Love Under Two Wildcatters (3 page)

Susan felt her female parts heat to the point of producing steam. It had been a long time since she’d engaged in this kind of heavy-duty flirting. Damned if she hadn’t missed it. She decided to push it just one little bit further. “I don’t doubt you’d be pleased, cowboy. Question is, would I be?”

“Darlin’, we absolutely guarantee complete and total satisfaction.” Being Texan, the driver had no lack of self-esteem.

“We’ll see.” Would they? Had Susan just committed herself to taking these two men for a ride when she didn’t even know their names?

They were tempting, very tempting. Before she could get herself into any more trouble, she took one step forward and held out her hand. “Susan Benedict. Am I to assume my brothers sent you?”

“Colt Evans. This is my partner, Ryder Magee. And yes, Alex and Josh sent us.” Colt shook her hand then stood to the side.

Ryder stepped forward, accepted her hand, and completed the introductions. “Ma’am.”

“I haven’t done anything to cause my brothers to seek revenge, so I’m going to assume you’re the real deal and know how to work that thing,” Susan said, nodding toward the rusting portable drilling rig in the back of their truck.

“Don’t you worry none, we know how to handle our equipment,” Ryder said.

She snapped her gaze to him. His angelic expression was really very well done. Beside her, Colt coughed, but she knew the sound of a cutoff laugh when she heard it.

Susan sent Ryder a considering look. “That’s what they all say.” She shook her head.

Colt stepped forward and reached out toward her hair. She stood perfectly still, her gaze locked with his as she waited to see what he would do.

“I’ve heard of painted ponies. You’re the first painted woman I’ve ever met, Ms. Benedict.” He used a delicate touch to pull a few paint flecks from her shoulder-length blond hair.

“You’re the first man to compare me to a pony, Mr. Evans. I’ll have to think some before I know how I feel about that.”

“Well, now,” Ryder stepped closer, “there are some similarities. The very best ponies are lithe and lean and just made to be ridden.”

“Once they’ve been taken in hand and tamed, of course,” Colt added.

A twenty-first century woman should be outraged at such talk. Outraged, insulted, and ready to land a couple of well-earned slaps on smug male faces.

Susan sighed as she felt her arousal climb. She guessed it was time she stopped lying to herself.

She might live in the twenty-first century, but her female parts clearly wept for an earlier time, a time of manly men who knew how to be true masters in the saddle.

Chapter 2

“I’m sorry, Mr. Barnes. The bank cannot, and will not, extend you any more time to catch up the arrears on your mortgage, nor will we extend you any more credit. The deadline stands. You have fourteen days before the bank forecloses.”

Morton Barnes narrowed his eyes as he stared at the fat little weasel of a bank manager sitting across from him. The nameplate read Frederick K. Sanders, but Morton had never laid eyes on the man before today. He’d made this appointment, expecting to meet with Earl Jones, the man who’d been manager of this bank for the last twenty years. Jones had been a good old boy, born and bred right here in Houston. Hell, Jones’ mama and his own, rest her soul, had sung together in the Methodist church choir.

This Sanders fella looked too young to have been given such a position of authority as manager. Worse, he sounded like a damn Northerner. What was this world coming to?

“You’re new here, son.” Morton pitched his tone and knew he sounded sincere, if a bit patronizing. He figured the little prick likely wouldn’t pick up on the latter. “I reckon you’re still a bit wet behind the ears. That’s all right. I can understand that. We all have to start out somewhere, after all. But see, my family’s been dealing with this bank for longer than you’ve been alive. My daddy had all his accounts with this bank, and my granddaddy sat on the very first board of directors and was a great personal friend of the bank’s founder. So, now you know who I am. It’s only fifty thousand dollars I need to borrow, and it’s not really a new loan, just an extension onto my mortgage. And I’m not asking for a ridiculous amount of time, either. I only need a couple of months to set everything to rights. Now, you go on ahead and call whoever it is you have to call to get the okey-dokey, and we’ll be in business.”

Morton smiled and nodded his approval when Sanders picked up the phone. “Please send in Mr. Gruber.”

Morton had never heard of this Gruber person, either. He figured it was a sad damn world when you couldn’t even depend on knowing the folks in charge of your money.

The door behind Morton opened, and a man in uniform entered. Morton realized Mr. Gruber was a security guard.

“Yes, sir?” Gruber’s voice sounded gravelly, the voice of a man who’d smoked too many packs of cigarettes and likely quaffed too many bottles of Jack.

“Mr. Gruber, would you please escort Mr. Barnes out of my office and out of the bank?”

“Now, see here, Sanders!” Morton surged to his feet, his temper ready to explode. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gruber take a small step forward and put his hand on his side arm.

“No, sir,
you
see here.” Sanders got to his feet, looking leaner and meaner than he had just moments before. “You no longer have credit at this bank, or anywhere else for that matter. You already owe more on your home than the thing is worth, and you’ve been unemployed since late last year.”

“I don’t have to
work
for a living. I’m living off my investments!”

“Mr. Barnes, from what I have been able to ascertain, your investments are on life support. Now, barring a miracle, the bank is set to take your home, and I’m sorry for that, but that’s just the way it is. You get yourself a job, pay down some of your other debt, and, of course, we’ll be happy to talk to you again in six months’ time, look into starting you off all over again.”

Gruber stepped closer and placed a hand on Morton’s arm. Incensed, Morton jerked his arm away from the guard.

He raised himself up to his full five-foot-nine and glared at the man. “Don’t you touch me.” Then he turned back to face Sanders. “When the deals I have in the works pay off and I cut all ties with this institution, it will be
you
looking for a job, Mr. Sanders, when your superiors hear of the insulting treatment you offered to one of the most prominent men in Houston. And I want you to know, when that day comes, that I aim to do all I can to see you don’t find another position with another bank in the entire state of Texas.”

He spun on his heel, ignored the security guard, and marched out of Sanders’ office. Without looking left or right, he walked straight for the front door of the bank and out onto the sidewalk.

Late afternoon sun beat down mercilessly, making beads of sweat pop out on Morton’s brow. If it wasn’t for that damned wife of his lighting out, cleaning out his bank account, and scalping him in the divorce settlement, Morton wouldn’t have to deal with carpetbaggers like Frederick J. Sanders.

He noticed people giving him odd looks and veering widely around him. Shaking his head, he went straight to his beloved Caddy. Ol’ Bessie, here, was about the only thing that Carla hadn’t demanded in the divorce, and she was for sure the only female of his acquaintance that had proven herself worth one good damn.

Morton unlocked the car and got behind the wheel. He sat for a long moment, trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do next. That day’s edition of the
Houston Chronicle
lay on the seat beside him. He’d picked the thing up on his way to his appointment with Sanders. He liked to keep abreast of the business news, same as he’d always done. A good businessman kept himself in the loop every single day. One could never have too much information, as far as he was concerned.

Now, he opened the paper, deliberately bypassing the help wanted section in favor of the business section. There had been a time when the name of Morton Barnes appeared in this section of the Chronicle on a regular basis. He’d parlayed the small inheritance his father had left him into first a successful construction company and then a respectable investment brokerage business. Why, he’d had so many clients, he’d taken on three brokers just to handle the volume.

Then the economy had suffered that god-awful meltdown in September 2008, and Barnes’s business had gone the way of so many others—straight into the toilet. He’d been carrying a high mortgage at the time. The value of his house dropped, the mortgage payments went up when that bastard company sold the paper on his second mortgage, and the income from his investments had tanked.

I’ve spent my life doing all the right things. I’m supposed to come out on top.
That’s what Morton’s daddy always told him. But he’d lied. Because Morton wasn’t on top. He was standing hip deep in the dog’s business and on the very edge of total and complete financial ruin.

A headline caught his eye on the second page of the business section.
Dos Hombres Set To Drill Benedict Oil
.

Morton’s temper flared as he scanned the article, each word an abomination to him. Those two conniving bastards Evans and Magee had netted themselves another patsy, and a big one at that. He’d been their first, of course. He’d invested good money with those two young crooks. Course, he really should have known better. At least he’d had the brains to set things to rights once things started to look bad. He’d taken bold action and recovered his own investment, with a little besides for his trouble.

Now he understood what was what. Evans and Magee had used him to get their start then made it seem as if the business was failing so he pulled out of the deal. The two of them had been tight right from the first and he, Morton, older and wiser and, by God, the better man, had ended up being the odd man out.

It wasn’t fair that a couple of no-accounts from the wrong side of the tracks should prosper while he, a Barnes of the Houston Barneses, should be in desperate straits, scrambling just to try and stay afloat.

Those two would have nothing, would be nothing were it not for me.
Blind fury gripped him. Nothing but white trash, that’s all those two wildcatters were. Yet, they thrived, while he…Morton rubbed his face with both hands as the sickest dread he’d ever known filled him.

Morton folded the paper and set it on the seat beside him. He started the Caddy then eased into traffic.

All his troubles had started when he’d given that lift to those two wildcatters. It was their fault, all of it. He’d go home, pour himself a stiff one, and think. Maybe, for his luck to change, those two interlopers would have to go down.

* * * *

It seemed only good manners to invite the wildcatters in for a cup of coffee while they discussed business. Besides, she had her assayer’s report in the house. Making coffee would also give her a good excuse to put some distance between herself and these two very potent testosterone makers.

“Looks like you’ve been busy,” Ryder said.

The kitchen stood at the back of the house, and they’d walked through the main rooms to get to it.

“I have. The house needed a lot of work. Still does, come to that.”

“Yeah, but it looks like the end’s in sight.” Colt nodded, taking his time to admire the work she’d done.

“I just have the master bedroom on the inside and the painting on the outside left to do. And getting a new well, of course.”

“Likely, the original well was drilled shallow, and by the ranch hands of the day.” Colt looked around the kitchen. Susan had the sense he took everything in and missed nothing. She knew that was an odd thing to think. She didn’t know this man, after all. Yet something about him and his partner seemed familiar to her. Then, just that fast, she had it. They reminded her of the men in her family.
Manly men.
The kind she’d given up on finding for herself.

She forced her attention back on the conversation. “That’s likely, isn’t it? Turn-of-the-century ranchers tended to do it all for themselves, if they could.”

“Of course,” Ryder said. “If more men today did the same, the economy wouldn’t be in the shape it’s in. Josh said you had an assayer’s report?”

“Yes. I’ll just get the coffee brewing and go get it.” She needed a jolt of caffeine herself. She made quick work of the preparations, and in moments, brown liquid dripped, and the scent of coffee filled the ranch kitchen. She excused herself and headed for the downstairs bedroom she’d turned into an office. She knew exactly where the report was, of course. She liked a neat and orderly office. Her entire living space always looked pristine—except for her bedroom. That she tended to keep in a state of constant chaos.