Page 52 of Your Every Wish
“Where did he come up with the twenty thousand figure?” I’m not forgiving her for what she did. She had no business talking to Brent McCourtney alone about something that belongs to both of us. But I am curious why he threw out that number.
“Out of his ass, that’s where. He said it to infuriate me.”
Clearly it worked. “Start from the beginning. Tell me how this all came about.”
She goes through the story, starting with Bent’s “stupid house,” which sounds pretty spectacular to me.
“He built it himself?” I say.
“So he says but who knows? The man is a natural-born liar. In fact, let’s go.” She pulls me up from the table and drags me to the door.
“Wait! Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. Get in the car.”
“God, you’re bossy.” I fish through my purse and hand over the BMW key ring.
She gets behind the wheel, waits for me to buckle up before pulling onto the highway. Twenty minutes later, we’re hopelessly lost.
“If you tell me where we’re going I might be able to help.”
“McCourtney Road. It’s got to be close by because Bent said it was contiguous with his property.”
“Why don’t you use your GPS?” Duh. For someone with as much street smarts as Kennedy, she can be pretty dense sometimes.
“Oh, yeah, I didn’t think of that. Siri, get me directions to McCourtney Road.”
Siri delivers and don’t you know, McCourtney Road is five seconds from Cedar Pines. We could’ve bypassed the highway and simply taken a paved fire road behind the park that meets up with McCourtney.
“What’s the address?” I ask, gazing out the window at miles of grassy rolling hills, an occasional irrigation pond, and a few rickety barns that dot the landscape.
“I don’t have one.”
“Then why are we here? What are we looking for?”
“Cows,” she says, and I want to ask if she’s lost her mind.
“They’re everywhere, Kennedy.” We just passed a herd of about twenty lying under a mammoth oak tree.
“Bent owns this land. It’s where he keeps his cattle.”
“All of it?” Because it’s vast. Thousands and thousands of acres.
“I think so. Why else would the road be named McCourtney?”
Half the streets in San Francisco are named after the city’s founding families. It doesn’t mean they own them—or even live there.
“Okay. But that doesn’t answer why we’re here.”
“We’re just doing some reconnaissance, which is something I should’ve done in the first place. The man is so smug, so . . . full of himself. This time I won’t be unprepared.”
“Unprepared for what? Because I don’t want you negotiating with him. We’re not ready to sell, Kennedy. Do you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“We’ll come up with the money some other way. The fact of the matter is even if we sold Cedar Pines today, you wouldn’t get the money in time to make your deadline. So just forget about it as an avenue.”
She pulls into a turnout and kills the engine. Before us is a split-rail fence and pasture for as far as the eye can see. In the distance, at least a hundred cows graze on the hillside. Whether they’re Bent McCourtney’s cattle we’ll never know.
