Page 31 of Christmas with the Cowboy
She let go of the rails and turned to him, and for one crazy moment, he thought she was going to touch him. His heart started beating faster, and he told it to knock it off.
The colt snorted at something imaginary and danced along the edge of the fence, and from the way their gazes instantly shifted to the horse, he figured they’d needed an excuse to stop staring at one another.
“Dad’s going to ride him.”
“Maybe you should ride him first. He looks skittish.”
Reed sent her a look, and Trenna made anOwith her mouth. “Gotcha.”
And that was the problem. She got him. She had back then, and he had a feeling that she got him now.
“I talked to my dad about the strip of land by the river.”
“Let me guess. He said that it was all a big misunderstanding, and he wasn’t trying to steal a long stretch of Keller land.”
“Right.” She smiled in the direction of the colt, but there was a tightness in her shoulders. “He might rethink what he’s doing. I don’t know, but I gave it a shot for you guys.”
“I think the lawyers will be talking before long.”
“Me, too,” Trenna said on a sigh, making Reed wonder if she knew about the access issues that were possibly behind the attempted land grab.
He was debating about asking when her phone chimed in her pocket. Trenna glanced down, but left the phone where it was. When she lifted her gaze, he sensed that she had something to say, something that wasn’t easy—no surprise there—then the phone dinged again, and her expression shifted. She’d changed her mind.
Trenna pushed a handful of curls over her shoulder. “I’d better get to work helping your mom with the ranch papers. You know—separating the wheat from the chaff. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of chaff.”
“Mom’s thinking of writing a ranch memoir.”
“She has enough material—if the memoir is about every single purchase anyone ever made in the early 1900s.” She smiled and put her hands in her back pockets. “There are letters, and she thinks maybe a journal or two that have yet to see the light of day.”
The phone made another noise, and this time, she pulled it out, her eyebrows lifting. “Hmm.”
She dropped it back into her pocket. “I’d better go.”
“Me, too. I have a lot of fencing to attend to.”
“Along the—”
“Hunt-Keller boundary? Why yes.”
“Have fun with that.” Trenna started toward the house, then abruptly stopped and turned back. “Why doesn’t your family hold my father’s shitty dealings against me?”
And there it was…the reason for her uncertainty. Not legal issues as he’d assumed, but something more personal.
Reed gave a gentle shrug. “I guess because you’re so much more likable than your father.”
“So they don’t?”
She’d obviously been thinking about this, which was understandable given the circumstances.
“They don’t, Trenn.”
She flattened her mouth before saying, “I was just wondering.”
“If we find out that you’re fencing off strips of our land, we might have an issue. Until then…” He smiled, but Trenna didn’t smile back.
“Thanks.” She turned and headed toward the house, pulling out her phone and tapping it as she walked.
The colt snorted as Henry came out of his trailer, carrying a canvas tool bag. Everything else was already loaded into the side-by-side.
