the conversation she’d had with her boss just before driving here. She should ignore it and try to forget, just do her job as she should, but that one misbegotten discussion had rocked her world in the worst possible way.
Pushing up her metaphorical sleeves, she opened her mouth to get this show on the road, but Zach pointed behind her.
“You know my dad, Rick Brandt.”
She turned around on the step to peer up. Nadine smiled. She liked Rick and the perpetual twinkle in his eyes. Where Zach was reserved, his father was gregarious and friendly. Where Zach was long and muscular, Rick was short and spare.
“These are my boys, Ryan and Aiden.” Zach gestured toward the twins, pointing to each one as he said his name. No way would Nadine be able to tell them apart.
They were vaguely familiar to her. She’d probably seen them around town, of course, but hadn’t paid them much attention. Kids weren’t on her radar, probably because there weren’t stories attached to them. She could talk to anyone on any subject, but foreign little creatures called children stumped her. She liked kids, in theory. She just didn’t know what to say to them, or how to entertain them.
Judging by expressions as watchful as their father’s, she didn’t think the twins would go in for fist bumps, or that lamest of lame adult gestures—high fives.
So she smiled, wiggled her fingers hello and turned her attention back to Zach.
“I thought we could start with a look at your studio while you tell me about your inspiration. I have a list of questions for you. Things like when did you start painting, how young were you when you realized you had talent, did you—?”
“Dad,” Zach interrupted, directing his attention to Rick, “we’ll be gone for a while. Can you have lunch ready in an hour and a half?”
Nadine stared. People did not interrupt her so rudely.
Rick grinned and said, “Sure thing. Come on back when you’re done and I’ll have food on the table.”
Zach nodded and strode away toward an outbuilding without another word for her.
Rick said, “You’d better hurry and join him or you’ll have to run to catch up. Zach waits for nobody.” He herded the boys into the house, leaving Nadine alone to stare at Zachary Brandt’s retreating back.
She was not, and never had been, nobody. Certain people had tried to make her believe so, but she’d fought back. Oh, how she had fought. And she’d won. For a while.
Nadine Campbell was somebody, even if she had hit a bump in the road recently.
She crossed her arms and waited to see how long it would take Zach to realize she wasn’t following like a meek little lamb. But when he entered the barn, he didn’t turn back to check her progress.
Five minutes later, he still hadn’t come out.
It seemed to her that he didn’t much care whether she followed. She didn’t like the way he planned to conduct her interview.
She could leave. She wanted to.
Who was she kidding? After the things Lee had said this morning, Nadine was trapped here until she got the full story that Lee wanted. It was either that or lose her job, which she could not afford to do.
She picked up her high heels and carried them to the car, one boot too big and clunking as she crossed the hard-packed earth of the driveway. She set her shoes side by side neatly on the floor mat behind the driver’s seat. For a moment, she considered changing into her own boots, but glanced back at the house. There in the middle of a big picture window were two small figures watching her.
If she changed out of the boots the boys had brought her, she might hurt their feelings. So she didn’t.
Folding her arms, she leaned back against the car. Still no sign of Zach coming back out of the stable.
This morning’s meeting with Lee ran through her mind again. If she could, if it were the least bit possible, she would have quit on the spot, not only because of the orders he gave her, but most especially because of his tone. She’d gone down to the office only to pick up a notebook she’d left on her desk. Lee had ambushed her.
“I was talking to my mother yesterday at the nursing home,” he’d said apropos of nothing, seated at his desk and not looking up from his computer.
With a patience often needed in conversations with her boss, she waited out the ensuing silence.
He finished checking his email and said, “She told me some interesting things about the Brandt family. Some intriguing history.”
“Such as?”
“Such as a big secret the family has never disclosed.” He left it at that and stared at her.
What did that have to do with her and the interview? “And?”
“And you have to find out what that secret is.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know. If it’s super juicy, the rest of the town will want to know, too.”
“But why would it be anyone’s business but the family’s? Everyone in town respects them.”
“Not everyone.”
Nadine cocked her head and Lee continued, “There’s been no love lost between them and their neighbors for a long time.”
Their neighbors were the Broomes. Nadine remembered Tommy Broome from high school. Like Zach, he’d been two years ahead of her. Her memories of him weren’t all good. He’d been aggressive. A bit of a bully.
“There’s a rivalry between them, that’s for sure,” Lee said.
“Why? About what?”
“A feud of some sort.”
“A feud? That’s implies more than a rivalry.”
“Yep.”
“What was the source of the rivalry?”
“Don’t honestly know. Usually these kinds of fights start because of one of three things.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Greed. Love. Sex.”
“What does that have to do with Zach’s paintings?”
Lee shrugged. “Nothing.”
And then she knew. “You used the excuse of Zach’s artistic abilities to get me out on that ranch to interview him.”
“Yep.” That one word, unapologetic, fueled Nadine’s anger. It had been Lee who had urged her to write an article about the Cowboy Painter.
When had Lee changed so much from when she’d worked for him in high school? And why? He didn’t used to be...nasty.
“You used me,” she said, betrayal scooting along her nerves.
