“He must have loved the cat.”
“Very much.”
“What about the little girl?”
“Her mother bought her a cat of her own,anda litter box,” he added with a chuckle.
Meadow smiled. “I used to have cats when I was a child. I wasn’t really a dog person, but I love my Snow. She’s a lot of company, and she does at least howl when somebody comes up outside.”
He frowned. “Howls?”
“She’s a Siberian husky. They don’t bark. They howl.”
“Well!”
She laughed at his surprise. She remembered then what Dal had told her about Jeff’s politics, so she launched into a dig at the current administration in Washington, D.C. and the loss of the liberal agenda. It wasn’t really her own position, but she wanted to impress her boss. She didn’t notice at first that he clammed up and said little. It was puzzling—he almost seemed to feel offended.
Chapter 4
They finished the nice meal and Jeff escorted her out to the car and helped her inside. It was snowing heavily. He had no trouble driving in it, but Meadow noticed that he was almost silent the whole way back to her house.
“Did I say something wrong?” she asked when he pulled up at her door.
“What? Oh. No. No! Of course not,” he replied.
Too many denials meant he was thinking just the opposite. She did remember that much from her years in law enforcement.
She remembered what Dal had told her. She thought about the coughing and the air-conditioning. Jeff was coughing again, in fact.
“You don’t really like heavy perfume, do you?” she asked.
He made a face and pulled out an inhaler. He took a breath of it and stuck it back in his pocket. “Well, honestly, no,” he confessed sheepishly. “I have allergies.”
Meadow caught her breath. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“Not your fault. You didn’t know.”
“And you aren’t a liberal, either, are you?”
He grimaced. “Well, no. I’m a conservative.”
“Oh! That man! That hateful man! And I thought he was being nice, and helping me, and all the time . . .”
Jeff’s eyebrows arched. “What man?”
“Dal Blake,” she almost spat the name out. Her face was flushed with bad temper. “He brought Snow back home just before you came. She practically lives at his house. I told him we were going out. He said you loved heavy perfume and you were a card-carrying liberal.”
Jeff saw the light. He started laughing. “Helpful, wasn’t he?”
“That man!” she repeated furiously.
“Well, forewarned is forearmed,” he quoted. “Don’t pay him any attention.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I suppose it’s best to be honest, even when it feels wrong,” he said under his breath. “You see, Meadow, your land borders on his on the east and mine on the west,” he said. “This ranch,” he looked around, “has the best water in the county, and plenty of it. He’s hoping you won’t get involved with me because he wants the land. He tried to buy the ranch from your father, but he wouldn’t sell. He said it was a family legacy and he was leaving it to you.”
“I begin to see the light.” She was looking at him askance now.