LITMIR.BIZ

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if that makes any difference,” Christina said dryly, then quickly told her friend goodbye and folded the cell phone together.

      In the back of the house, Lex was in the kitchen, dancing Cook across the tiled floor as an old country song played on the radio.

      “What are you doing here in the kitchen again?” Cook, demanded. “You’ve already had your breakfast. You should be down at the cattle pens.”

      He twirled the aging but agile woman beneath his arm. “Yeah, I should be. Matt had to pull Lester off the fence building crew to take up my slack ‘cause I’ve got other duties this morning,” he said with a grimace. “I’ve told Mom that I don’t want her fretting over Dad’s case, so I’m going to be dealing with it and Ms. Logan. And this morning, she needs my assistance.”

      Cook’s sly smile spread her ruby-red lips. “Ms. Logan, eh? Well, that ought to make you a happy man. So why aren’t you smilin’, and why are you wastin’ time in here with me?”

      He grinned. “What man wouldn’t want to start out his day dancing with his sweetheart?”

      She snorted. “I’ve known plenty.”

      Lex chuckled. “Then they weren’t worth knowing.”

      Cook pinched his shoulder. “Be serious and talk to me.”

      Her order came just as the song ended, so he led the woman over to a long pine table bracketed with benches made of the same wood. After she was seated, he poured two cups of coffee and carried them over to the table.

      “I’m not going to beat around the bush, Hattie, I’ll come right out and say that I think Mom has slipped a cog. Or that damned senator has brainwashed her!”

      Clearly disgusted with his analogy, she said, “What are you talkin’ about? Geraldine is as sharp as a tack.”

      He eased down next to her. “Hattie, when she first talked to me about hiring a private investigator, I wasn’t wild about digging into Dad’s death. But I could see the whole thing was important to her, so I went along with her wishes. If Dad’s death wasn’t an accident, then we need to know it. But last night…well, I got the impression from Mom that she’s doing all of this just to prove to Wolfe Maddson that the Saddler family doesn’t have any hidden skeletons that could come out and hurt his political career. I’ll tell you one thing, Hattie. If that man thinks my mother has to present a clean background to him before he’ll walk down the aisle with her, then he’s gonna be knocked on his ass, and I’m going to be the one doing the knocking!”

      Impatient with his attitude, Cook merely looked at him and shook her head. “So what if that’s Geraldine’s motive? You can use this opportunity to prove to Wolfe Maddson that your father was the honorable man everyone believed him to be. It’ll make the man see that if he plans to keep your mother as happy as Paul did, then he’s got big, big boots to fill.” Her features softened as she laid a hand on his shoulder. “Besides, it won’t be no skin off your hide to work with a pretty thing like Ms. Logan. She seems awfully sweet to me.”

      A wry grin spread slowly across Lex’s face. “Yeah. But you’ve always told me that too many sweets were bad for my health.”

      Patting his cheek, she gave him a wink. “Yes, but that’s the thing about you, boy. You like being bad.”

      Five minutes later, as Lex walked out of the kitchen and headed to Christina’s temporary office, he thought about Cook’s comment. Like the rest of his friends and family, she considered him a ladies’ man, a guy who worked hard but played even harder. None of them understood that most of his flirtatious behavior was just a cover, that his frequent dates were only attempts to fill the lonely holes inside him.

      Both his sisters were married now. Nicci, the oldest, had a new daughter, and Mercedes, his younger sister, had announced a few weeks ago that she and her husband, Gabe, were expecting their first child. All three of his cousins also had loving spouses and growing families. Lex was the only unmarried relative left in the Saddler and Sanchez bunch, unless he counted Cook, his mother and his uncle Mingo. But who knew? By the end of the year, even the old folks would probably have lifelong partners.

      What are you whining about, Lex? If you wanted to be married that badly, you wouldn’t be so particular. You’d settle for a woman you liked, a woman who’d be a good wife, instead of waiting for that one precious love to come along and wham you in the heart.

      Pushing those pestering notions out of his head, Lex knocked lightly on the open door, then stepped into the room.

      Christina was sitting behind a large oak desk, blackrimmed reading glasses perched on the end of her nose as she studied a paper filled with typed text.

      Lifting her head, she smiled at him. “Good morning.”

      “Good morning, yourself.” Moving over to the desk, he leaned a hip against the edge. “Cook tells me you’ve already had breakfast.”

      She glanced at a small silver watch on her left wrist. “About an hour ago. What about you?”

      He smiled with amusement. “About three hours ago.”

      Laying the paper aside, she leaned back in her chair. Lex couldn’t prevent his eyes from drinking their fill. She was dressed casually this morning in an aqua-colored shirt and a pair of jeans. Her fiery hair was pulled into a ponytail, which made her look more like twenty-three than thirty-three, the age his mother had disclosed about the private investigator.

      “You must be an early riser,” she commented.

      “It’s a rancher’s necessity,” he told her. “If he plans to get things done.”

      She smiled wanly. “And I’m going to assume that you’re a man who gets things done.”

      Was she making fun of him? It didn’t matter. She was a city girl. She didn’t know about his sort of life. Or him.

      “When I try,” he drawled. He pointed to the paper she’d been reading. “Is that something about my father’s case?”

      She nodded. “It is. But it’s nothing from your father’s personal things. I’ve not started going through them yet. Before I drove down from San Antonio, I gathered some general information about the company he worked for—Coastal Oil. It’s a huge conglomerate now. They’ve expanded several times during the past few years.”

      The button just above her breasts had been left undone, and if he angled his head just right, Lex could see a tiny silver cross dangling in the shadowed cleavage. Strangely, the sight was both erotic and prim. Like a good girl hiding a naughty tattoo.

      “I don’t know of any oil company nowadays that isn’t making a killing. Yet that wasn’t quite true eleven years ago. Coastal Oil was close to going bankrupt.”

      Her expression thoughtful, she said, “The economy ebbs and flows on cyclical tides. Could be that was simply a downtime for raw crude. Or perhaps the problem was poor management.”

      “Yeah. Or corrupt management,” Lex replied.

      Her brows arched. “Why would you make a remark like that? Do you know for a fact that someone was stealing from the company?”

      “Not at all. I was just speculating. Nowadays white-collar crime seems to be rampant.”

      The curiosity that had been marking her face swiftly disappeared. “That’s true.”

      Feeling restless now, Lex walked over to a window that looked out upon the ranch yard. At the moment, he could see Gabe, the Sandbur’s horse trainer, down at the horse pen, riding a red roan filly. The animal was trying to get her head low enough to buck, but the man was doing his best to change her mind. His brother-in-law was a genius with horses. And women, too, apparently. He’d certainly made Lex’s sister Mercedes happy.

      Lex glanced over his shoulder at Christina. She’d removed the glasses from her face and was eyeing him with easy anticipation. Just

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