The Texan's Forbidden Fiancée. Sara Orwig

He barely paid attention when she said she had a condition. He couldn’t imagine anything she could come up with that would stop him from accepting.

      “Sure. Let’s hear it,” he said.

      “I want to take a couple of my ranch hands and accompany you.”

      As if cold water had been poured over him, his enthusiasm chilled. “You don’t trust me? Madison, if I surveyed your land, it wouldn’t get me any further with you on signing a lease,” he stated, sitting up straight in the chair. “I don’t intend to survey, but why would you want to go with me?”

      “First of all how would I know if you found the treasure if I wasn’t along, except pure trust that you would inform me about it? That isn’t going to happen,” she said, her voice sounding cold and harsh, something he had never heard from her before.

      “I expected you’d want one person to go with us—I figured one of the men who works for you. There’s no reason for you to go with us and it would be a waste of your time to have to sit and watch us dig.”

      “You said nothing about someone who works for me going with you.”

      “That’s your decision.”

      She faced him, looking calm and composed again, the flash of anger gone. She shook her head. “That’s my condition. Take it or leave it. I go or you don’t.”

      He stared at her a moment and then shrugged. “Sure, come along. If you think it over tonight and still want the same agreement, that’s fine. You have yourself a deal,” he said, holding out his hand. “If we find the treasure, you get it. I get my ancestors’ remains. We’ll just have to see if we do find a deed, what it says and who the land goes to. You go with me to search for the treasure.”

      She placed her hand in his to shake while she smiled at him. “Deal.”

      Her hand was warm, soft, and when they looked into each other’s eyes, he realized it might be torment to work with her beside him every day. He released her hand and the moment was gone, but it had dampened some of his enthusiasm. He didn’t want to get emotionally involved with her again and he didn’t like this constant flashback to that time in his life when she meant everything to him.

      “I can go in tomorrow and clear my calendar. I don’t think we’ll search for more than a week, but I’ll clear my schedule for two weeks just in case. I can be ready to go Tuesday. What about you?” he asked.

      “My time is my own. I think it would help if you would give me a copy of the map and let me study it. We need to have an idea where to go before we start. If you can send me an electronic copy of the map tonight when you get home, I can start studying it. Then tomorrow night, if you’d like, you can come over and look at maps of the ranch with me. You’re a geologist—I’m sure you can figure out some things from those photos of the ranch.”

      “Sure. That’ll be good. I’ve already scanned in the old map, so I can send it easily.”

      “Good. We’ll get started tonight.”

      “You’re going to lose a lot of time to work on your art.”

      She shook her head. “No, I won’t. I’ll take my sketch pad with me—because I don’t intend to dig. You’re the one so eager to do this.”

      “You’re the one who will benefit from it if we’re successful,” he reminded her. “But you don’t need to dig so much as one shovelful of dirt.”

      He stood. “I’ll go home and send you a copy of the map. Give me about an hour.”

      At the door he paused. “Thanks, Madison, for agreeing to let me do this. Hopefully, it will be a productive venture.”

      “I hope so. Thanks for dinner,” she said, following him into the hall.

      “I’ll call you when I get home,” he said, walking away, aware she stood on her porch and watched him. As the limo pulled away, she still stood on the porch—a small figure in the moonlight.

      They were going to search for the treasure together. Not what he had expected, but it was okay. The main thing was she had agreed to let him look. He hoped he succeeded in finding everything he was searching for. Again, guilt assailed him, but all he had to do was think about the day he had planned to elope with her. As he rode, he pulled out his phone to call his brother Josh, but there was no answer. He didn’t want to call Mike this late because Mike had a two-year-old son and he would be in bed.

      He called Lindsay next to tell her. His sister was jubilant over his success with Madison.

      After finishing his call with Lindsay, he thought about Madison. Was she looking forward to the search? He knew she hadn’t accepted because she wanted to be with him. It had been obvious that tonight had been a strain on her and she disliked being with him.

      He didn’t understand the anger he had glimpsed in her eyes a few times. Why was she angry? She had done what she had wanted to do and put her career first. He shrugged, refusing to worry about it. It no longer mattered. He was honest enough with himself to admit it still hurt sometimes but he had put it in perspective and moved on.

      As they reached the back door of his ranch house and his chauffeur stopped the limo, Jake opened the door. “Thanks, Chauncy,” he said, tipping his chauffeur in spite of the generous salary he paid.

      “Night, Jake,” Chauncy said, following his boss’s orders for informality when it was only the two of them. Chauncy drove on to the garage to park the limo and go to his spacious apartment over the six-car garage while Jake entered his house.

      In a short time he called Madison to tell her he had sent the map copy. Their conversation was brief and then she was gone.

      Then he spread the maps on a table in his study and compared the ancient one with the one he had of Madison’s ranch, which was an aerial view. He had already picked out what he thought the most likely places to search, but he wanted to see what she chose. He could hardly believe it. He’d wanted to do this for a long time and now it was finally going to happen. Adrenaline pumping, he could barely contain his excitement. He had energy to burn, so turning off the light in the study, he went to the gym to work out. If all went well, he was in for some hard physical labor in the coming week.

      * * *

      Monday morning Jake flew to Dallas and went to his downtown office on the twentieth floor of Calhoun Energy. His office was half the floor with a reception room, his private office with its own entrance, the executive conference room, a room with a bar, a bathroom and a small workout room. On the floor above were two penthouse apartments with terraces.

      Before Jake could call, Josh phoned and said he was on his way up. Jake was glad Josh was in town. Even though he had an investment in Calhoun Energy, he had his own hotel business and was gone more than he was in Dallas. In minutes his brother came striding into his office. His straight dark brown hair was neatly combed and he looked every inch the successful hotel mogul with his gold cuff links catching the light as he swung his arms. The gray suit and matching tie provided contrast for his brown eyes and dark looks.

      “Good morning. How did it go last night?” he asked, sitting in a leather chair facing Jake, who leaned back in his chair behind his desk. Morning sun slanted through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him.

      “Excellent. I have permission to search on her ranch.”

      “Hot damn! That’s perfect. So she bought it. Any stipulations?”

      “Yes, she had one. The hitch you predicted,” he said, thinking each sibling reacted in a customary way and Josh was the cynical, study-all-angles-first brother.

      “She wants someone from her ranch to go along,” Josh surmised.

      “She does. More than one. In fact, she’s going with me.”

      “Uh-oh,” Josh said, narrowing his eyes. “Do you think she wants to renew old times?”

      “Not even remotely. She