Page 61 of Sawyer
“I’ll get the word out.The town will cover for him,” Tanner says, and I still.
“What do you mean?”I’m clearly missing something.
“Whispers is small, everyone body knows everybody.They’re going to know pretty quickly that there’s a new person in town and people talk.But if we tell them it’s your brother and he needs to hide, the town will hide him.They’ll call you when the media are in town so he can stay at home and lie low.Rochelle usually gets them first, since all new people go to the diner and start sniffing around.She’s brilliant at steering them off course.But she’ll call you the minute she sees anyone new, and Tony, the sheriff, is usually good too.”
My jaw almost hits the floor.“Seriously?”I was thinking how I would need to keep him indoors, wondering how he was going to get around whenever I’m in the city, and this makes it so much easier.
“Yeah, well, he might still need to wear his cap low and not have photos taken and things, but once the town knows, he’ll be able to roam around pretty freely.”Tanner makes it out to be no big deal.
“Small towns talk, you even said it,” I question him.
“To each other, not to outsiders, especially ones who may harass our own.That’s what being part of a small town means.They look after their own.That's what you’ve become, their own.Now you just need to have their backs as well.”
I’m nodding before he’s even finished.“I’ve got them.”
He smiles, patting me on the back.“Good, better celebrate it with a whiskey, then.”
We follow the rest of the team into the back of the restaurant and take our seats.I have a new spring in my step, one that hasn’t been in my working life for some time.The thrill of the chase, of making a difference to a business, to a brand, to a woman I can’t stop thinking about.
If I can pull off this deal with Van Cleef, it would mean increased production for Annabelle, but it also means that she won't need to work so hard at two jobs.She could let go of the teaching and concentrate on Gertie’s.Maybe with some convincing, she could also hire some help on the farm.I know she wants to manage quality, but now that she’s in business, she needs to let go of a few things and embrace where her hard work has gotten her.
I’m used to getting deals like this over the line.I do them in my sleep.But none of them have given me this high I’m now feeling, none of them have meant this much until now.
“So you beenin Whispers for a while?”I ask Bob as we walk out of his place and hop into his truck.He wants to show me his land, the parcel he’s thinking of selling.Not that I need to see it in real life; I just need the plans, but I’m learning that this is how things go in a small town.
“All my life.Born and raised.”
I nod, knowing that this is how most country land ownership works.
“If you are as good a lawyer as Tanner thinks you are, then finding me a buyer for my land should be child's play.”
I look at my watch.There’s another hour or so before school ends, so I have time to indulge him.
“You got a lot of land out here.”Glancing out his truck window as he drives us over his fields, there are rolling green hills that seem never-ending.I have no idea about land quality, but it looks good to me.The grass is green, and the whole place looks vibrant.
“I have a few hundred acres here, close to the house, that I want to keep, but I’m getting older.The hardware store takes up a lot of my time, and I never use the fields over the back, so that’s what I’m looking at offloading,” he offers.
“How much do you want to get rid of?”
“I have two hundred acres I want to fence off and sell.But there’s a catch.”
I quirk my eyebrow.“What's the catch?”
“There’s no access.The parcel of land I want to get rid of is landlocked between mine and Annabelle’s farm.”I squint through the windscreen to where we’re going, and sure enough, while I can’t see her house, I can make out the hills and the trees that surround her farm, the familiarity making me smile.
“You’ll need to put in an access road if you want to sell it,” I tell him.
“I know.It would be ideal if Annabelle could buy it.Then she could just extend her farm, but I know she can’t.”He sighs as we drive over the land.
“So is that fence the border?”I point in front of us.
“Just over here… What has she been doing?It didn’t look like that last week when I came for a look,” Bob murmurs, and I follow his gaze as his truck comes to a stop.
I frown as we both get out of the truck and look over to her land.I see rich brown dirt, right next to flourishing lavender bushes, with scraps of plants in between.There’s a significant amount of space that’s just raked dirt, something I haven’t seen on the farm before, since every space has a purpose for Annabelle.“Maybe she’s replanting…”
“Off time of year to be doing that.What the hell is that?”Bob’s tone has me on guard, and I follow him quickly as he trudges to the fence line.
“What is it?”I’m not caring that my leather shoes are now covered in grass and dirt, that my suit pants are probably getting muddy as well.
