Page 17 of The Lonely Road

I don’t take the bourbon he offers. “I’m driving.”

He saunters to the couch that’s across from me and takes a seat. He’s a man who behaves as if he’s never been uncomfortable in a room in his life. Silver-haired, fit as money tends to make a man, with a smile that he’s been told is charming for four decades—and has taken it as fact.

“So.” He sets his glass down. “I wanted to get an update from you on our situation in Wildflower Canyon.”

“I’ve been there a week.”

He arches an eyebrow.

“Senator, what is it that you want to know? If you could be precise, I can give you an answer. If you want a general update—that ain’t happening.”

Irritation makes his eyes narrow. He’s not used to disobedience. Well, he can go fuck himself.

“Do they suspect why you’re in town?” he grits out.

I refrain from rolling my eyes. “Senator, if they suspected, I wouldn’t be doing my job. I have a legitimate reason to be there.”

“Which is?”

I let out a long, deliberate breath. “In this line of work, Senator, the less you know, the better for you and for me.”

He gives me a withering glare, but Senator Otis Jessup didn’t get to where he is by losing his temper at the wrong time, and this would indeed be a miserably erroneous time to do so because he can feel my back is up, because I’ve let him know it, which was intentional.

“Have you made contact with Taya Morningstar? She’s the one we want to tap.” He chuckles now at the double entendre he accidentally (or not) let slip.

“Yes.” I don’t give him details. I don’t give anyone details.

He sighs but comes to terms with how I work and maybe even appreciates my discretion. I won’t talk about my work with anyone—not even to the person who hired me.

How careful can one be? In my line of work? Never enough.

“I know you’re busy and probably didn’t like being summoned here.” He pauses to give me space to reassure him that I don’t mind being summoned, but I do mind, so I give him a blank stare.

He nods slowly and continues, “This case has gotten me into a stranglehold. We thought it would be won and done by now. The Whitman woman would take the money, and that would be the end of the story. But then she doesn’t want the money…she wants to keep her fucking water rights. She finds this lawyer who used to be on the other side…our side at a law firm down here in Aspen, but… anyway, according to our lawyers from Texas, this Taya Morningstar woman is formidable in court. Wins more cases than she loses.”

He has a file on Taya as well, and that does not sit well with me. I have no idea why, because it isn’t a surprise that he’s had her investigated. I just don’t like it.

“If she wins”—he closes his eyes and shakes his head as if even the thought is debilitating—“it sets a precedent that makes things considerably more complicated.”

He’s being deliberately vague as if I don’t know how he’s connected to the High Mesa Development Group. Sure, there are three layers of holding companies between it and Jessup’s son-in-law—but a nosey bastard like me knows things.

High Mesa Development Group wants to consolidate ranch land in the Wildflower Canyon valley, as they have in a couple of other places in Colorado and several in Montana and Wyoming. They know, as I do, that water rights are the load-bearing wall of the whole structure. They can’t build what they want to, can’t rezone what they want to rezone, if the water belongs to ranching families who’ve held it since 1948 and have a lawyer who knows exactly how to prove that legal fact.

“You said you want her case dismantled,” I remind him softly. “And I’m working on it. But these things take time.”

Jessup leans back into the sofa. “I get it! But don’t take too much time. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for late summer, and I want the Morningstar woman to be looking down the barrel by then so she will encourage her client to settle. We just need to know what her strategy is. Her theory of the case. Our legal team is excellent…but a little extra light would be appreciated.”

He says this the way you’d ask someone to pass the salt.

“As I said, these things take time.”

“You have until the end of summer.” He takes a long sip of bourbon. “I understand you’ve already made some useful introductions.”

This is the part where he shows me his.

I wait.

“Kaz Chase mentioned you,” he says, reading my expression with the satisfaction of a man who enjoys knowing things.