Five
Vic arrived at his office in the Grandin family home the next morning and was immediately surrounded by his two older sisters. Chelsea and Layla were standing, arms folded, foreheads creased.
“What’d I do now?” He moved to the coffee cart on the back wall, relieved someone had been saintly enough to brew a pot before he’d arrived. He’d had a virtually sleepless night after the kiss Aubrey had given him in her parents’ driveway.
The old Vic would have thrown her into his truck and left a cloud of dust in his wake as he raced her to his bedroom. Once there, he would have finished what she’d so brazenly started. But since the night he’d recently spent with her, he’d realized he’d been a selfish ass for way too long. Add to that her compromised memory and his starring role as her white knight and there was no way he could act on his impulses. If not for a sudden attack of conscience, he could’ve spent last night making love to her on every sturdy surface in his room instead of lying on his back, wide-awake, with a hard-on that wouldn’t quit.
Being mature sucked.
“You didn’t do anything.” Layla sounded sincere. Her wavy blond hair was down, her mouth set in a determined line. The look was uncommon given she’d been happier lately. Ever since she’d fallen in love with and married Josh.
“We’re here for the quarterly meeting, as per Daddy’s request,” Chelsea said.
Shit. He’d totally forgotten. His head had been elsewhere last night. On the faint freckles dotting the bridge of Aubrey’s nose, and the feel of her tight little fist clutching his shirt. She’d wanted him, and he’d refused her. God, he was a jackass.
“Well, where is he?” Vic sipped his coffee as he glanced out of the office window at the stables. No sign of his father anywhere.
“We thought you would know, you two being so close and all,” Chelsea answered with a smirk. Vic refused to take the bait. He didn’t have the energy to argue with her today.
“I’ll saddle up Titan and find him.” Cell reception was spotty in many areas of their expansive ranch.
On the back of his gray roan Percheron, Vic rode the perimeter of the ranch in search of Victor Jr. No sign of his father’s horse, or his wide black cowboy hat, but he did spot a woman at the edge of the Grandin property, right where it butted up against Lattimore land.
“Help you?” he called out as he approached the stranger. Her hand rested on the hilt of a measuring wheel. “You’re a surveyor.”
“How’d you know?” A quick lift of her eyebrows told him she was surprised to see him, but she hid it with a smile. “Was it the measuring device or my bright orange safety vest that tipped you off?”
The woman was both tall and slender, wearing a flannel beneath that safety vest paired with jeans and boots. The way she looked him dead in the eye suggested she wasn’t the least bit intimidated.
“This is private property.”
“No worries. I’m done here,” she answered.
“What were you doing here?” He didn’t expect an answer, but once again she addressed him directly.
“I was hired.”
“By who?”
“By whom, you mean, and the answer is Heath Thurston.”
Heath. Of course. That bastard was getting bolder by the minute. The reminder that Thurston was still trying to wrap his grubby paws around the deeds to the Grandin and Lattimore ranches made Vic see red.
“Have a good day now. That’s a beautiful horse.” With a flip of her blond hair, the slight woman made her way to the road with her equipment in tow. Vic made sure she was gone before heading back to the house himself.
On his way he encountered Layla, who was riding a fairly cooperative mustang today. She trained horses, so she knew what she was doing, which was why she’d soon be opening her own ranch with Josh. Vic felt the odd pinch of loss that she’d be here at the family ranch less and less...so long as they could hold on to it.
The mustang grumbled his complaint but came into line as Layla walked him next to Vic and Titan on the way to the house.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“A surveyor hired by Heath Thurston.”
“Damn,” his sister said under her breath.
“Yeah, I know.”
“How do you know she was sent by Heath?”