms and looked back up at the woman’s face.

And then at her hand.

She held up one index finger, the classic sign for wait.

Then she turned her attention back to the hill in front of her.

Brandon scratched his head and considered the problem. The lady was pretty, sure, but what kind of woman dressed up in her Sunday best and stood in the middle of a highway? What was she up to?

And she was telling a sheriff’s deputy to wait?

He pulled the cruiser over to the edge of the road and prepared to cue the radio on his shoulder. Better to let the dispatcher know he was dealing with a possible fruit-loop, as if he hadn’t already had his fruit-loop quotient filled to the brim with Prentice’s aliens.

But before he could speak into the shoulder pack, it crackled. He released the button and waited.

“Brandon, you in the car yet?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a—”

“Listen, how close are you to county road one twenty-one?”

“I’m on it, matter of fact.”

“Out close to your uncle’s?”

“Near there. Wade, listen, I’ve got a woman—”

“We’re going to need you to provide an escort.”

“A what?”

Just then he heard a rumble on the highway—the rumble of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler.

“Wade, pedestrian in the road, gotta go!”

Brandon shoved open his door. Sure enough, he could hear the gears shifting as the truck gathered speed.

“Ma’am! There’s a truck coming! You need to get off the road!”

She waved one hand in his direction, brushing him away. With her other hand, she lifted a small digital camera to her eye.

Blowing out a breath, Brandon crossed the hot tarry asphalt to her. “Ma’am, I’ve asked you nicely—” He went behind her, to lift her up at the waist and remove her bodily from the path of the oncoming vehicle.

“Put me down! What on earth—” The tanned legs wind-milled on him, and one high-heeled shoe caught him square on the shin.

“Ow! Lady, are you crazy?”

“Put me down! I’m going to miss it!” She jerked from his grasp in a lightning-quick move that nearly threw him on the roadway—some sort of tai chi or martial arts move. He recovered his balance and took a step backward.

The truck crested the hill, bearing down on them. Brandon looked up to see the cab of the truck dwarfed by a…

“A house?”

He blinked. Yes. It was a house. Somebody was moving a house down the middle of the narrow county road. Could this day get any more surreal?

The woman took her time snapping photos of the truck, snailing along at maybe thirty miles an hour, if that, with its road-wide load.

Photos apparently done, she strolled to the road’s shoulder to stand by Brandon’s cruiser. He followed her. As he tried to frame an apology, his radio crackled again.

“Uh, Brandon?”

“I think I figured it out, Wade. The escort’s for a house?”

“Yeah. Just make sure they don’t tear any power lines down, okay?”

Brandon spotted a man sitting astride the roof of the house, a long plastic pole in his hands. He blinked again, but the man was still there.

It was weird to see a house on the back of a truck, cruising down a narrow highway. Sure, he’d seen plenty of double-wides delivered, but never an actual house.

And this was indeed a house. He examined it as it trundled past and the man on the roof used the pole to lift up a power line.

The house looked big because of the scale of the road, but Brandon could see that it was no more than a cottage. It had been yellow at one time; now it was in dire need of a new coat or three of paint. Looked like an arts and crafts type cottage, maybe built in the late thirties or forties. Not a window in the thing was intact, and the porch roof was held up by boards fastened to the side of the house.

He glanced from the house to the woman who now, he’d figured out too late, must belong with it.

“Uh…sorry about that. I thought—”

She turned to him, beaming. “That’s my house! My very first house!”

“Well. Congratulations. But next time I’d advise not standing in the middle of the road to get a picture of it.”

Brandon rubbed his cheek and considered. No way was he going to be able to get in front of the truck now, so his escort services would wind up being follow-me services.

“Where’s it headed?” he asked her.

“My land. Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Penelope Langston.” She extended a small hand bare of rings and fingernail polish.

Brandon accepted the handshake. “Deputy Brandon Wilkes. So you’re—”

And then it hit him. Her name.

“Did you say Langston?”

“Yes. Penelope Langston. That was very sweet, what you did for me a moment ago—”

“As in Langston Holdings?”

He couldn’t keep the edge out of his tone.

“Yes. That’s my company.”

A bitter taste coated the inside of Brandon’s mouth, a wash of nausea flooding him. Langston Holdings. The mysterious holding company that had bid up his uncle’s land when it went to auction—again—and Brandon had been unable to save his uncle’s farm. Again.

Uncle Jake tried to keep a stiff upper lip about losing half the acreage he’d farmed all his life, but Brandon knew the way he’d lost it had been the real kicker. Richard Murphy, a big-time area farmer, had colluded with the county tax commissioner to dummy up tax debts.

That’s what had happened to Uncle Jake and Brandon. Brandon had been a full partner in his uncle’s small farming operation when the tax commissioner sent them a bill they couldn’t prove they’d paid. The tax commissioner had handpicked farmers like Uncle Jake, who, in years past, before computers, had tended to pay tax bills in cash and in installments. A few of the farmers had been able to produce ancient, yellowed receipts. Uncle Jake and at least one other farmer hadn’t been such good record keepers. And Murphy had offered to stave off a sheriff’s sale by buying part of the farm at a rock-bottom price.

Then—and here Brandon couldn’t conceal a satisfied grin—Murphy himself had fallen on hard times. He was facing a federal indictment on charges a mile long on government crop insurance fraud. The corrupt farmer had seen his own land, including the acres he’d swindled out of Uncle Jake, sold by auction.

Brandon had tried to buy his uncle’s property back, but a holding company out of Oregon had outbid him at the auction. Langston Holdings.

This was the enemy? This woman? She was what, late twenties? And she could go around snatching up tracts of prime farmland?

If Penelope Langston saw his reaction, she didn’t act like it registered. Nope, she was as bubbly as a kid at her birthday party, ready to unwrap presents. A dimple jumped in her cheek as she grinned.

“So, where’s your car?” he growled.

“Oh, back there.” Penelope gestured with a thumb in the direction the house was moving. “I guess I didn’t think things through, but I did want to get a picture of it. Wasn’t it awesome, coming down that hill? Can you give me a lift? You are here to direct traffic, right?”

He didn’t bother to suppress a snort. Traffic? Here? In South Georgia? The only traffic jams he knew of were when people had to slow down behind an old-timer like Uncle Jake or a creeping tractor.

“You’re obviously not from around here. This road isn’t traveled that much.” He glanced from Penelope’s animated face to the house and blew out a breath. “C’mon. I’ll give you a ride.”

“Great!”

He would have figured her for a chatterbox, but in the cruiser, she proved him wrong. Maybe it was because she was absorbed in her big day.

Brandon felt the tiniest bit churlish for thinking ill of her. So she’d beat him out of the land. It had been an auction fair and square. And at least she was putting a house on it. It wasn’t as though she was turning it into a subdivision.

He turned off on a dirt road and negotiated the Crown Vic over the washboard surface.

“I thought…” Penelope frowned.

“I’m taking a shortcut. This comes out near my uncle’s—your land.” The correction ate at him. He forced himself to be civil and polite. “What brings you here?”

“Well, the land, of course. I’d found the house, oh, ages ago, on the Internet, believe it or not. It came from North Georgia, and the owners were selling it cheap to anyone who would move it. But I needed a square of dirt to put it on.”

Square of dirt? Thirty acres of the best cropland on this side of the county was more than a “square of dirt.”

“And you’re originally from…?”

“Portland, Oregon. You know, I can’t get over how flat everything is here. No peaks. No mountains. No hills, even. But the pine trees look like home.”

“Oregon, huh? What, you hear about the land on the Internet or something?” Brandon’s curiosity got the better of him. He’d tried, without success, to dig up information on Langston Holdings and the people behind it.

Never in a million years would he have thought the people behind it would be just this slip of a woman.

“Oh, no. Family.” She didn’t offer more in the way of explanation, instead pointing. “Look! They’re turning in! Wow! Oh, I want to get another picture!”

He turned back onto the paved road and parked on the shoulder. “Well, uh, where are they putting the house? They’re not putting it there, are they? They’re putting it farther back, right?”

She paused in the act of opening the car door. “Yeah. That’s the prettiest spot on the whole thirty acres. Why? Do you know something I don’t? It’s not wetlands. I checked it out. And, see, there’s a rise, but it’s not high on a hill.”

“That’s the best part of the tract, the most fertile. Heck, we didn’t even have to put half the fertilizer on that section that we did on the rest.”

“You worked for Grandpa Murphy?”

His head snapped around from his view through the windshield. “ Grandpa? You mean Richard Murphy? You’re related to Richard Murphy?”

“Of course. That’s how I knew about the land. He’s my mother’s dad.” Penelope hopped out of the car. She ducked her head back in. “And anyway, as far as the land’s fertility goes, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, can you see me farming?”

Her laugh bubbled up, rich and throaty. The double whammy of the day left him numb to it.

It was bad enough Penelope was indifferent about putting something as permanent as a house on the best farming land in the area.

But to find out she was the granddaughter of the guy who’d forced Uncle Jake off his land?

She slammed the door and crossed the pastureland. The breeze caught the skirt of her sundress and with each step the heels of her shoes dug into the earth.

Two years ago, Brandon had planted soybeans here, soybeans that had produced double what the rest of his uncle’s farm had produced. Now, danged if he didn’t see a pine seedling or two popping up out of the ground. Another two years lying fallow, and this land would be a piney thicket.

Suddenly the confines of the patrol car closed in on him. He had a good job, sure. He liked being a deputy, helping people.

So what if it wasn’t farming? So what if most days he spent writing out speeding tickets along the interstate and the only time he felt the wind in his face and the sun on his back was when he was changing some traveler’s flat tire? So what if the only thing he grew these days was the odd tomato plant on the excuse of a back deck he had at his apartment? He was hardly there, anyway. He spent so much of his time off at Uncle Jake’s. Probably he should give up the cramped little place altogether.

Being a deputy paid the bills, right? It took care of Uncle Jake, and Lord knows Uncle Jake didn’t have two cents to rub together these days.

Face it. This farming gig was just a pipe dream. You’re thirty. It’s time to grow up, put away childish things.

Brandon blew out a sigh and heaved himself from the cruiser to cross the field he’d once plowed.

Penelope stopped short of where the transfer truck was backing across the roughed-in driveway the county had put in. She stretched out her arms and spun around. “My dream! Dirt and a house! I’ve finally got dirt and a house!”

CHAPTER TWO

P ENELOPE GRITTED her teeth and stretched to reach a huge glob of glazier’s putty from the window. The distance between the top of the ladder and the far edge of the pane seemed insurmountable.

If she were normal height, with normal legs and normal arms, this job would be a piece of cake.

Aaargh. If God wanted me to be short, why didn’t He at least give me elastic arms?

Penelope set her jaw. She would not quit.

Just think: do this, and you’re done with the windows. Two weeks here, and you’ve got the house livable. Before you know it, you’ll get your studio up and you can start on your project. Just think. In two months, she’d have fifty grand, and she could hire someone to finish up the house. She could do this. She could prove them all wrong, Mom, Dad, everybody who said this was nothing but a fantasy.

Her pep talk gave her that last, vital half-inch of stretch.

“Hey! You’re gonna fall!”

Startled, Penelope screeched and nearly did fall. The tube of putty careened off the ladder, along with the caulking gun. Her putty knife fell to the ground, where a million blades of grass and a couple clods of red Georgia clay stuck to the sticky white putty she’d just saved.

Penelope spotted the cause of the upset: the grouchy deputy, this time sans uniform. He wore jeans, paired with a cotton tee that showed off his chest in a way that his browns hadn’t. And now that he was without the Smoky Bear hat, she could see that his dark brown hair was clipped short.

“Didn’t mean to scare you. Brandon Wilkes. I was the deputy who—”

“Yes, I remember you. Sorry. I don’t usually startle that easily, but I didn’t hear you.”

“You were busy applying that putty. Need a hand?”

“I think I’ve got it. It’s high back here.”

Brandon put his hands on his narrow hips and surveyed the bungalow. “You’ve had a lot done to the place in the past week or so.”

“I’ve done most of it myself. Except, of course, for the foundation and the roof. The movers put a pier foundation under the house, and I hired a roofer.”

Penelope climbed down from the ladder and joined him. She inspected the house, ticking off the progress she’d made. A new foundation, a new roof to replace the old one messed up by the move, electricity and well pump hookup, new locks.

The house was still in sore need of a paint job, but the pressure washing had improved the looks of the house immensely. A thousand more jobs awaited her.

“I—my uncle lives next door, just up the road. I figured I’d check up on you.” Brandon grimaced. “I mean, check in on you. To see if you needed any help.”

Penelope decided his slip was Freudian. Since when did grouches with badges offer assistance? She started to say something snarky about being perfectly capable of looking after herself. She stopped short, though. Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt. This was the South, she reminded herself. After bouncing around big, impersonal cities like L.A. and New York, that would take her some time to get accustomed to.

“Thank you.”

“I would have called…but I couldn’t find a listing for you.”

“I haven’t bothered with a landline yet. I have a cell phone.”

“You really need a landline. Our E-911 system doesn’t pick up the location of cell phones. A woman like yourself, living alone out here…” Brandon trailed off. His attention dropped to her bare left hand. “I mean, I guess you’re living alone out here.”

Was the deputy trying to hit on her? She suppressed a smile. “It’s just me and Theo.”

“Theo?”

“My cat.” She pointed to the window. “The Siamese?”

Brandon’s gaze followed her gesture toward the long and lanky white cat peering out the windowpane.

“That’s a Siamese?” he asked. “I thought they were brown.”

“Flame-point. They’re white, with apricot ears and paws and tail. Everything you’ve heard about Siamese? Well, multiply that by ten and you’ve got your typical flame-point.”

One of Brandon’s eyebrows arched. “He doesn’t seem to think too much of me.”

“It’s me he’s mad at. I’ve had to keep him cooped up until I could get the windows fixed. Now he’s got the run of the house and he’s plotting his escape back to New York.”

“New York? I thought you said you were from Oregon?” Brandon treated her to intense cop-like scrutiny. What was this, an interrogation? Did he think she was lying?

“I grew up in Portland, moved to Bend when I was a teenager. But New York was my latest stop.” She retrieved the putty knife and scraped the blade against the ladder. “Here.” She handed it to him. “Since you’re here and you offered, I’ll take you up on it. Can you do me a favor and clean the rest of that putty along the top edge?”

Brandon hesitated before agreeing and clambering up the ladder. The move let Penelope see that his jeans fitted snug over a well-formed backside. The faded denim was as much an improvement over his browns as the T-shirt. “I’m kind of surprised you got the house set down on a foundation so quick,” he observed as he deftly wielded the putty knife.

Hmm…skills and looks. Not a bad combo, not bad at all, she thought.

“It was part of the bargain with the movers. They’re the ones who put me in touch with a roofer. Once you move a house, the roof has to be replaced as soon as possible, and this one especially. The whole interior has hardwood floors. I didn’t want them damaged.”

Back down on the ground, Brandon inspected his work and was apparently satisfied. “So the house was what? Built in the thirties? Forties?”

“Mid-thirties, despite the Depression. Want to take a look inside?” For a moment, Penelope couldn’t believe she’d offered. He was a complete stranger. And a big one at that.

But her gut told her this guy was okay. Open, honest face. Nice brown eyes. A lot of smile lines.

“Sure,” he told her.

Inside, Penelope pushed away doubts, say, thoughts of how harmless Ted Bundy had looked to his victims, as she showed Brandon through the house.

They ended in the dinky kitchen with its 1960s atrocity of a kitchen-remodel. Brandon stared, his uncertainty about what to say plain on his face.

“It’ll get better. I’ll rip out the cabinets, restore a lot of the old look,” she rushed to assure him.

“It’s…the whole house is…rough,” he said finally.

“Yeah. But it’s got great bones.”

“And you’re planning on doing this yourself? You must be handy with a hammer.”

Brandon Wilkes scored more points with Penelope because his expression was one of admiration; not a drop of disbelief or condescension tempered it.

“I know my way around a toolbox. It’s the big stuff that’s hard for me. I know how to do it, but when you’re a shrimp like me…”

He didn’t even offer a short joke. Another point.

“Well, I’ll be glad to offer some free labor if you need it. Let me know. If I can’t, I’ll point you in the right direction.”

“Great! Maybe you could suggest someone who could help put up a barn or a shelter?”

He frowned. “Like a pole barn?”

“Pole barn?”

“Yeah, just a barn with poles for framing and then the exterior sheathing is fastened to them. Usually has a metal roof.”

“Sounds about right. How tall can they be?”

“How tall do you need it?”

“Um…” She did some mental calculations. “Twenty feet at least, plus any extra I could get from the pitch of the roof.”

“Whoa. What are you putting in there?”

“My work. I’m an artist. A sculptor. I do outside sculptures for businesses and corporations.”

“You mean, like statues and stuff?”

“Uh…not exactly.” Penelope opened the flap of a cardboard box still waiting to be unpacked on one of the dingy Formica countertops. She pulled out a small model of her latest project. “Like this.”

Brandon stared at it, the same befuddled expression on his face that he’d had when he’d tried to think of something to say about the kitchen. After a long moment, he blurted, “What is it?”

Penelope slid a finger along the narrow ribbons of stainless steel. “I call it Love at Infinity. See the infinity symbol here? And how it wraps around these two vertical pieces?”

Brandon pointed to the highly polished surface. “There? Yeah, I see the infinity symbol. And the wavy vertical lines are supposed to be, what?” He screwed up his face as he examined the piece.

Penelope laughed at his underwhelmed expression. “You’re not a fan of abstract art, are you? Those two pieces represent man and woman.”

“Doesn’t look much like a man or a woman to me, but…” Brandon shrugged. “I don’t know much about art. So you’ll build this bigger?”

“Much bigger. This tall section here tops out at just under twenty feet.”

“And people actually buy things like this?”

Penelope chose to let his comment slide. What had she expected anyway? He was a completely different breed from the usual artsy crowd she ran with. “Yes, yes, they do. Matter of fact, the commission for this one will bring me fifty thousand dollars.”

Brandon whistled. “That’s a lot of money for three pieces of stainless steel.”

“Not just any three pieces of stainless steel. You have to know how to build it.”

“And have somewhere to build it. I don’t think a pole barn would work. Not tall enough. But I’ll be thinking. Where do you plan to put the barn?”

“Out behind the house. Maybe with big sliding doors on casters or wheels. It won’t look right with the house, but…” Penelope shrugged and set the sculpture down. “My work’s what pays for the house, and I’ve got to have a studio. So I guess I can’t complain.”

“You know, this kind of house looks out of place in the middle of a field.”

The comment took her by surprise, for one, that he would understand the aesthetics of a bungalow and its setting. For another, the sudden change in topic. “Well, yes, I guess so,” Penelope said. “But I couldn’t afford to be picky. Besides, I’ll plant some fast-growing trees, and in a few years, it won’t look the same.”

She could have sworn he winced. What was so bad about trees?

“You know…I was planning—” Brandon started, then broke off.

Penelope waited him out. He started again. “At one point, this land belonged to my uncle. Well, to me and my uncle. Did you know that?”

“No. No, I wasn’t aware of that.” She folded her arms and waited some more. Alarm bells sounded in her head.

“Yeah. Murphy—your grandfather—I don’t know how to put this politely. But he and his brother-in-law hatched up a tax scheme to put a squeeze on Uncle Jake, and my uncle was forced to sell this section of his land.”

“Really.” Didn’t sound a bit like the story Grandpa had told her. Penelope’s thoughts raced as she tried to predict where Brandon was going with this conversation.

“Yeah. Really.” A sharp edge bit at Brandon’s words. “This land—where you’ve got your house sitting—it’s the best cropland of the whole tract…of Uncle Jake’s old tract, I mean.”

“Uh-huh.” What was this guy’s agenda? Maybe her gut had steered her wrong after all.

Brandon rubbed his hands together, shuffled his feet on the scratched finish of the hardwood floor.

“I was…I came here today to see if you’d be up to making a trade. This plot of land for another. The one I had in mind is a much better site for the house. It’s got maples and sweetgums, lots of shade for the summer.”

“But I’ve already got the—”

“And we could, um, throw in the cost of moving the house…and maybe, the foundation. The cost of moving it shouldn’t be that much.”

She’d been wrong. This guy was a nut, albeit a cute one. He actually thought—

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” he asked.

“Well, yeah. I’m inclined to that way of thinking…or that maybe there’s some sort of treasure buried here.”

His face heated up. “Nope. No treasure. This—it’s only that I’m more than a little attached to this land. Maybe it’s just that it is such good land. Or maybe it’s because of the way my uncle lost it. I don’t know.”

“I’m really sorry. I can’t imagine how you must feel…but I’m really happy with my land. And I don’t even want to think about moving this house again. I’ve got two months to get my sculpture built and delivered.”

Brandon looked as though he might argue. Then his jaw tightened and he stuffed his hands in his back pockets. He stood there for a long moment before moving stiffly toward the door leading to the hall.

“Well. Guess it was worth a shot. Though why I ever thought any granddaughter of Murphy would understand where I was coming from…”

She heard his footsteps echo off the empty rooms, and then the front door shut with a loud thud.

CHAPTER THREE

“T OLD YOU that girl was moving fast. Here, have some more rice and peas.”

Before Brandon could stop Uncle Jake, the man had dumped a clump of sticky rice and some field peas onto Brandon’s chipped stoneware plate. A cook Uncle Jake most definitely wasn’t, not that he could afford better food.

“Yeah, well, I’ve been busy these past couple of weeks, Uncle Jake. Not only have I been working my regular nightshift, but we’re short during the day, too.” Brandon tried but failed to keep the defensive note out of his voice. If only he’d come up with the land swap idea sooner, before she’d re-roofed the place, maybe then she’d have been more receptive.

“I know. You’re always busy. That sheriff of ours keeps you bustin’ your chops. Hardly ever see you these days.”

Uncle Jake flopped back in his chair. After a moment of silent concentration, he attacked his own second helping of rice with gusto.

Brandon knew that look. He’d seen it often enough since he and his mom had moved in when Brandon was a skinny ten-year-old and his brother was an even skinnier eight-year-old.

“You’re thinking I was wasting my time, aren’t you?”

The old man looked up from his dinner plate. “Well…folks don’t want to split up their land, especially not a woman who’s got a house set down.”

Brandon snorted. “Not much of a house if you ask me.” But then, with eyes that would see it like a stranger would, he saw his uncle’s dining room, with its stacks of books and newspapers, its yellowed white walls and the vinyl rug curling up in one corner. Shoot, Uncle Jake took up more time repairing his pigpens than he did his own place. Since Brandon’s mom had passed away three years ago, Uncle Jake had sure let the place go. The house wasn’t much of an improvement over Penelope Langston’s bungalow.

“I won’t lie, son. It’s that ‘no-never’ that gets you every time, the idea that I won’t ever see a plow of mine on that land now.” Uncle Jake paused in his eating, his rheumy old eyes far away. “I still remember the day I signed the papers to buy that land where she’s put her house. I knew it was good for growing, and I couldn’t wait. I didn’t even have a tractor of my own yet, ’cause I’d spent every penny I’d saved just for the downpayment. So I borrowed my daddy’s old Massey Ferguson and broke ground that same day.”

Brandon had heard the story a hundred times at least, but he didn’t interrupt. A man had a right to grieve, after all. When his uncle finished, the two of them sat in silence.

“An artist, you say?” Uncle Jake asked suddenly.

“Yeah. Big metal abstract pieces. She wants to put up a barn to work in.”

“You and the FFA kids gonna help her?”

He did a double take at his uncle. “Why should I help her put more things on that land that I’ll have to tear down when I finally get it?”

“Son, it is obvious you don’t know much about women.” Uncle Jake took a swig of his iced tea and scarfed up the last of the peas.

“Oh, and you, the lifelong bachelor, are an expert?”

His uncle grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “Why you think I never married?” But then he sobered. “See, with a man, you could have offered to swap my field, I mean her field, for that section with the hardwood, and he would have considered it. But a woman? Nope. She’s got an idea in her head about how things are going to be. She’s picturing this dream…house’ll be here, the picket fence, there, the flowers over yonder…Takes something big to dynamite that picture from a woman’s head.”

Brandon thought back to how elated Penelope had been that first day. She’d even used the word “dream.” Maybe Uncle Jake was right.

But he couldn’t just give up on this.

“How serious can she be?” Brandon asked. “How long can she last? Whoever heard of a sculptor living here, anyway?”

“There’s that fellow that does chain saw carving. He makes a living at it.”

Brandon snorted. “He’s retired from the military. Of course he’s not starving.”

“But this one’s got grit.”

“Huh?” Brandon saw the frown on his uncle’s face and quickly amended the “huh” to “Sir?”

The frown cleared. “Want some apple pie? I bought a frozen one from the store.”

Brandon’s stomach leapt in anticipation of actual, edible food. “Where is it? I’ll get it.”

“Fridge. Bottom shelf.”

As Brandon retrieved the pie—burnt on one side, but still an improvement over the rice and peas—he prompted his uncle. “What do you mean, she’s got grit? You’ve never met her, have you?”

“Nope. Been here a week now, and she ain’t introduced herself. If Geraldine hadn’t been doin’ so poorly, I’d have gotten round to going over there, being neighborly…”

Brandon dug into the pie and tried not to smile as his uncle digressed into a long and sorry tale about his prize sow.

“So how do you know she’s got grit? Penelope, I mean.”

His uncle looked startled by Brandon’s change of subject. “You said it yourself. She’s got that place livable. She’s doing all the work herself. And if she’s doing outdoor sculpture, she’s got to be handy with a welder. That’s a girl who ain’t afraid of hard work.”

“How do you know about sculpting?”

Uncle Jake waved a hand at the crammed bookshelf on one wall of the dining room. “Some book I read sometime. I forget what. Talked all about it.”

“She didn’t say anything about welding.” But Brandon didn’t argue the point.

“She pretty?”

“What?”

“I say, is she pretty?”

An image of tanned legs and dark curly hair spilling over bare shoulders shot into Brandon’s mind. “I guess you’d call her pretty.”

“Well, then.” Uncle Jake beamed. “Maybe she’s got a fellow somewhere who wants her back. Or maybe she’ll get bored with country boys and head on back to the big city for what she’s used to. If she sells out at a decent price, we could get that land back.”

A woman like Penelope was attractive enough to have a long list of guys interested in her. Brandon pushed the plate of pie away and wondered why his uncle’s idea didn’t cheer him up. Maybe it was because he didn’t want to have to wait for Penelope to give up and get lost.

His uncle began clearing the table. Brandon fell into step, not saying anything in response to his uncle’s idea.

“What are you so quiet about?” Uncle Jake asked. “Did I say something?”

Brandon dropped the plates into the sink. “No, sir,” he replied in a voice he injected with a good measure of cheerfulness.

“Look, Brandon, you gave it your best shot, that land-swapping idea. And there’s nothing wrong with hoping she’ll give up and go on somewhere else. But you’re not dreaming of any devilment, are you?”

“Devilment?”

“You know, revenge on Murphy. Stealing that land back. Something like that. If I can get my land back fair and square, that’s okay. It was my fault I didn’t keep that receipt. I should have known better. You pay in cash, you need to be double sure you keep the proof you paid. And yeah, Murphy and Melton took sore advantage of me. Melton is a lying dog, saying I didn’t pay that tax debt.” Uncle Jake slammed the refrigerator door shut. “But I’ll tell you like that doc told me when I had my heart attack over all this. You got to move on, or it will kill you. Toting a grudge will eat you alive.”

Brandon said nothing. Let Uncle Jake think what he wanted. He didn’t want to admit to Uncle Jake he’d been thinking about how pretty Penelope was or how many lucky guys she had at her fingertips.

No, Brandon wouldn’t be one of the guys on Penelope Langston’s list. She wasn’t the right sort of woman. Couldn’t be. Not when she was standing square in the middle of the road to what Brandon was after.

P ENELOPE JABBED the calculator’s keypad with the ground-down eraser on her pencil. She’d figured her money three times—and all three times it had agreed.

She’d come up short.

She clenched the pencil, unclenched it, then clenched it again. She glanced over at the single sheet of paper that had laid waste to her plans.

I regret to inform you that we must cancel the commission we’d agreed upon and surrender to you the ten percent deposit already paid. I trust that this comes to you before you’ve ordered materials…

What a day. First that crazy deputy calling Grandpa a thief, and now this. The writing hadn’t changed, not in the thirty seconds that had passed since Penelope had last read it.

Fifty grand. Gone up in smoke.

She’d been counting on that money. She’d emptied her checking and savings accounts to pay for the land and the house. Her grandmother had matched her dollar for dollar. An art investment, Grams had called it as she signed the check with a flourish. Penelope had borrowed more money for the studio and renovating the house. That money was spent, and Penelope had borrowed still more money for the studio…

Her brain refused to process anything beyond how this could have happened. She’d played by the rules. She’d got an agreement. She’d done her financial homework.

And yet here she was, caught on the tracks with a mortgage payment bearing down on her—and no way to pay it.

Two months. She had two months before the first payment was due. Penelope said a silent prayer of thanks that she’d taken up the mortgage company’s offer for delayed payments.

Theo wound around her legs and yowled for attention. She ignored him. Think. She had to think.

If this company didn’t want her sculpture, somebody else would—she’d just have to get out there and sell it. And in the meantime, she’d have to come up with a way to survive without touching the borrowed money in her checking account.

Penelope had survived before. She’d eaten mac and cheese from scratch-and-dent sales and taken on untold numbers of jobs to pay the rent—bartending, car washing, waitressing, even a short stint at a Cineplex, selling popcorn until the smell nauseated her.

One thing she wouldn’t do: breathe a word to her parents. She’d learned the hard way that if they even suspected she was going through lean times, they’d be wiring money to her checking account or asking the landlord to check her fridge for food.

She hated the way they’d held her failures over her head as a way to persuade her to join the family business.

Real estate. Land, land, land. Buying, selling, leasing, commercial, residential, option clauses. She’d grown up with it, and it numbed her. When Grandpa Murphy had told her about this land, had suggested she try to buy it and keep it in the family, it had seemed the perfect solution. This property had been the only land she’d ever gotten excited about. Land far enough away that her parents couldn’t lie and say, We stopped by on our way to—

A knock on the front door cut into Penelope’s conflicted thoughts. She frowned and made her way up the hall to the living room.

A glance out the windows told her it was Brandon Wilkes. Her mouth tightened. Wouldn’t he be glad to know about her commission being canceled?

Penelope threw open the door. “Yes? What do you want now? Me to move to the moon?”

Brandon blinked. “Uh, well…I guess I deserved that. What with my crazy offer. I just—” Brandon broke off. “I came by to apologize. I was taking out my disappointment on you. If…er…if you need a hand with anything, all you have to do is let ’em know at the sheriff’s department. I work mostly nights, but they’ll find me during the day.”

He turned to make his way down the cinder blocks she’d stacked up as impromptu porch steps.

“Wait!”

Brandon paused, turned to her slowly.

“Are you simply being polite? Or do you mean it?”

“Mean what?”

“Your offer.” Penelope’s mouth went dry. “To help.”

“Sure, I mean it. What do you need?”

A wave of uncertainty swamped her. What did she need? A stiff drink, for starters. A sale for a project she’d already ordered the materials for. Any way to save money.

“That barn you were talking about,” she said. “The pole barn. Can you help me build it?”

CHAPTER FOUR

“M E ? H ELP YOU build a barn?”

Brandon’s lowered eyebrows and his shocked expression told Penelope all she needed to know.

“Forget it. Just forget it.” Her hope turned into a leaden lump of disappointment in her stomach. She turned for the door.

He added, his voice heavy with incredulity, “Let me get this straight. You want a pole barn? And you want me to help you?”

“Well, you needn’t be so snippy about it. You were the one who mentioned the pole barn. You sounded nice the other day, before you got all bent out of shape about my grandfather—” She choked off the words, not able to repeat his accusation. Her grandfather a thief. Right. That was about as true as the fraud charges they’d railroaded him with in this federal indictment.

“Yeah, before I got all bent out of shape about your grandfather being a crook. I take it you don’t know him that well.”

She bristled. “I know him better than you do. He is my grandfather, after all.”

Brandon’s lips curled in disdain. “Well, you must see him in a whole different way than I do, then. Maybe with both eyes closed.”

She gasped. “I don’t have to listen to this!” Penelope headed for the door. She tried to turn the knob, but a tanned hand with long fingers wrapped over hers. She jumped at the contact and looked back over her shoulder.

“Hold it!” Brandon was so close, she could have kissed him. If he wasn’t such a jerk.

I don’t have time for this, not with a man who thinks my grandfather—I’ve got a financial disaster raining down on me…

Before she could protest, Brandon stepped back. “Sorry. I didn’t want you to go stomping off into the house. Not before I had a chance to, well, show you something.”

“Who says I’m interested?”

“Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking. It’s out here, behind where you’ve put your house.”

Penelope narrowed her eyes and assessed him.

What the heck. What could it hurt? “Let me get my cell phone,” she said. If he turned out to be as big a nut as she suspected, at least she could fire off a 911 call.

Phone in hand, she returned to the porch. “Okay. I’m ready for show-and-tell.”

He struck out down the porch and led the way to the back of the house. She had to double-time it to keep up with his long strides over the uneven field. Brandon didn’t speak, though, not until he reached a fence splitting her acreage from the neatly harrowed field next to it. The contrast, her untended land adjacent to the cultivated field, couldn’t have been more stark.

“This is it? You wanted to show me a fence? It’s the land line. Are you going to argue that it’s not accurate? Because, let me assure you, I had a new survey done to confirm it,” Penelope said.

Brandon put his hands on his hips. “It’s in the wrong place, all right. It shouldn’t be there at all.”

Penelope rolled her eyes. Not more about this land business. Grandpa Murphy said people were out to get him, and this guy was proof of that.

“I bought this land at a public auction. The bank loaned me money on it. I can prove the title is clear.”

“Well, let me tell you a little about this land.” Brandon couldn’t seem to get his next words out. Penelope saw raw pain in his eyes.

It caught her short. She didn’t turn and walk off as she’d intended to. Instead, she waited to see what he would finally say.

“My uncle farmed this land. This was the first acreage he ever owned.” Brandon swept an arm over the expanse of the field. He pointed out Penelope’s house. “Where your house is now, that’s where he first plowed, the day he bought the land. You ought to hear him tell the story. He didn’t even have a tractor to plow with, so he borrowed—”

He didn’t finish, but looked embarrassed. “Anyway, like I said, this land has been Uncle Jake’s since he was just out of school. And then a couple of years ago—” Now Brandon clenched his jaw, along with his fists.

“He needed the money, so he took what Grandpa Murphy offered him,” Penelope supplied. “Look, I’m sorry—”

Brandon exploded. “He needed the money because Murphy defrauded a bunch of landowners in this county. His brother-in-law—I guess that’s your family, too, huh?”

“Uh, no. Grandpa Murphy divorced my grandmother years ago and he remarried. Why am I explaining this to you? My grandfather is not a crook—”

“Tell that to the federal investigators itching to indict him.” Before she could protest, he said, “Murphy and the tax commissioner, who just happened to be his wife’s brother, handpicked a few of the old farmers who tended to pay with cash. It was common knowledge in this county. When the tax commissioner suddenly turned up with a tax notice in his hand, my Uncle Jake couldn’t produce a paid receipt. That’s when Murphy jumped in with his oh-so-convenient ‘help.’ It nearly killed Uncle Jake to lose this land. But what choice did he have?”

“Forgive me if I find it hard to believe your version of events.” Penelope gazed around the open land and saw how carefully it had been tended on the other side of the new fence. She thought about how proud she’d been of her purchase. How hard it must have been for the person who had lost it.

Sympathy softened her voice as she said, “Listen, I know this must be difficult for you. I think it’s admirable that you’re trying to look out for your uncle.”

“This fence…I plowed a tractor over this land many a day. I never dreamed…” Brandon shook his head. “My uncle’s not in the best of health. He’s old, and he lost half of his farm to Murphy. Before then, he and I were partners. He still farms—well, I do most of the heavy work—but it’s just really small-time. See, this summer Murphy planted dodder vine in Uncle Jake’s cotton, and he didn’t have crop insurance.”

Penelope folded her arms across her chest. “Grandpa Murphy’s told me all about the way the federal government is saying that he’s some sort of criminal mastermind, all because some noxious weed got brought in by a drifter from Texas.”

Brandon’s chuckle was bitter. “Yeah, right. I’m sure the way Murphy tells it, he didn’t have a thing to do with either coercing JT Griggs into bringing dodder vine here or swindling Uncle Jake. But let me tell you something—Richard Murphy’s no sweet old grandfather. He’s always working the angles.”

Brandon’s tone was so scornful that Penelope ignored his yammering about people she didn’t know and concentrated instead on the situation at hand. “Okay, so let’s use logic on this. Why on earth would my grandfather go to all that trouble? Land’s land, right? Why would he risk going to jail to get this particular tract?”

Brandon lifted his shoulders. “I gave up trying to figure out Murphy a long time ago. But my idea is that pond over there.”

“The pond?” Penelope squinted. She shaded her eyes and took in the large pond that stretched back from the land’s dip toward the creek and an old abandoned rail spur. “What good would that do him?”

“Irrigation. That’s a natural pond, and there’s a stream that ends up in a small creek. It’s what my uncle used to irrigate this section of his farm. Your grandfather used it for a water supply for his migrant workers and to deprive my uncle of a way to water his crops.”

“So that’s what this is about?” Penelope compressed her lips and kicked at the dirt. “You want the water? Fine, run irrigation from it. I’m not using it. But a piece of advice—next time you want to sweet-talk someone into letting you access her water, don’t accuse her grandfather of being a crook.”

“It’s not just the water. I want the land. The land is ours, well, Uncle Jake’s. I want it back for him. I tried to buy this land for him at auction, and you ran the cost up. I should have known Murphy had something to do with it. You certainly don’t need thirty acres of prime farmland.”

She stood stock-still, the solution to her money crunch within her grasp. “I don’t need all this land, you’re right. If you want it so badly, then maybe we can work out a deal. I’ll sell you all but, say, five acres.”

If she’d expected Brandon to extend a tanned forearm in a glad handshake and say Sold! he didn’t. Instead he uttered an oath and shook his head.

“Hey, you want it. I’m offering. I’ll even—” Penelope shrugged. “I’m fair. I’ll sell it for what I paid for it. You can’t beat that, can you?”

Brandon’s eyes darkened. “What you paid for it was at least twice what Murphy paid my uncle. He paid him, to the dime, the taxes and penalties and interest the county said he owed.”

“Well, why didn’t your uncle fight it?”

“He did. How do you think he lost what he did? Damn lawyers took his savings and then in the end, he didn’t have proof that he’d paid. My uncle’s—” Brandon winced. “Ah, forget it. I thought I could make you understand.”

“Brandon…” Maybe it was the way his pain and loss seemed at odds with his big frame. But something made her reach out and touch his arm. “I can’t pretend to understand what your uncle went through. But I know how I feel, seeing my grandfather losing all his land and in so much legal trouble. I know how helpless I feel. It must be twice as bad for you.”

“I do feel helpless. I want to fix it, you know?” Brandon pushed his fingers through his hair then dropped his hand. He shrugged. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

“Maybe you haven’t. I’m serious about selling part of the land.” Penelope couldn’t meet his eyes as she recalled the letter she’d received earlier in the day. “Let’s just say I’m in sudden need of money.”

“But—” Brandon frowned.

“But what?”

“What about your sculpture? I thought all you had to do was weld three pieces of stainless steel together and, presto, you were fifty grand richer.”

She sighed. “They canceled the commission. I’ve already bought the materials, and if I returned them, I’d have to pay shipping and a hefty restocking fee. So I’m going to build it anyway. But I need money. You want the land. Why not make everybody happy?”

Brandon nodded, and she could see from his expression he was considering it. She clenched her fists in anticipation, slipped her index finger across her middle finger.

Please, please, please, buy this land.

But then his eyes lit on the fence again, and his expression hardened. “Okay. On two conditions. One, you have to sell it to me for fair market value before you ran up the price—that’s all the bank would lend me. And two, that not one dime of my money goes to Richard Murphy.”

“Are you out of your tree? You can’t tell me what I do with the money after you get the land, any more than I can tell you what to do with the land.”

“So I’m right, then? That’s why you need the money? For Murphy?”

“No, I need the money to survive on, to pay my bills. But if my grandfather needs help, you can bet I’ll share what I have. He’s old, Brandon, and frail and I don’t want him in prison.”

“Frail? Richard Murphy frail? He’s healthy as a horse—no, make that an ox. You make him sound like he’s on his last legs.” Brandon narrowed his eyes. “No. As bad as I want this land back in my family, I will not pay Richard Murphy, not a red cent. And I sure won’t add to his legal defense fund. He may be your grandfather, but he belongs in jail. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure he ends up there.”

With that, he stalked back toward the house and his truck, leaving Penelope speechless.

CHAPTER FIVE

B RANDON HADN’T REALIZED how tight his fists were until his knuckles started aching. He stood by his truck and sucked in a purposeful breath. In. Out. In again. Slow exhale.

Better. The idea that he’d let one cent of his money go to Richard Murphy’s lawyers…

No. Calm down. Think.

The vinyl seat crackled under him as he slammed the door with one hand and punched in Ryan MacIntosh’s number on his cell phone with the other.

“Ryan? You got a few minutes? If you do, I’m on the way over.”

His best friend didn’t hesitate. “Come on. Mee-Maw’s got lunch on the table and Becca can put out another plate. We’ve got Sean Courtland here, too, so we can all hear what he has to say about the investigation.”

Brandon didn’t know what cheered him up more. Was it the idea of Ryan’s grandmother’s legendary meals? Or the possibility that in the course of the dinner, Sean, the FBI agent who’d been investigating Murphy, might have news? Ostensibly, Sean was there to gather more information from one of the government’s star witnesses, Ryan’s grandmother. Sean, though, didn’t mind giving the latest to Brandon. Sean would wink and chalk it up to interagency cooperation.

During the ten minutes or so it took him to drive over to the MacIntosh farm, Brandon managed to gain a more positive attitude. Murphy was going down, and soon. Maybe Sean was there to tell them that the federal indictment, which had already dragged on for a couple of months without materializing, was about to be handed down.

Besides, Brandon could never come to the MacIntosh farm without remembering how Ryan and Becca, Ryan’s new wife, had finally put Murphy in the government’s crosshairs. And if that wasn’t cause to celebrate, he didn’t know what was.

The smell of country-fried steak and gravy enveloped him as Mee-Maw opened the door for him. Her lined face was wreathed in smiles.

“Well, if it ain’t my favorite deputy! C’mon in, Brandon! We’ve got plenty. Wash up and go fix your plate.”

He heard the hubbub of conversation at the kitchen table as he scrubbed his hands in the bathroom sink.

If only I could wash away the memory of Penelope Langston defending her grandfather. It just went to show that you couldn’t judge a person by how she looked, no matter how pretty.

Penelope’s dark eyes, snapping with fire, came back to him. She was as easy to read as a mood ring: when she was mad, her eyes went almost black. Otherwise they were warm and brown, almost a melted caramel.

At the table, Brandon pulled out a ladder-back chair and settled in it.

Becca grinned. “Now this is better than any lunch in town, isn’t it?” she asked as she passed him a bowl of creamed potatoes. “I swear, Mee-Maw’s cooking was half the reason I married Ryan.”

Brandon chuckled. He knew better than that. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Ryan was head over heels for Becca—and vice versa. He wondered if, when they had kids, the children would inherit Becca’s blond hair or Ryan’s red.

Sean Courtland lifted up a big fluffy biscuit and inspected it. “Ma’am, these are so good that I might have to report it as a gourmet gift. It’s lucky this is my day off and I’m not on duty.”

Mee-Maw beamed. “Aw, just a little something I threw together. Next time I’ll cook you some good fried chicken. Brandon, how’s your Uncle Jake doing?”

Brandon’s creamed potatoes suddenly looked a lot less appetizing. He pushed the food listlessly on his plate. “He’s okay, I guess. Same as always. Impatient to hear what the latest is on Murphy.”

Sean swallowed the bite of biscuit he’d just taken before answering. “U.S. attorney still wants more. You know these guys, they don’t indict anything less than a slam-dunk case. They don’t want to sully their conviction rate with a not-guilty verdict.”

“How much more do they need? I thought we’d given them enough for their slam-dunk conviction. If I can’t see Murphy go to jail for swindling Uncle Jake, I want to at least see the feds take him down for his crop insurance fraud.” Brandon set the gravy boat down harder than he should have, netting a scolding look from Mee-Maw. He double-checked to make sure no gravy had splashed on her tablecloth.

“Brandon’s right,” Ryan said. “They’ve got the crop insurance adjustor, they’ve got, what, two of the farmers who were conspiring with Murphy. They’ve got JT Griggs willing to testify that Murphy made him bring in the dodder vine with intent to defraud the government.”

At the mention of JT’s name, Sean frowned. “JT has a credibility issue, guys, and you know it. He’s served time. I think he’s telling the truth, the U.S. attorney thinks he is…but will the jury? And so that’s why they want more guys to plead out and agree to testify against Murphy. It will happen. The big news I wanted to tell you—Becca, you’ll really get excited about this—we’ve run down the guy who attacked Becca in her motel room. And his shyster lawyer is about to sign off on a plea agreement.”

“So that’s another nail in Murphy’s coffin?” Brandon’s appetite came back with renewed gusto. “The guy is willing to say Murphy put him up to it?”

“Well, no,” Sean conceded. “He’s saying it was the brainstorm of that other farmer, Tate. But if we put pressure on Tate, then Tate will roll over on Murphy.”

Brandon chewed on the steak as he considered this and decided, if it wasn’t perfect, at least it was a move in the right direction. “That will complicate Murphy’s legal woes. Hey, did you guys know Penelope Langston is Murphy’s granddaughter?”

Becca’s and Ryan’s mouths dropped open, but Brandon noted Sean didn’t look as surprised.

“Yeah. We’d come up on that in our investigation. She’s some sort of artist, I think, from Oregon, but she’d been living in New York. Apparently she came down here to offer moral support.”

“She’s willing to offer him more than moral support. She had the nerve to offer to sell me the land—Uncle Jake’s land, mind you—to raise money for Murphy.” Brandon took a swig of iced tea that did nothing to cool off his temper.

“She said that?” Becca’s eyes rounded. “That’s…that’s brassy.”

“Well, she didn’t exactly put it that way. She’s a sculptor, and she had this big sale for, I kid you not, three pieces of stainless steel welded together, but it fell through. So now she needs money. I just didn’t want any of my money ending up in Richard Murphy’s hands. When she wouldn’t agree to that stipulation, I told her no. I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”

Ryan nodded as he passed the tall pitcher of iced tea to Becca. “Sounds like you can wait her out, then. If she needs money, then maybe you can pick up the land in a foreclosure deal.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Brandon agreed. “It galls me to even think about Uncle Jake being forced to sell to Murphy in the first place.”

“I’m still working with the state’s revenue department on that, Brandon,” Becca said. “They’re saying now that the forced sales of both this property and your uncle’s might not be legal. So Uncle Jake might get the land after all.”

“Now that’s more like it!” Brandon rubbed his hands together.

“If the title’s in question…” Sean trailed off in thought.

“Yeah?” Brandon prompted.

“Well, I was thinking of adverse possession. If the title’s in question, and you cultivate the land for seven years, it’s yours anyway.”

“You mean, just act like it’s mine and it turns into my land?”

“Yeah. The key is the action has to be hostile, without permission from the landowner, but the landowner in turn has to not put a stop to it. The law says that if the landowner doesn’t care about someone else improving or cultivating land, the land should belong to the one making the investment of money and labor. Of course, seven years is a long time to wait.”

“Maybe by then Penelope Langston will be gone,” Brandon said.

Mee-Maw cleared her throat, and the group of them turned toward her at the head of the table.

“Mee-Maw? You have something on your mind?” Ryan asked.

Ryan’s grandmother tore at a biscuit in her fingers, shredding it absentmindedly. “I remember that girl. Not well, mind you. She hasn’t been around here in years. Why, I guess she was seven or eight the last time she came to visit. That little one—Penelope, you say? Not big as a minute, and always drawing. I kept her some, that last time, because of course the likes of Murphy couldn’t be bothered with entertaining his granddaughter. She had a good heart, was right faithful about helping me nurse a calf and see to the chickens.”

“So what are you trying to say, Mee-Maw?” Brandon asked. “That she can’t have grown up to be like Murphy if she was willing to help you bottle-feed a calf?”

Mee-Maw stretched out a gnarled finger and shook it in Brandon’s direction. “Young man, people aren’t always what they seem at first blush. Yes, sir, most times they are, and you best not expect much more out of ’em, but people’s hearts don’t change. I expect it’s Penelope’s heart that’s telling her to look after her grandfather, even if he is a black-hearted crook. I’d be more worried about her if she didn’t have some speck of caring for the man. So don’t you be too hard on her.”

Brandon took the chastisement on the chin. But he reserved judgment. How could anyone be fooled by the likes of Richard Murphy?

CHAPTER SIX

“G RANDPA ! No! What do you think you’re doing?”

Just inside Grandpa Murphy’s kitchen door, Penelope made a grab for the glazed doughnut in her grandfather’s hand. Grandpa Murphy snatched it back just out of her reach, a scowl on his face.

“Penny-girl! It’ll be all right—I’ll take an extra insulin shot. No big deal.”

But Penelope closed the gap between them, confiscated the doughnut and the eleven still in the box. “I’ll just go put this in my car where they won’t tempt you. Grandpa, you know you’ve been having trouble with your sugar levels. You have to—”

“Have absolutely no damn fun, that’s what I have to do. Penny-girl, what’s one little ol’ doughnut when I might be behind bars soon? They’re circling in for the kill, the lot of ’em.”

Penelope wrapped her arm around her grandfather’s too-big middle and gave him an encouraging hug. “You are not supposed to be worrying, remember? You told me the doctor said that stress complicated regulating your blood-sugar levels. Those lawyers of yours will do their job. There is such a thing as reasonable doubt and innocent before proven guilty.”

Grandpa Murphy hugged her back. “You are a sight for sore eyes. Sorry I’m such a sourpuss, girl.”

Penelope felt a tug on the box in her hand. Grandpa stepped back, a doughnut triumphantly in his grasp and took a quick bite out of it.

“You are absolutely incorrigible, did you know that? Who brought you those doughnuts, anyway? Now we’ve got to fuss with the test strips and check to see how much insulin you need, and you’ll probably need a shot.”

He waved away her concerns and took another bite. “And you tell me not to worry. You’re a fine one to be talking. I bought my own doughnuts, thank you very much. Sit down here at the table. Lord, you know how many years I wanted you around so I could have the pleasure of you just dropping in for an unexpected visit?”

His words blew away her aggravation. In the scheme of things, what was one doughnut as long as she could make sure his blood sugar was okay before she left? She’d missed him for so long. If only her mother could have gotten along with Grandpa Murphy. If only Mom had given him a chance.

They sat down at Grandpa Murphy’s kitchen table and she watched as he savored the doughnut, licking the last of the glaze off his fingertips. “Bum pancreas. Don’t ever let your pancreas go to pot, girl. Worst thing in the world.”

“Well, not the worst, surely.”

“No, I’d guess federal prison is worse.”

Penelope’s heart squeezed in her chest. “Your lawyers will help you, Grandpa. You’re not going to prison. You didn’t do anything wrong, right? They don’t put innocent people in prison.”

“They do if they’re out for blood. And they are out for blood—mine. If they’ll believe that JT, a farmhand with no high school degree, somebody who’s been in the clink before, I don’t have a chance. I might as well eat that whole damn box of doughnuts.”

“Are we feeling sorry for ourselves today?” Penelope met his eyes pointedly.

Grandpa Murphy’s mouth pulled down even more, but then he lifted his chin. “To hell with them. I’m not going to let them get me down. Cheer me up, Penelope, tell me something to get my mind off my troubles.”

“Uh…” She thought about the reason she’d come over, to ask about Brandon Wilkes’s intense hatred of her grandfather.

“That sculpture you’re working on. You got started on it yet?”

Ouch. Another tender point. She hadn’t intended on telling him about the cancelled commission. “Well. About that. I’ve had a bit of a setback. The company has changed its mind.”

“About buying it? Just as well you hadn’t got started on it then. Tell ’em to go jump in a lake somewhere. Bad break for you, Penny-girl, but I’ll bet you’ll get everything figured out. You’re a Murphy, after all, and Murphys land on their feet.”

She reached over and patted his hand. “I’m still going to do it. Don’t worry. I’m not giving up yet. But thanks, Grandpa, for not going all ballistic on me. Mom would have insisted I turn everything back over to the bank, pack up and come home.”

“Your mother, bless her heart, is nothing if she’s not a Chicken Little. Always in an uproar about something.” He leaned back in his chair, the back of it creaking under his weight. “So what are your plans? You have enough money to make it?”

“I’m…I’m not sure. Haven’t landed on my feet yet, but I’m working on it.” She tried to inject a cheerful, confident note in her voice.

“I might have just the thing for you, then. If you don’t need that entire tract of land, you interested in selling part of it?”

She cocked her head to one side and stared at him. “Is it something in the air?”

“What do you mean?”

Penelope hesitated. “Brandon Wilkes came—”

Grandpa Murphy uttered a foul word.

Penelope laughed uneasily. “I take it you don’t have any more warm, fuzzy feelings for him than he does for you.”

“Busybody deputy. It was him and Ryan MacIntosh and that Becca Reynolds MacIntosh hooked up with—all of them got me in this jam I’m in. They’d like nothing more than to see me rot behind bars, Penelope. You stay away from them.”

“That won’t be a problem. I’ve not been the one looking for Brandon, that’s for sure.” The dark expression on Brandon’s good-looking face came back fresh and clear. He’d been so self-righteous about the whole thing, as though there were no doubt that her grandfather had orchestrated the loss of his uncle’s land.

He really believed it, too. Penelope had seen the way his expression had softened when he talked about his uncle, had seen pain in his eyes. That pain had driven her here, to be sure that she wasn’t profiting off something that hadn’t been on the up-and-up.

“Grandpa Murphy?” Penelope struggled to couch the question in a nonaccusatory way. “About how you got the Wilkes property…”

Grandpa’s lips thinned. “Told you, girl. I told you all that when I first called you about the banks calling in all my notes and my entire place going on the auction block. Damn banks, getting all my money. I got the land when Jake Wilkes’s old tax debt finally caught up with him. A man doesn’t think he has to pay taxes and then makes up all kinds of stories about how he paid it. Well, why can’t he produce proof, I say?”

“Brandon said there were other—”

“You listening to that Brandon Wilkes? You believe that lug of a deputy over me? Your own flesh and blood?” he thundered, his face turning purple.

Penelope held up a hand. “Whoa, calm down, Grandpa. Of course I believe you. I wanted to be sure, that’s all.”

She could see a storm of emotions swirl over him, but finally his expression settled into an uneasy calm. “Yeah. Yeah. That Brandon can spin a sad tale, that’s for damn sure. I can see why you felt the need to ask, although, I can’t lie. It cuts that you doubted me, your own grandfather.”

“I’m sorry, Grandpa. I meant…I wasn’t questioning…well, I guess I was, wasn’t I?” Penelope chuckled, but that didn’t ease the tension.

“It’s okay, Penelope. I understand. But listen, about your money problems.”

The abrupt shift in topic confused her for a moment. “That’s okay, Grandpa, I’ll figure—”

“No, no. I want to hook you up with some people, some folks who will give you good money for your land. They’ve been after it for a while. Before the banks started calling in their notes, I was about to sell the land you’ve got now to these people.”

“If they wanted the land, why didn’t they bid against me at the auction?”

“Didn’t know about it. It all happened so fast. Penny-girl, I hope you never have to see all you worked for being bid off on the auction block. It’s a horrible thing.”

She wrapped her fingers around his again and squeezed. The twist of his lips reminded her of Brandon’s when he’d tried to explain his uncle’s loss. “I feel really awful, Grandpa, that I managed to profit off your misfortune.”

He pulled his hand from hers and pressed his fingertips to his eyes. “Well, if I had to lose it all, I’m glad some of it went to you. That’s why I told you. You’re family, Penny-girl, and I knew you’d want to help out. I knew you wouldn’t want to see everything I’d worked for gone.”

“I do want to help.” Penelope dropped her gaze from him and busied herself with straightening her grandfather’s bottles of medicine in the center of the kitchen table. Did he have to take so much?

“Then talk to these people. They have this solid-waste facility company, based out of Florida. They do all this gee-whiz stuff to garbage and recycle it, all with robots and stuff. Hardly a human hand touches it.”

“Solid waste?” Penelope set down the bottle in her hand. “Oh, Grandpa, I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like—”

“It’s all real, what do you call it? Green? Keeps it out of landfills and stuff. I figured that’d be right up your alley, Penny-girl, as big on the environment as you are. And these guys are so hot for it that they’re willing to pay three times the market value. Why do you think I didn’t tell ’em about the auction? I figured you and me, we could sell it together.” He leaned forward in his chair, his face alight with excitement. “And then…well, no lie, Penny, I need every dime I can get for those vultures I call lawyers. I can’t face going to jail. You said you wanted to help me.”

Penelope struggled for the words to tell him no without hurting him. Solid waste? A company that, from the sound of it, used hardly any employees?

“Don’t say no. If you can’t say yes right now, say you’ll think about it, okay? Don’t say no,” Grandpa Murphy urged her. “Just think about it. There’s no rush. No rush at all.”

“I offered to sell to Brandon,” she confessed.

Again he let loose a foul expletive. With visible effort, he reined his temper back in. “He can’t beat this deal, Penny-girl. And remember, you can’t trust him. Not one whit. He’s the reason I’m in this mess to begin with.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Y OU’RE UP to something.”

Uncle Jake’s statement stopped Brandon in his tracks as he was coming out of his uncle’s toolshed. He looked down at the stakes and twine he held. His guilt made them feel poker-hot in his hands.

“No. I’m just helping out a neighbor,” Brandon said.

Uncle Jake narrowed his eyes and, with the hand not holding a bucket, shifted his cap. It was a move Brandon knew well, a gesture that signaled Uncle Jake’s keen mind was in full gear, calculating angles and motives. When Brandon had been in high school, that cap-shifting move meant Brandon was about to get busted, whether it was for sneaking out to join his buddies at the river or for a less-than-stellar grade he hadn’t told his mother about.

This time was no exception. “Hmm. That there is my surveying twine and my line level. And my stakes. Looks like you’re all set to help someone stake out a foundation.”

“A cement slab for a pole barn, actually.”

Uncle Jake got that “ah-ha” glint in his eyes. “Penelope Langston’s barn? You gonna help her with that after all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mind if I ask why you’re all het up to help her? A mighty quick change of heart, just saying.”

“I could say that’s how you and Mama raised me.” Brandon fidgeted with the spool of twine in hope that his hedged words would distract his uncle.

It didn’t happen.

“Right. You all of a sudden remembering your raisings, and all that. Way I see it, it’s got to be one of two things.” Uncle Jake set the bucket by his feet and propped himself against a nearby fence post. “Either she’s prettier than you’ve let on, or else you’re making some other kind of move on her. ’Cause the Brandon I know doesn’t forgive and forget and build pole barns.”

“I guess I should have asked, Uncle Jake, if you minded me helping her, but you should know, it’s not—”

“Mind? Son, that land is gone. It’s not ours anymore. Not one smidge of it. I knew that the day I realized I couldn’t find that paid receipt for my taxes. My mistake. My carelessness played right into Murphy’s and Melton’s hands. They tried it on a bunch of us, and the ones who’d kept their receipts—well, they’ve still got their land, now don’t they?”

“But Uncle Jake, if it hadn’t have been for Murphy, you would—”

“Uh-huh, you are up to some scheming. I didn’t think you had gotten rid of all that vinegar you were spewing.”

Brandon shifted his hold on the twine, stakes and the level. He looked down at them and leaned the stakes against the shed. What would he accomplish by helping Penelope? “I started thinking. She’s got money troubles. She won’t be able to hold on to the land that much longer, and we’ll be able to buy it. Plus, Becca MacIntosh is still working on proving the original sale wasn’t legal, so it may revert back to you without a penny being swapped. And, worse comes to worst, there’s the possibility of that adverse possession Sean was talking about. One way or another, we’ll get it back, Uncle Jake. Why shouldn’t I go ahead and start improving the land? We can always use another barn.”

Uncle Jake’s face creased in a frown. “Brandon, that most certainly is not the way your mama and I raised you. Your mama would be spinning in her grave like a chicken on a spit if she could hear you. You know how bad it hurt me to lose that land.”

“Which is why I’m trying to get it back.”

“And there’s that girl, ain’t hurt so much as a fly, and you’re scheming to diddle her out of the land same as Murphy diddled me out of it. I tell you, that land is cursed, Brandon. You’d do well to leave it alone.” Uncle Jake shook his head and looked off into the distance.

After a moment of silence that Brandon couldn’t figure out how to fill, his uncle snatched up the bucket and brushed past him. “I expect, though, as hardheaded as you are, you’ll have to figure that one out for yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when this comes back to bite you on the butt.”

A T THE SOUND of a vehicle coming along the driveway, Penelope looked up from the hole she was digging with her handheld spade to see a familiar dust-covered truck and knew Brandon was at the wheel. She tensed. What could he want now?

She rose to her feet. If he was here to malign her grandfather, he could hit the road.

Brandon had just slid one booted foot out of his truck door and onto her driveway when she rounded the front of his truck.

“Back to insult my family some more? Or are you still insisting I should give this land to you?”

He paused, one hand on the open window. Then he reached behind him and pulled out a bundle of stakes and a ball of twine.

“Oh, that’s rich,” she said, recognizing the items for what they were. “You’re already acting like it’s your land!”

“Whoa.” Brandon eased around the truck door and slammed it shut. “Can’t you even give a guy a chance to apologize?”

“Apologize?” Penelope didn’t bother to keep her suspicion out of her voice.

“Yeah. Okay, so I got a little hot under the collar. I’m not usually like that. It’s just this land.” Brandon clamped his mouth shut. He started again. “Anyway, it’s like Uncle Jake pointed out a few minutes ago. It’s his fault, ultimately. He was the one who couldn’t produce the receipt that proved he’d paid the taxes. My uncle’s never been much for paperwork, and this time it cost him. So about how I acted—to, er, make it up to you, I thought I’d help you out with your barn.”

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