LITMIR.BIZ

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could be saved—was even worth saving?

      “Ryan?”

      Ryan dragged his thoughts back from Becca’s motivations. “She seems pretty bent on doing a thorough investigation…but on the flip side, she’s ready to give us the benefit of the doubt.”

      “Maybe she’s angling for a little grease on the wheels, eh?” Oliver said.

      Everybody ignored him. They waited for Murphy’s answer.

      “She’s here for the long haul? Say anything about inspecting the other farms?”

      “No, but I expect she will. She seems to know her stuff.”

      “I don’t like it,” another farmer spoke up. “I thought this was supposed to be a slam dunk like Murphy said. After that insurance adjuster came, they were supposed to cut a check, and then we could start burning off our fields. As it is, I’m spending out the wazoo to tend a crop I for one didn’t think I’d have to be fooling with at this point. Pretty soon, I’ll be in the hole, even with the insurance money.”

      “You’ll get your money,” Murphy told him. “Everybody just stick together, stick with the story, and you’ll get your money.”

      “Maybe you guys should just cut your losses,” Ryan said. “I’m telling you, you let this stuff go unchecked for much longer while you wait on an insurance company to decide, and it’ll gain a foothold. Then next year you won’t even be able to put in a crop. You guys just don’t understand how bad this particular vine can be. It’s already jumped the cotton fields and got into Mee-Maw’s garden.”

      To his satisfaction, Ryan heard a collective gasp. That’s right, scare ’em into doing the right thing.

      But Murphy seemed unperturbed. “Well, now, Ryan. Guess that shows you how important it is that we get this woman in and out on the double-q. Before anything happens to y’all’s precious Mee-Maw. Glad to hear you’re grasping the situation.”

      It took a moment for Ryan to catch Murphy’s drift. “You son of a—” Now he was on his feet, with Jack struggling to get up, too, but hampered by his leg. “You were the one who planted that stuff in—”

      “That’s no way to talk to your gramps’s friends, is it? Mac never talked to us like that. All I was saying is that we need to answer this woman’s questions and send her on her merry way before that stuff spreads any more. After all, you know what it can do. So it’s in everybody’s best interest to persuade her to get this investigation over and done with.”

      Tate leaned forward. “Murphy, if we can’t persuade her, then we might have to—” the farmer scratched his chin “—consider other options.”

      The double meaning in Tate’s brief statement was enough to sink a flotilla. Ryan could barely hold on to his temper. The thought that Murphy had deliberately put that vine in Mee-Maw’s garden was enough to leave him speechless with rage.

      But Tate practically threatening violence?

      Murphy gave his head an abrupt shake. “You leave the Reynolds girl to me. Last thing we need to do is get her more suspicious. I know how to handle her kind. They come on strong, but when they see how things work in the real world…”

      Behind Ryan, the glass door swung open. He turned to see Becca, clad in snug-fitting blue jeans and a V-necked T-shirt, taking in the gathering. Her eyes went from one farmer to the other, finally landing on Ryan.

      Was it disappointment he saw in them?

      

      BECCA KNEW A WAR ROOM when she saw one, and despite its Rotary banners spouting “Is it the truth?” this was most definitely a war room.

      She looked past Ryan, his face taut with emotion—rage? Worry? She couldn’t be sure—and met the cool, implacable gaze of Richard Murphy.

      At least that’s who she thought the man sitting at the head of the long table, radiating authority like a lord over his fiefdom, must be.

      “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said. “I was looking for a Mr. Richard Murphy.”

      She hadn’t been wrong. The man pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “That’d be me.”

      “I’m—”

      “Becca Reynolds. Ryan here was telling us all about you.”

      Becca took in the way Ryan’s mouth turned down even more at the corners.

      He’s not happy about whatever is going on.

      “Well, good. That saves me the trouble of explaining things. I was wondering if you’d be available to show me your…infestation later today.”

      “We all will. Right, boys? We certainly want to cooperate with Miss Reynolds so she can get her job done.”

      “That’s—that’s great.” This was creepy, the way the men around the table—including Jack MacIntosh—all nodded enthusiastically at Murphy’s directive, though their expressions looked anything but.

      “Uh…Becca. You said you had some more questions for me. We can handle them now, if you want to follow me back out to the farm. Or are you here for breakfast?”

      Ryan’s voice seemed strange, forced. Was he following orders or just using her as a handy excuse to ditch the meeting?

      It didn’t matter. She knew him in a way she didn’t know the other men in the room. If she was going to get to the bottom of this, she’d get the full story out of Ryan quicker than she would anyone else. She was convinced he wanted to tell her the deal.

      Or maybe you’re just fooling yourself.

      “Sure, I’ll follow you. I’ve already eaten.”

      Ryan threw down a couple of bills onto the Formica table. He exchanged a long look with Jack, but he didn’t, she noticed, say goodbye to anyone. Everyone else seemed to be waiting for her to get out the door so they could resume the meeting.

      “Looking forward to seeing you later today, Miss Reynolds. Just come on when you will.”

      Murphy’s invitation reeked of phony goodwill as his words didn’t match the hard, speculative light in his eyes.

      “I’ll do that, Mr. Murphy. Ryan? If you’re ready?”

      They headed outside into the early-morning sunlight. She took a stab at loosening some details from Ryan.

      “I didn’t mean to drag you away from your breakfast buddies.”

      “They’re not my buddies,” he growled.

      Well. That was a reaction. It cheered her immeasurably, save for a niggling doubt about what Ryan’s cousin had been doing there. She tackled Ryan about it. “Not your buddies? What about Jack?”

      Ryan’s dark glower morphed into worry. That was then smoothed into something more inscrutable. “He was probably there for the same reason as me—waiting to see what Murphy had to say.”

      Maybe. But Jack did sell insurance—though not for crops—and he wasn’t happy to have someone poking around. She’d need to keep an eye on Jack.

      The thought that someone other than Ryan could be the focus of the scam eased some of the anxiety eating at Becca. She’d spent an insomnia-plagued night second-guessing herself, and then had been awoken at 6:00 a.m. by her dad’s phone call.

      Becca hadn’t exactly lied to him, she just hadn’t spilled the whole truth. It was too complicated, and she wanted to figure out a few things first. He’d been satisfied to hear that she thought something hinky was going on.

      “Thought so,” her father had said. “Mighty funny that a guy with MacIntosh’s know-how is at the epicenter of a bunch of claims on some parasitic plant. Mark my words, he’s in it up to his neck.”

      Becca looked at Ryan

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