Chapter 2

2

A bigail Ingalls could not believe the man standing in front of her was Tex Young. He was the only one she'd ever shimmied into the barn to meet for a kiss, so it had to be. The young man with him looked like a mini-him—except he had the height. The head full of dark hair. The deep, penetrating eyes that seemed to see more than she wanted him to.

Tex still had that grin on his face, and Abby told herself to wait until it slipped. The man exuded confidence; he always had. But he wasn't infallible, and Abby knew if she waited long enough, he'd slip.

He blinked, and she saw it. The corners of his mouth drooped, and satisfaction dove through her. "Hello, Tex," she said coolly, arranging her face into something she hoped was passive and placid.

This man and his good looks did not influence her. Never mind that he hadn't lost an ounce of his charm or his good looks. He'd aged well, from what she could see, and she sure did like a man in a big, white cowboy hat, as much as she hated to admit that.

She would never tell him, that was for sure. Not again.

"This is my son, Bryce," he said, slinging his arm around his son's shoulders. "We're moving to Coral Canyon today."

Abby flicked her gaze toward the truck and trailer in the driveway. They weren't brand new, but she'd still expected to find a land shark scoping out the house and land, planning a way to raze everything and bring in steel, cement, and glass.

She still lived right next door, and she would not let that happen. She would not . She had no less than four alarms set for tomorrow morning just to make sure she showed up at the library on time. Lucky for her, she had a key, and the auction couldn't start without her to open the library. So she wouldn't miss the auction no matter what.

Her stomach still quaked with nerves, and she just wanted it over with already. Once she owned this property, she could hydrate it properly. She could move her horses onto it. She could think about renting out the farmhouse after she'd given it a thorough cleaning.

"Nice to meet you," she said to Bryce, because she did have some manners. "Where are you two staying?"

"We've got a rental over on the other side of town," Tex said. He pointed back to the house. "How long has it been like this?"

"A year maybe," Abby said. "The last couple who owned it left suddenly, and they couldn't sell it. He had a job that came up in intelligence, and they were here one day and gone the next. Neither of them came back, and a for-sale sign appeared a couple of months later. The bank eventually repossessed it, and they're doing an auction tomorrow."

"Yeah, that's what I was looking at," he said, his smile as brilliant as the summer sun shining down today. Abby tried not to find him attractive, but any woman would fail in that quest. Tex had the kind of face a woman longed to touch, if just to feel if that jaw was as strong as it looked.

He had large hands that knew how to coax the most beautiful melodies from a guitar, and Abby would only admit to herself in her quietest moments that she'd watched some of his videos online. He had a series of how-to's for kids to learn to play the guitar, and there were plenty of music videos to choose from.

His son stood as tall as Tex, and while he wasn't quite as filled out in the shoulders, they could both break a woman's heart.

Abby vowed it wasn't going to be hers. Not this time.

"Anyway," Tex said, a high note entering his voice. "We'll get out of your hair. It's too hot to stand out in the sun." He lifted his hat and moved his hand through his hair in such a familiar gesture that Abby blinked, and the world went black.

Black and white. Salt and pepper. Tex had plenty of gray in his hair, and wow, that only made him sexier than he already was.

He and Bryce walked back to their truck, both of them talking in such similar voices, and she still stood on the fried grass. She shook her head and told herself to pull everything together. She'd been around plenty of good-looking cowboys over the years. Tex Young wasn't going to bring her to her knees.

"Oh, no, he is not," she vowed as she crossed the patch of land that used to grow vegetables that separated this ranch from the farm she helped her brother run. Back in the house, she poured herself a big glass of lemonade as Wade wheeled himself into the kitchen.

"Who was it?" he asked. "I'll take some of that." He swiped off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "I got the pipes moved. We'll get the sprinklers on tonight."

"Okay," Abby said, handing the glass of lemonade to him. "I bet we can get the tomatoes and peas in this weekend. I don't think it'll freeze again."

"The weather is so weird right now," he said, shaking his head. He took a drink and set the glass on the counter. "But I bet you're right."

"So I'll go to the nursery after the auction tomorrow," she said. "We can do them tomorrow night." She'd already spent half a day putting in tomatoes that had then died in a late frost. Abby hated having to do work twice, and she had not been happy with Mother Nature that morning a few weeks ago.

"You're still sure about the auction?" Wade wore doubt in his eyes and wouldn't meet her gaze.

"Yes," Abby said. "We can take care of that land, and if we own it, then we control who lives right next door to us."

"Mm." Wade pushed himself over to the cupboard. "Don't spend more than eighty on it, or we'll be in trouble."

"I know." They'd discussed the budget for her auction habits, though she hadn't really bid on any of the other properties around Coral Canyon.

"Do we have any of that chicken noodle soup?" Wade asked.

"We're in the middle of a heat wave." Abby leaned against the counter and watched him pull out the packet anyway. How he ate that stuff, she'd never know. "I have homemade mac and cheese in the fridge."

"We've eaten that for three days." Her brother filled the electric kettle and set it on the element. After switching it on, he added, "We need to learn how to make smaller meals."

By "we," he meant her, as Wade hadn't actually cooked for years. Since returning from his military service, in fact.

"You're right," she said instead of arguing with him or suggesting he make something for dinner. Secretly, she liked making big pans of food, because then she didn't have to cook every evening. She always had something hot for lunch at the library, and she simply didn't have to use so much mental energy to keep herself and Wade fed.

Lord knew Abby had enough other things taking up the available space in her mind. An image of Tex's handsome, more mature face flashed across her brainwaves, and she pushed him right back out.

She definitely didn't have time for him. "I'll get the barn door done today," she said. "And I'll bring in the horses tonight. I want to work with Knitted Cotton."

"All right," Wade said, and Abby hadn't expected him to argue with her. Very few people did. She ran the library with firm fairness to the employees and the patrons, and she loved her job there. She loved gardening and prodding the land to produce a lot of what she and Wade needed to live. They had honeybees for honey, and a huge garden that produced plenty of vegetables. Abby had learned how to preserve them from her mother and grandmother, and they lived on spaghetti sauce, stewed tomatoes, bottled peaches, frozen corn and green beans, and more all winter long.

They grew all the hay their horses needed, and their two dozen chickens provided eggs. Abby loved her country life, even if the work was long and hard some days. The ranch next door had been neglected and overgrown since the Youngs had sold it a decade ago. She'd been worried about that, and she'd been right.

This was one time she hadn't wanted to be right, but that didn't change the fact that the two hundred acres next door was a severe eyesore for Mountain View Road, and Abby had always taken pride in where she lived.

She'd told Wade time and again that they didn't have to farm all of the acreage. She'd take care of the gardens and lawns. She'd work on the house over time, and they'd possibly rent it. Or, to prevent her from becoming a complete spinster who lived with her older brother forever, perhaps she'd move into the house next door and they'd each live alone.

After Wade's discharge from the service, he'd spent several months in a hospital in North Carolina, recovering from the loss of both of his legs. They'd been amputated from the knees down, and he had two prosthetics he could use. He said the wheelchair was simply easier in some instances, and Abby couldn't remember the last time he'd put on his prosthetics.

She'd been coming out of a failed engagement at the time and had been more than happy to help her brother transition back to regular life on the farm in Coral Canyon. Her parents had bought a smaller condo in town, and the four of them got along well.

Abby didn't need anything or anyone else.

Certainly not a former boyfriend to sail into town and buy his childhood ranch right out from under her nose. With horror, she realized that if Tex did manage to do that, he'd live right next door to her again. A hundred yards from the side door on her house to the back door on his.

That so wasn't happening.

Abby pulled out her phone and set a fifth alarm just to make sure she got up in time to put on just the right amount of makeup for the auction. After all, if Tex really was going to be there, she'd want to look as powerful as possible, and she knew just how to put bronzer on to shape her face into its power pose.

The following morning, only a few people lingered in the multi-purpose room at the library. Abby wore a denim skirt and a blouse with running stallions on it, her cowgirl boots, and that powerful makeup. She couldn't help glancing around for Tex or Bryce, but she hadn't seen them yet.

Dale Flood had come, and she should've known he'd show his face here. The man came to every auction in Coral Canyon, and he'd bid if only to keep the outsiders out of town. Abby had to say she respected him for that. She didn't want more big corporations in Coral Canyon either.

Justin Wells sat in the front row, but Abby had seen him come to two or three auctions now and never raise his paddle. She wasn't sure what, if any, interest he held in the land out by her.

Zach Zuckerman had just walked in, and the man had a ton of money. He could easily outbid Abby for the ranch, though he lived further north on a pristine piece of property already. She narrowed her eyes at him and wished she could read minds. He simply gave her a friendly smile and asked, "My wife just checked out thirteen books. Isn't there some kind of limit?"

Abby gave him a tight smile. "Not for adults."

He chuckled and shook his head. "She'll probably get through ‘em all this week anyway."

His wife worked as the private chef up at Whiskey Mountain Lodge, but apparently she had plenty of time for reading. Abby wouldn't be able to name the last time she had leisure time. She did read a lot, but that was for her job. She had to know the latest bestsellers and be able to answer questions about a variety of books. People came into the library with the oddest questions sometimes, and they often mixed up author names and book titles, then relied on her to unjumble everything.

A couple walked in, and Abby smiled politely at them as they signed up and took their paddle. She knew Gill and Tricia Yardley, and again, she wondered why they were there. They already owned a big corner lot on the last true block before the farms and ranches took over the more rural parts of Coral Canyon. Not only that, but their property sat on the lake side, which was easily twenty minutes from Abby's east side of town.

The clock clicked closer to ten, and Abby glanced toward the stairs, imagining where the elevator would go if she could just get the funding for it. She'd been working on a grant for what felt like forever but had actually only been about a year. She'd made it quite far before realizing she had to bid out everything, and she'd had to start over.

She stepped over to the table and signed herself in, then moved halfway down a row about halfway back from the podium. The big screen had been pulled down for the auctioneer to show the property and go over the rules, but Abby knew both like the back of her hand.

Perhaps that was why she zoned out. She only looked over her shoulder once, and she didn't see Tex. She listened with half an ear as the man up front went over the acreage, the outbuildings, and that the property would be sold as-is.

"It's been appraised for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but you can see the land and home and buildings need a lot of work. We'll open the bidding at fifty thousand."

Abby waited, because she wanted to feel out who would really be bidding this morning. Dale lifted his paddle after glancing around at everyone.

"Fifty thousand," the auctioneer said, but he didn't increase in pitch or speed. He simply said it, and she'd learned that these land auctions weren't anything like cattle auctions. She'd worked in that industry for a few years right out of high school before deciding to go to school and get her degree in library science.

"Each bid has to be one thousand dollars more than the one lower," the man said, and Abby lifted her paddle.

"I have fifty-one," the auctioneer said. He wore an expensive suit, because he'd likely come from a bigger city like Cheyenne or even Denver to run this auction. He represented the bank, and they'd take whatever they could get for the property that had been in default for over a year.

"Fifty-two," he said.

Abby lifted her paddle, and he called out her bid.

When they reached sixty-one, Dale put his paddle down on the chair next to him. Abby's heart pounded. Getting that ranch for one-fourth of what it was worth would be a huge steal. A major win.

Excitement beat beneath her breastbone like hummingbird wings, and she swallowed to keep them down where they belonged.

"Sixty-two," the man said, and Abby surveyed the crowd to find who'd bid against her.

Tex Young. The traitor.

Her hummingbird pulse turned into crow's wings. Big, huge flapping things that drove fury through her with every—single—beat.

Tex had some nerve, especially when he got up and moved closer, sitting right on the end of her aisle.

She threw her paddle into the air. So did he.

Back and forth they went until Abby was nearing her ceiling. In fact, if she bid again, she'd be at eighty-one thousand for the ranch.

Tex looked at her, a glint in his eyes that issued a challenge in such a sexy way that she wanted to toss her paddle at his slightly crooked nose and make it even less straight. She gripped the handle of it as if seriously contemplating it.

"Eighty thousand," the auctioneer said again. "Do I have eighty-one?"

Slowly, she put her paddle in the air.

Tex frowned and turned back toward the front, his paddle up already.

Off they went again, and Abby's mind raced. She had no idea what she'd tell Wade. It was almost like she was operating outside of her body, and when she put her paddle up at ninety-three thousand, she called out, "One hundred thousand dollars."

Tex looked at her with wide eyes that didn't blink.

She stared straight back at him, trying to control how quickly her breath went in and out of her lungs. He would break; she'd seen him slip yesterday, and she could force him to do it again.

His shoulders slumped, and Abby could almost taste the victory.

"One hundred thousand," the auctioneer said. "Do I have one-oh-five?"

Tex didn't move for a moment, and she swore the auctioneer waited longer than the rules called for. He bid, and she scowled at him, her paddle already in the air. A few more waves and silent battles later, the bid sat at one-fifty, and Abby was in serious, serious trouble.

Tex put his paddle down and wouldn't look at her, and the auctioneer called, "Sold, to seventeen, for one-hundred-fifty thousand dollars."

The air rushed out of Abby's lungs, and she sagged back into her chair too. A smile touched her face, but it was just a fa?ade. One she needed to keep in place as long as Tex's eyes weighed heavily on the side of her face, as they did now. And one she'd have to wear when she faced her brother and told him how much she'd overspent.