after the sheer hell he’d been through with his ex-wife, until today he thought he’d heard and seen it all. False pregnancy claims, varying attempts at blackmail. But claiming to look for some relic on the same spot as his future lodge was a new one. This must have taken some planning. How much was she being paid to sabotage his project and who was paying her to do it? What was the full game plan? Was she planning to fake an injury, as well? Had she set him up in New Orleans? Or was she legit?
As soon as he stepped into the house at the Circle M Ranch, he grabbed his cell and called the head of the security division at the home office in Dallas.
“Jonas? Yeah. I want someone checked out. I want to know when she lost her first baby tooth, the names of her friends in second grade, who she dated in college... I want you to turn over every rock no matter how small. Her name is Dr. Tallie Finley. She’s supposedly an archeologist with the North Texas Natural History Museum. That’s all I have.”
“That should be plenty. I’ll get right on it,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “When I finish, I’ll notify you by email?”
“Call me as soon as you have the full report. You can reach me at this number.”
“Consider it done.”
Cole hung up and slid his phone into his pocket. There had to be more to this than just a search for artifacts. No, she had to be after something more than a relic. It would be interesting to see what it was and how she went about trying to attain it.
For the first time in years, he thought of Gina. When they were newly married, he had trusted her, and she’d had his father’s blessing. But less than a year into the marriage the warning signs had begun to appear. Lying. Disappearing for an afternoon or evening, money in her private account—tens of millions of dollars—vanishing at an alarming rate. His father’s odd advice to not worry about it had sent Cole scurrying to the company’s head of security, who’d provided a report that told it all. She was involved with another man. And she was pregnant. The father of the baby remained a mystery. Cole had had reason to doubt it was his.
But then tragedy had struck and that unborn baby had never gotten to see the world. Because he’d died with Gina the fateful night she’d spun out of control on a rain-soaked road, her car going over a steep embankment and exploding in flames at the bottom of a deep ravine. The night Cole had told her to get out.
There was just something about all the coincidences surrounding Dr. Finley’s arrival that reminded him of his late wife’s deception. Was Dr. Finley trying to play him, too? He damn sure didn’t want to believe something bad about his new mystery woman, but neither did he intend to sit back and watch her destroy his plans.
Three days after meeting her face to face, Cole still couldn’t get over how Dr. Finley had taken over his land. He knew she’d settled into the trapper’s cabin, and he was fine with that. The rough conditions in there would probably hasten her departure. He’d sent ranch hands out to spy on her at varying times. The reports were all the same. During the day, she worked. At night, she soaked in the river then disappeared into the little shack. They had to be missing something. Maybe she was sneaking around at night, looking for who knew what. He decided he would go out to assess the situation for himself.
Frustrated, Cole watched her through the lenses of his binoculars and confirmed what the ranch hands had reported. She worked from sunup to sundown, went for a dip in the cool waters of the river—he had trouble taking his eyes off her voluptuous curves—and finally trudged back to the old trapper’s cabin where she presumably slept through the night. She was a damned hard worker, he’d give her that. But after three days of this nonsense, it appeared as though she’d found nothing, at least nothing she cared to share with him, and his heavy equipment still sat idle.
The next day his head of security called with the findings about Dr. Finley. Nothing out of the ordinary and nothing he could use to get rid of her. There was not one single thing she’d ever done that was suspicious. No black mark against her. Not even a gray one. She’d worked to put herself through school. Her grades had been top-notch. She’d made the dean’s list in her junior and senior years of college before going for her master’s degree then her doctorate at Tulane University. Her mother’s family was Irish. Her father was Choctaw. Her mother taught seventh and eighth grade. Her dad had been an archeologist before he was killed on a dig in Brazil four years ago. Dr. Finley had broken up with her boyfriend, an English literature professor, a year before.
But how could anyone in this day and age be that squeaky clean? How was it possible?
He zeroed in on how she’d gone to Tulane. New Orleans was a city Cole loved. In fact, the night he’d spent there was the first time in years he’d taken the opportunity to enjoy the city. Then, out of all the people who swarmed into the French Quarter on that particular Friday night, he had ended up spending it with the most beautiful woman he’d ever set eyes on. That was one night, one memory, he would not soon forget. He would have never believed the next time he saw the woman she would be on his property, calling a halt to his pet construction project. It was uncanny. The chances were a billion to one. But as delighted as he was to see her again and this time to learn her name, he still would not wait ninety days to get his project back on track. Something had to give and it wouldn’t be him.
Maybe if he talked to her, reined in his temper and kept it unemotional, just business, he could make her understand how many problems she was causing. And there was no time like the present. He jumped into a pickup and headed back to the site. He easily spotted her and walked to within a couple of feet of where she worked, moving the soil with a little brush. She glanced at him briefly in acknowledgment and continued to work, all but ignoring him. She was working about halfway through the grid, slowly, methodically, gently raking the dirt then brushing over anything that might be promising.
On hands and knees, she was leaning forward over her digging spot, her butt in the air. He wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t take another long look. She had a damn fine backside. Her hair was pulled up into a messy knot that made her look sexy as hell. Her face was smudged with dirt. He didn’t know many women who would still look attractive in such a state. But it showed the commitment on Dr. Finley’s part, which was something he had to admire.
“Dr. Finley, how are you doing today?”
“Just fine,” she said, eying him suspiciously.
He cleared his throat. “I understand your dig, your search, is important to you.” Admittedly he wasn’t used to talking to someone’s backside. “But the fact is, while you are out here playing with your rake in the dirt, I’m losing thousands of dollars a day.”
“I’m sorry. That’s too bad.”
She didn’t sound sorry. “Well, the thing is, I need to finish what I’ve started.”
“If postponing your project is costing that much money, perhaps you should move it to another location,” she suggested matter-of-factly, never taking her eyes off the section of ground she was working on.
“Impossible,” he snorted. “I already have the plumbing roughed in. The forms are set. Other aspects of my project feed off of this location. It isn’t that easy to just pick up and move.”
“And if I find evidence next to one of your twenty foundations, that foundation will have to be torn out. You only have to stand down twelve weeks, maybe less.” She looked up and caught his gaze. “Surely your business dealings have taught you that sometimes you don’t get your way.”
Cole
