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“I’ll tell you what.” Mrs. Ludington walked around the desk. “You stay right here, and I’ll go get her. I’ll cover for her, too. Don’t you worry.”
She turned back and winked at him, then spun around and walked into the dining room. The long skirt she wore swished around her dress boots.
Once she was gone, Clayton looked around. There was a sitting room off to the right that would be a good place to talk to her. He glanced back toward the front door. No sign of Joshua in the glass panel that offered some visibility out there. He hadn’t heard a truck fire up, but he’d been distracted by his conversation with Mrs. Ludington. The guy very well could have taken off.
“Clayton?”
His whispered name alerted him that Georgia was here. He’d been staring out the front door, so he missed her entrance. He spun around, all too aware he still held his cowboy hat in both his hands.
“What are you doing here?”
She whispered that, too. Her gaze was darting around the room. No doubt, like him, she was nervous about one of her brothers showing up.
Releasing his right hand from his hat, he gestured toward the room that looked like a sitting area. Then he walked in that direction, not waiting for her. It wasn’t the gentlemanly route, and it went against his nature, but he figured the best thing he could do was get himself to an area where he wouldn’t be spotted.
For a long moment, he worried she wasn’t going to join him. He stood, staring at the doorway, willing her to come through.
Sure enough, she appeared, and he got a good look at her. She wore the same white button-down blouse and black pants she’d had on at the grocery store. He assumed that was her work uniform. Her hair was pinned back in some sort of twisty bun thing. All that did was accentuate her features. Her eyes seemed even more enchanting when her hair wasn’t framing them. He didn’t think that was possible, but here they were.
“Are you crazy?” she asked. “You can’t be here.”
“We have a situation.”
He looked over her shoulder and gestured toward the couch against the wall. At least there they’d be out of sight of anyone who walked by and peeked in.
She eyed it for a second, then him, before taking a deep breath and sitting down. He had to make himself sit, too, placing his hat on the cushion between the two of them. They were at either end of a three-cushion sofa that looked like some sort of antique. It was dated, as were the carpet and wallpaper. Yes, wallpaper. He hadn’t seen a house with wallpaper in a while.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “I really need to be getting back. I don’t have a kitchen manager and?—”
“The Knott brothers went to the press,” he blurted.
It had not been a good day. He’d found out this particular piece of news while at dinner with Hayden Knott. Hayden was Clayton’s age, so he was the closest to him of all the brothers. But as a peacemaker by nature, Hayden often found himself in the unenviable position of talking his dad and oldest brother out of something. Gus Knott had a reputation for being both stubborn and ruthless, especially where his family and his business were concerned.
“The press?” Georgia frowned.
Yeah, the word “press” might be a bit much. “TheCupid Ridge Courier. Phoenix is good friends with one of the reporters there. He told her what was going on with the lawsuit, despite the fact he’s not supposed to discuss it with anyone. The family agreed to let them print an article. I told them no way. Do you think they listened to me?”
In all truth, he was completely annoyed about it. They’d retained him for legal advice, and now, when it mattered, they weren’t taking that advice.
Whatever they did, they definitely shouldn’t be blasting this out to the town’s newspaper subscribers, not to mention all the ones who’d read it on theCourierwebsite and social media. It was one way to jeopardize their chances of winning if this went in front of the judge.
“They’re printing our property dispute in the paper?” Georgia asked. “Why?”
That was a good question. “Slow news day? I don’t think it’s a front-page story or anything, but the fact is, there’s no way your family won’t find out about it. Once it lands on front porches tomorrow morning, it’ll be all over town.”
This was news he didn’t want to deliver, but he had no choice. He’d weighed all the options, and warning Georgia was a no-brainer. Of course, as the Knott family attorney, he shouldn’t be here at all right now, but he couldn’t bear the thought of Georgia having all this fall on her tomorrow morning, especially with everything else the family had going on.
“I’ll go tell them,” she said. “You probably should get out of here before?—”
She didn’t get to finish that sentence. A male voice cut into the silence that surrounded them.
“What’s he doing here?”
5
Sawyer was here. And he wasn’t happy.
One time, that would have mattered to Georgia. Her oldest brother had always been a leader in their family, even when their dad was alive. He pitched in and kept the ranch running.
