Page 59 of Between a Rock and a Hard Cowboy

His family needed to get this inheritance situation straightened out and fast. Because the situation there in the cabin could not continue or someone was going to end up hurt… or worse. And that someone wasn’t going to be Linc.

“Oh, one more thing.” Emmett again paused the game.

“Yeah?” Linc paused, wondering if Emmett was going to put in an order for some take-out dinner, as if he was some kind of a delivery service.

“Eva…” Emmett began.

Linc’s eyes narrowed. “What about her?”

“First of all, how is she here and living in my apartment?”

“Yourformerapartment. You stopped paying rent there a year ago. And she came looking for you.”

“Oh, did she?” Emmett’s eyes lit as he looked a little too intrigued and interested in that information.

The jealous streak Linc didn’t realize he had kicked in hard. Time to knock any ideas out of his cousin’s head. “I believe the plan was to castrate you for what you’d done. Why?”

Emmett didn’t look as worried as he should, proving he didn’t know Eva that well at all. Linc didn’t think she’d actually chop off Emmett’s balls, but there were other ways to punish a man and he believed Eva capable of any number of them.

“How did she know where to find me?”

Linc could have told him Eva was possibly a hacker and definitely a computer whizz, but providing Emmett with any information at all seemed dangerous. Call it intuition. Gut instinct. Whatever.

It would be best to keep any explanation to a minimum. Instead of revealing the truth, Linc shrugged. “Not sure how she found out you were in Bitter End, but she did.”

“Hm.” Emmett grunted. “Anyway, I gotta get into that apartment. I’m gonna need you to drive me down to town later and run interference with her so she’ll let me in. She seems to like you.”

Linc hated that Emmett’s comment about Eva liking him had his heart leaping. Yes, he wanted Eva to like him. He really liked her. But he didn’t want Emmett anywhere near her. And he really didn’t want his cousin’s opinion on his relationship with her.

He also didn’t want Emmett invading Eva’s space and upsetting her. “If you tell me what it is, I’ll get it for—”

Emmett shook his head. “Nah. It’s better if I look. You know, I’m not even sure where I left it.”

That stunk of a lie.

But if whatever this missing object was, was why Emmett had returned, it made sense that once he had it, he’d leave again. And if he snuck out of town without a word or a forwarding address or phone number like last time, then the will situation might be solved—or at least tabled until this particular bad penny showed up again.

That might be the best they could hope for, for now. And to make this happen, he’d have to get Eva to let Emmett inside her home, which was going to be fun.

“All right. I’ll work on it.” He hated doing what Emmett wanted but in this case, it might benefit all of them.

Outside, Linc pulled out his cell and instead of texting, called Eva’s number. Some things required a real conversation. Getting her to letthe snake,as she called him, inside her home seemed like one of them.

“Yeah?” she answered.

“Hey, um, it’s Linc.”

“I know,” she said with aduhin her tone. Which he deserved because of course he’d come up in her contacts by name.

He cleared his throat and began again. “Hear me out. I figure if we can let Emmett find whatever it is he left in your apartment, maybe he’ll leave and we won’t have to worry about—”

“Fine.” Eva’s single word cut him off.

“Excuse me?”

“Bring the snake over. I’ve locked up all my valuables in my car and hid all my underwear, because I’m betting he’s a perv as well as a liar, but let him have at it. He can search the apartment to his heart’s content. But I’m not gonna be here for it. I’ll leave the spare key with Rosie. He can pick it up, and leave it there again with her when he’s done.”

Confused but relieved, Linc said, “Okay.” It took him a beat, but he finally asked the question uppermost in his mind. “Why are you so willing to let him look?”

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