Black Gold (4 page)

Though the tavern was not much to look at in the daylight, the road that ran past it was beautiful. Some flowering species of trees dropped white petals onto the shoulder of the road like confetti. An old, weathered fence was festooned with ivy and flowering vines; a tabby cat watched Regina curiously from the steps of a cottage tucked among the trees. Regina drove slowly past, checking the directions she'd entered on her phone. Just as Chase had warned her, there was no service here. Far in the distance, a farmer rode a tractor in a field of bright green. She could see a picturesque old farmhouse on the other side of the field.

She drove until the road ended in the middle of a field, but passed no turnoffs or intersections. There was nothing to do but turn around and head back. As far as she could see, there was nothing but fields, barns, gently rolling hills, and blue sky. Here and there, dirt lanes wound between the fields, fresh tracks indicating where tractors had driven. But Regina saw nothing that resembled an actual road.

When she got back to Buddy's, the boy had finished smashing cans and had moved on to spraying down the steps with a hose. When she pulled into the parking lot, he turned off the hose and ambled over to her car.

"Morning, ma'am," he said. "You lost?"

"Not lost exactly, I'm just trying to find the Sugar Hill Ranch."

The boy's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "No kidding? What for?"

"I, er, have an appointment with Chase Warner."

"And he told you to meet him
there
?" His tone indicated that he didn't believe her.

"Yes."

"Well... okay. You just go about a quarter mile and turn right past the hackberry trees."

Regina sighed. "I have no idea what a hackberry trees looks like, and I assure you there isn't a road. I've looked twice."

The boy frowned and dug a toe into the dirt, and Regina could see that he was reluctant to disagree with her. Someone had brought him up well, despite his rather threadbare appearance. His shorts hung on his narrow frame, but they had clearly been washed many of times and left a few inches of tanned skin bare above his knees. His faded T-shirt had a hole in it.

"How about this," she said. "I'll pay you ten dollars to take me to the ranch."

His eyebrows rose even higher. "But it ain't even half a mile down the road."

"Get in."

He didn't need to be asked twice. Regina had the money out of her purse by the time he got in the car. He accepted it with mumbled thanks and stuffed it into his pocket.

They had retraced her route halfway to the T when he said, "There."

"That's not a road," Regina said.

"Well, maybe not exactly."

"It's a
path
, maybe. Or a lane."

"It's the way to the ranch, though."

Regina drove over a cattle guard set into the dirt, her tires kicking up pebbles. The "road" had weeds growing between the tire tracks. As she drove slowly into the field, she could hear the weeds brushing against the car's undercarriage.

"All's any of them drive is trucks," the boy said helpfully, "is why the weeds grow up like that."

Now that they were in the middle of the field, Regina could see what hadn't been visible from Pedersen Road. The land sloped gently into a hollow and then back up the other side. The North Dakota farmland wasn't flat, like the land surrounding Nashville. It featured rolling hills, as though it was a pie crust that had been draped over a rolling pin. Once they crested the top of the hill, the lane angled off toward the farmhouse she'd seen in the distance.

"That?" Regina asked.

"Yes, ma'am. That's Sugar Hill Ranch."

As they got closer, Regina made out several separate buildings. A square, white farmhouse was practically falling down, surrounded by beautiful, mature trees. A couple of the trees were blackened on one side and the roof had caved in, suggesting that there had been a fire in the house. The windows were covered with plywood and it was clear no one was living in the house. Nearby, the barn she'd seen from the distance looked only a little better. Though it was undamaged by fire, it leaned slightly to one side and was badly in need of paint. As they drove by the barn, however, Regina caught a flash of movement around the side. She craned her neck to see a woman pinning laundry to a clothesline.

"Watch you don't hit Patch, ma'am," the boy said and Regina turned just in time to avoid running into a scraggly looking donkey standing in the middle of the road.

She hit the brakes, causing the boy to be thrown against his seatbelt. The donkey chewed and watched them thoughtfully.

"Sorry, sorry. Can you get him to move?"

"Oh no, I don't expect so. Best go around."

Regina drove into the weeds and around the beast, shaking her head.

On the other side of the farmhouse, a row of shiny trucks looked entirely out of place in front of a single-story, plank-sided building with a broad porch.

"The bunkhouse, I take it," Regina said.

"Yep. Head over to the right, is where visitors park."

"Are some of them visitors?" Regina counted: four pickup trucks in various states of tricked-out glory, all of them high up off the ground; one dented old red pickup; one large truck cab; and one very beat-up old Ford Focus with a listing bumper.

"Oh no, ma'am, we all live here."

"
We
?"

"Well—me and my sister live in there." He pointed in the direction of the barn. "But the rest of them all live the bunk house."

Before Regina could ask the rest of who, the front screen door opened. Chase Warner came out onto the porch with an expression that didn't look the least bit happy.

"What are you doing home already, Harry?" he asked the boy. "Finish up at Buddy's?"

"No sir, the lady didn't know how to get here, so I told her—"

"Well, you delivered her, now get on back," Chase ordered him, his arms folded over his chest. "Don't make me tell you twice."

"Yeah," the boy mumbled and turned around. Regina watched him go, his shoulders slumping dispiritedly.

"Don't be mad at him," she said when he was out of earshot. "I asked him to show me."

"Just don't tell me you paid him."

Regina blushed, both in embarrassment and indignation. It wasn't any business of this man who she paid and for what. And she wasn't at all sure she liked his tone. The boy seemed nice enough—more than nice. Downright polite.

"As a matter of fact—"

"Aw, hell, okay, I'll talk to him when we're finished. Shouldn't be long, anyway. I imagine we can just talk out here on the porch."

Regina looked doubtfully at a couple of chairs set under the shade of the porch. They had seen better days. Their cane was split and the finish was peeling off.

The porch door swung open again. A woman came out, holding a coffee mug. Regina suddenly felt self-conscious, painfully aware of her skirt sticking to her thighs, the hem hitting her at exactly the most unflattering place on her knees—why hadn't she gotten around to having it hemmed? The girl on the porch was effortlessly gorgeous, with red hair pulled into a simple ponytail, and freckles dotting her creamy skin. Her cut-off shorts showed off miles of leg. Naturally, a guy like Chase Warner lived with a woman who made his coffee and kept his bed warm at night, the girl he'd written the songs for, the girl he thought about when he sang in the shower or put in a long day on the rig.

Worst of all, she was wearing a man's plaid shirt knotted under her breasts. Underneath, a tiny gem winked from her navel, surrounded by creamy, smooth flat skin.

"You are
not
going to make your guest stand out here on the porch," she scolded. "Get on in here—cinnamon rolls are just about ready."

Accompanying her words, an incredible smell wafted out of the bunkhouse, cinnamon and butter and cloves and yeast. Regina hadn't eaten breakfast, and she'd taken a pass on the motel coffee, which smelled like paint thinner that even the men heading out for their rig jobs left untouched.

Even if Chase was already taken—and what did she care? She was here to
sign
him, not sleep with him—she supposed she could still enjoy a bite to eat prepared by his darling girlfriend.

"I don't mind if I do," she said brightly, almost enjoying the way Chase's frown deepened.

But before she could follow the woman into the house, a man came out on the porch behind her and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his stubbly face into her neck.

"Oh," Regina gasped, before she could stop herself. The murmuring sounds of appreciation the man were more than just friendly. Had she stumbled on one of those ménage a trois scenarios that were all the rage in the spicy romance novels Meredith secretly loved to read? Did people really actually do that? Or—and her heart perked up considerably—was Chase perhaps merely a friend, a college buddy sleeping on the couch? A brother, perhaps?

"Pardon Chase's manners," the second man said, disentangling himself. "I'm Matthew, and this is Jayne. And we'd love to have you join us. Chase told us you were going to come by to talk to Sherry."

"About... who?"

But Chase had switched gears. He was hustling her inside with a hand at her back. She was aware of his body close to hers as they formed a human traffic jam in the doorway. Once inside, however, he backed away from her as if she were on fire, and Regina was able to look around the inside of the bunkhouse.

The large, open front room smelled like fresh lumber. Sun streamed in from skylights onto drop cloths draped over all the furniture. The walls were half covered in new drywall. Ladders and buckets of paint and a tool belt draped over a sofa completed the tableau.

"Sorry about the mess," Matthew said, leading them through a wide passage into a huge kitchen. "The roof was leaking when we moved in here, so we had to start with that."

"The skylights were my idea," Jayne said. "Isn't the light amazing?"

She didn't wait for an answer. The aromas of baking were stronger in the kitchen. A huge pan of the rolls sat on top of an old cast-iron stove in the most beautiful kitchen Regina had ever seen. The floor was terra cotta tile, worn with age. The walls were pine, and rough-hewn pine timbers crisscrossed the ceiling. A huge white farmhouse sink was stacked with pots and pans, and a vintage pot rack shared space with a gleaming new stainless steel refrigerator. Open shelves held stacks of white pottery, simple plates and coffee mugs, cereal bowls and enough serving dishes and platters to feed an army.

Four men sat at one end of a long wooden table that could easily seat a dozen. They all turned and stared at Regina.

She'd seen them before. The men from the bar last night. The ones helping Chase celebrate his birthday. Most of them looked a little blearier than the night before. None of them had shaved and it didn't look like any of them owned an iron, but otherwise they were an indisputably good-looking group.

"Boys, this is Regina," Matthew said. He grabbed a coffee thermos off the counter and filled a mug, handing it to Regina, who took it gratefully.

"We already met her," one of the guys at the table said. "Last night. Well, we didn't actually meet, to tell the truth."

"Chase didn't bother to introduce us," another said.

Jayne rolled her eyes. "Date night," she confided in Regina, grabbing her elbow and steering her to a seat. "We missed out on all the good stuff."

"Not
all
the good stuff," Matthew said, winking. Jayne blushed, leaving no doubt as to where their date night had ended up. He started down the table, filling mugs as he went.

Chase stood at the head of the table with his arms folded across his chest, looking irritated. "This is Calvin, Jimmy, and Zane," he said, going around the table. "Jimmy and Zane work on the rigs with me. Calvin's the local law."

"Not yet," the dark-eyed, broad-shouldered man at the end said.

"Cal went through the academy back in Arkansas, but he can't start for real up here until he gets certified. How much longer?"

"Three more weeks of field training, and then the tests."

"It's nice to meet you all," Regina said. "Did you all have a nice, um, sleepover?"

The men exchanged glances. Matthew chuckled. "They
live
here," he said. "We all do."

"Used to be the bunk house, back when this was a working cattle ranch," Zane said. "There's six rooms down the back hall."

"Jayne took the extra one for all her shoes," Matthew said. He pulled an apron off a hook and tied it around his waist, seemingly unconcerned about the row of eyelet ruffle around the edge. When Jayne swatted at him, he only smiled and topped off her coffee.

"And two bathrooms," she added, with a shudder. "Which means that Matthew and I have to share with Chase."

Chase had slowly turned a deeper and deeper shade of red. "Look, guys, she doesn't care about any of that. She's just here to get a few questions answered and then she has to get back to Nashville."

"I don't actually—"

"So you're some kind of scout or something?" Calvin asked.

"How'd you hear about Sherry?" Jimmy cut in.

"I, um—"

"You really think she has a shot at the big time?" Matthew asked from the stove, where he was spooning icing over the steaming rolls.

Regina looked around, half expecting more people to pop into the room from the adjoining hallway. A breeze blew through the enormous picture window that looked out over a clover-dotted meadow. The donkey had made its way around to the back of the house, where it was nosing along her car.

She had no idea who Sherry was. Chase clearly didn't want her here. She was very confused about why all these people were living together on a farm that looked like it had been abandoned, other than the handiwork in the great room and this beautiful kitchen. Maybe Carl was right—maybe she was out of her element.

"Everyone shut up," Chase burst out. "She doesn't have all day. I really wish you all had just let us conduct our business in peace. But since that seems to be out of the question, maybe you could just take your buns and go... away."

He gestured to a short stairway leading down into a room Regina hadn't noticed before. An addition that took advantage of the slope of the land to the east, another large room full of comfortable old couches and easy chairs circling a huge television console that was at least twenty years old. A poker table was stacked with a chip caddy and old games. A 1970s faux Tiffany lamp sparkled gold and orange. None of it was attractive, but all of it was clean and orderly, and the effect was surprisingly cozy.