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But before I had a chance to even get out of my chair, I heard Jenny, my eleven-year-old German Shephard, bark, just once, and then a squeal pierced the air.
I thundered down the hallway and leapt over the railing at the top of the stairs, thinking the worst. Jenny was a retired military dog. She’d been injured when she was only two years old, and back in my nine-to-five days, I’d adopted her from a shelter in California and she’d been by my side ever since.
While she was amiable and well-tempered, I wasn’t entirely sure how well she did around kids.
I had a sudden vision of her pinning Day to the floor, snarling in his face with her teeth clacking and Moira screaming at the top of her lungs before I reached the first-floor landing and let out my breath in a relieved sigh.
Day was, in fact, pinned beneath her, but she wasn’t snarling, no. She was licking his face, huffing excitedly as Day squirmed and giggled.
Moira was looking a little pale, however, as her eyes slowly left the scene just beyond the threshold of the door and met my gaze.
“I don’t think she bites,” I said slowly, giving her a half-cocked smile as her expression twisted into a scowl.
“You didn’t mention you had a dog.”
“I love her!” Day squealed, wrapping his arms around Jenny’s neck.
ChapterSix
Moira
Icouldn’t help but be excited for my first official day as an environmental consultant for Grant Hallston. I was itching to get my hands dirty and do some exploring outside of the developed area of the property and find out just what he was working with.
After living in crowded, overdeveloped cities for practically the last decade, being out in the open with nothing but grass and a big, endless sky over my head as I trudged through a dense crop of overgrowth was just what the doctor ordered to help take my mind off things.
Things… as in Grant.
He was looking like a fucking dream as usual when I’d pulled my Jeep around the house. He was dressed for the day—tight jeans, button-down shirt cuffed to his elbows, and his worn cowboy hat shielding his face from the sun breaking through the clouds.
But he looked suspicious of me, and when I caught a glance between him and George, I figured George had told him I’d been running around the bunkhouse triple-checking the locks on all the windows and doors before going to bed again last night.
Sure, I was hiding something, but it was none of their business.
I huffed a breath as I broke through a crop of high, dried grass and walked into the ravine Grant had been talking about. It was completely dry, and an old, dilapidated fence ran right across it.
“Hmm…” I walked into the center of the dried-up ravine, turning in a circle as I inspected the area. This definitely wasn’t right, and I could see exactly the problem that the EPA was on Grant’s ass about. Someone had built a fence through this area, which meant somewhere up the ravine, there was likely a dam.
But Grant would already know all of this, he had to. He would’ve walked the property line in full before purchasing the place.
I took out my phone and took some pictures, especially of the fence, and followed the fence for a quarter mile until it ducked down into a shallow valley of shrubs and underbrush. I could see the city of Hot Springs glistening in the midday sun in the distance from the vantage point, but Grant’s property continued at least a mile further in this direction.
I heard the Jeep’s horn honk and rolled my eyes, tucking my phone back in my pocket and trudging back up to the car, where Day was sprawled out in the front passenger seat.
He rolled down the window as I approached, a bored look on his face.
“You could’ve come with me, you know,” I chided, leaning against the Jeep with my arms across on the rim of the open window. “It’s your fault you’re bored.”
“I was outside all weekend,” he griped, rubbing his nose.
That was true. He was a bit sunburned and had a runny nose—allergies, most likely, unless he caught some plague before we left Dallas.
“Well, I’m done out here. I’ll take you back to the house.”
I jumped in the Jeep and took off along the bumpy stretch of dirt road that led back to the house. The two teenagers who worked at the farm noticed me approaching and swiftly opened the gates leading out of the pasture so I could pass through, closing the gate behind me.
“I saw a side-by-side,” I mused, nudging Day with my elbow. “Next time I have to go out to get some pictures I can ask if we can take that out instead.”
“That would be fun!” Day squeaked, smiling broadly at me as I rolled to a stop in the driveway.
