“I…” Kate felt like a child who’d been caught misbehaving.
“The guy tried to flirt you into a bad deal,” her father said, “and when we turned him down, he resorted to force to try and cheat us.”
“It’s not like that,” Kate protested. “He’s still hoping we can work out a price for the land. He said he’ll go up two hundred thousand.”
“As if that makes a difference,” her father retorted.
“Kate,” her mom said patiently, “Landon Wyle is a very handsome man, but you can’t let that cloud your judgment.”
Kate could almost see her parents delivering this lecture. Her mother sat somewhere, sending worried looks to her father. Her father paced and gripped the phone too hard.
Kate held her ground. “My judgement isn’t clouded, and the ranch is doing fine. I’ll get a new foreman. Landon said he could help me find someone.”
Her mother coughed in disbelief. “You’re going to trust someone he picks?”
“Absolutely not,” her father said. “I still have some connections in the ranching world. I’ll ask around. In the meantime, promise me that Landon and his assortment of good-looking brothers will stay away from you and our property.”
Our property.A reminder that it wasn’t really Kate’s, at least not in her parents’ minds. Fine. They could have their say about ranch matters, but not about who she saw. “Choose whoever you want for a foreman,” she said. “But I’ll choose who I date.”
Her mother sighed. “Oh honey, he’s using you, and you’re going to be terribly hurt when all of this is over.”
“For heaven’s sake,” her father added, “doesn’t it make you suspicious that Landon fired the one person who was helping you and offered to put someone he knows in the position?”
Granted, when her father put it like that it did sound suspicious. But Landon wasn’t scamming her. She just had no way to prove that to her parents.
The call went on for a few more minutes with her parents continuing to paint Landon in every dark tone they could imagine. Finally, they hung up.
So. They definitely were never going to think about Landon as possible son-in-law material.
Kate put down the phone with shaking hands. The thing was, she didn’t blame her parents for questioning Landon’s intentions. If she’d heard the same facts about someone else’s relationship, she’d suspect that a guy with so much to lose might have ulterior motives too.
A lot of men in his position would do anything and everything to get Coyote Glen. But Landon wasn’t like that. Kate would be able to tell if he was just pretending to care about her, wouldn’t she? Could she have been taken in by those blue eyes and his seductive slow drawl?
No.
Probably not.
She hated that she was suddenly wondering.
Her parents texted her the picture Dewayne had sent them. A selfie with a fist sized welt on his cheek.
If Landon had hit him, why hadn’t he told her about it? Dewayne’s proposition had been an insult to Landon’s honor, but that didn’t seem like enough to make Landon take a swing. Perhaps Dewayne injured himself so his story would sound more convincing. It was possible. Probable, even. Landon wasn’t the sort to haul off and hit someone.
Unless she didn’t know Landon as well as she thought. They’d only been dating a couple of months. Maybe she’d only seen the side of him he wanted her to see.
She picked up her phone a dozen times to talk to Landon about Dewayne’s accusations. She never placed the call. Now that her parents had planted a seed of doubt, she wanted to see Landon face-to-face when she asked him about it. And she probably ought to be face-to-face when she told him she didn’t need his help finding a new foreman. Not because she doubted him, but because she wanted the reassurance that she was right about him. When she told Landon that her parents were going to hire someone, and a flash of disappointment didn’t cross his expression, she’d know he hadn’t planned on putting some ranch-wrecking accomplice on Coyote Glenn.
She ought to tell Landon soon so he didn’t spend time searching for people.
This morning, she’d gone through her grandfather’s bolo ties and picked out a silver and turquoise one that had been a favorite. She’d planned on giving it to Landon as a thank you gift for helping with Marigold but had completely forgotten about it while he was here. Now the gift gave her the perfect excuse to stop by his house and surprise him.
Chapter Eighteen
When Kate droveup to Landon’s house, he stood on the porch looking cautiously happy to see her. His blond hair was mussed, and he’d put on a faded flannel shirt over his white T-shirt. Really, the guy could make anything look rugged.
She got out of her truck and strolled up the porch stairs, carrying both a gift box and two cartons of eggs. “This is to thank you for helping with Daisy.” She gave him the box, then lifted the egg cartons. “These are just because I still have too many.”
“You didn’t have to.” His caution melted. “And you really didn’t have to bring eggs. We have plenty.”