Page 83 of Opposites (Never) Attract
“You won’t,” he said. He took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m not saying that to make you nervous, I’m saying it because I heard the confidence in your voice when you were moving through those slides. I didn’t get it, but you did, and that’s all that matters.”
“Why are you always so nice to me?”
“’Cause you’re purty,” he said, with a cowboy drawl.
I laughed, because I knew he was full of shit, and felt this tug inside my stomach. A tug that made me really want to kiss him.
Which, of course, I couldn’t do.
I heard the slow clap, before I saw the person responsible for it.
Tag practically growled low in his throat, so I knew the man in the suit who was walking toward us wasn’t a friend.
He continued to clap until he was standing in front of me. He was wearing an expensive suit that immediately set him apart from everyone else in the small auditorium. He was tall, with dark, slick backed hair, a Rolex on his wrist. He reminded me of all the partners in the firm back in the city.
A shark.
“Clive Bohman,” he introduced himself, with his hand outstretched. He had a full set of blinding white veneers. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet.”
“Sunshine…I mean Kaitlyn Calloway,” I said, offering him my hand in return. His handshake - a touch on the side of too aggressive - which was typical of a predator. Nothing obvious, just letting me know he’s the man in this conversation.
“Can I say, without being inappropriate, I hope, you’re as beautiful as your sisters. There must be something in the water here.”
“No, you can’t say. Who the fuck are you?” Tag snapped.
I put my hand on Tag’s chest as a warning.
“I believe I just introduced myself,” Clive said.
“What do you want?” Tag asked him.
“Oh, nothing. I’m here just to observe,” he told Tag. Then he turned his attention on me. “Ms. Calloway, I represent the Bureau of Land Management’s interest. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there is more at stake here than just the success or failure of the Swinging D. You see, Mr. McGraw left a lot of conditions on that property. If all of the conditions, and I meanall of them,aren’t met, then the land falls to us. I see you’ve got a very ambitious plan here to pull the Swinging D out of its current financial trouble, but if you end up putting it more at risk, then that could make matters worse.” He pressed a pinky-ringed hand to his chest. “Or, in my case, better.”
“Bohman, I don’t recall you being invited to our meeting,” Carter said, as he and Ethan came to stand behind me and Tag.
Tag looked back at Carter and Ethan. “You know this guy?”
Carter nodded briefly. “The Bureau of Land Management contacted us a few weeks ago to let us know they might be sending someone out to the ranch to speak with us. Bohman showed up at the Lodge? while you were in New York getting Sunshine.”
“And I didn’t know I needed an invite to this meeting. Saw all the folks leaving the café at the same time and decided to see what all the fuss was about. Ms. Calloway’spresentation was something else. You obviously know your stuff. I was Googling you on my phone while you were speaking. Berkley and Brothers, huh? One of the more aggressive brokerage firms back in New York. Fun fact, I happened to have gone to college with one of the partners there. Harvard.”
“Really?” I murmured.
The last thing I needed was for anyone back at the brokerage to realize what I was doing in Wyoming. I was supposed to be grieving a dead family member, not making financial deals on the side for them.
“I don’t give a shit who you are. This is town business,” Tag told him. “And you ain’t from this town. It’s time for you to leave.”
Clive’s lip curled, distorting his classically handsome face. “Town business, until all this is settled once and for all, is my business. Don’t worry. When we’re strip mining this land for minerals, there will be plenty of jobs to go around for a bunch of old cowboys.”
“Fuck you, Bohman,” Carter said. “We haven’t conceded anything. If you recall, our festival this year met the required conditions for success. We won the Blue Ribbon.”
“Yes, and now you’ve got this great crypto plan,” he said, with a smug smile. “One has to hope that Ms. Calloway here can pull it off.”
“You heard the town’s answer, Bohman,” Tag said. “They voted for it. Which means they have faith she can pull it off.”
“Faith,” he sighed. “Can be a tricky thing. Good luck, Ms. Calloway. Gentlemen.”
With that, he turned and made his way out of the auditorium behind everyone else.
