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last sighting of it. Close to a mile was his best guess. Next he attempted to triangulate where a line from that point would intersect the road. It wasn’t an easy task without landmarks to guide him.
As he approached the imaginary junction, Ty spotted a fence gate just ahead. Slowing the pickup, he pulled into it, stopped, hopped out of the cab, and dragged open the gate. Back in the truck, he removed the binoculars from their leather carrying case and laid them on the seat beside him then switched the pickup into four-wheel drive and took off.
Speed was no longer important; only finding the helicopter was. At the crest of each rise, Ty pulled up and made a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree sweep of the country before him with the binoculars. It was a rough and broken land, dotted with low mesas and gouged with wide coulees.
When that scan turned up nothing, he traveled on to the next vantage point and glassed the area again. Still nothing. On his third stop, he spotted the chopper on the ground approximately a half-mile northeast of him. It had landed a short distance away from windmill eleven near the base of Antelope Butte.
With its location pinpointed, Ty drove in an easterly direction until he reached the dim trail, used by Triple C hands to service the windmill. After he turned onto it, it was a more-or-less straight shot to the site.
Within minutes the butte face loomed before him, but Ty’s gaze was centered on the two men standing near the helicopter. Leaving the overgrown trail, he aimed the pickup toward the two men, taking his measure of them. The taller of the two, in shirt sleeves and aviator glasses, Ty quickly dismissed as the chopper pilot and centered his attention on the second man, dressed in jeans, a leather jacket, and a black cowboy hat.
Observing Ty’s approach, he said something to the pilot and split away from him, moving forward to meet the truck. At a point of his choosing, the man stopped, dipped his head down, and waited for Ty to stop.
With a grim kind of eagerness for the coming meeting, Ty switched off the engine and climbed out of the pickup. Rounding the hood of the truck, he walked toward the hatted figure, mildly annoyed that the man had yet to look up.
When Ty was only steps from him, the man slowly raised his head, giving Ty his first good look at his face.
Recognition splintered through Ty like an electric shock. It was Buck Haskell.
“I expected either you or your pa to show up,” Buck stated with a smile. “I’m kinda’ sorry it’s you.”
“What are you doing here?” Ty demanded and shot a quick look at the second man by the chopper.
“My job.” Buck’s smile deepened, but his eyes had a watchful look to them. “I told you last week I’d be starting any day.”
“So you did.” Behind him, the windmill groaned a protest as a stiff wind tugged at its tied-down blades. Ty ignored it.
“You do realize you’re on private property,” Buck reminded him. “Technically you’re trespassing.”
Unconcerned, Ty smiled. “Technically, maybe. And maybe I’m just doing the neighborly thing by coming to meet the new owner.” He nodded in the direction of the man by the helicopter. “Is that him?”
“Nope. That’s the pilot.”
“So where’s your boss?” Ty challenged.
“Over there.” With a sideways bob of his head, Buck directed Ty’s attention toward the butte.
Making a half-turn toward it, Ty stared in surprise at the couple seemingly intent on studying the stretch of land at the base of the bluff some distance from the windmill. For a moment he was stunned that he had failed to notice them before now, then realized that he had been too intent on the helicopter to look far beyond it. Coupled with the fact that both the man and the woman wore tan-colored clothes, his oversight was understandable. The man was hatless, exposing a head of iron-gray hair. But the woman wore a beige scarf that fluttered in the wind. With their backs to him, there was little more that Ty could discern about either of them.
“I’ll go introduce myself,” Ty said to Buck.
“I think I’ll come along.” Buck’s smile had an amused quality that Ty didn’t like.
“Suit yourself,” Ty replied and struck out across the grass toward the couple, indifferent to whether the older Buck could keep up with the pace Ty set.
Buck remained only a half a stride behind, saying nothing, his smile never faltering. When they were less than twenty feet from the couple, Buck called ahead, “Sorry to interrupt, but you’ve got a visitor.”
As one, the man and woman turned and Ty had his first glimpse of Tara’s raven hair and jet-black eyes. Ty stopped dead in his tracks, a fury surging through him.
“You bought this land,” he thundered the accusation.
Contrition swept her expression. “Ty, I’m sorry. I tried a hundred times to tell you—”
Without waiting to hear more, Ty pivoted on his heel and headed back toward his truck, anger vibrating through every muscle.
“Ty, please.” Tara ran after him. “Let me explain.”
“I’m not interested in your explanations.” He pushed the words through his teeth, his voice low and curt.
