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“Whenever the loan officers called him in for a meeting, they’d offer more money and he always took it. He’d put up a piece of land here, more acreage there. Before long, they had the whole place standing good for his loan.”
“Hon, it’s 2013. Your daddy has been gone two years. You must’ve made ends meet somehow if you’ve made it this far.”
“Yes, but I’m tired of paying that ridiculous payment. Do you have any idea what it’s like to work three jobs and farm all in an effort to pay a 6,000-dollar mortgage? Even then, I’m always in the arrears. The interest rate was too high right from the start.” She sounded defeated. “Besides, I don’t want to pay a debt that isn’t mine.”
He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Linds, listen to me. No one twisted your father’s arm, so I’m not justifying what he did. He was a strong man who made his own decisions. Still, these guys have a longstanding reputation for roping in a good farmer, showing him all the money and love a banker can provide, and then putting the squeeze on him as soon as they see an opening.
“Now what’s done is done. You need to get that fire back. Show them the determined woman and hold your head up. Then, take a few days and decide how you want to deal with your father’s decisions. You’re at a crossroads, hon. As much as I hate to say it, there’s no easy fix here, but there’s a way to salvage this place. Just be strong and we’ll come up with a workable plan.”
“Strong?” She whipped around and faced an open closet. “See that computer over there? Old-timers called it a ‘commodity machine’ but it was nothing more than a dated computer. It was the death of a farmer. That’s what it was. In the last years of his life, all Daddy worried about was trading futures. He loved playing the stock market. He used to be happy out there in those fields. He liked working cattle and boarding horses. In the end, he was weak and only wanted to sit in front of that machine and predict the future of processed meat!”
Seth had heard the stories. Newt Leland had indeed been known for his gambling problem. Newt used to say he’d had a bad run in a declining market that would eventually turn around for the better.
On his deathbed, when he should’ve been telling his daughter how much he loved her, Newt tried to teach Lindsey everything he knew about trading pork bellies. The real irony came a few months after her father’s death in 2011. That’s when the Chicago Mercantile Exchange delisted pork belly futures.
“Lindsey, how much do you owe?”
“Me?” She balked at that. “This was Daddy’s farm and even though he isn’t here anymore, it’s still his debt. I tried to work out a payment arrangement. All the stalls are leased and I’m field grazing horses, too. I’m even teaching riding lessons and…”
“I’d love to hear how you plan to turn this thing around, but I don’t think the sheriff and his boys will give us that luxury. Do you?”
“My debt, my business,” she snapped stubbornly. “I didn’t ask for your help, Seth.”
“I’m going out on a limb here and guessing that you don’t have time to keep your business to yourself. If you don’t pack up and leave, they’ll take you out of here kicking and screaming. Is that what you want?”
She shrugged. “I’m not leaving without a fight.”
“You’ll get one, Linds. You have to vacate the premises. You can stay at our place. We’ll go see Tom Leonard first thing Monday morning.” Leonard and Associates were the best attorneys in town. They had to be. In their part of the South, the cattlemen kept them in business. If it wasn’t one crooked deal, it was another.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Linds, you do not have a choice.”
She stomped her foot. “I talked to Farmer’s Lending. They promised we would work out a repayment plan. Then, they moved Bob Callaway to another branch. Last Friday I was told that he didn’t have the authority to work out payments with me. Low and behold, what happens?” Her lip quivered. “They show up here waving papers around, telling me it’s time to go. They act so casual about it.”
“How much, Lindsey?”
“Why does it matter?” She shook her head in disgust. “It’s not like you can buy the place. You’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” She turned to leave.
He stopped her. Gripping her wrist, he held her arm close to his thigh. “You should’ve come to me. You could’ve talked to Beck.” Seth and his brother were willing to do whatever necessary to protect her and she damn well knew it.
She jerked her head and stared down at where he held her arm. “Tell me you aren’t trying to get fresh at a time like this.”
He scoffed. And maybe, just maybe, he would’ve let that slide, but then she yanked her arm free and blasted him with a round of insults. “You and your brother have always been so damned curious about what goes on over here. If you’d been the kind of neighbor that you should’ve been, maybe you would’ve offered Daddy a hand here and there.
“Maybe if he’d had a little company from the Stallard boys, he wouldn’t have hated working the fields. After Conrad died, he was lonely. He lost his only son. Was it too much to ask of you to be neighborly and offer an old man a little compassion?”
Before she continued grasping at straws, he picked her up and set her on the oblong freezer. Clearly surprised, the little minx opened her mouth to speak, but when nothing came out, she just stared at him, dumbstruck. And like most men with ulterior motives and a much more attractive agenda, Seth took hold of opportunity and made it count.
Chapter Two
The heavy breathing and smacking of lips resonated in her ears. Seth stepped between her parted legs, kissing her into a breathless state of unexpected arousal. The whole scene couldn’t have lasted more than thirty seconds, but when he stepped away from her with tousled hair and wide eyes, she couldn’t help but curse under her breath.
“Thanks. I needed one more thing to worry about.” She tried to jump down, but he placed his hands on her knees and by golly, he kissed her again.
In the past, they’d let too many chances slip away and she’d waved them off as if they were nothing. Why, pray tell, had he decided to savagely kiss her when a bunch of cops were within ear-bending distance?
When their kiss ended a second time, she brushed her lips with her fingertips. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
