Radclyffe - Homestead

“On a little bit of it, yes.”

“No.” Tess gathered up the empty glasses and carried them to the sink. “I don’t want you any closer to my farm than you have to be, and certainly not on it.”

“Tess,” Clay said quietly, softly, as if she was very, very tired. “Ray Phelps already negotiated for that tract of land up there. We have a signed letter of intent.”

Tess spun around. Clay was just a silhouette backlit by the slanting rays of the sun as it dropped behind the mountains, her face in shadow. “I don’t believe you.”

“I have a copy of the paperwork for you. I’ll leave it—”

“Ray isn’t here,” Tess said, hating the tremor in her voice. “He never said anything about it to me.”

“Maybe he was waiting until we were ready to drill.”

“It’s my land now, and I certainly won’t agree to let you drill.”

Clay’s shadow shifted and sunlight illuminated her profile, the bold lines of her face appearing as sharp and hard as a Roman conqueror’s, carved from stone. “If we go to court it will be expensive. Tess, consider—”

“No,” Tess said more softly.

“We might be able to keep the tower off your land,” Clay said, moving closer, “but we’re going underneath you, Tess, one way or the other.”

“Not if there’s any way I can stop you.”

Clay held out a hand as if to touch her, then drew it back. “Let me survey on your property. I’ll bring my team in and look at what’s down there, map the aquifer, and chart the water runoff. If I could tell you with reasonable certainty that we won’t have a problem with backflow into your land or your water, would you consider it?”

“I have to think about it.”

“Tess,” Clay murmured, aching to run her thumb over the shadows beneath Tess’s eyes, to erase the pain and worry. “Just let me look. I can promise with what we would pay you for those rights, your farm would be secure forever. You could do anything you wanted to with it.”

“Not if there’s even a chance of contamination.” Tess stepped back. The softness in Clay’s voice, the tenderness in her eyes, the heat radiating from her body was too much. Tess felt herself bending toward her like a willow in the wind, called against her will, and she refused to be drawn in. “We don’t have anything else to discuss.”

“Take some time. We’ll talk again.” Clay wanted to tell her she wouldn’t hurt her, but Tess had no reason to believe her. Tess pulled farther away, taking the heat and the sunshine with her, as if a cloud passed between Clay and the sun. She had nothing else to offer. “Thanks for seeing me.”

Tess nodded wordlessly.

Clay let herself out through the white screen door onto the stone path that led from the kitchen to the barnyard. Ella came down the steps from the broad front porch to meet her.

“How did it go?” Ella asked.

“First volley.” Clay noticed the empty lemonade glass on a small table next to the white wood rocking chair where Ella had been seated. “It’s going to be a long war.”

“Are you sure there’ll be a fight?” Ella walked ahead and opened Clay’s door before continuing around to the driver’s side. She slid in and started the engine.

Clay climbed in and buckled her seat belt. “Tess isn’t too happy, and Townsend is already stirring up the opposition.”

Ella backed the SUV around and headed down the drive. “Tess doesn’t seem as unreasonable as some.”

“Did one glass of lemonade convince you of that?”

Ella smiled and stared straight ahead. “It didn’t hurt.”

Clay detected something more than passing interest in Ella’s voice. She didn’t like it, but she had nothing to say about it. She liked that even less.

The crackle of gravel crunching under the tires of Clay’s SUV quickly faded away, leaving Tess alone in the silent house. She stared at the plain manila folder Clay had left on her kitchen table without touching it. If she didn’t touch it, didn’t read it, perhaps it wouldn’t be real. Even as she avoided it, she knew she was only fooling herself. Trouble didn’t disappear just because she closed her eyes, any more than the rain fell or the crops came in strong when she whispered a prayer to make it so. If what Clay had said was true, she had a whole lot of trouble coming her way, and she preferred to meet it head-on. Whatever had to be done, she would find a way to do it. She wasn’t helpless, she wasn’t without choices or friends. And she knew how to fight.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked into the mudroom, pulled on her chore boots, and headed out to help with the milking. Three hours later, the day was almost gone and heavy twilight blanketed the fields, the heat still lingering close to the ground, enveloping Tess in air so thick she could almost hold it in her hand as she trudged back to the house. Inside, shadows cooled the corners of the big kitchen, and Tess worked in the near dark, brewing a cup of tea and assembling a sandwich out of the previous day’s roast chicken. When she was done with the preparations, she switched on the old chandelier that hung over her big oak table and sat down. The folder hadn’t moved, still sitting squarely in front of her plate like a coiled snake ready to strike. Rolling Hills Farm was written on the tab in neat black letters. She wondered idly if Clay had written that. Probably not. More likely someone in an office far away who had no idea what the name stood for, no clue of the land and the life that went with it.

She slid the dozen neatly typed and stapled pages from the folder and started to read what Ray had done. By the time she’d digested the words, her tea was cold and her sandwich uneaten. She tried to find excuses for him, some explanation as to why he had made these decisions without telling her. She’d always thought they had a decent relationship—she couldn’t say she loved him the way she had loved her mother, but he had been a part of her life for a long time, and though they shared little that was personal, she’d thought they had shared a love of the land. She couldn’t square that belief with his signature at the bottom of a lengthy contract agreeing to allow NorthAm access to his land—her land—for money. A lot of money. She didn’t know if he’d been paid, but she’d have to find out. If he hadn’t been, if things hadn’t gone that far, it might be easier to somehow undo the contract. Because one way or another, she had to. She wasn’t going to let NorthAm violate her land, no matter how much money they offered her or how persuasive Clay might be.

* * *

Clay closed her laptop, her eyes aching, and surveyed the lovingly restored room at the inn. Any other time she might have admired the authentic tin ceiling tiles and gleaming hardwood floors, but tonight the beauty was lost on her. The dull pain in her chest had nothing to do with the hours she’d spent poring through files or her missed supper. Thoughts of Tess plagued her, undercutting her concentration, tugging at her conscience—and her heart.

She needed some perspective, but first she needed a diversion.

Briefly she considered asking Ella if she’d eaten and decided against it. She didn’t really want company. She wasn’t feeling sociable. Less than sociable—more like she wanted a fight and hoped one found her. She grabbed a denim jacket from the clothes Doris had sent up and went out to see the town.

Choices were limited. The sign in the diner window said they closed at nine, and she’d just missed that. The convenience store on the corner of the one and only major intersection in town sold ice cream, hot dogs, and microwave burritos, none of which appealed to her, although each of them had been dinner on more than one occasion. Drawn by the murmur of voices, she continued across the street to a tavern where a few people congregated outside on the steps, smoking, watching the traffic, talking. They parted to let her in, questions in their eyes.

Inside, the one big room was divided into a dining section with a half dozen tables in one half and a long bar in the other. Men and women, drinks in hand, squeezed in between the bar stools, all of which were occupied. Clay had her choice of tables and sat down at one in front of the big plate-glass window and scanned the single page of a laminated menu. The TV over the bar showed a baseball game, the sound lost in the layers of conversation that flowed over the room. A few minutes later a waitress in jeans and a yellow T-shirt ambled over.

“How you doing?” the thirtysomething brunette asked.

“Not bad,” Clay said, giving the friendly lie.

“Something to drink?”

“Whatever beer you have on tap would be fine.”

“Know what you’re having?”

“A burger sounds good—medium, with the works.”

“You got it.” The waitress smiled and left without writing anything down. Sometime later she returned with a tall mug of ice-cold beer.

Clay nodded thanks and sipped. Good beer. She slowly drank, letting thoughts of yield projections, ROIs, and budgets slowly drift away. Eventually, her mind was quiet for a minute or two before the conversation at Tess’s hijacked her mind. She didn’t hear the words—all she could see was the unhappiness in Tess’s eyes, the pain she’d helped put there. Again.

The last person she ever wanted to hurt was the one she kept making unhappy. She might have been only the messenger this time, but Tess wouldn’t see it that way. Tess hadn’t known about Ray Phelps’s arrangement with NorthAm. The shocked betrayal in her face was clear. Tess had worked the farm for him, put her heart into it, and he hadn’t even bothered to tell her what he was doing. Even though Tess’s stepfather had been the cause of Tess’s pain, Clay had been the one to bring the reality of what Phelps had done into Tess’s world. Tess probably blamed her as much as she blamed Phelps right now. Clay couldn’t argue—she was guilty by association.