Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

SLATE

I stepped up to the red front door of a traditional-looking farmhouse and knocked twice, sliding my hands into the pockets while I waited for an answer. As I stood there, I looked around, trying to get a feel for the place where I'd be spending the next few weeks.

My first impression was not a happy one. As little as I belonged on the deep blue sea, I absolutely did not belong in the middle of bumfuck New York either.

On my way out to the address my sister had given me, I hadn't passed another house for miles and the town I'd driven through to get to Merrick Meadows? It was no wonder I'd never heard of it.

Firefly Grove had a name, but that was about it. There really wasn't much else to it.

As for the farmhouse itself, I couldn't believe these people had struck oil. It was a double-story place, painted white with a wraparound porch that had a cute little balustrade instead of just a railing around it.

From the bottom of the driveway, I'd noticed that the place was big, older in some parts than in others, and all of it in desperate need of a little TLC. Single-story wings spread out from the main part of the house, their roofs a little newer than the one I was standing under right then.

Some of the window shutters were crooked while others were entirely missing, and the paint was peeling on the walls and from some of the trim. Patches in places told me that there had been attempts to maintain and repair, but my guess was that a place like this took a lot of time and money to keep in tip-top shape, and that whoever lived here didn't have either.

Standing back, I took a moment to check out the porch with its beat-up wooden planks and the sunken furniture that looked well loved. Ramshackle was the word that came to mind, and to add insult to injury, the place smelled like shit.

A heads-up sure would've been nice. Thanks, sis.

Cow shit. Chicken shit. Mud.

It just stank, but underneath it all was that telltale sulfur scent of oil.

My bread and butter.

I'd gotten so used to the smell over the years that it bothered me much less than all the scents fighting it for dominance out here in the middle of nowhere. As unbelievable as it was, I already knew my sister hadn't been wrong. Her friend's family had definitely struck oil. I'd known it as soon as I'd climbed out of my car.

The red door swung open and I spun toward it, seeing an old man with white hair and a nicely trimmed white beard. Intelligent but wary brown eyes held my own for a beat as he stretched out his hand, offering it to me as he introduced himself.

"I'm Doug Merrick, owner of Merrick Meadows Farm. You must be Mira's coworker. We're very happy to meet you. Thank you for coming all this way to see us."

Immediately deciding that I liked the old farmer, I grinned and shook his hand. "Slate Spieres. Mira's brother. It's nice to meet you too, sir. I just hope I can help."

"I'm sure you can, son." He stepped out of the doorway and waved me in, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze as I walked past him. "If you're a Spieres, then you're an expert in the oil business and that's exactly what we need to lead us through all this. I hate to admit it, but I'm out of my depth here."

"Well, that's why I'm here," I said, surprised when I found myself standing in an unexpectedly spacious foyer.

Old runners in mismatched patterns overlapped one another on the floor and a dusty old chandelier hung overhead. A set of stairs led up to the second story and a gallery wall of photos covered the entire expanse of the wall along the stairs.

Most of them were black and white, and I could tell even by a quick glance that they went from modern times to the decades that came before. Mira had warned me that this was a generational farm, though. She'd said the family wouldn't want to compromise it in the process of drilling for more oil.

A woman walked into the foyer to meet me before I could take a closer look at any of the photos, and although I knew I'd never met her before, she seemed strangely familiar to me. Wearing a big, friendly smile, she had brown curls shot through with gray and kind, huge brown eyes.

"Jeanie Merrick," she said warmly, surprising me when she skipped the handshake and came straight in for a hug.

I indulged her. Wrapping my arms around her full figure, I gave her a quick squeeze. "It's lovely to meet you, Jeanie. I'm Slate."

She held me for a beat, flooding my insides with a motherly warmth I hadn't felt for years. It made a frisson of discomfort race through me and I patted her back, smiling since I'd promised to be on my best behavior with this family but unsure of how to handle clients who were so welcoming and nice.

For years now, Mira and I had been working for corporate clients. Large companies who owned rigs on the sea or in fields where oil had been found. While our client range had always run the gauntlet, it'd been a very long time since I'd done any work directly for a small family.

Jeanie pulled away and offered me a warm smile. "Can I get you something to drink, Slate? You've had a long drive. How about some sweet tea? Lemonade? Beer? We've got it all. You must be parched."

"I'm all good for now, thank you," I said, digging deep for the teenage version of myself who'd known how to be polite to parents.

They were clients too and I knew it, but I just couldn't bring myself to treat them like I did all my other clients. Businesslike and efficient didn't feel like the right thing here. They were too sweet, even reminding me of my dearly departed grandparents in many ways.

Jeanie patted my arm. "I'll get you some water anyway. It's so hot out that you're going to want it soon."

"Come into the kitchen and we'll talk," Doug said, taking his wife's hand and even dropping a quick kiss on the top of her head before they led me to the kitchen.

Together.

I'd only met them a minute ago, but clearly, this was a couple who truly did everything together. Part of me—a part I wasn't particularly proud of—had half-expected her to take off so the men could talk , but it didn't seem to work that way in this house.

Which I liked.

My own father had never been that way with my mom. He'd loved her and Mira to bits, but it'd taken him a long time to accept that his little girl wanted to get into the oil business instead of something else. She'd had to fight him tooth and nail at first, and my mother had tried to back her up, but she'd also been hesitant, believing that it was better to leave certain things for the men to do.

Having had my sister's back all my life, that frame of mind had always irked me. Knowing he wasn't like that made me like Doug Merrick even more.

As I came around the corner, Doug and Jeanie kept walking but I stopped in my tracks, laying eyes on a pretty farm girl wearing denim overalls with a faded blue shirt underneath. Her curly brown hair was damp with sweat and sticking up all over the place, her green eyes brighter than the sunshine outside.

And she was smiling at me like there was a devil on her shoulder.

"You," I said softly, completely surprised.

"Me." She shrugged, hooking her thumbs into her overalls as that smile grew. "What are the odds, right?"

Jeanie glanced between the two of us, her head slowly lowering to one side as her brow puckered in confusion. "How do you two know each other?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that, but as Jeanie got my water and Doug ushered us all to a massive, pockmarked wooden table that took up one side of the kitchen, Jess smiled easily. "We met at Mira's wedding. Slate is her older brother. He was Logan's best man."

God, this is awkward.

I sat down where I'd been told to, but I could hardly tear my gaze away from Jess. I'd known she was country, but somehow, it had never crossed my mind that she could be the friend who had struck oil. I honestly hadn't expected to see her again, let alone here.

Yet another thing it would've been nice to have had a heads-up about, sis. Although maybe she'd done it on purpose. I wouldn't put it past her.

She and Logan believed firmly in some bogus wedding curse that had supposedly led to a bunch of his friends getting married to the women they'd hooked up with at each other's weddings. Logan himself had met and hooked up with my sister at Jude Olson's wedding, and he'd had no clue that she was related to me at the time.

Neither of them knew that Jess and I had gotten together that night—unless she'd told Mira, but I'd kept my mouth shut about it. Since they'd seen us together briefly before we'd gone back to the dance floor though, there was a possibility that they'd pieced it together and that this was their way of trying to help the supposed curse work its magic again.

Too bad for them, I didn't believe in curses or magic. I didn't think Jess would either, but that didn't save me from the reality of my present situation, which I would've found hilarious if it'd been happening to someone else.

Jeanie and Doug were seated on the opposite side of the table from me, both staring at me with such warmth in their eyes as they fired off questions about Mira and her baby. And here I was, getting a semi underneath their ancient table at the memories of what I'd done to their wicked yet doe-eyed daughter the last time I'd seen her.

In the meantime, I'd already been totally out of my element on a farm like this to begin with, and now I had another complication to contend with—Jess. She was sitting with her parents, but it was like I could see the naughty thoughts dancing around her brain as she looked at me with a slight smirk on her face.

On the other hand, I had gotten naked with my dick directly on her eye level that night. I couldn't blame her for remembering the same things I was now, but that didn't make it any easier to concentrate on the small talk her parents were making about my sister and her family.

I didn't know if Jess had been clued in on who would be coming over here on behalf of Spieres Consulting, but if Mira had blindsided her as well, she'd certainly recovered much better than I had.

Then again, this was her home turf.

After suffering through a brief conversation, during which I couldn't stop seeing Jess naked and writhing underneath me, I was damn relieved when Doug finally stood up. "Do you want to come see the site where we struck oil? It might be useful for us to start there."

"Definitely," I said, shooting up out of my chair and not looking at her again as I followed her father out of the house.

As I looked at the back of the man's head and wondered what he'd do to me if he found out I'd gone drilling in his daughter, I resolved to kill my sister the next time I saw her. And Logan too. As of right now, they were both dead to me.

I'd take Beau and raise him as my own, and I'd never even tell him about his devilishly scheming parents who had just set me up for six weeks of hell. And blue balls.

Shit, this job really is going to suck, isn't it?