LITMIR.BIZ

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easily as they could raise a sweat working it.

      Even Charlie, who had not been a Texan at all, but like her was a born and bred Easterner, though from a very, very different background, even he had somehow let the poetic part draw him in.

      Not the sweat part.

      It was impossible to imagine Charlie had ever raised a sweat on anything more labor-intensive than his stock portfolio.

      Addison sighed.

      Perhaps if he had, if he’d flown down to take a hard look at the Chambers ranch, ridden its seemingly endless dusty acres instead of relying on a picture-book spread in a fancy real-estate catalogue, he wouldn’t have bought it.

      But he had bought it, sight unseen, and died a week later.

      Losing him had just about broken her heart—and then had come the shock of learning he’d willed her the ranch.

      She’d done nothing about it for a while. Then, because the place had obviously been important to Charlie, she’d done what he hadn’t.

      She’d strung together all the vacation time she hadn’t taken in two years, added this year’s allotment and flown down to see it.

      What she’d found wasn’t a ranch at all, not if you watched old John Wayne movies on late-night TV.

      The Chambers place was umpteen thousand acres of scrub, outbuildings that looked as if a strong wind would topple them, a ranch house that had its own wildlife population, half a dozen sorry-looking horses and not very much else.

      Which was the reason she had the Wildes as her advisors and—

      “Now, little lady, how come you’re drinkin’ red wine when there’s champagne flowin’ like a stream to the Rio Grande?”

      A big man wearing an even bigger Stetson, a flute of champagne in each oversize paw, flashed her a big smile.

      Oh God, she thought wearily, not again.

      “Jimbo Fawcett,” he said. “Of the Fawcett Ranch.”

      How could somebody manage to tuck an entire pedigree into six words? Another Jimbo Fawcett look-alike already had, with the clear expectation that she’d want to spend the rest of the evening listening to him explain—with some modesty but not much because, after all, this was Texas—how incredibly lucky she was that he’d picked her out of the herd.

      Except for the Stetsons, big-shot New York attorneys and Wall Street tycoons did it much the same way, so she was used to it.

      “How nice for you,” she said pleasantly.

      “You jest got to be Addie McDowell.”

      “Addison McDowell. Yes.”

      Fawcett gave a booming laugh. “We’re not so formal down here, little lady.”

      What the hell, Addison thought, enough was enough.

      “Mr. Fawcett—”

      “Jimbo.”

      “Mr. Fawcett.” Addison gave him a bright smile. “In the next couple of minutes, you’re going to tell me that I’m new to Wilde’s Crossing and what a sad thing it is that we haven’t met before.”

      Fawcett blinked.

      “And I’m going to say yes, I’m new and we haven’t met because I’m not interested in meeting anyone, and then I’ll tell you that I prefer red wine and that I’m sure you’re a nice guy but I’m not interested in champagne or anything else. Got it?”

      Fawcett’s mouth dropped open.

      Addison took pity on the man and patted his arm.

      “Thanks anyway,” she said, and she turned her back to him, wound her way through the crowd until she found an empty bit of wall space near a big Steinway grand piano and settled into it.

      Dammit, she thought, glancing at her watch, how much longer until the local hero showed up? Five minutes more, and then—

      “Why do I suspect you’re not having a good time?”

      Addison turned around, ready to provide a sharp answer, but when she saw the tall, good-looking man who’d slipped up next to her, she fixed him with a narrow-eyed glare instead.

      “Travis Wilde,” she said, “you owe me, big-time.”

      “Well, that answers your question,” Caleb Wilde said as he joined them. “You suspect she’s not having a good time because she isn’t. Right, Addison?”

      “Considering that I’ve spent the last months turning down invitations from the country club, the ranchers’ association, the ladies’ sewing league—”

      “Not the sewing league,” Travis said in shocked tones.

      “The sewing league,” Addison said, and when she saw the brothers’ mouths twitch, she relented, if only a little. “You said he would be here by eight.”

      “Jacob.” Caleb cleared his throat. “That’s what we figured.”

      “It’s almost eight-thirty. And there’s still no sign of the mystery man.”

      “Jake’s not a mystery man,” Travis said quickly. “And he’ll be here. Just be patient.”

      Addison made a face. The last few months, her patience had been in increasingly short supply.

      “You need an expert to take a long, hard look at the Chambers place, figure out if it makes sense to fix it up before you put it on the market or not. In today’s economic climate—”

      Addison held up her hand.

      “I’ve heard this speech before.”

      “It’s still valid. Jake’s recommendations could make hundreds of thousands of dollars’ difference to you.”

      She could hardly scoff at that. Those Manhattan mortgage payments, the tuition loans …

      Besides, the ranch had meant something to Charlie and he’d left it to her. That was a kind of obligation. She had to do the right thing with it, if only out of respect for his memory.

      “Ten minutes. He’ll be here by then,” Caleb said. “Okay?”

      “He’d better be,” Addison said, but she softened the words with a smile.

      She could spare another ten minutes, partly because she liked and respected Caleb, her attorney, and Travis, her financial consultant—

      And partly because she was curious.

      She was increasingly certain the Wildes weren’t telling her all there was to tell about the mysterious Jacob.

      She knew he was, or had been, in the army. That he’d been wounded. That he was some kind of hero. His brothers hadn’t said so but she’d heard the rumors from the one lonely cowboy who worked her ranch part-time. Caleb and Travis simply talked about his ability to assess the place.

      “You sell it without his advice,” they’d said, “you’ll regret it.”

      “Couldn’t someone else do it?” Addison had asked.

      The brothers had exchanged a glance so quick she might not have noticed it if she hadn’t been looking at them from across her desk—old man Chambers’s desk—in what passed for the ranch office.

      Addison’s eyebrows had risen. “What?”

      “Nothing,” Caleb had said.

      “Nothing at all,” Travis had added.

      “Bull,” Addison had said calmly. “You’re up to something and I want to know what it is.”

      Another of those quick looks. Then Travis had cleared his throat.

      “Jake truly is the man you want,

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