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Gina, in the middle of wiping up the mess, paused. The overhead lights caught Jase’s dark eyes, making them loom black as a starless night. For an instant he looked like someone she didn’t know. “Are you nuts?”
Jase shrugged. “He’s gonna take the ranch. I wouldn’t mind getting a few licks first.”
“Take the ranch?” All of Gina’s horrible scenarios came rushing back. Teo in traction, fat lip, black eye, talking to his lawyer, instigating lawsuits. Huge earthmovers rolling up the road within the week.
“How could you?” Gina threw the sopping dishrag at Jase’s head. He caught it with one hand and tossed it into the sink. She really couldn’t get a good throw with something so flimsy. Next time she’d use her coffee mug. “So he lied. So he kissed me. You didn’t have to break him.”
Fanny stopped her stirring. “Who kissed you?”
Jase, who’d been taking an impossibly large sip of some very hot coffee, paused with the mug still to his lips. His glance flicked to his mother, then back to Gina before he lowered the mug and swallowed. “What are you talking about?”
“You hurt Teo, and now he’s suing us. We’re gonna lose the ranch.”
Jase set the cup down so hard Gina thought it might shatter. Then he picked up an envelope from the counter and tossed it onto the table, where it skidded across the surface so fast she had to slap her palm on top of it to keep the thing from sliding off the other side.
“I’d forgotten about that asshole,” Jase said. “But obviously you haven’t. Maybe that’ll bring your mind back to more important things than pretty boy.”
He stalked out of the house, slamming the door behind him. Gina opened the envelope and discovered that Jase was right.
Any thoughts of Teo Mecate instantly disappeared as soon as she read what lay inside.
* * *
Matt made the mistake of asking his rental GPS to direct him to the nearest town, which he then drove right through without stopping, since it was composed of a few houses and several stray dogs.
After he’d driven five miles down the highway and been told by an annoyingly prim British voice that he must make a “legal U-turn,” he’d done so and discovered the sign for Nomad as he’d come back in the other side.
Since Matt couldn’t find a single business establishment—no gas station, no restaurant, not even a tavern—with his eyes or the damn GPS, he’d knocked on the only house with a car in the driveway (even though it was up on blocks, it was still a car) and been told by the seemingly alone ten-year-old kid that the nearest “real” town was Durango.
Matt had known this, having flown into it. He’d just figured there had to be another one closer to the ranch than forty miles away. Why he’d figured that he had no idea. Unless it was because the uppity British voice on the GPS had told him so.
He’d driven close to a half hour back in the direction he’d come, then another hour farther on roads that really needed some work. By the time he reached Durango, just after five, any inquiries he might have made at the courthouse or a local bank had to be postponed.
Matt had been tempted to drive directly to the airport and fly home. But the sight of the Strater Hotel convinced him to at least stay the night.
The Strater was an historic landmark in downtown Durango. Built in the late 1880s by the pharmacist Henry Strater, who didn’t have the money, the experience, or enough years on the planet to enter into a contract when he started, the building had become a testament to old-time Western ingenuity. Henry built his dream with spit, grit, and imagination, and the hotel became not only prosperous but also a legend.
The place had been remodeled by the latest owners and now boasted ninety-three Victorian rooms, each with a plumbing upgrade.
The desk clerk leaned forward, lowering his voice as if to impart a really great secret. “Louis L’Amour always stayed in room two-twenty-two.”
“Okay.” Matt wasn’t sure why that was important.
“He said the music from the Diamond Belle Saloon right below helped him to write all those books.”
“Good for him.”
“Would you like to stay there? It’s open.”
“Why would I want to listen to music?”
The clerk glanced pointedly at the laptop case in Matt’s hand.
“Oh,” he said. “I’m not a writer. Just…”
“You don’t have to explain, sir. Many of our guests are addicted to the Internet.” He straightened, tapping the keys of his computer, then giving a pleased nod at what his keyboard prowess had wrought. “Would you like a room with free wireless Internet?”
Matt didn’t answer at first, figuring the question had been rhetorical—who wouldn’t want free wireless Internet?—but when the clerk continued to stare at him with his so light as to be almost invisible eyebrows raised Matt finally said, “Sure!”
