The Reluctant Texas Rancher (Harlequin American Romance) (6 page)

“By all means, take him,” Reba exclaimed, setting down a twelve-pack of paper towels.

Liz flushed at her mother’s double entendre, which, judging by the twinkle in her eye, was no accident.

Rolling her eyes at Reba’s blatant matchmaking attempt, Tillie stopped organizing canned goods in the pantry long enough to pat her great-granddaughter on the arm. “That’s very wise of you, dear. Those oil sites can be dangerous places. Better to be safe. And there’s no wiser way to do that than by taking a big, strong, handsome hunk of a man with you.”

Travis grinned, liking the description.

Liz snickered.

“Maybe you should ask an off-duty sheriff’s deputy instead. Like Rio Vasquez or Kyle McCabe,” Faye Elizabeth suggested, still obviously trying to think up ways to keep Liz and Travis apart.

Liz unloaded the contents of a cooler into the fridge. “I want Travis to come with me. And don’t worry about anything here that we fall behind on,” she said, before another protest could be made. “So you won’t be left shorthanded, he’s arranged for a cowboy from his parents’ ranch to come by tomorrow in his stead, and help out until we get back.”

“Which will be when?” Reba asked with a sly wink.

“Very late tomorrow evening.” Liz just hoped—for both her and Travis’s sake—that the result would be what they both wanted.

L
IZ
AND
T
RAVIS
MET
up at dawn. He drove. She used the time to prepare for the meeting with the key witness in the lawsuit against Travis.

Glad she had something to do other than gape at Travis and admire how handsome he was, Liz asked, “Explain to me why Olympia Herndon was so intent on buying out Digger Dobbs.”

Suddenly looking as if he felt as uncomfortable sitting side by side with her in the cozy interior of his pickup truck, Travis held the wheel with one hand and reached for his sunglasses with the other. “He’s one of the few experts in shale oil extraction who does not already work for a major petroleum company.”

“And Herndon Oil does that?”

“They’re trying to get an operation started,” Travis explained with a beleaguered sigh. “But that requires substantial venture capital. Investors will chip in only if someone like Digger is on board to find and identify the reserves, and then oversee the extraction of the solidified oil from inside the rock. Which, as you can imagine, is a difficult, environmentally sensitive process.”

“Olympia couldn’t have gone to someone else?”

Travis stared out the windshield with a frown. “She wanted the best independent left, and that was Digger Dobbs.”

Travis went on to explain why the wildcatter was the best.

After that, they talked about the billing, compensation and promotion practices of HB&R, as well as how Travis had excelled during his time at the firm. Until Olympia Herndon had wanted him fired.

Liz was ready to ask more about that, but time ran out.

“The drilling area is just around the next bend,” Travis said.

She had never been to an underground extraction site. The in situ oil shale facility run by wildcatter Digger Dobbs resembled a maze of aboveground pipes and nodding donkeys, attached to reservoirs.

Trailers were parked around the perimeter, a distance away. A dozen dust-covered pickup trucks and vans filled a makeshift lot.

Travis nodded at a short, bowlegged man in grimy coveralls and a bright orange hard hat. Clipboard in hand, the deeply suntanned roughneck was reading what looked to be computer printouts. “Come on,” Travis said gruffly, looking anything but eager to get this over with. “I’ll introduce you.”

They started in Digger’s direction.

Before Liz or Travis could greet the boss of the operation, however, another car drove up. The doors to the sleek black SUV opened and three men and a woman got out.

Liz didn’t have to ask who the leggy blonde in the trim white suit and heels was.

Olympia Herndon. In the flesh.

Digger glared at the other guests, then turned back and gave Travis an accusing look. “Your lawyer said she wouldn’t be here.”

“She’s not supposed to be,” Liz interjected.

Olympia strode forward, the three business-suited men flanking her. Ignoring Travis completely, she faced off with Liz. “You’ve got no business being here.”

“Mr. Dobbs has consented to speak to us,” Liz said.

“Actually, I’d prefer to speak to none of you,” Digger grumbled. “But since you’re all here, listen up and listen good. That young lawyer there—” he pointed to Travis “—did his damnedest to get me to sign with that pushy female.” He pointed to Olympia. “What no one seems to understand is that it was never going to happen. I’m not selling out. I’m not joining any company. I’m my own boss and that’s the way it is always going to be.”

“And you’ll swear to that in court?” Liz asked.

Opposing counsel grew even tenser as they realized their whole case was about to collapse.

Digger swore like a drunken sailor. “I’m sure as heck not going to lie! Now get the hell off my lease, all of you! You’ve worn out your welcome.”

Olympia started to speak, then caught the gazes of her companions. She turned away from Digger, who was already striding off in a huff, and headed for Travis instead.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” his former client proposed, an avaricious gleam in her eyes. “Get your insurance company to settle my malpractice claim against you and I’ll drop the lawsuit and the charges with the state bar, so you can get your law license back.”

Some might have taken the deal just to get this over with, Liz noted. Not Travis. His jaw tensed. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Olympia shot him a coy look. “Really?” she purred. “Is that the way you want to play it?” she threatened silkily. “Because one way or another I’m going to recoup the money and the time I lost.”

“How?” Liz asked.

The oil heiress had no case—or did she? Why—in the face of what they’d just learned—was opposing counsel still so confident? So willing to let their client take the lead?

An awkward silence fell.

“Think about it,” Olympia advised, the threat in her voice unmistakable. “You have until tonight.”

Pivoting, she glided off, her attorneys right behind her.

A few moments later, Liz and Travis headed for his pickup truck. She waited until they were cruising down the highway before she asked, “Mind telling me what that was about?”

Travis clenched his jaw. “You heard her. She wants to save face, and excoriating me is the way she has decided to do that.”

Liz swiveled toward him. “It seems personal.” Oddly so.

“Revenge always is,” he said.

Travis’s sunglasses shaded his eyes, and Liz wished she could rip off the dark lenses. Get closer. Do something, anything, to ferret out the truth. “For me to effectively represent you and bring this to closure I have to know everything,” she pointed out.

Once again, Travis kept his eyes on the road. “I’ve told you everything pertinent to the case,” he stated.

Then why, Liz wondered, didn’t she believe him?

Chapter Six

Liz and Travis got back to the ranch around eight that evening. He went straight to the barn to relieve the Double Deal cowboy they’d borrowed for the day. Liz headed inside, where all three Cartwright women awaited, clearly with romance on their mind.

“Did you get what you needed?” her mother asked, handing her a tall glass of lemonade.

The icy liquid eased Liz’s thirst. “Yes and no.” She wiped the corners of her lips with the back of her hand.

Eyebrows rose and everyone waited.

“It’s clear my client is not guilty of the accusations against him, but the opposing forces seem to be increasing exponentially nevertheless.”

Tillie sighed. “We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re not supposed to.” Liz plucked a blueberry muffin from a plate on the kitchen counter and started peeling off the wrapper. “It’s a confidential client matter.”

“I hope this doesn’t mean you’re going to get hopelessly involved with yet another underdog,” Faye Elizabeth said, going over to the phone and returning with several sheets from the message pad, which she handed to her daughter. “The calls started coming in right after you left this morning.”

“J.T. wants to know if you’re going to be able to file his rezoning request with the town first thing tomorrow,” Reba said. She flipped to the next page. “Hargett Anderson—Travis’s grandfather—phoned, looking for him. He said, since he couldn’t get Travis to call him back, maybe you could…?”

Reba struggled to read her own handwriting, which was as bad as Liz’s. “And the last was from an attorney with Haverty, Brockman & Roberts—a Mr. Brockman. He was very nice. He said he hated to bother us on a Sunday ’cause he knew you’d recently taken on an important case, but he really needed to speak to you as soon as possible.”

It was all Liz could do not to groan as she perused the messages her mom handed over.

Aware it wasn’t Reba’s fault, since they had purposefully kept everyone in the dark, she finished her muffin and walked over to toss the wrapper in the trash. “What did you tell him?”

“That you’d gone off to see some roughneck on a drilling site, west of Midland-Odessa. And we didn’t know when you were going to be back.”

“And he said…?” she prompted.

“He hoped you took someone with you, because it could be dangerous out there. And I told him,” Reba continued indignantly, “that he didn’t know the Cartwright women if he thought you couldn’t take care of yourself. But that we had sent along our new ranch hand, Travis Anderson, just in case.”

Well, that explained how the opposing counsel knew she and Travis were with Digger, Liz thought. And had gotten there just in time to thwart any headway they might have made.

“Have you eaten dinner?” Faye Elizabeth asked.

“Yes.” Liz poured herself another glass of lemonade and drank deeply. “Travis and I got sandwiches at a restaurant on the road.” Where he had spent most of the time deftly dodging her questions about the personal side of his relationship with Olympia Herndon.

She’d let it go, knowing it was going to take some finesse to get the information out of him. But he was going to have to spill all eventually, whether he liked it or not. Otherwise, she would not be able to properly represent him. Which, as a lawyer, he also knew.

Liz’s cell phone vibrated. She pulled it out of her pocket and read the message coming across the screen. Once again, it was all she could do not to groan in dismay. “I’m going to have to go to the office.”

“Tonight?” Tillie cried.

“Yes.”

“But it’s so late,” she protested. “You shouldn’t work so hard.”

Liz hugged her great-grandmother and pressed a kiss on her fading red hair. “I’ll ask Travis to go along with me.”

“Are you sure there’s no spark left between you?” Faye Elizabeth asked suspiciously.

“I hope there is!” Beaming, Tillie returned the hug, giving Liz an extra affectionate squeeze.

“Me, too,” Reba said. “And that you keep your real goals firmly in mind.”

Meaning having a baby and continuing the Cartwright family. Liz’s goals, however, were far different from her mother’s. She wanted to keep her life from becoming messy and emotional. Everything else was secondary.

“You don’t need to worry about that, Mom,” she told her.

Whatever Travis was keeping from her was reason enough to concentrate only on representing him.

Liz found him in the barn. He was tending to two calves that hadn’t been thriving in the field, so had been stabled, along with their mamas, for a few days.

Hearing her approach, he emerged from the stall, a question in his slate-gray eyes.

“I just had an email from opposing counsel. They faxed an amended complaint to my office in town.”

Travis looked as if he had been half expecting the perfectly legal—yet underhanded—tactics of his former law firm. “It can wait until tomorrow morning,” he said with a grimace.

“Maybe for you,” Liz countered. “I’m not going to lie awake all night wondering what is in it.”

He exhaled, his frustration with the situation mounting. “In that case I’ll go with you. Just give me a minute to wash up.”

The ride to town was conducted in silence. Liz sensed Travis had an idea what was in the waiting fax. Her suspicion was confirmed the moment she got a look at the amended complaint.

Heart sinking, she handed the pages over. “Is this true?” she asked, half in shock, half in dismay.

The brooding look in his eyes intensified. “I had a relationship with Olympia,” Travis admitted curtly.

Liz pushed aside the image of him and Olympia getting naked, and the hot flash of jealousy that followed. “A sexual relationship?”

“Yes.”

“When she was your client?”

“Yes.”

Hence the disclosure agreement he had presented Liz with the evening before. Suddenly, something that had seemed innocent—even thoughtful—at the time, took on a tawdry slant.

Resentment knotted her gut. A litany of not-so-nice words crowded her mind. “And you chose not to tell me?” Thereby leaving her in the dark, dammit!

“It wasn’t relevant.”

“I’m your attorney.” Liz advanced on Travis, temper sizzling. She grabbed the papers from him and slammed them onto her desk, then whirled back to face him. “It’s my job to decide what’s relevant. It’s your job to confide in me—not to keep things from me.”

His eyes narrowed and a long pause followed. “Why are you so upset?” he asked.

Because once again Travis had been cutting her out, when he should have been including her.

Liz vowed to keep her emotional involvement with him to the absolute minimum from that moment on.

Swallowing, she walked around her desk, and sat down behind it. Clasped her hands together and said in a cool and professional tone, “I pride myself on doing the very best job I can to represent my clients.”

She paused to let her words sink in.

Travis folded his big frame into one of the client chairs in front of her desk.

She continued with a censuring glare. “I was at a big disadvantage this afternoon because I was the only one there who didn’t know what Olympia was threatening you with.”

Travis shifted into a more comfortable position and propped one ankle on the opposite knee. He rubbed at a spot of distressed leather on his boot. “Not true.” Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his eyes to hers. “Digger and the rest of his crew didn’t know, either.”

But all the attorneys had! His ex-lover slash client had! Liz gritted her teeth. “You really want to joke at a time like this?”

His pewter eyes grew shuttered. “There is nothing funny to me about this situation.”

“You’re right about that.” Liz pushed her chair back and vaulted to her feet. She picked up the pages, shoving them into a file. “I should have known this would happen.” She shook her head in anger. “You blindsided me before, breaking up with me when I least expected it. And now you have disrespected me again with your silence.”

How the heck was she supposed to come back from that?

He rose, too, his expression sober. “This isn’t a personal affront to you, Liz,” he insisted in a low, sexy voice.

“The heck it isn’t!” She rounded the desk and shoved the file into his hands.

“I made it clear to you when I first took your case. I can represent flawed clients, because everyone is entitled to a defense. But I won’t represent clients who don’t tell me the whole truth.”

“You’re firing me as a client?” The look on his face spoke volumes about what he thought of that.

“And as a ranch hand.” Liz jerked her chin toward the door. “Good luck and Godspeed at finding your own way home.” She paused to slay him with her eyes. “Because you and I, Travis?” she finished very softly. “We’re done.”

L
IZ
FIGURED
T
RAVIS
WOULD
have his belongings out of the homestead and off the Four Winds by the following morning, if not sooner.

Instead, she came down to breakfast Monday morning to find him sitting at the kitchen table, holding court over a sumptuous spread of eggs, bacon, sausage, hash brown potatoes, fruit and homemade biscuits with Faye Elizabeth’s famous honey butter.

Noting that his appetite hadn’t abated in the slightest, Liz skittered to a halt. “What are you doing here?”

Travis met her gaze, his eyes dark and heated.

The Cartwright women all looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “He works here,” Tillie reminded her.

Liz closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Travis was still looking at her. Daring her to say just about anything.

Liz frowned and turned to the ladies. “I fired him.”

Reba shrugged. “Actually, you can only do that if you’ve taken over the reins of the Four Winds. And you haven’t, so it’s up to us. And we all want him to stay.”

Muttering under her breath, Liz stomped over to the drying rack next to the sink, and rummaged around for her thermal coffee mug. All too aware of everyone’s eyes on her, she moved to the coffeemaker and filled the mug two-thirds full.

Tillie handed her the toasted-coconut flavored creamer from the fridge, and gently brought her up to speed. “Travis told us he’d hired you to handle a legal problem for him, the two of you disagreed about how to proceed, and you quit. And then fired him. But—” Tillie patted Liz’s arm “—we disagree with that.”

Reba moved to Liz’s other side. “We need his help. And Travis wants to stay. So…”

“…as long as the two of you are no longer attracted to each other in that way,” Faye Elizabeth said, “it makes sense for him to continue to work here.”

Liz snapped the lid on her mug and set it on the counter with a thud. “Seriously.” She marched over to Travis and stood facing him, hands on her hips. “Seriously?” she all but shouted, expecting him to stand and square off with her like a man.

Instead, he pushed his chair back from the table and made himself even more comfortable. Crinkles appeared at the corners of his gray eyes. “Just because you reneged on your half of our bargain doesn’t mean I’m going to renege on mine.”

It was all Liz could do not to grab him by the shirt and haul him to his feet.

Hanging on to her considerable temper by a thread, she said through gritted teeth, “I’d like a word with you, Travis Anderson.” Before anyone else in the room could say anything, she snapped, “Alone!”

Tillie moved to Travis’s side and patted him on the shoulder. “Better do as she says, dear,” she encouraged kindly. “Our darling Liz doesn’t get that fiery very often, but when she does it is best to hear her out.”

Liz stormed outside. Aware they still had an audience, she kept right on going, all the way to the homestead. Jet and Mud were lying on the front porch, waiting for the day’s work to begin. Despite herself, Liz could not pass a dog without pausing to pet it so she bent to quickly give each a scratch behind the ears, then continued on into the cabin.

She made it as far as the table, then spun around, pulse racing. “You must have better things to do than torment me.”

“I can’t think of any.”

He was teasing her, but when she met his gaze he wasn’t smiling.

Her stomach dropped. “Have you hired another lawyer?”

Something flickered in his expression at that. Annoyance at having to explain himself, probably. “Nope.”

Liz huffed in frustration. “Tell me you’re not going to represent yourself.”

He stared at her. “I don’t have plans to, no.”

Liz had seen clients self-destruct before. It was never a pleasant experience.

“You have until three this afternoon to respond to their assertions,” the advocate in her forced to point out. “Or they are going to file that amended lawsuit with the court.”

He flexed his brawny shoulders, the motion as careless as his attitude. “Let ’em file.”

“That’s terrible legal strategy.”

He stood, legs braced apart, arms folded in front of him. Showered but unshaved, and wearing a washed-’til-it-was-soft blue chambray shirt and faded jeans, Travis was every inch an indomitable Texan.