Here Comes Trouble (7 page)

The next few months would be touch and
go.

Money was going to be tight for a while. Even
though his brother had partnered up with him investing his part of
their grandfather's inheritance, Joel still needed to find a few
more partners to get them through the winter.

If he was smart, he would've waited until
Spring to start the bookings, but nobody had ever accused him of
being that. When Joel decided to do something, it was balls to the
wall, until it was done. He had always been like that. It had made
him a good attorney, and now he was hoping it would make him a
better rancher.

Because he still hadn't settled with Karen,
his money was tied up. He was not going to give in to her demands
just to settle and get what he could though. His attorney was
arranging a court date and was going to call him in the next few
weeks.

One of the reasons Joel wasn't giving into
Karen's demands was because giving her the money she was asking for
would be like pissing in the wind. Karen spent money like water and
she'd probably be broke again inside of a year, wasting money he
needed to rebuild the life she'd torn apart.

His ex-business partner was worse. Larry still
hadn't given him an accounting on the figures he'd questioned so
they could dissolve their law firm. Joel wasn't budging there
either. Larry was going to account for every missing cent, or he
was going to pay one way or another, and Joel had put his attorney
to work on that too.

At one time, Joel had thought Larry might have
a gambling problem, but he'd never proved it. All he did know was
that his business partner had pulled some sneaky shit with their
business accounts. The audit he'd ordered for the dissolution
turned up a lot of problems. There wasn't enough evidence to prove
Larry had misappropriated funds or stolen from the firm, but off
the record, the auditor mentioned Joel might want to have the books
looked at more closely, and he was going to do that now because
Larry wasn't responding.

The only thing he and Karen had managed to
agree on so far was how to split some of the furnishings in their
house. Tonight, he was going to pick up the few things from the
house he wanted. Karen would be there, but supposedly Larry was out
of town. How convenient for him.

A small hand rubbed the middle of his back and
slow fire spread along his spine, before Terri climbed back up on
the stool beside him out of breath. Her pretty face was flushed,
her green eyes sparkling with good humor.

"Where's your boyfriend?" Joel asked grumpily,
and shoved the last of his burger in his mouth, before he could ask
another stupid question.

Terri picked up her hamburger and stopped
halfway to her mouth with it to turn to him with raised brows.
"Solly?" she asked with her full lips sliding into a funny
smile.

"Yeah, I guess that's his name," Joel said
then tossed back the rest of his beer.

"I don't know, his boyfriend showed up, so he
had to go," she told him with a chuckle, then took a bite of her
burger.

CHAPTER FOUR

Last night at the bar, after she'd finished
the last bite of her hamburger, Joel had hustled them outside and
to her car so fast Terri's head had spun. Without a word, or having
received a bill from Jerry, he tossed two large bills on the
counter, then grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the
door.

Yeah, he had to get to Dallas, but after they
left the bar, he acted like his pants were on fire to get away from
her. He hadn't talked in the car, just drove to her apartment,
parked then tossed her the keys and left. Something was eating at
him, but as much as she'd tried to figure it out last night laying
in her bed staring at the ceiling, Terri was at a loss.

The only thing she could figure was maybe he'd
been jealous of Solly, or worried about the ranch. But she'd
basically told him Solly was gay, so that couldn't be it. And the
ranch was opening in five days, he
better
not be worried
about that. She was leaving everything familiar to go there, so it
better not be a losing proposition.

At Sunday dinner at her parents house, she'd
broken the news that she was moving. Her mother had about collapsed
in a heap of tears, and her brother Ethan had just stood there with
his mouth pinched. Before she left, her daddy shoved a wad of
hundred dollar bills in her purse, and refused to take them back.
Terri wasn't certain, but she was sure there were tears in his
eyes. She'd never seen her daddy cry before. Her family acted like
she was moving to Outer Siberia instead of Amarillo.

Today though, she had more to worry about than
what was in Joel's craw, or how her family was taking the news she
was moving. The movers were here and her stuff was fast
disappearing from the apartment, before she could give them
instructions on what to take first. By the time she managed to get
their attention, there were only three boxes left in her living
room. Even her sofa was gone.

Most of her stuff was going into storage, but
she had separated the things she wanted to put on the truck last,
so she could unload what she wanted at the bunkhouse first. Thank
god, she'd marked the boxes, so she could at least identify them
when she unloaded at the storage unit.

When the movers closed the back of the truck,
Terri did one more walk through of her apartment to make sure she
hadn't left anything, then stopped at the door and took a deep
breath.

This was it, she was really moving to
Amarillo, and her stomach did a little somersault at the thought.
For the fifteenth time since last night, she wondered if she was
making the right decision. Like she had the other fourteen times,
Terri reminded herself that she didn't have a choice. Until
recently, her time here in her hometown had been good, but it was
time for her to find greener pastures with less bullshit to contend
with.

With determination, she dropped the keys on
the carpet to the right of the door, like she told her landlord she
would, then she locked the door and slammed it behind her. The
moving truck had already pulled out, but she knew in her car she'd
catch up with them shortly. If she didn't, they were going to meet
at the storage unit.

Four hours later, Terri still hadn't seen hide
nor hair of the moving truck and she got a little worried. She
grabbed her GPS unit from the glove box and plugged in the address
of the storage facility. By the time she pulled up in front of the
storage facility an hour later, the British woman voicing
directions to her was on her last nerve, but she had guided her
right there. Terri was exhausted, she had to pee, and she still
didn't see any sign of the moving truck.

The movers had either hauled ass and broken
everything she owned in the process, or they'd had an accident
breaking everything she owned. Visions of her furniture and boxes
scattered all over the highway made her stomach knot. Parking at
the end of the row, Terri got out of her car and saw a pickup truck
parked in front of the unit she rented, but not her
movers.

She hurried down the row and peeked inside of
the unit and saw all of her belongings stacked neatly against the
walls and to the ceiling. Her furniture was in the middle covered
by sheets. Three very buff cowboys were shifting stuff around to
make it fit better.

"Who are you?" she asked in confusion when she
found her tongue.

They all turned toward her and easy smiles
lifted their lips. The dark-haired cowboy with the dimple took off
his hat and took a few cautious steps around her furniture, then
said, "Terri?" before extending his hand to her.

"I'm Dylan, and that's Matt and
Skeeter...we're new hands at the ranch. Joel just got back from
Dallas and couldn't come, so he sent us out to help you unpack and
get what you needed back to the ranch."

"Well, isn't that nice," she said and a smile
kicked up her lips. Unlike last night, she could definitely use
help today. Terri took Dylan's large callused hand in hers and
pumped it a few times. "Well, thank you," she told him then asked,
"How many ranch hands are there?"

"Seven, so far...one's a woman," he told her
and glanced over his shoulder at his friends giving them a curious
look.

"How many other employees are there
now?"

"Well seven ranch hands, you, two cooks, a
guest coordinator, and the western store manager...oh and there's
Gigi, she's not an employee though, she works with Joel on
marketing, I think. She was at the ranch earlier, but she
left."

That was a lot of employees for a fledgling
new business, in Terri's opinion, but she had no idea what Joel's
financial situation was, so she couldn't doubt his decisions. She
was an employee, nothing more, and as long as she got a paycheck,
she wasn't going to worry about anything but the job he hired her
to do. With that many people around though, plus the guests, she
shouldn't have trouble steering clear of her confusing new
boss.

"You guys did a great job stacking my boxes,
and I appreciate it, there's only one problem," she said with a
twist of her lips.

"What's that?" Dylan asked in his lazy
drawl.

"I marked some of those boxes to take with me
to the ranch, and I have no idea where they are. The movers mixed
them up with my storage stuff."

Dylan groaned, but he turned back toward his
partners and told them to start unstacking the boxes to find the
ones she'd marked. Two hours later, they'd found all six boxes and
loaded them in the back of their pickup, and restacked the rest.
Terri put a new padlock she'd bought on the door, then headed to
her car to follow them to the ranch.

When they got to the long driveway to the
ranch, the sun was setting. Nature painted her a masterpiece as she
drove up to the ranch house with dust trailing her Miata. Blues
blended with oranges and purples nestling the bright yellow orb of
the sun as it slowly faded behind the trees at the back of the huge
pasture behind the barn off in the distance.

Terri watched the display in awe as she
followed the ranch hands in the pickup as they drove around the big
house, down a long winding dirt road, through a fence. They turned
left, drove a little ways then stopped in front of a long u-shaped
building.

A little kick of excitement passed through
Terri as she surveyed her new home. New beginnings were always
exciting Terri imagined, but she wouldn't know. She'd been isolated
to her small world in Henrietta so long...all of her life. This
change was going to be good for her she decided. Things happened
for a reason, and Terri was going to grab the opportunity to
reinvent her life with both hands and squeeze out every ounce of
potential it had.

Terri wasn't a country girl, so every nuance
of the ranch fascinated her. Sitting behind the wheel of her car,
she took a look around. In addition to the barn and bunkhouse she
saw when they drove in, another medium-sized barn was off to the
right in front of this second bunkhouse where they'd stopped. A
grassy area was fenced off from each door in the side of the barn,
and horses grazed lazily in each section.

Being raised in the city, as close as Terri
had ever been to a farm animal was seeing them in the back of
trailers when people were moving them through the city to the
auction or to their property. She didn't know how to ride a horse,
hadn't ever been near one. They were so big, they kind of
intimidated her. That was something she was probably going to have
to overcome living out here.

Pulling her keys from the ignition, Terri slid
out of the car and the wind brought the earthy smells of the
animals to her nose. That was something she was going to have to
get used to...especially right next door to where she
lived.

She saw Dylan get out of the truck, and he
walked over to her. "There are seven bedrooms left to choose from.
You might want to look at the end of the hall away from the
barn."

"I'll take it!" she laughed and wrinkled her
nose.

"Thought that might be the case," he grinned.
"Do you ride?"

"In a car?" she said purposely
misunderstanding him.

"No, on a horse," he hooted.

"Nope, wouldn't know which end was
which--you'll have to teach me the ropes," she told him with a
wink.

"It would be my pleasure, ma'am," he responded
with a sexy grin which caused the dimple in his cheek to dent. "You
go look at that bedroom and see if it's the one you want, and we'll
haul in your boxes."

Dylan turned and walked toward the truck, and
Terri's eyes latched onto his butt. She didn't know what it was
about cowboys and the way they filled out their jeans, but she was
definitely a fan.

The large bedroom at the end of the hall was
also the closest to the bathroom, which thrilled her. Maybe she
could get a jump on the guys in the mornings and get her shower
first. Having worked the day shift at the hospital, she was used to
getting up early. Walking over to the double bed against one wall,
she sat and tested out the mattress, bouncing a few times. It
wasn't as soft as the one she'd put in storage, or as big, but it
would do.

Matt, the quietest of the cowhands, walked
through her door with two boxes in his arms and looked around the
box at her. "Where do you want these?"