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“It’ll never be,” Zach said. If not Adria, then another imposter would show up. For the rest of his life Zach would meet women pretending to be London Danvers. He just hoped they didn’t get to him the way this one did. He knew that one of the reasons he’d driven like a madman over the mountains was to put some distance between him and her, to run back here where he could clear his head.
“Got a buyer for the two-year-old steers.”
“All of them?” Zach asked, trying to forget about the woman who claimed to be his half-sister.
“Couple hundred head.”
“A good start.”
“Mmm.”
“Come on inside—I’ll buy you breakfast and you can bring me up-to-date.”
He spent the day at the ranch, reviewing the books, checking offers to buy and sell livestock as well as land, then rode through some of the fields. The water pump for the house and outbuildings was going out, the roof of one of the sheds was leaking like a sieve, there was a fight with the government over harvesting some of the ancient pine, and one of their regular customers who bought hundreds of head of cattle every year was delinquent on his payments. There had been an outbreak of a cattle virus in the next county and several ranchers in the area were concerned. Zach was supposed to attend a local meeting of the Cattlemen’s Association in Bend, and order the feed and supplies to get the ranch through the winter.
“Same old, same old,” Manny said as they drove through the fields and spotted a break in the fence where cattle could escape. It was true. Though there were problems at the ranch, they weren’t insurmountable. Manny and the hands could keep the place going should Zach have to return to Portland.
He stopped by his office in Bend and found that work was slow, as it had been ever since he’d turned his attention to refurbishing the old hotel. He made a few phone calls, met with a couple of realtors interested in starting a new resort development around a golf course, and conferred with his secretary, Terry, a petite, red-haired woman of thirty who was expecting her third child come February. Efficient to the point that she could run the office blindfolded, she knew Zach as well as anyone.
“So how’s city life?” she asked when he walked back into the office. She was seated behind the desk, a pencil tucked over her ear, a neglected cup of coffee near the typewriter. She was studying a bank statement and little lines of worry crinkled her freckled forehead.
“Not great.”
“Jason called.” She sat back in her desk chair and it protested with a groan.
“Here?”
“He tried the ranch. You weren’t in. Manny told him you’d come into town, so he tried tracking you down here. Said it was urgent that he talk to you.”
“With Jason it’s always urgent.”
“He was more insistent than usual.” She set her glasses on
the desk, grabbed her half-full cup and stood. Rubbing a kink in her back, she walked to the coffeepot warming on the hot plate and lifted the glass carafe. “Want a cup? It’s just decaf.”
Zach shook his head. “Thanks just the same.”
Pouring some of the weak coffee in to her mug, she asked, “So why does Jason think he needs you back in Portland—the hotel?”
“Yeah, that’s probably it,” Zach said, but he guessed that the problem was Adria Nash. No doubt he’d have to drive back to the city. Resentment boiled through his blood. He didn’t want to see Adria again, didn’t want to deal with all the conflicting emotions she inspired.
He grabbed the handle of the coffeepot and poured himself some of the tasteless decaf as the telephone rang and Terry answered.
With a sweet smile, she said, “He’ll be with you in a second,” and snapped the hold button. “It’s your brother dear again and he’s fit to be tied.”
“Why?”
“Something about ‘the shit hitting the fan’.” She went back to the bank statement and Zach walked into his office. Kicking the door shut, he reached for the phone and sat on a corner of the desk.
“Hello?”
“Where the hell have you been?” Jason demanded, and Zach couldn’t miss the agitation in his voice.
“What’s the problem?”
“You know what the problem is. It’s Adria! I think she’s going to run to the papers with her story.”
“She told you this?”
