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I chuckle. “You really are a local celebrity.”
“It’s not hard when there’s less than five hundred people in town,” my grandmother counters, lounging at the bumper of Connor’s car.
He has yet to return, and she glances at the old watch on her wrist. My eyes focus on the Pickle Barrel across the road.
“Should we make reservations?” I laugh and point at the only restaurant in town.
“You don’t think I’m taking you that place, do you?” She chortles. “Oh, no. We’re going out to a proper place. And I think we should call on some proper dates for us tonight, too.”
I eye her with a furrowed brow, wondering what she means by this, but prodding gets me nowhere. I suspect I have an idea, anyway. She’s going to call on some, if not all, of the three magnificent creatures who live on all sides of her.
I wonder if they’d be willing or able to help with this project of mine—the dude ranch.
“I’m going to ask Eli and Hudson to help you,” Katherine says, like she’s reading my mind. I turn away from the beautiful Montana landscape to look at her, and I tilt my head in question.
“Is that a good idea?” My nerves come alive. “I mean, don’t they have ranches of their own to tend to? And other stuff…”
Like wives and girlfriends or boyfriends?
I’ve never asked about their personal lives, but I can only assume these superhuman specimens are partnered up in some way.
“Eli and Hudson will be willing,” my grandmother repeats, and I note that she does not mention Connor. Why not him?
But I don’t put any of my pressing questions into words. Still, Katherine seems to notice my expression and reaches out to pat my hand.
“I think it’s a fine idea, or I wouldn’t have suggested it,” she replies with her usual confidence. “The worst they can say is no, but I doubt that they will. They’ll make the time—seeing as they have no other personal responsibilities.”
That answers one of my questions. Hudson and Eli aren’t married with children.
Maybe Connor has a partner. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t want to ask him. That’s disappointing. He’s been the nicest out of the three of them—making the most effort to spend time with me.
“I’m sure I can do a good chunk of it on my own—” I start to say, but my grandmother interjects smoothly.
“I have every faith in your ability, Rose, or I wouldn’t have agreed to it in the first place. But you must admit that three sets of hands are better than one. Anyway, Eli and Hudson have a vested interest in the Bonnie Belle.”
“The what?”
She laughs. “That was what the ranch was called before she went defunct. I wouldn’t mind if we changed the name. But we called her the BB. I thought I’d mentioned it before, although I don’t know why I would’ve in retrospect.”
“The BB. Okay.” I cock my head. “What interest do Eli and Hudson have in it?”
Katherine folds her gnarled hands in front of her, chin raising to look for Connor, who has yet to materialize and take us home.
“Katherine?”
“What I’m about to tell you, no one knows. It’s a huge source of shame for me, but I was desperate and had no other choice, Rose. Please understand that.”
I frown, troubled by the pain in her voice.
“I’m the last person in the world to judge anyone’s choices.” God knows I have made enough bad ones of my own. “And I would never share your secrets.”
She sneaks a covert sidelong glance at me, and again looks across the street before she blurts out the truth she has been holding onto. “Hudson and Eli own twenty-five percent each of my property as part of a deal I struck with their fathers after Jake died. So, it would probably be in their best interest to see the BB start making some money. They want her up and running as much as you do.”
CHAPTER7
Hudson
Ialmost refuse the dinner invitation from Katherine, but I find it so difficult to say no when she asks for anything. A peculiar lilt was in her voice when she called earlier, so I agree to the seven o’clock dinner reservation at a surf and turf place out in Helena, even though I’ve had a weird feeling about it all day long.
