Unbridled and Unbranded (13 page)

“I hardly think they’ll arrest me.”

“Probably not, but the fines for failure to pay will be stiff. You don’t want to make a bad situation worse with the IRS. I believe this will help you. Sign them.” He offered her a pen and pointed to a signature line with a bolded X showing where to sign her pride away on the last page. If she were a man, she might have crossed her legs to protect her family jewels as she contemplated the paperwork.

Callie took another deep breath, but didn’t take his pen just yet. “What happens if I don’t sign this?”

“You’ll have to come up with a cash payment for your quarterly taxes in less than a week to avoid the penalty, which is substantial.”

“I could try the bank again.”

Landon tilted his head back and looked skyward. “Callie, sign the damn papers.” He lowered his head and sent a harsh gaze into her eyes. “Or would you rather carry out the conditions of your grandmother’s will this week to avoid the resulting destitution?”

Callie fought the urge to scream to the skies in frustration. She snatched the pen from his fingers and signed her name.

Landon took the pen and paper back. He smiled. “Thank you. I’ll let you know what they say.”

She looked up in confusion. “What does that mean?”

He folded the paper and put it in his briefcase. “It means that there is a panel that will read this and make their assessment. However, once it’s approved, I’ll let you know.”

“What if they don’t approve it?” Callie was stricken. For a gesture of charity that she hadn’t wanted, she was damned if she’d grovel for nothing.

“I think you know what happens. So let’s not go there.”

Callie couldn’t help but
go there
. If this didn’t work, she refused to even entertain the idea of kowtowing to the stipulations of her grandmother’s will. And where would that leave her?

A laughable thought slipped into her mind, but she didn’t find it funny. Her whole life and future hinged on the number of pregnant cows she currently had on her ranch. She took a deep breath and hoped Landon’s charity plan worked.

Was it too much to ask for something to go her way, for once?

Landon turned to her with a frown. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again.

“What? I don’t like the look in your eyes.”

“I’m sorry Callie, I
do
have bad news.”

“What is it? Tell me.” She could barely get the words out of the dry space masquerading as her mouth.

“The Bakers’ cow went into premature labor after a nasty fall into a muddy creek bed yesterday. It was too soon for the calf. He didn’t make it. I’m really sorry. These papers truly are your last hope.”

Now she had to wait until spring to find out if Dragon’s semen was worth all the money she’d spent on him as her stud. She could still tender Internet offers, but could ask for
more
money if a stellar, single live-born calf with a good progeny number was available to show. And the truth was she needed
more.

Callie closed her eyes as if that would stop the continued bad news from resonating in her brain.

* * * *

Clay searched the area to find the best place to put his equipment out to search for anything Kincaid might do next. What a bastard. Callie didn’t think she was doing him a favor, but she was. He loved playing with his gadgets. More than that, he loved having a true reason to set video traps. And he especially loved having a real
suspect
to follow. Up to now, he’d only gotten picture of wildlife. Nice, but not as fun as tracking a bad guy.

Rafe had called to let him know Kincaid was being an ass which had led to the meeting with Callie a few days ago. Today, Clay walked carefully along Callie’s southern property line. He was under strict orders from Callie not to go overboard. He installed enough hardware to play around and test his equipment, but not do anything too fancy or anything she’d notice.

Clay had funds and gadgets aplenty. He planned on some covert surveillance on this southern property line. If Kincaid so much as breathed on her fence, Clay would know it, and he’d take steps to ensure the fucking trespasser was caught, prosecuted, and penalized to the full extent of the law. And if he had to enforce any punishment himself, that would be the most satisfying scenario of all.

The truth was, the equipment was free. The only thing he’d spend was time looking over the surveillance feed. He attached a motion detector to the feed. It would only trigger if something or someone walked by. Clay didn’t care about any wildlife. He was only concerned about the two-legged animal that better keep his boots on his own property from now on.

Clay installed his equipment all along her southern border and even put a fixed camera facing her house, barn, and the surrounding area. He put up another one at the front entrance to her property, but didn’t expect a direct assault from him. Not if he was smart.

He wanted Callie to be safe. But he also understood her pride. He didn’t intend to tell her he’d put so many pieces of high-tech toy gadgets around her property. And he’d only reveal limited information to the extent if she had a problem with two-legged vermin in the future. Or maybe he’d just deal with Kincaid himself and save her the anguish.

Clay had intimate knowledge of things in Callie’s life that he shouldn’t know. He’d snooped long ago, and more recently as well. Lately, he wished he hadn’t gained so much personal information.

He wondered how she planned to get past the stipulations in her father’s will to even sell the land that had been in her family for so long. If already married, she would have to get permission from her husband for a land sale. Although Clay had a couple of suggestions to get around those other terms, if she hadn’t thought of them herself. The other information had to do with even more complex issues regarding the sizable trust she could possibly inherit. But she’d gain that considerable chunk of dollars only if she agreed to follow more demanding rules. He didn’t blame her for not wanting to pursue that avenue.

Callie Warren had lots on her plate. Clay wished he could find a way to help her more.

If an opportunity presented itself, he’d take it.

Chapter Eight

Callie spent the next three weeks in a regular pattern. She spent too much time on the ranch because there was always a bunch of chores to do. She spent any spare moment she had with either Bo or Rafe or the two of them together. More often than not she spent her evenings there for dinner and then drove back to her ranch in the predawn mornings.

They had offered to come to spend time at her ranch so she could get more sleep, but Callie didn’t want her few remaining cowhands to know she was keeping the company of two men. So she drove back and forth.

She’d gained quite an appreciation for the benefits of their unruly and totally sexy lifestyle. They’d mentioned a building called the Stadium and given only the barest of hints for what that experience entailed. She wanted to see a show there sometime as even the mention of watching others have threesome sex had given her some lusty fantasy dreams.

Perhaps they could have their farewell fuck there. Never seeing them again caused a hiccup and tears to swell in her eyes. She shook it off and forced different thoughts into her head.

Landon had come out a while back and found some amazing loophole so that she didn’t have to pay any further quarterly taxes until the final bill came due next year. By then she’d have the money needed to pay the entire balance. He mentioned some hard-to-hear words like
hardship case
and
resulting destitution
.

But she didn’t care. Her plans were in motion. Her cattle were all inseminated. The next news of benefit was the rate at which the purchased straws of semen had impregnated her best cows. She needed a good percentage. It was the next item on her long to-do list of what it would take to sell this ranch.

She hoped she was doing the right thing. Every step in this long process was fraught with guilt over her ultimate goal. The sale of this property would hopefully be easy when the time came.

Callie often wished she’d been bitten with the ranching bug. Or maybe even half-bitten, so she wouldn’t feel so resentful over her current life. Her father had let this land consume him. And so had his father and his father before him, if the stories were accurate.

If she’d had a sibling, things might also have been much different. She might have been able to leave long ago. But instead, she was the only child of an unforgiving man who’d wanted a son, and saddled with a ranch she barely tolerated because it was the only livelihood she had.

Her time with Rafe and Bo was the only joy in her life these days. And even that wouldn’t last forever. They never spoke about her eventual departure, but every so often, she caught it in an expression they couldn’t hide when they looked at her. They already missed her and she wasn’t even gone yet. Perhaps they regretted ever getting started. She couldn’t blame them. And she would miss them when she left.

If only she could be satisfied with a life in this town. But the desire to see the world overrode everything else. She dreamed about it. She planned for it. Had a trip all sketched out for where she’d go first and what she’d paint and sculpt. The mere thought of traveling to far-off places put a feeling of joy in her heart so strong, she hated to come back to reality.

So for now she traveled back and forth from her ranch to theirs and avoided any serious conversations about what might happen in their future.

* * * *

Exactly five weeks to the day after they’d come out and done a quick insemination, Rafe accompanied Delbert and a couple of the Double R Ranch’s best hands back out to Callie’s place. They’d probably spend the better part of the day in her barn, where they planned to test her inseminated cattle to see how many were pregnant.

Delbert mentioned that she could just see which cows were in heat a month later, but she also wanted a vet’s certification on each of her pregnant cows. All of the extra work was due to the future sale of her land. She wanted everything documented.

For his part, Rafe just wanted to see Callie. It likely wouldn’t happen, but he’d love to spirit her away from the barn directly to her office. He’d promptly sweep the papers off her desk and fuck her or lick her or any sexual thing she would allow that could get accomplished in the quiet space of her office and more specifically on her office desk. And he’d leave the door unlocked this time.

Hell, he’d leave it wide open if she’d let him.

With the busy work happening on both of their ranches, Rafe hadn’t seen Callie in a while. Truthfully, it had only been three days, but it seemed like longer, and he missed her desperately. She’d been busy nurturing her cattle so that a goodly number would have a chance at reproducing. The larger the count, the better deal she could make to sell her ranch.

The eventual sale of her property was a problematic subject for both he and Bo. While they obviously supported her initiative to sell her place to then go off and live her life as she saw fit, they would miss her. In fact, Rafe wondered how he’d live without her. He was a man in love.

He and Bo had continually declined to discuss why they’d agreed to keep seeing her even though they were looking for a permanent relationship and knew she wasn’t going to be it, if she left town. Neither of them, it seemed, wanted to part with her or consider how utterly devastated they’d be when she left. Bo remained completely quiet on the subject, and Rafe wondered if he secretly plotted to find a way to get her to stay.

Rafe wished she could sell her ranch and still stay in Colorado to have her dreams fulfilled, but Bo knew she wanted to live overseas. She had wanted this dream for a long time. Having spent some quality time overseas during his military career, Rafe certainly understood the draw.

And while he dearly loved living in Colorado, it lacked the Old World feel of most European countries. This country was certainly steeped in colorful and abundant history, but America was still a relatively new country by global standards.