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Maybe they could leave Funches behind next time… depending on whose driver was ahead of the race, of course. “Who’s winning?” she asked.
“My guy,” Funches said proudly.
“You know we can just do a search on the internet, right?” Porter said.
“Not here, you can’t.”
“That’s what I thought.” With so much at stake, Porter would be hard pressed to let Funches cheat. “You’re eating that bear on your own, dude.”
How many bets did they have going? Cadence could barely keep track of them all. She gathered her bowl from behind Porter’s shoulder and did her best to finish off the cobbler. “You know, this is amazing, Funches. I’m sure your bear delicacy is great too.”
Funches squatted down, settling onto a stump. In this darkness, he appeared to be floating. “Nah, it’s horrible. I only feed it to Porter to make him cry. It saves him from blubbering over his long lost brother in Nashville.”
West? Was this what Porter was trying to tell her? He was actually worried about his brother.
“He misses him?” she asked.
Funches laughed. “I’ve never seen a grown man cry so much.”
Porter was squirming uneasily. “He’s exaggerating. What did you put in this cobbler, Funches?”
“Ha!” Funches wouldn’t be distracted. He made larger-than-life crying motions over his eyes. “Boohoo! My poor partner in crime! The big bad city’s going to swallow him up like a fly. Then who will be my shadow?”
Was that why Porter had gone to that party? Was it a rescue mission instead? Porter glared over at Funches. Her mind struggled to find what had really happened to fit the man that she was getting to know.
Cadence slid back to the bench next to him, knowing that if Funches kept talking this way that he’d give away the bigsecretthat Porter was trying to tell her. “And here you are, doing your best to cheer up Porter.” She tried to shame Funches into silence, but that was impossible.
“Right? I even told him that he can buy up some of my land, but he dragged his heels so much that now he’ll have to outbid WhiteBoulder.”
Cadence’s ears rang at the name of the company that she’d worked for until she’d driven away a week ago.
“They’re looking into it now.” Funches cast Porter a reproachful look. “You happy now?”
“WhiteBoulder?” Porter definitely wasn’t happy. “Are you kidding me?”
What was Lacy up to! He’d been talking about his investors buying up land in what he considered “flyover” country. Was he up to his old tricks at Harvest Ranch?
“Cowboys and Christians…. What better way to push them out of town than to drive up the prices?”
She gulped. The joy from the night was snuffed out.
Even in the farthest reaches of paradise, Lacy was the snake that haunted her heels at every step.
Chapter Seventeen
Again, their paths parted at that deceptively cheery yellow door.
This time, Porter walked Angel to it, since it was much later in the night than the last time he’d dropped her off at her apartment downtown.
Something was off, and it sent the hair at the back of his neck standing stiffly up on guard. Her playful mood had been cut off at Funches’s like someone took a hacksaw to it. She’d turned quiet, almost nervous, but that wasn’t it exactly.
Why did he keep getting a sense that she was in danger?
His gut was telling him that something was wrong, kind of like when he knew one of his animals needed help or before his mother had collapsed and they had to run her to the hospital. He’d always chalked this instinct off as coincidence, but now Porter wondered if it was something more, like maybe God was trying to pummel some message through his thick head.
Angel turned to him. The light from the streetlamp traveled down the perfect lines of her high cheekbones, glistening over her soft cheek and emphasizing her square jaw. “Thanks for this great day,” she said. “I guess you were right. I did need to have fun.”
“Well, you know, I figured since you and Funches are such old souls that you’d hit it off immediately.”
