Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

SLATE

D oug had fallen asleep in his armchair while reruns of Saturday Night Live played on the old TV. A lot of things about this place felt like I'd been transported back in time, but so far, the old man snoring in the chair while I listened to adverts and the occasional crack of static on the tube TV took the win.

Whenever I wasn't completely focused, I felt a little bit like a kid again. Except that I was sitting on the floor, surrounded by documents and exhausted after looking for the mineral rights all day. I'd never done that as a kid.

I hung my head as I glanced at the stack of files still remaining. I had at least another hour or two on my hands if I wanted to sift through it all, but the only thing I wanted to do right now was to go to bed.

After Jeanie had forced us to take a break for dinner, Doug and I had come right back in here to keep looking, but he hadn't lasted long on a full belly. Soon after switching on the TV, he'd dozed off but I hadn't been able to bring myself to give up just yet.

The five a.m. wakeup call and a night of tossing and turning, thinking about Jess in her overalls had me dragging. My eyes were burning and my brain was foggy. I'd been hoping to wrap all this up tonight, but looking at how much I had left, I'd have to finish tomorrow morning with fresh eyes.

Just as I conceded defeat and silently started getting up to go upstairs, the front door opened and Jess walked in. She hadn't been around for dinner and I hadn't seen her at all since lunch, but at some point before she had gone wherever she'd been all this time, she'd changed.

No longer in her overalls, she was wearing a flannel over her denims and her hair was drawn back, but pieces of it had fallen free. She stopped when she saw me, her eyes widening as she looked at all the paperwork.

"That's what's left after a whole day?" she asked, whistling when I nodded.

"We have our work cut out for us," I said.

She drifted into the living room, her gaze skipping from one pile of paperwork to the next. "You haven't found it?"

I shook my head. "I still have a few more stacks to get through, though. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"Can I help you?" she offered.

Surprised, I frowned at her. "You've been doing farm work all day and your mom mentioned something about you skipping dinner to finish your chores."

It was dark outside, and she'd been up even earlier than I had. "Aren't you tired?"

She smiled as she strode further into the room and sat down across from me, pulling a large stack of papers closer. "We'll look together. At least it'll save you from having to do it all over again tomorrow."

Well, if she's not packing it in for the day, I won't either. "Okay, let's do it."

The girl was tough, that was for sure. Outside of a quick errand in town this afternoon, she'd been out on the property in the sun the whole damn day while I'd been sitting on my ass. If she could find a few more hours inside herself, then I could too.

Together, we started looking once more, eventually even talking quietly while we worked about the only thing we had in common—my sister and her family.

"Baby Beau is so darn cute," she gushed. "Mira sends me a couple of pictures every week. I haven't had time to get to the city yet to meet him, but I can't wait."

"The kid is even cuter in person," I agreed. "Makes it difficult to believe that Logan is his dad."

She laughed. "What is it with you guys and your friends being with your sisters? I've never really understood it. Isn't it preferable for them to be with guys that you know and trust? I mean, the alternative is having her meet some stranger who could be a serial killer for all you know."

"Yeah, but it's because we know them so well that we worry," I argued lightly. "There's also the fact that people in relationships do things that we don't want to think about being done to our sisters by anyone, let alone the guy we cracked open a beer with over the weekend."

"Sure, but if their you-know-what doesn't go into her you-know-where, then cuties like Beau are never conceived."

I cringed. "Maybe it's just better for us to believe in immaculate conception. That way, our sisters have never been defiled by a guy we've seen with a dozen other girls."

"A dozen ?" She stared at me with wide eyes for a beat. "Has Logan been with that many other women? Does Mira know?"

"Uh, yes?" I frowned at her. "A dozen was just a manner of speaking, though. It's been a lot more than that. If it had just been a dozen, I wouldn't have been so worried. Why do you think I was so dead set against them getting together?"

"More than a dozen?" She blinked rapidly, looking like it was taking her some effort to pick her jaw up off the floor. "Wow. You people from the big city sure do see things differently. A dozen wouldn't qualify as that many? Really?"

I shrugged. "Not for some people."

To my surprise, our conversation was flowing pretty easily again now. Almost as easily as it had that night.

"It's not like you're some innocent little flower," I whispered to her with a slight smirk on my lips. "Or have you forgotten just how well I know you?"

Pink blossomed on her cheeks, but she didn't back down, smiling instead of trying to hide her obvious embarrassment. "I had fun that night. I'm just sorry I had to leave so early. I had to get back here. From heels to mud boots, you know?"

"You have nothing to be sorry about. I had fun too, but the night was over and we both had stuff to do that day. I get it."

In fact, I'd had so much fun that I'd thought many times of having the chance to do it again. I didn't say it, though. Jess didn't have to know how often our night together had starred in my fantasies in the time since.

Her full curves. Those dusky pink nipples and how naturally she'd let me take control. Just the thought of it made me need a cold shower, but I glanced at her dad sleeping on the chair and it was like having a bucket of ice dumped over my head.

Good thing, too.

As I was about to ask her if it bothered her to have me here, she let out a soft gasp. Her hands started trembling as she lifted her gaze back to mine and held up a piece of paper.

"I think I found it," she said, her voice hushed with awe. "Is this it? Did I find it?"

Suddenly wide awake and alert, I moved in close, peering at the document as my heart hammered in my chest. It was definitely old. Yellowed. Wrinkled.

As I inspected the faded ink, I realized that it was exactly what we'd been looking for. Turning my head to hers, I felt my face break into a wide grin.

"That's the mineral rights, Jess," I said, my chest swelling as I thought about how much this was going to mean to her family. "You did it. You found it."

Those green eyes were shiny with disbelief and wide as saucers, but as her gaze swept across my face, she let out a victorious shriek. "I did it! I found it! We've got it. Oh, thank God."

Doug startled awake in the chair, snorting. His entire body jerked when he opened his eyes. His head swung from one side to the other, the look on his face bewildered. As his gaze landed on Jess, her eyes filled with tears.

"I found it, Daddy. I'm sorry I woke you, but Slate and I found the mineral rights."

His bewilderment quickly turned to glee. He heaved himself forward on the armchair and rose out of it, coming over and staring at her with pure shock in his eyes. "That's it? Are you sure?"

As he asked the question, he glanced at me and I nodded. Jess handed the paper to her father. He took it as if it was precious. Blinking hard, he scanned the words written on it.

I watched as he gently brought the letter to his chest, cradling it against his heart, and he sank to his knees next to his daughter. "You found it. I can't believe you found it."

Moisture shimmered in Doug's eyes as happy tears spilled from Jess's. He set the paper aside carefully before he hugged his daughter, holding her as a silent moment passed between them.

I didn't know these people very well at all, but if I'd ever met anyone who deserved to have struck proverbial gold, it was them. In the past, I'd been called up a bunch of times by clients who had told me that the mineral rights documents had been found, and in other cases, I'd heard the utter devastation when the search had yielded no results.

This was the first time I was there when it happened, though. I had to admit, while I'd thought I'd seen everything and was numb to any of the emotions involved, I'd been dead wrong. This was one of the greatest moments I'd had in a long time, and I felt damn honored to be a part of it.