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“I told you who I was, the other day, when you so graciously pointed the barrel of your rifle at me. As to what I do, I own a small business, the headquarters of which are located in Boise,” he said, focusing his sky-blue eyes on her. “I rehabilitate streams, like Grizzly Creek, to make them viable for trout.”
“Come again?”
He smiled slightly. “A lot of streams and rivers have become too dirty for the fish to spawn.”
Dani shook her head and held up her palm to quiet him. “I don’t believe you.”
“Why would I make it up?”
“Heaven only knows. Probably because Caleb Johnson asked you to.”
Pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans he leaned against the fireplace, his broad shoulders resting on the mantel. “Contrary to your opinion, I don’t do everything Johnson asks me to.”
“Then you’ll be fired soon,” she said flatly.
“I don’t think so. Caleb Johnson and I are partners.”
“Partners!” Dani repeated, the wor
d strangling her throat. Good Lord, that was worse! “In what?”
“A few years ago, I needed capital. For my business.” He looked at the pictures on the mantel and fingered one of Dani and Cody sitting astride the buckskin. In the snapshot Dani was laughing, her arms securely around a grinning four-year-old Cody. Chase stared at the picture a long time, taking it from its resting place on the mantel.
“You were saying,” she prodded, feeling his presence filling the small cabin. Just the fact that he was in her home made her uneasy; more aware of him as a man, and less threatened. She had to remind herself that he was the enemy.
He returned the photograph to its spot. “I was telling you that just when my business needed funds for advertising and expansion, Caleb Johnson walked into my life.”
“Convenient,” she said dryly.
He frowned at the distasteful memory, remembering the unlikely events and odd set of circumstances that led Caleb Johnson to his door. “Maybe too convenient,” he agreed, bothered again by Caleb’s association with his mother. Stepping away from the fireplace, Chase looked out the back window, toward Grizzly Creek. “Anyway, Caleb offered me two-hundred-thousand dollars to become partners with me, and I took his money because I thought Relive needed a shot in the arm.”
“Relive?”
“My company.”
“Oh. And so Johnson provided it.”
“Right.”
“Money.” Dani sank onto the couch. “Of course. That’s all a man like Johnson can understand.” She looked at Chase thoughtfully.
Chase was mesmerized by her stare. Her gray-green eyes seemed to look past the surface and search for the inner man. “Let me guess,” Dani said. “There’s a catch to this ‘partnership.’”
His dark brows rose appreciatively. “A small one. Johnson has agreed to sell a quarter of the company back to me if I can rehabilitate Grizzly Creek. But I can’t do that without your cooperation.”
Here it comes, she thought. “What kind of cooperation?”
“If you won’t sell or lease your land to Caleb—”
“I won’t. You know that.”
“Why not?”
Because Caleb wants it all and this farm is all I have; this land and my son. “Johnson’s a snake. I don’t like him and I don’t trust him.”
“What’s the difference? His money is green.”
Her eyes flashed. “Money isn’t the issue.”
