Leaving Necessity (5 page)

“You can fish year round for bass, but spring is best because that’s when they spawn, and it makes them really aggressive towards artificial bait. It’s more fun then.”

Clara nodded. “Thank you for telling me.” Then, under her breath, she muttered, “Smartass.”

But she was smiling.

Somehow, Mitch had actually drawn her into a conversation, despite Clara’s best intentions.

A conversation about fishing, of all things.

More worrisome, he had actually made her smile.

She didn’t want to smile for Mitch. For that matter, she didn’t want to have conversations with him, either. But Uncle Gavin’s stupid will provision made that all but impossible.

As he had known it would.

She wondered if her uncle would have kept the provision in there if Mitch had gotten married in the intervening decade since Clara left, or if he’d had children. A wife and kids would definitely have put a crimp in Uncle Gavin’s matchmaking style.

Because matchmaking was exactly what he had been up to. Although he hadn’t ever overtly said so, Clara knew that her uncle had liked Mitch, had assumed that the two of them would end up together. Over the years, he had dropped just enough hints to let Clara know that Mitch was still around.

Now, as they pulled up to the gated entrance to the first property they would be examining today, she watched the way he moved to open the gate, his broad shoulders flexing as he pushed the gate out of the way. He didn’t bother to shut the pickup door all the way as he drove slowly over the cattle guard and flipped the gear shift into park so he could get back out to close the gate behind him.

Clara had offered to open the first gate for him, but he had refused her offer of help. Now she took every gate opening as an opportunity to watch Mitch’s backside.

It might not be a very noble use of her time, but it was a particularly nice backside.

It always had been.

With a sigh, she cut her eyes away from her ex-boyfriend’s ass as he turned to climb back into the truck.

“This is the Rittman property,” he said, gesturing toward her abandoned folder of paperwork and tilting his head out the window at the rocky land stretching out as far as she could see. “Duke Rittman owns it now.”

“The same Duke Rittman we went to high school with?”

“That very one.”

Clara grimaced. “Is he still as a big a jerk as he was then?”

Mitch’s head shake was of disgust, not negation. “Even worse, maybe. At least in my dealings with him.”

“How so?”

As Mitch sketched out a history of increasing—but still unprovable—sabotage against the unwanted wells on Duke Rittman’s property, Clara chewed on her bottom lip.

Finally, she interrupted him. “How does Aerio even have a well on Duke’s property if he doesn’t want it there?”

“Mineral rights,” Mitch said. “Duke owns the land, but someone else entirely owns the mineral rights—some distant relation up north somewhere. That means that a random guy in Minnesota gets paid for us to lease the site, and there’s not a damn thing Duke can do about it. He has no say in any part of what happens.”

“That’s…” Clara paused for a moment, then finished, “…pretty awful.”

“It’s horrible,” Mitch agreed. “But the well was already being produced. Aerio just bought the lease rights from the company that held it before.”

The truck bumped over an enormous pothole in the road. Mitch shook his head. “I’ve seen Duke out here with a shovel, though I’ve never actually caught him digging holes in the road.” His mouth twisted. “It’s not like he’s making much difference. This job is hell on tires, anyway. Too much wear and tear.”

Another huge bump in the dirt track emphasized his point and sent Clara scrambling to grab the handle above the passenger door.

“What are we likely to find out here?” she asked.

“Let’s go see.” As they drove up a slight hill and around a curve, several giant tanks came into sight, along with another pump jack set a little apart from them.

Mitch approached this site a little more cautiously than he had the others, shading his eyes as he examined the equipment first from a distance, and then waving Clara forward.

There were three tanks, shaped a bit like giant oil barrels. A low metal enclosure surrounded them, a single set of steps leading up and over the knee-high barrier. Pipes ran out of the ground and into the tanks, with various gauges and pressure read-outs set along them.

Mitch climbed the steps, then drew Clara up beside him. “See that line along the inside of the containment wall?” He pointed.

“Looks like a high-water mark on the barrier? Yes.”

“That’s exactly what it is, only it’s a high-oil mark. It’s how high the last spill got to before we were able to pump it out of there.” Mitch moved down into the enclosure, but Clara stayed at the top of the steps.

“Did Duke cause that?”

With a shrug, Mitch said, “I think so. Can’t prove it, though.”

As Mitch began checking the various meters, explaining what each one showed him, a plume of dust in the distance caught Clara’s attention. “Is that a car coming?”

Glancing up, Mitch nodded. “Coming from the other side of the ranch. Probably Duke.”

By the time the other pickup crunched into the small clearing that held the well and machinery, Mitch and Clara were both on the ground outside the enclosure, standing next to one another.

Duke was already fuming by the time he exited his truck, face red and eyes squinting. “You’re supposed to tell me before you come onto my land.” He jabbed a finger in Mitch’s direction as he moved menacingly in the other man’s direction.

Mitch held his ground and shrugged. “It’s a courtesy only, Duke—one that Gavin Graves was willing to extend you. The new owner hasn’t said anything one way or the other about that.”

Clara managed to limit her startled movement to only a small twitch, but it might have betrayed her if Duke hadn’t been so caught up in his own anger at Mitch.

As it was, though, the ranch owner was too busy sputtering to pay much attention to the woman at Mitch’s side.

She still shot the foreman an accusing glare. Calling Duke wasn’t the only courtesy Mitch had failed to extend.

He could at least have told me about Gavin’s agreement with Duke.

For that matter, Gavin could have told her about it. Or anything about Aerio Oil and Gas at all, anytime in the last several years.

Suddenly, Clara was almost as angry as Duke was—and, irrationally, she was as angry at Mitch and Duke as she was at Gavin. Some logical part of her mind knew she had shifted her focus to them because Gavin wasn’t around to take her anger out on. But she didn’t feel like being logical.

Duke had stepped in close to Mitch and leaned in to point at the other man as he said something about what the company owed the Rittmans.

In one fluid motion, Clara ducked down under the two men’s arms and slid in between them, coming up to stand close to Duke’s face.

“Hi, Duke,” she said brightly, pasting her biggest dealing-with-a-difficult-client smile on her face. “I don’t know if you remember me, but we went to high school together. I’m Clara Graves.” She pulled her elbow up near her ear in order to clasp Duke’s hand, pointing finger and all, and give it a hearty shake.

Duke Rittman stood stock-still, his mouth hanging open. Clara didn’t take her gaze from the ranch-owner’s, but she could feel the moment that Mitch shook off his own surprise and started moving again.

“I’m the new owner,” she said as Mitch grabbed her jeans by a back belt-loop and began walking away, dragging her backwards. Clara leaned forward to keep hold of Duke’s hand. “I’m sure we can work something out,” she said.

“Come on,” Mitch growled.

Duke’s hand was limp in hers, but she gave it one last pump, up and down, letting it go as Mitch turned, wrapped his arms around her waist, and lifted her up.

“We’ll be in touch,” she called back over her shoulder—and Mitch’s—as he carried her to the truck.

As he set her down in the passenger seat, Clara could see a muscle in his jaw twitching. She tapped it lightly. “Duke won’t do anything today,” she said softly. “Not now.”

As Mitch slammed the door shut, Clara could have sworn she heard him growl.

* * *

“You could have gotten yourself hurt,” Mac finally said as they drove away from the Rittman site, Duke Rittman watching them go.

He knew it had been a long time since Clara had been in town, and that she didn’t realize how truly dangerous Duke could be. Even Mac hadn’t seen the other man so worked up in a long time.

For some reason, that made him more angry with Clara rather than less.

Clara didn’t say anything at all as they left the ranch, Mac getting out of the truck long enough to open the gate, then again to close it.

The look in Duke’s eyes had been pure murder.

But when he finally shifted his attention to Clara, that expression had turned cold and calculating in a way that sent a jolt of fear straight down Mac’s spine.

No way in hell was Duke Rittman going to turn his insanity against Clara. Not if Mac had anything to say about it.

Mac hadn’t even been able to think of words to draw Clara out of there. Picking her up and moving her bodily was the only action he could come up with on short notice.

He had half expected her own response to be anger once she got over the surprise of being boosted out of the situation.

Instead, she had tried to comfort him with the reassurance that Duke wasn’t thinking of him any longer.

And that touch on his jaw. He had been too distracted to notice any response to her nearness when he lifted her away from Duke, but her fingertips brushing his face had sent jolts of electricity coursing through him.

He had to fight to keep from touching the same spot with his own fingers to see if she had left some outward sign of her effect on him.

“I wanted to distract him,” Clara said. “I thought maybe introducing myself to him would do that.”

Mac hoped the glare he shot her direction conveyed his irritation adequately. “You didn’t have to climb the man.”

Clara’s snort was decidedly unladylike. “Please. I was trying to get between you two. You weren’t leaving me much room, all up in each other’s faces like that.”

“So the best plan you could come up with was to get even closer to him?”

She shrugged. “Whatever. It worked.”

The headache Mac had warded off a few days before was returning. “Let’s come back to this later, okay?”

“We’re going to have to deal with Duke Rittman sooner or later. But sure, if you want to ignore the man until then, that’s fine by me.” Clara pulled out the folder of information. “Where next?”

Mac told her, but his mind was only half on the information he gave her. The rest was busy mulling what she had just said to him.

We’re going to have to deal with Duke Rittman sooner or later
.

He had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning.

We.

Sooner or later.

Clara Graves might not know it, but she was already halfway to deciding to keep the company.

Now Mac simply had to figure out how to get her to realize it without scaring her off.

For the first time in a long time—maybe ever—Mac didn’t resent Duke Rittman at all.

No. You may have done me a huge favor, Duke.

* * *

“I think it’s time to call it a day. Or at least grab food.” Mac watched Clara closely, but she didn’t react, particularly, still absorbed in the information he had given her, making notes on the pages for the various sites they had been to today.

“Have we seen everything?” She flipped through the pages, checking her comments in the margins and across various parts of the paper.

“Almost.” He paused, not wanting to say the next words, given the day’s events.

“What’s missing?” The end of her pen was covered with tooth marks where Clara had chewed on it at various points during the day.

Taking a deep breath, Mac finally simply said it. “The Rittman Number Two.”

That got her to look up from the papers. “We didn’t see everything on Duke’s property?”

“Nope. There’s another site on the back of the property—probably where Duke was coming from when we saw him.”

“So he might have been back there vandalizing the site?” She sounded as outraged as she might if she planned to keep the lease site going.

That’s good. I can work with that.

Mac shrugged, deliberately vague. “Maybe.”

“Then we have to go back.” Flipping through the papers, she finally found the second site’s paperwork. At the top of the page by the well’s designation, she placed a giant asterisk.

“We will. Tomorrow.”

“Where is it, anyway?” Clara pulled out the map she had been using to track the location of the wells and started translating the information in her notebook to it. “Okay,” she finally said. “We’re too far away now.”

“Food?” Mac asked.

“Sure.” Slumping back against the seat, Clara closed her eyes behind her sunglasses.

That suited Mac just fine. It had been a long day, and the confrontation with Duke had been more draining than he anticipated.