Big Sky Secrets. Linda Miller Lael

normal.”

      If only Jess actually cared about any of those things, or about the boy himself. The truth was, asking about Nash was just a way in, a conversation starter.

      “I’m in a little trouble,” Jess said, after another silence, this one so long that Landry had been about to hang up, thinking the connection had been broken, when the man finally spoke.

      Landry closed his eyes. Waited. Here it comes.

      “Are you still there?” Jess asked.

      “I’m still here,” Landry confirmed, opening his eyes again, shoving his free hand through his hair. He’d been expecting this, but that didn’t make it any easier to handle.

      “I need a small loan,” Jess thrust out.

      Landry felt a stab of pity then, but he didn’t let on—not because he was trying to spare his father’s pride, though. Jess was the classic con man, always on the lookout for a soft spot, and if he found one, he’d zero in on it like a suicide bomber.

      “How small?” Landry asked. With Jess, the word loan was a misnomer. Handout was the better word, since he had no intention of paying it back.

      “Five thousand dollars,” Jess said, and now the edge was back in his voice.

      Landry gave a low whistle. Five thousand dollars wasn’t a lot of money to him personally, not these days anyway, but it was still a respectable sum, hard to come by for most people. “Go on,” he said.

      “You want an explanation?” Jess asked, testy all of a sudden. It was an interesting approach, considering he was the one in need of some help.

      “Yeah,” Landry said. “I guess I do. What happened this time?”

      Jess took his time answering; he might be sulking, but he could be making up a story, too.

      Finally, he launched into his spiel, and damned if it didn’t sound like the truth, for once. “I got into this private poker game down here in Reno—one of those backroom kind that aren’t entirely legal—and I was doing real good for a while, before my luck went sour. These guys aren’t the kind to wait around for their winnings, son. They’ll have their money or a strip of my hide if I don’t pay them, pronto.”

      Landry shook his head, tired, disgusted and sore all over. “Damn it,” he muttered, “why did you get into the game in the first place, if you were broke?”

      “I anted up a hundred dollars,” Jess said defensively. “That’s all. Before I knew it, I was up a couple of grand, and it was still early, so I couldn’t just cash out and leave everybody high and dry, now, could I?”

      Shit, Landry thought. “Of course you couldn’t,” he rasped.

      Jess didn’t pick up on the irony. Or maybe he just figured he couldn’t afford to remark on it. “I started losing, as the night went on,” he said hurriedly, as though talking fast would convince Landry that he ought to ride to the rescue, “but I figured things would start going my way again, so I gave my I.O.U. and—”

      “And now you’re down five grand?” Landry supplied, when Jess fell silent.

      “I’m only down three, actually,” Jess admitted. “But I’ve got some other bills to pay before I can leave town.”

      “To go where?” Landry asked. He didn’t really care what the destination was, as long as it wasn’t Hangman’s Bend.

      “Boise, I guess,” Jess speculated. “I know some people there.”

      “Right,” Landry answered. Jess “knew some people” just about everywhere. Trouble was, if he hadn’t slept with their wives or girlfriends, he probably owed most of them money.

      Maybe both.

      “I’ve only got till tomorrow morning, when the banks open, to pay up,” Jess went on. “Once these guys find out I can’t make good on my marker, they’re going to want blood.” He sucked in an audible breath. “My blood. Are you going to help me out, or not?”

      Landry let his forehead rest against the door of the cupboard directly above the wall phone. He knew he’d be enabling the old man if he gave him the five thousand, making bad matters worse. Still, the alternative—the strong likelihood that his dad would wind up sprawled in some back alley, beaten and bloody, or even dead—was no good, either.

      “Where do I send it?” Landry asked.

      CHAPTER THREE

      RIA BARELY SLEPT that night, one moment worrying about her financial future and the next, lusting after Mr. Wrong, that being Landry Sutton, the first man she’d really been attracted to since Frank’s death. With widow guilt compounding physical and emotional exhaustion, she was out of the house as soon as the sun rose, taking no time for coffee, let alone breakfast.

      Those things could wait. Right now she wanted a good look at whatever havoc the buffalo had—or hadn’t—wreaked on her farm, without Landry there to gauge her every reaction. Or to guess somehow that she’d lost sleep wondering what he looked like without a shirt, what it would be like if he kissed her or to feel the weight of that hard, uncompromisingly masculine body of his poised over hers, then settling into her softness and, finally, claiming her...

      “Stop it!” Ria ordered her inner love slave, right out loud, as she marched through the still-dewy grass in the front yard, bent on inspecting poppies and daisies and other colorful residents of her flower beds, performing a sort of horticultural triage.

      Some plants, she soon discovered, had been squashed, or even uprooted, but to her surprise and relief, most of the blossoms had survived. Ready for a new day, they were already raising their brightly colored faces toward the big sky and the first promise of sunshine.

      Hardly daring to hope everything would be all right after all, Ria trudged over to the field of zinnias, a glorious ground quilt of red and magenta, orange and gold, pink and purple and white. There was no evidence of the buffalo invasion here, no tracks in the fertile soil, no broken stems and stripped petals. She was moving on to the field of gerbera daisies, which abutted the carnations, when she saw Landry’s truck turn into her driveway, glinting silver in the morning light.

      Although her first impulse was to dive between the rows of multicolored daisies and hide there until her visitor gave up and left, Ria planted her sneakered feet firmly and stood her ground, lifting her chin a jot to convince herself, as well as Landry, that she wasn’t intimidated, and waited.

      Landry parked the truck at the edge of the field, got out and strolled toward her in that easy, rolling-hipped way of men who were used to meeting challenges and coming out on top.

      Ria gulped. Unfortunate choice of words, she thought, glad she hadn’t voiced the observation out loud.

      Sunlight danced in Landry’s hair and lent him a full-body aura of glittering gold, and last night’s fantasies rushed to the surface of Ria’s skin, fiercely visceral now, and pulsed there, dangerous and primitive and absolutely delectable.

      She frowned hard, hoping Landry wouldn’t pick up on the fact that she was ridiculously attracted to him, physically, at least—a man she didn’t even like. Maybe her friends back in Portland were right—she’d been too quick to start over in a new place, among strangers, wasn’t over the trauma of losing Frank, needed grief therapy, not a change of scene.

      Landry’s smile was taut, but it still opened a trapdoor in the pit of Ria’s stomach and made her heart pound under her lightweight sweatshirt. “Well,” he said, coming to a stop one row over from where she stood, and she almost giggled at the contrast between his blatant self-confidence and all those delicate flowers at his feet, “what’s the verdict?”

      Ria felt a blush climb her neck and throb in her cheeks. Damn it.

      “There doesn’t seem to be any real harm done,” she finally managed, after reminding herself that Landry had told her