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“As soon as your friend gets back in town, you tell him Liberty Holiday is looking for him. And I always find what I’m looking for.”
Chapter Seven
“So let me get this straight. This Jesse Cates said that Corbin knows it’s our family’s ranch he’s foreclosing on?” Sweetie added another packet of sugar to her coffee. She appeared to have a sweet tooth this morning. She’d ordered two lemon poppy seed muffins and had already inhaled one.
Liberty was meeting Sweetie and Cloe that morning at the Nothin’ But Muffins café for breakfast. Since it was a glorious spring morning, they had decided to sit at one of the outside picnic tables. That, and they didn’t want people listening in on their conversation. Not that the townsfolk didn’t already know all about the Holiday Ranch’s troubles. Gossip had always spread like wildfire in Wilder. Since most of the folks inside the café were staring out the window at them, she figured they were hoping to read lips and get some more.
Liberty shot them an annoyed look before she returned her attention to the conversation. “That’s what Jesse said. But I don’t trust the man as far as I can throw him. So I’m not going to believe Corbin doesn’t know it’s the Holiday Ranch he’s foreclosing on until I talk to him myself.”
“When does he get back?” Sweetie peeled back the wrapper of her second muffin and took a big bite. Obviously, being a newlywed made you hungry. Cloe was on her second muffin too. Although she was eating for two so it was understandable. Liberty had only ordered black coffee. She’d had another sleepless night . . . this time because of an annoying rodeo cowboy.
“Jesse isn’t sure when Corbin will get back. Which is suspicious. If he and Corbin are friends, why wouldn’t he know?”
“But why would he lie about that?” Cloe asked.
“Why would Corbin ask Jesse to do his dirty work? That doesn’t make any sense either. A rodeo roper knows nothing about the loan business—although he claims he does.”
“Did you Google him?” Sweetie asked.
“Of course. And all I found was his rodeo stats. Mediocre stats at best. And you should see his old truck.” She rolled her eyes. “A bigger, mud-splattered redneck-mobile I’ve never seen in my life. And his sweat-stained, crumpled cowboy hat is just as bad. The thing has to be twenty years old if it’s a day.”
“So you’re judging a man by his truck and hat?” Cloe sent her a disappointed look.
“It’s not just his truck and hat. It’s his attitude. He’s this smug, cocky jerk who struts around like his crap don’t stink.” When Sweetie exchanged knowing looks with Cloe, Liberty glanced between her sisters. “What?”
Sweetie shrugged. “It just seems like you’re rather taken with this Jesse.”
“Taken? I’m certainly not taken with Jesse Cates.”
“Then why were you kissing him in the barn?”
Liberty huffed. “Mimi! I should have known she couldn’t keep a secret.” She glanced at the people looking out the window. “I’d be surprised if the entire town doesn’t know by now.”
“Mimi wouldn’t tell the town about that,” Cloe said. “Just family. And I don’t know why you’d want to keep that a secret from us? We’re your sisters, Libby. You can tell us anything.”
Sweetie polished off the muffin and sucked the lemon icing off her fingers. “Clo’s right. The Holiday Secret Sisterhood took a vow a long time ago to never keep secrets from each other. So do you want to tell us what’s really going on between you and Jesse?”
“Nothing is going on between us . . . except two random kisses.”
Sweetie’s eyebrows lifted. “Two?”
“We sort of kissed on the porch when he was leaving.”
“That doesn’t sound like nothing,” Cloe said. “Or random. One kiss can be random, but two?”
“Okay, so we’re physically attracted to each other. But it’s not going anywhere. Not only because he’s friends with the man who is trying to foreclose on our family’s ranch, but also because I’m too busy running a business to get into a relationship right now. As soon as I talk to Corbin and figure out what’s going on, I intend to get back to that business.”
“And Jesse didn’t have any information on why Corbin is foreclosing?”
She shook her head. “He acted like he didn’t. Which makes Mimi think that if we suck up to him, he just might convince Corbin to stop the foreclosure proceedings. But I’m not about to pretend to like the man when I don’t.”
“You liked him enough to kiss him,” Sweetie pointed out with a smug grin.
“I’ve kissed a lot of boys I didn’t particularly like. It’s called letting your hormones get the best of you. Believe me, it won’t happen again.”
“It shouldn’t,” Cloe said. “If Jesse is friends with Corbin, you and him getting involved isn’t a good idea. It already sounds like you’ve gotten off on the wrong foot with him. I agree with Mimi. He could be the answer to all our problems.” She hesitated. “Which is why I think it would be better if you went back to Houston and let Sweetie or me deal with him.”
Liberty should have taken her sister up on the offer without hesitation and thanked her lucky stars that she could get back to Houston. But there was one problem: it wasn’t in her nature to quit. When she set a task or a goal for herself, she achieved it. And she had set the goal of making sure her parents and grandma got to keep their home and Rome and Cloe could buy the ranch so it stayed in the family.
