getting into the car.”
“Why?”
Maybe she’d misjudged the man’s mental acuity. He certainly hadn’t struck her as being slow, but what other explanation could there be for his not understanding what she was telling him?
“So I can drive to the corral.” He wasn’t picking up his horse’s reins. Why? “You are going to lead the way on your horse, right?”
Instead of taking Wicked’s reins, he came around to her side of the vehicle.
“You don’t need the car,” he told her, shutting the door for her. “We’ll walk.”
“Walk?” Kim echoed in surprise, as if she was unable to fully grasp the concept.
“Walk,” he repeated gently, taking her hand in his and fully intending to coax her along if he had to. “It’s what people do when they put one foot in front of the other.” He grinned. “You’d be amazed at how much ground you can cover that way.”
Kim was hardly listening to him. Instead, she looked around the immediate surrounding area. She didn’t see anything beside the ranch house.
“Just how far away is the corral?” she asked.
Amusement highlighted his eyes, but he managed to keep a straight face as he replied, “Close enough not to have to take a canteen with us.”
The straight face didn’t fool her for a second. This time, she called him on it. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he told her innocently, then added, “I might, however, be teasing you a little.” In the next breath, he apologized. “Sorry, I don’t get to have much fun. Working with Jackson and a bunch of boys can get pretty serious at times and I don’t get into town much.”
She sincerely doubted that. She might not know much about ranches and towns in the middle of nowhere, but she felt she was pretty good when it came to judging people, and Garrett White Eagle did not strike her as a man who was resigned to living some sort of a monastic life. He looked, instead, like a man who knew how to have a good time.
He also struck her as someone who knew how to read people and work an angle.
This ranch, it suddenly occurred to her now that she wasn’t distracted, cursing at defunct Wi-Fi signals and guidance systems that refused to guide, could be a perfect source of income. Parents were known to become desperate when it came to trying to save an offspring who was on the road to self-destruction. One that would bring them everlasting shame, not to mention huge lawyer fees and who knew what all else if those kids really got going. And then one day, they hear about this supposedly altruistic place that promises to heal their wayward liability, turn him into a pillar of society for what they were probably told would be a “reasonable” sum of money.
Who wouldn’t be sucked into taking a chance on that? Especially when rehabs were notorious for their rate of turning out repeat violators.
An article like that could almost write itself, she thought as she all but trotted next to Garrett, doing her best to keep up.
But why bother when Garrett could practically write it for her? Or, at the very least, give her the lead she wanted to go with.
“Just how much can you and your brother pad the bills for these boys without arousing the parents’ suspicions?” she asked, almost sounding breathless as the question came out of her mouth.
Garrett stopped dead in his tracks just shy of the corral. Had he just heard what he thought he just heard? Because, if he had, the last thing he needed or wanted was for Jackson to get wind of this writer’s current mind-set.
He needed to change her mind, fast—or, barring that, he needed to send her on her way.
Also fast.
Garrett wasn’t about to take another step until he got this cleared up.
If Jackson even caught a hint about what this woman was mistakenly thinking regarding the Healing Ranch’s bottom line, the interview—and any business resulting from it—would be totally dead in the water, especially since Jackson hadn’t been keen on having someone do an in-depth article on the ranch in the first place.
Garrett approached denial carefully, knowing that if he was heated in expressing his feelings, Kim was bound to think there was a story buried here.
“I don’t think you have the right idea about what we do here,” he told her.
Kim had given up believing in an altruistic world a long time ago—probably somewhere around the time she went into kindergarten, thanks to her older sisters who had made sure that she knew there was no Santa Claus, no magical elf who gave for the sake of giving.
Kim believed that everyone, no matter who they were, wanted to get ahead. That didn’t necessarily make it a bad thing. After all, money was what made the world go around. Wasn’t she here, doing a story that held no interest for her and was nothing more than a puff piece, just because she needed to pay the rent?
“From what I’m told by my editor—who’s very high on this place, by the way—you and your brother do a really good job with these troubled teens, so why shouldn’t you be compensated?”
“There’s a difference between ‘compensated’ and the word you used. ‘Padded’ has a whole different meaning attached to it,” he pointed out.
She hadn’t meant to insult him. If anything she admired the White Eagles for what they did. They were good at something and they were making it pay off while helping kids out, as well. It seemed like a win-win situation from where she stood. Why did this cowboy look as if she was guilty of throwing rocks at his brother and him?
“Look, no offense intended, Garrett,” she told him. “But this all can’t be strictly charitable work that’s happening here. After all, you’ve got to be able to survive. No one’s going to fault you for that,” she assured him.
Garrett took a breath. He had to find a way to set her straight and make her understand. “We don’t do it for free—”
“That’s all I’m saying—”
Garrett shook his head. He still didn’t think she understood what Jackson was doing here. “That’s not what I’m hearing, though,” he said. “The parents, or guardians if there’re no parents in the picture, are charged for the teen’s room and board.”
“What else?” Kim prodded.
“There is no ‘else,’” Garrett told her. He hadn’t thought she was jaded, but he’d obviously misjudged her. “I see where you’re going with this and in this case, you’re on the wrong path.” He didn’t want her thinking he was being preachy or coming off holier-than-thou. He had a feeling she’d skewer him, Jackson and the ranch if that was the impression she came away with.
“Not that I didn’t try to get Jackson to charge a little
