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“Who knows? Maybe everyone.”
“How’dyouhear about it?”
“He called Ellen, and she called me.”
“He’s lying!” she cried. “Or Ellen’s trying to gain your sympathy by pinning something on me I didn’t do.”
Hendrix studied his aunt’s face. The shock, the offense an innocent person would feel—it was all there. “You’re saying you think she’s making it up?”
“I don’t know,” she said, still seeming flabbergasted. “She hates me, so she has to be behind it somehow. Maybe she sabotaged the well herself and enlisted Rocko’s help to place the blame on me.”
Rocko had shown obvious interest in Ellen, but there was no way Ellen would use that to her advantage. She wouldn’t harm a well she’d just drilled, either. She wasn’t duplicitous like that. Besides, if she was behind the accusation, she would’ve gone to the police instead of granting him time to talk to Lynn.
Unless... She couldn’t be playing him, could she?
“What?” Lynn said when he didn’t speak. “You don’t believe me?”
“Idobelieve you,” he admitted. That was the problem. If Lynn had done it, there’d be some telltale sign. She had a hot temper, but he’d always known her to be up-front and honest. “Something isn’t making sense.”
“It’sher,” she insisted. “It’s Ellen. She’s trying to get me in trouble, make me look bad.”
“It’snother,” he said, even though part of him was terrified it was and this was some grand scheme to get back at them all. Ellen certainly had reason to be bitter.
“How do you know?”
Because she wasn’t like that and if Lynn had remained open-minded about Stuart’s daughter, she’d know it, too. “I just...do,” he insisted. But what was going on? Could they both be telling the truth? “Could Rocko be mistaken?” he asked.
“He’s mistaken if he claims he sawme, because he didn’t!” she yelled.
“He didn’t say it was you specifically,” Hendrix admitted, speaking softer so the emotion wouldn’t continue to escalate. “He told Ellen that what he saw was a Fetterman Well Services truck. So if it wasn’t me and it wasn’t you, it would have to be Stuart.”
“No way would he vandalize anything,” she said.
He scratched his head. He believed that, too. “Thensomeonehas to be lying.”
Ellen found herself smiling almost the entire way to Missoula. She should’ve been worried about what she was going to do with her own business. She’d received no calls regarding the ad she’d placed online for a new driller, and there’d been no response to the flyer she’d created on her computer late last night and dropped by the high school as she was driving out of town. That would take more time. But she’d managed to push off a couple of jobs to give herself some breathing room. With any luck, she’d find someone soon—or Ross would—and she’d be able to complete them before they got canceled and her situation grew dire.
Meanwhile, she was going to allow herself to enjoy the day helping Hendrix, she decided. She’d woken up to a text from him telling her exactly where to go and what to get and was nearly there. She figured she’d load up and then have lunch before heading back. She’d been hoping he’d call her and tell her how his conversation with Lynn went, but she hadn’t heard from him. She guessed he hadn’t yet had a chance to talk to his aunt. Or he was slammed. She knew how hard it was for bigger outfits to gather all the materials needed for each job and get the drilling crews off; she’d witnessed it firsthand while working for Ross.
A call came in from her mother while she was loading up, but she silenced her phone and waited until she was sitting at a burrito place before calling Jan.
“There you are,” her mother said. “Why didn’t you pick up?”
“Mom, I’m working,” she said. “I can’t pick up every call that comes in.”
“Oh. Well, I was just excited to give you some good news.”
“I can always use good news. What’s up?”
“I got a another job!”
Ellen swallowed the first bite of hercarne asadaburrito. “With Ross’s outfit?”
“How’d you know?”
“I talked to him.” She took a drink of her soda. “He said you’d been in.”
“And you didn’t call to congratulate me?”
