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“She’s great. Angel’s been a real… angel.” Porter laughed at his own joke, though it went right over Nash’s head. Who was Angel? “She’s taking care of her, and Emily, she’s keeping your flowers alive too.”
“Oh great,” Emily said. “I’m sorry, who’s Angel again?”
A pregnant silence stretched out on the other side of the line. Nash knew his brother well enough to know that something wasn’t right. “Uh, wait… you don’t know Angel?” Porter asked.
Emily laughed. “No, but she sounds great if she’s helping you water my plants.”
Nash parked in front of the garage, switching off the headlights. Emily’s hand went to the passenger’s side handle. “Meet you inside, Nash. I’d better get some allergy medicine before I lose my nose.” He nodded as she jumped out of the truck.
Once she slammed the door shut between them, Nash took the phone off the dashboard holder, so they could talk more privately. “You didn’t say who Angel was,” he said.
“Oh, nobody,” Porter said too quickly.
Liar. Nash immediately saw through his twin’s ploy to throw him off. This was a girl Porter liked. He could read his twin like a book. “Huh,” Nash teased. “You love her, don’t you?” More silence followed the question. Nash burst out laughing. “I’m joking.” Not really, especially after that reaction.
“Yeah, good joke.” Porter sounded distracted.
What was going on? Still, Nash didn’t have much time before Emily started missing him… or was it the other way around? “Look,” Nash cut to the chase. “I need your advice, twin advice. I took a job from this real sleaze, named Lacy Lynch.”
“Lacy Lynch?” Porter repeated. “That sounds like some gangster offSopranos.”
“Right? He wants me to survey this land that belongs to Millie Turner—she’s a friend of Dad’s. She wouldn’t work with anyone else; she really trusts me, ya know? And get this, my cut after brokering this land deal, could be in the millions. That’s millions of dollars.”
Porter whistled. “Are you kidding? Maybe I should’ve gone to Nashville too.”
“Yeah, the money’s pretty good. It’s just that… I caught Lynch’s guys bringing in seismic thumper trucks to find oil.”
“Why is that bad?”
“It isn’t… for them, but I’m supposed to appraise this land, make Millie a fair offer for her land, and they don’t want me to bring up anything about what they’re doing. It’s all on the downlow.”
“Do you know if they actually found oil?”
“No idea, but they’re sure eager for me to close the deal.”
“They found something,” Porter said darkly.
“That’s what I think, too, but West said that we still don’t know that for sure, and that our people are the ones taking a risk buying the land if it doesn’t yield oil. West says that I represent Trout’s interests, not this widow’s, so I shouldn’t even try to add the prospect of oil in my appraisal, but…” Nash wasn’t explaining this very well at all. “It feels off, like I’m cheating Millie, but this is just business, right?” He was desperate for Porter to justify him. “I’m doing the right thing.”
“Are you supposed to be an objective third party or just someone making a bid for Trout?”
“It depends on who you ask.”
“What if I asked you?” Porter returned.
Ah great. Porter felt things were off too. Nash took a deep breath. “I believed I was an objective third party until this whole oil thing happened, and then West turned this on my head.”
Porter turned silent. Nash knew his twin well enough to know that he wasn’t taking this lightly. He’d be cracking his knuckles on the other end of the line, like he did when he was deep in thought. “Don’t do what’s easiest,” Porter finally said, “do what’s right.”
A flash of resentment swept through Nash. Ah man! He hadn’t expected Porter to cut so bluntly into the heart of the matter, but then again his twin had always acted as his conscience. They might be two mischievous peas in a pod, but Porter usually kept Nash from accidentally setting the town on fire. A part of Nash had hoped that his twin would justify what he was doing, pave the way for Nash to take the money, but no. Now things were more complicated. There might still be a loophole, however. “How do I know what’s right?”
Porter laughed. “Probably the hardest thing, unfortunately for you, but… after you do it, then everything else just falls into place.”
Was that really true? And still, some twin intuition made him suspect that Porter meant the words for himself too. Nash felt compelled to ask. “What’s going on with you?”
His twin groaned. “Nothing. Really. Sorry, bro, I’m not on top of my game right now. My mind’s a mess.”
Yeah, itwasa girl. “You can always talk to me,” Nash said. “I might not be there, but I’m still here for you.”
