The Camden Cowboy. Victoria Pade

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СКАЧАТЬ was comprised of himself, Cade and their other eight siblings and cousins. Petty vandalism was not a matter for the board of directors; he was merely letting Cade in on how he was handling the situation.

      “The kids are locals. It’s a small town like Northbridge, and I don’t want any more bad blood than we already have there. I’m having them work off the damages, and if they do that there won’t be any charges filed against them, so they walk away with a clean slate. The guy I have managing the farm knows the kids. He’s willing to put them to work so they don’t end up with a record, and we’ll just hope that takes care of it.”

      “Sounds good,” Cade said.

      Seth could tell by his brother’s voice and the background sounds coming through the phone that Cade had gotten out of bed and was making coffee.

      “You’re coming for GiGi’s birthday in three weeks, right?” Cade asked.

      GiGi was what they called their grandmother—short for Grandma Georgianna. She’d raised them and their cousins after the death of their parents, and she was turning seventy-five.

      “Wouldn’t miss it,” Seth assured.

      “Anything else going on there?” Cade inquired conversationally.

      And just like that the image of Lacey Kincaid came to mind. That had been happening on and off since she’d left him out in the field yesterday.

      “I met Morgan Kincaid’s daughter,” Seth informed his brother. “I’m pretty sure she thinks we bought that last piece of property just to get one over on her old man.”

      “Same song, different verse,” Cade said.

      “Yep.”

      They were accustomed to the distrust that came with their last name.

      “Did you tell her you just wanted the property?” Cade asked.

      “Nah, it wasn’t an overt accusation, just an attitude—you know it when you run into it.”

      “I do,” Cade agreed.

      “Now they need a road to come through here somewhere and I think that the fact that I didn’t instantly buckle under made her more suspicious. As if I somehow knew they would need to build an access road there and positioned us so we could stick it to them.”

      “We’re a cunning lot, we Camdens,” Cade said facetiously. “So she’s a ballbreaker, this Lacey Kincaid?”

      Seth laughed. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, disabusing his brother of that unpleasant notion. He didn’t like hearing Lacey Kincaid referred to that way, for some reason.

      “I think she would have been a match for old H.J. and Granddad,” Seth went on. “Drive, determination, all business—that seemed to be what she was about. She found me clear out at the north end and hiked from the road about a quarter mile to get to me. In the heat, in a suit, in high heels.”

      “Just to talk about a road?”

      “That and to tell me we left some stuff in the attic and the barn over at the old place. And to ask if she could stay in the guesthouse so she doesn’t have to waste fifteen minutes driving to her site.”

      Cade laughed. “Fifteen minutes is too much?”

      “According to her. I know I haven’t heard the last on the road issue, but I didn’t come away feeling like she was trying to squeeze me. To tell you the truth, it was more like when the girls were little and they’d play dress-up and clomp around in GiGi’s heels—seems like Lacey Kincaid might be trying to fill shoes her feet aren’t big enough for.”

      But she had been a sight to see walking away from him across that field yesterday. At first he’d simply watched to make sure she didn’t break her neck on her way back to her car, but then he’d found his eyes glued to a tight, round little butt that had nearly made him drool.

      Of course that had only been the frosting on the cake because nothing about the front view of her had escaped him either …

      “We left things at the old place?” Cade said, pulling Seth away from his wandering thoughts.

      “That’s what she claims. I thought everything was out of there, but apparently not. It can’t be much, though. I’ll take care of it.”

      “And what was that about her staying in the guesthouse?”

      “She wants to rent it. I told her she could just use it, that I didn’t care, but she’s insisting on paying us something for it.”

      “You don’t care if she stays in the guesthouse?” Cade said with an edge of suspicion to his tone. His curiosity was clearly piqued suddenly, because he added, “So somewhere between ballbreaker and little-girl-in-too-big-shoes—what’s this Lacey Kincaid really like?”

      “I only talked to her for about five minutes—just long enough for her to say what she wanted to say. I told you—she was all business. I can’t tell you more than that.”

      “What’s she look like?”

      Oh yeah, Cade was suspicious, all right …

      And what was Seth going to tell him? That Lacey Kincaid looked like a blonde goddess in a gray suit?

      That she had hair that seemed to drink in the sunshine and reflect it back?

      That he’d never seen eyes as sparkling a green—like twin emeralds sprinkled with stardust?

      That she had smooth, creamy, flawless skin and a small, perfect nose?

      That she had rose-petal lips that had looked too kissable to be talking business, and high cheekbones that had flushed adorably in the heat?

      That she was only about five feet four inches tall but stood straight and compact with just enough peeking from beneath her white blouse to make him have to concentrate on not looking closer?

      No way was he saying any of that to his brother.

      So instead he said, “Blond hair, green eyes, fills out a skirt about as well as anybody I’ve ever seen—she looks like any don’t-mess-with-me working girl.”

      “Who you won’t mind seeing out your back window for some time to come if you told her it was okay for her to stay in the guesthouse,” Cade goaded with a laugh.

      “She’s not hard on the eyes, no,” Seth admitted. “But she swears I won’t even know she’s here because she’ll be spending so much time working. And I believe that.”

      “Too bad …”

      “Nah …” Seth said, even though he recognized that there was a part of him that wouldn’t hate looking out the rear of his house and seeing Lacey Kincaid.

      Still, looking was all he’d do, and he told his brother why. “You know how I feel about workaholics—in the short time we had with Dad we hardly ever saw him. Toss unbridled ambition into that pot, and Charlotte brought it home for me big-time how much I don’t want any part of a СКАЧАТЬ