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West had to take the papers without looking like the trickster that he was. He had to act like every part of him wasn’t craving to sign those things. Porter saw right through him.
Funches shouted through the darkness. “Porter! Porter!”
Porter straightened. Maybe there was still a chance to save their property.
“Give me some sign you’re out there!” Funches cried.
“Pumpkin patches!” Porter yelled back. “Pumpkin patches!”
He heard the running through the field. Funches most definitely wasn’t alone. He’d brought reinforcements.
“Lacy Lynch!” That was the sheriff’s voice this time. “Put your hands up. You’re surrounded!”
Sorta. No one had caught sight ofanybodyyet.
Eva kept her phone light steady. West glared up at Porter and got to work on signing the papers.
“Lacy!” Porter yelled down at the bumbling thief. “You actually trust West on this deal?”
Lacy let out a booming laugh. “Ah, wah wah! Cry about ‘home sweet home’ on your own time. I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.”
“Funches’s land has oil, not ours!” Porter said.
Lacy folded the papers in half with a decisive snap, then handed them off to Crawley. “Make sure this gets to my lawyer.”
“Gladly.”
His two henchmen took off with the papers, ducking and scrambling on their way out. Porter watched their silhouettes slide past the ones coming in for the rescue. He clenched his teeth through his pain and disappointment. Cadence let out a sound of distress as he struggled to his knees. “Don’t let them get away, Funches!” he cried.
Funches ran through the clearing then. He waved his shotgun around exactly how Crawley and Stein had described. “Bad news for you, Lacy Lynch,” he called out. “The sheriff deputized me!”
“They’re getting away!” Porter cried out. “Down the field! Those big guys!” He did his best to inspire Funches and his friends to turn around. “They’re scurrying away from you like scared rabbits. Get them! Get them!”
Funches swore every weird swear word that wasn’t actually a swear word as he did a 180 with his two friends. He headed after Lacy’s henchmen in a slow old man trot. They’d never catch them at that pace.
Cadence squeezed Porter’s hand.
Lacy wasn’t so lucky. The sheriff and Morningstar were on him like glue. Cadence’s ex didn’t seem as invested in his arrest as he was in his men making their escape with that contract. He cracked a wider grin the further they disappeared into the distance. It made him look insane. Morningstar’s lips curled in disgust.
West let out a heavy sigh that set Porter’s teeth on edge. Everything he did was an act. “Thank the heavens above that you’re here,” he told their rescuers. His voice dripped with sarcasm.
Morningstar frowned at yet another rival from school. “Get back from this guy, West, or I’ll arrest you for obstruction.”
West’s hands went up and he stepped back. “You got it, Morningstar. We’ve just been waiting for you to save us all.”
Annoyance filled Porter. Morningstar might be a real jerk, but at least he cared about this town. West didn’t care about anyone. Turning from his devilish handiwork, West wandered over to the ladder and found his way up. Once he cleared the catwalk, he called over to Porter. “You alive up here?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Porter asked under his breath. “That was our family’s land.”
West snickered. “No, it isn’t. I mean, it was… at one time. It’s that throwaway land down by the highway that Dad’s been trying to get rid of for ages.”
That stunned Porter to silence. Could he actually believe West this time?
Cadence ran her hand down Porter’s back.
“You might be a prankster, Porter, but you’re an honest one,” West said. “I’ve learned my mistakes with Nash—from now on, I’m not telling you guys anything.”
Porter cleared his throat, refusing to be the gullible idiot that he’d been all night. “Last I saw, that land wasn’t up for sale.”
