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“What’re you doin’ here?” a boy’s voice demanded.
Chase turned and found Cody standing on the bank of the creek.
Great. Just what I need. “I wanted some soil and water samples.”
“From our land?” Cody asked. The boy’s dark hair was askew and he was wearing only hastily donned cutoffs.
“Yes.” Chase waded to the edge of the creek.
“I don’t think you should be here, Mr. McEnroe—”
“Chase.”
Cody crossed his arms over his bare chest and his jaw jutted out angrily. “Does Mom know about this?”
“Not yet.”
“She won’t like it.”
Chase looked at the sky and then shook his head. “Maybe not at first, but I’ll explain why I needed them.”
“Then why don’t you do it right now,” Dani suggested as she approached. Unable to sleep herself, she’d heard Runt bark, Cody go downstairs and out the back door. After flinging on her robe, she’d followed her son and hadn’t caught up with him until now, when he was confronting Chase, who was standing, predictably, she supposed, in the creek. “I thought I told you to stay off my property,” Dani said and then ran her fingers through her tangled tresses. “But then I forgot, you don’t pay any attention to what I say.”
“Mom?” Cody asked.
“You go back to the house,” she said. “You know better than to get up in the middle of the night.”
“But I heard Runt—”
“Take him with you.”
Cody looked at his mother and then back to Chase. “Maybe I should stay.”
“I can handle this,” Dani said angrily. “Go back, to the house. If I don’t come up in half an hour, call the sheriff and tell him that one of Caleb Johnson’s men is trespassing!”
Cody’s eyes rounded in the darkness, but he did as his mother had commanded. With a short, sharp whistle at the dog, he was gone.
“You don’t have to get melodramatic,” Chase said angrily, wading out of the creek. “I get the message.”
“About time.”
“Dani, look. I only want these samples to prove that Caleb’s trying to force you off your land.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure, yet. But I will be soon. Can you trust me for a few more days?”
“You’re pushing it, Chase. Why didn’t you tell me you needed some more samples?”
“I thought that was pretty obvious since you ruined the last ones. And I thought you knew I needed these—”
“So you had to come trooping out here in the middle of the night?” she mocked, pursing her lips together. “You could have told me—last night or this morning. Or didn’t it occur to you?”
“I wanted to wait until I was sure.”
“Sure?” she repeated, her fury causing her to shake. “Of what? That I’d fall for you?”
Chase swore angrily. “Didn’t I stand up for you yesterday?”
