Page 60 of Tempting Fate
“I don’t give a shit about the dress. I’ll buy Tawny a new one.” Lucky stared her down. “Are you selling your land to a company who wants to build a motocross track?”
Gabe wondered if she’d tell the truth. She had with him, but he hadn’t had as much to lose as Lucky.
“I’m considering it, yes. It’s the only offer I’ve got and, frankly, I’m in need of the money.”
Okay, Gabe had to give her points for being straight up, even if he didn’t necessarily believe that she was as broke as she said.
“I’d hoped that either you, Clay McCreedy, or Flynn Barlow would’ve made an offer,” Raylene continued, holding her ground, while Lucky looked ready to mow her down. “I’d prefer for one of you to have the land.”
“Would you now? Cut the crap, Raylene. If you think I don’t see what you’re doing, you’re out of your mind.”
“What am I doing, Lucky?” She asked it with such composure that anyone would’ve thought she was as self-possessed as the queen of England. Anyone but Gabe.
He saw the slight tremble in her left hand and imagined that right about now she was wishing she had a drink. Lucky fisted his hands at his side and his jaw clenched. Gabe wedged himself between the two of them.
“Let’s take it down a notch, okay?”
Lucky threw his head back and let out a bitter laugh. “Take it down a notch? She doesn’t know when to quit. First, she wanted to send me to prison for crimes I didn’t do. And when that didn’t work, she decided to financially ruin me and my family. Soyoutake it down a notch.” He got up in Gabe’s face, close enough for Gabe to feel Lucky’s spittle.
Ordinarily, that would’ve been a colossally bad idea, but Gabe liked Lucky.
“Everything isn’t about you, Lucky.” Raylene stepped up and nudged Gabe aside. He didn’t know whether she was trying to protect him or Lucky. “If you’d like to make an offer, I’ll give you first priority.”
“So you can use my bid to jack up the other one you’ve got, or vice versa? You’re a nasty piece of work, Raylene.”
“I said I’ll give you first priority.”
“I don’t have that kind of money, and even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you.” He spat the words with such venom that for a second Gabe thought Lucky might hit Raylene. “Know this,” he continued, “Clay, Flynn, Gia, and I will fight a motocross track with everything we’ve got. Be sure to disclose that to your buyers.”
“Clay, Flynn, and Gia are free to buy the land themselves. And just like you, I’ll give them first priority.”
“You’re not going to extort us into buying your land,” Lucky fired back. “When we’re through with you, no one will buy it.” He turned around, got back in his truck, and peeled off.
Gabe watched the Ram disappear in the distance. “What do you mean by giving them first priority?” He wondered if it meant the same thing Lucky had accused her of—creating a bidding war. That’s what a good business person would do. It’s what Ray Rosser would’ve done. But it wasn’t necessarily how a good neighbor would play it. Then again, Lucky hadn’t been very neighborly.
“Moto Entertainment made me a full offer. I’ll take that from Lucky, the McCreedys, the Barlows, or anyone else from Nugget who wants to run cattle.”
Gabe didn’t know how much she was asking for the land, but two hundred acres of prime California riverfront property couldn’t be cheap. Lucky, the McCreedys, and the Barlows were far from paupers, but he didn’t know if they had that kind of cash to throw around. Lucky had said he didn’t have the money.
And even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you.
Nope, Gabe thought.This looks like flat-out war.
* * * *
Feeling dejected after meeting with Dana, Raylene took a drive. She’d put off signing the real estate papers by giving Dana a bullshit excuse about Butch and how she needed her divorce attorney to look everything over first. The truth was she wanted to give Lucky, or any of the other locals, time to step up. Plus, she still hadn’t found the gold. Lord knew if she ever would. Gabe certainly didn’t think so.
Gabe.
The man was an enigma. Shutting her out one minute, having her back the next. Lucky had been spitting mad during their confrontation, but he’d never hurt her. Not physically anyway. Yet Gabe had rushed in to keep her safe. No one but Logan had ever done that for her. Once upon a time, Lucky had. But they’d just been kids. Now when she looked into his big dark eyes all she saw was hatred. And at the rate she was going, Gabe would detest her, too.
She certainly had the golden touch where men were involved. Come to think of it, women, too.
Raylene drove aimlessly through the backcountry. Even after all the time she’d been gone, she knew these roads like the back of her hand. Up ahead was the swim hole where she and Hannah used to ride their horses and swim naked out to the big rock in the middle of the river. There, they’d lie in the sun until their skin turned golden brown. She passed Buckie Graham’s house and remembered that time in high school when his parents had gone out of town and they’d thrown a giant kegger. Raylene had gotten so drunk she’d thrown up on the Grahams’ bearskin rug. Wyatt’s family lived out here somewhere, too. As a teenager he’d been madly in love with her, but she’d been dating Zachary Baze, captain of the football team. A more suitable boyfriend than Lucky, in her father’s eyes.
As she continued to drive, she eventually found herself in the most familiar place of all. Most of the thousand-acre spread was fenced for cattle, but there were places a person who knew her way around could get in. She took the fire road to the back lot, parked near a small graveyard, and got out of the truck.
Though she hadn’t meant to visit, something pulled at her. Ghosts? Things that still needed to be said? The cemetery had been here since the Rossers settled this land during the Gold Rush. They’d come to sell beef to the miners. Even though the Rock and River belonged to Gia and Flynn when Ray died, they’d allowed him to be buried with his ancestors—and his prized horse, who had died a few years earlier.
