Chapter 51
Good Clean Dirt
SLADE
“Lila.” Her mother’s voice is perfectly controlled. “You look...” Her mouth purses while she searches for the word.
Lila just waits, face neutral, eyes glittering. She’s regal and detached as a queen.
And if she’s the queen, I can be her bodyguard.
I don’t give her mother the chance to spew her poison.
“Lila looks beautiful,” I say to her mother.
Everyone looks at me.
Good. That’s where I want their attention.
“Slade Rhodes,” I say, and don’t extend my hand because I already know it won’t be taken. I do enjoy the twist of the knife when I tell them, with a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes, “Ain’t gonna give your new son-in-law the ole’ Sherwood family hug?”
“There’s mud on your boots,” her mother observes snippily.
“Prolly some horseshit, too,” I agree. “It’s a working ranch. Dirt’s the cleanest thing around here.”
I lean against the porch rail and let the devil I keep mostly leashed off its chain just enough to smirk, to let the drawl get thick as molasses. “Y’all better come on in. Get comfy. We’re family now, right? Got some elk on the grill. Fresh batch of blackberry moonshine. Then we can saddle up the horses and we’ll give you the grand tour.”
I’m laying it on unbelievably thick, but they seem to have no clue that I’m exaggerating for effect, which might be insulting if it wasn’t hilarious instead.
Her father’s silver eyebrows draw together. “Elk? Moonshine? It’s seven in the morning, young man.”
“That mean you want a cigar too? Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em, Pops.”
“I’ll take some of that blackberry moonshine,” Celia pipes up.
The other Sherwoods glare at her.
Celia shrugs a cashmere-clad shoulder. “It was a red-eye flight. I never even went to sleep. This is practically a night cap.”
“We won’t be staying,” her father says.
“Suit yourself,” I say.
Lila finally descends the porch steps, head held high. “What did you all come here for that couldn’t be said in an email?”
“You’ve been planning this.” Peter steps forward, jabbing a finger toward Lila. “You needed money. You couldn’t meet the conditions of the trust honestly. So you found the first guy who’d take you and offered him whatever it took to put a ring on your finger.”
“Excuse me?” I growl.
“Peter.” Her father’s voice is sharp.
But Peter’s already in it, too angry and desperate to mind those manners that got beat into him. “She wanted thatfive million dollars. That’s the whole story. She couldn’t get it legitimately so she?—”
“Look around you,” I tell him. “I assume you did your due diligence on me, or your lawyer did. Lord knows you lot wouldn’t trek out to Montana without doing your homework. So you know five mil ain’t shit to me. You know what this ranch is worth. You know what my contract history looks like. You, Pete, on the other hand, you sure could use that money. Why that might be, when a couple mil is a rounding error in the Sherwood Family Trust, is the question.”
I watch the color move up Peter’s neck.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
