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A shower, some clean clothes, and a half hour with his computer and Matt was almost himself again. He found Benjamin Morris—a retired banker who’d gone into the business of buying properties in trouble, then charging the debtors a higher interest rate—through Google. However, when Matt called to set up an appointment Mr. Morris was “not available until Monday.”
Though he had to wait several days to move forward, actually knowing where he was moving made him feel refreshed, renewed, and ready to prove the Mecate theory, as well as keep his job. He wasn’t going to let anyone—not even the luscious Gina O’Neil—blow it for him. Besides, considering the trouble she was in, his plan would benefit them both.
He spent Friday strolling around the fascinatingly old yet intriguingly updated Strater Hotel, having a glass of wine in their Spiritorium and dinner at the Mahogany Grille next door, where he opted to ignore the elk tenderloin in favor of the Kansas City strip.
On Saturday and Sunday Matt toured the overly western but still kind of fun Durango. They’d done a nice job keeping the downtown area reminiscent of the Old West. If he didn’t know better he’d think the bookstore and the candy store had actually been there since 1875.
In between his brief fits of tourism Matt did some research. Couldn’t let all that free Wi-Fi go to waste.
He discovered that Nahua Springs Ranch had gone to Gina as the only child following the accidental death of her parents. What that accidental death had been was never fully explained beyond “accident,” which could cover any manner of things. That it wasn’t revealed just how high the O’Neils were in the pecking order of the area.
Nahua Springs had once been a well-respected quarter-horse ranch. Betsy O’Neil was one of the top breeders and Pete one of the best trainers. It wasn’t until after they’d died that Nahua Springs had morphed from real ranch to dude.
Though it was considered one of the finest in the area, nevertheless, the place had been in trouble for a while. You had to sell a lot of “I wanna be a cowboy” packages just to make the mortgage every month, and that was before you figured in taxes that in recent years had bloomed well past excruciating.
In truth, without the intervention of Benjamin Morris, Nahua Springs would have been lost years ago.
Matt rubbed his tired eyes. Gina had been responsible for the place since she was fifteen. She could use a little help, and he was just the man to give it to her. She’d be so grateful.
He returned to the computer, figuring he should print another copy of the photograph Gina had snatched from his hand—he was certain they had an office center downstairs where he could do just that—but he Googled his brains out and couldn’t find it. The picture was just … gone.
“Dammit,” he muttered. Someone had removed it.
Gina? Or Jase? Did it matter?
He’d probably come across the image eventually—the Internet was like that—but why waste any more time? Matt didn’t need the photo to remember what the area looked like.
From the expression on Gina’s face when he’d shown it to her, she wasn’t going to forget it anytime soon, either.
* * *
Gina would have liked to head directly into town and confront Benjamin Morris. Unfortunately, his office was closed for the weekend. Probably for the best, since she had to spend the next few days scheduling spa treatments and entertaining their guests.
SOP for the final night of the spa portion of the package was a bonfire, complete with a local crooner who sang amusing cowboy ditties with help from the guests.
Mel loved it. He and the entertainment began a dueling song contest that had begun as amusing, with Mel continuing to pull old favorites from his boys’ school days like:
“A bum sat by the sewer
And by the sewer he died
And at the coroner’s inquest
They called it ‘sewer side’
Oh, it ain’t gonna rain no more, no more
It ain’t gonna rain no more
How in the heck can I wash around my neck
If it ain’t gonna rain no more?”
But later the contest segued into poetry and became disturbing when a few too many Moonshine Mollys, Isaac’s concoction that tasted like a weak whiskey sour but packed the punch of a double Long Island Iced Tea, led to the following:
“There once was a fellow McSweeny
Who spilled some gin on his weenie
