Page 32 of The Mountain Echoes
Oh, yes, I’m about two steps away from a migraine, and my pills are all the way at the house.
Amos leans back, studies me, as if he’s assessing my intentions and me.
He’s right when he says that he doesn’t know me. The girl who left a decade ago is not the woman I am today. Pain, betrayal, and abandonment shaped me—but so did friendship and love, my found family in Napa.
As if coming to a decision that I’m worthy of his advice, he says, “You need to work smart. Consider a partnership—maybe with Kincaid Farms. His hay and apples move fast. The man knows how to market.”
“Why would he partner with me?” I muse aloud. “When letting me sink gives him Longhorn.”
Amos’s eyes glint with awareness. “Just like I don’t know you,youdon’t know Mav.” He tips his chin toward the other side of the dining room, where I know the man we’re talking about is eating his dinner. “That’s not who he is. Won’t ever undercut you.”
“You’re right, I don’t know Maverick Kincaid. But from what little interaction I’ve had with him, he doesn’t seem like a very good judge of character.”
Amos arches an eyebrow.
“He seems to be close friends with Celine.”
Amos groans. “He doesn’t see the books as I do.Andyour sister is a master manipulator.”
“Well, at leastyouknow.” I can’t keep the hurt and sarcasm out of my voice. Those who know let Celine get away with whatever she does, like Papa, and those who don’t, like Maverick, look at me like I’m the villain in her fairytale.
“Mav is also a master manipulator,” Amos continues. “You see the man he’s sitting with?”
“Senator Otis Jessup.”
“Andhis wife.”
So, that’s the blonde in the red sweater dress. I look their way and once again see Mrs. Jessup touch Maverick’s arm, her fingers lingering just a moment too long.
It makes my chest tighten.
The sensation catches me off guard—sharp, fast, and stupid.
Why do I care?I barely know the man, and everything I do know tells me I shouldn’t want to.
But something twists in my gut when I see that woman lean in again, tossing her hair like she’s auditioning for a shampoo commercial.
I tear my eyes away.
“So, he sleeps around. I already got that. He sleeping with Celine, too?” I keep my tone light.
I don’t like how this man is affecting me. I don’t like him. It’s obvious that he doesn’t likeme.
Amos watches me for a beat. “Mav is a single man, he can sleep with whomever he wants.”
I don’t want to discuss the morality of Maverick Kincaid sleeping with married women with Amos, so I smile faintly. “Anyone else I can partner with?”
“For the cattle, maybe Wilder Ranch. But for the farm, Mav is the big dog out here.”
I run the numbers in my head, that’s starting to whine with pain.
We’d be better off auctioning the cattle ourselves—cut out the middlemen, take the risk, hope the buyers show up hungry.
But the farm is different. For that, I’d need Maverick.
Still, harvest isn’t until fall. There’s time. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
We go over numbers next—debt load, projected yield, whether we can get hay on deferred payment. Amos has ideas. They’re good. And I don’t feel talked down to.
