Rory joined her. “How was today’s trek?”
“It was the beginner course. Just a few hours of hiking up to Lookout Rock and back with some trail mix and sports drinks thrown in for good measure. But the girls had fun.”
“They were noisy.”
“They were okay on the trail. I think the giggling beforehand was mostly for your benefit.”
She hadn’t meant to make him blush, but he did anyway, then sped up ahead of her.
Following him to her neighbor’s property, she turned in at the corner of the fence where her pasture gave way to a woebegone yard. There, three hulking teenagers worked at building a trailer of sorts from lumber and spare parts. An all-terrain vehicle and two dirt bikes were parked nearby. Four large dogs lay chained to a tree. Rory stopped at the edge of the road and warily eyed the scene.
“Hello!” Samantha called out. “Is your father home?”
“No,” came a mumbled response before the dogs clambered to their feet and began a raucous baying. The three young men worked on without looking up.
Not knowing how long the dogs’ chains were, Samantha stayed put. Rory inched closer to her in what seemed more of a protective gesture than fear.
“Hush!” one of the boys shouted, making a menacing gesture with a wrench. As a group, the dogs slunk back to the tree.
“I’m Samantha Weston. Your new neighbor. May I have a word with you?”
The tallest teenager slowly straightened. “It’s a free country.”
Pulling one of her business cards from her back pocket, she left her bike at the edge of the road. “Would you, please, have your father call me? My number’s on the card.”
The boy took the card and, without looking at it, stuffed it in his jeans. “I don’t think any of us are interested in goin’ on a hike with llamas.” The last word was said with great contempt.
“I’m not trying to drum up business. I wanted to talk about the importance of keeping dogs out of the pasture.”
“You got a fence.”
“We’ve found signs of digging.”
“Lots of animals round here.” He jerked his head toward the dogs. “Ours are tied up.”
“I appreciate it,” she said evenly. “I want to be a good neighbor, too. Please, have your father phone me.”
As she turned, he mumbled, “If you wanna be a good neighbor, why’d you cut off our access?”
“Access?”
“You had to see the trails we made.”
She’d seen them. Ugly gashes worn over time with no regard for the land or its vegetation. “As I understand it,” she said, keeping her voice even, “the county has provided new and extensive ATV trails.”
“We had our own at Uncle Red’s,” a second boy added, standing in truculent solidarity with the first. “Until you came along.”
“Now that you have better ones, you don’t need my property anymore. But if you’re interested, you can come over and meet the llamas. See what trail life without motors can be like.”
The three gave a united snort of derision, then turned their backs and resumed work on the trailer.
Samantha returned to Rory and the bikes. “I’ll ride with you into town. I want to talk to the feed store owner. See if he’d be willing to top-dress the cattle feed I buy with some other ingredients good for llama health.”
“You’re not worried?”
“About their health? No, they’re doing fine on pasture for the summer.”
“Not the llamas.” Rory waited until they’d turned a bend in the road. “Those guys back there.”
“I think they’re harmless. Ticked off, yes. But harmless. I hear the new ATV trails are really good. They’ll get used to not having a backyard playground.”
Rory looked unconvinced. “You’re lucky you have me and Red.”
Samantha was touched by his gallantry.
“Then there’s always my dad if we run into real trouble.”
Oh, no, she didn’t need the sheriff in her new, clean-as-a-whistle life. “There won’t be trouble,” she reassured him.
The Harrises were the least of her concerns. Yes, she needed to discuss a new grain mixture with the feed store owner, but, more important, she needed to ask about the curt message he’d left on her voice mail—that a man had been asking about her in town. A member of the paparazzi or her father’s detective, Max?
Neither possibility was good news.
CHAPTER THREE
TUCKED IN A VALLEY off the beaten track, partway between Brevard and Asheville, Applegate was little like its bigger neighbors, the first a college town, the second a tourist destination. And although gentrification was slowly making inroads, one couldn’t spot the changes from the rustic interior of Abel Nash’s feed store. Samantha stood amid the stacked burlap sacks of grain and scarred wooden bins of seeds, waiting to speak to the owner and trying desperately not to sneeze on the fine dust that hung in the air. She couldn’t help but wonder why the sheriff stood sentry outside the store, looking for all the world as if he was waiting for someone in particular.
“Samantha, what can I do for you?” At last Abel turned his attention to her.
From her pocket she pulled a slip of paper on which she’d written the specifics of the new feed she wanted. “Could you give me this blend with my next delivery?”
He glanced at the list. “No problem. Anything else?”
“About your message…”
“That guy nosing around, yeah.” Abel scowled.
“Did he give a name?”
“No. He was slippery that way. Gut feeling, I didn’t trust him.”
“How so?”
“Said he was trying to find his long-lost niece. Showed me a picture of some society woman. Ashley something-or-other. Come to think of it, she had a passing resemblance to you—kind of like a gussied up cousin—but his niece? I sure as heck wouldn’t put the two of them on the same family shrub, let alone tree. He looked like a forties gangster.”
Samantha suppressed a smile. Not a newshound, at least. But Max. While it was true her father’s detective looked rough around the edges, the man had a heart of gold. Nevertheless, she didn’t want “Uncle Max” meddling in her new life. Not at this tender stage.
“What did you tell him?” she asked, fearing Abel Nash owed her, a newcomer, scant loyalty.
“I asked him if I looked like I ran in her circle. Then I told him if he didn’t need any seed or feed, I had paying customers to wait on.” He paused as if weighing his words. “You’ll find this has always been a live-and-let-live town. We’re not overfond of snoops.”
That was putting it mildly. In doing research on the area, as far back as the revolutionary war, Samantha had found that this region, with its peaks and valleys and inaccessible hollows, had been a haven for staunch individualists and rebels and people with something to hide. “I appreciate your respect for privacy,” she replied.
Abel had given nothing away, but surely Max had talked to others in town. Had they been as circumspect? She glanced at the sheriff on the sidewalk. Fortunately, Max, in keeping