First came the libel suit, stemming from a puff-piece-turned exposé on a prominent Atlanta businessman’s not-so-squeaky-clean business practices. Then, just to come on with a strong offense, Becca had countersued with defamation charges. Later, when she’d won the libel suit and a half-million-dollar judgment from the countersuit, she’d counted on the money to help bail her out of bankruptcy.
Only, it hadn’t come. Neither had any job offers from the multitude of weekly and daily papers and magazines she’d applied to. Even if Becca had prevailed, just the fact that she’d been sued was enough to make an editor or publisher wary.
“Your father loves you.”
“Yeah, but that box isn’t on an employee performance review, and you know it.”
Gert didn’t contradict her, but then that was to be expected. They both knew Becca’s father only too well.
Becca slid from the corner of Gert’s desktop and made a beeline for her computer. The one thing that could make her feel better might await her in her in-box.
There it was: an e-mail from Rooster.
You nail that big presentation?
That was all, just that in the subject line. So like Rooster, straight to the point. She’d met him on an online farming community a few months before, and the two of them had hit it off.
“Uh-huh, I heard that sigh. It’s that online fella again, isn’t it?”
Gert’s all-knowing smirk couldn’t take away from Becca’s pleasure.
“If you must know, yes.”
“Sometimes I wonder. Why don’t you go out with a real flesh-and-blood guy?”
“Like I have time.”
“You would if you didn’t stay on the Internet all the time, wasting your life away mooning over some guy who could be a psychopath, for all you know. He could be right here in Atlanta, right across the street with a telescope, casing the joint.”
“Uh, Gert, I think you need to lay off the crime dramas. To put your overactive imagination at rest, Rooster and I agreed a long time ago not to mess things up by trading any identifying info. No real names, no locations, not even the names of pets. Simpler that way.”
“If you say so. Me? I think you’re just afraid of disappointing some other guy besides your dad.”
Gert’s comment hit close to home. Becca fretted at the pang she felt from it.
A part of Becca had been excited to work for her dad. Finally she’d had the chance to earn his approval and help him out with his investigative firm, to show him she could use her journalist skills on this job.
Today had left her feeling the eternal screwup, still haunted by her past bad decisions.
But before she could say anything, the office door opened, letting in a sweltering wave of Georgia heat—and her father.
Her dad’s face was a perfect mirror of the weather.
He approached her desk and slapped down a file folder.
“Your last chance.”
“What?”
“I’m a fair man. The suits at Ag-Sure have given us one more shot at getting things right, so I’m passing on the favor.”
“They want us to reopen the case?”
“No. That ship has sailed. This is another one. It took me a lot of talking to convince them that we wouldn’t make a hash out of this one, too. It’s here in Georgia, about halfway between Macon and Savannah, so you get your butt down I-75 and nail these guys. Fast.”
Gee, Dad. Most fathers would have just said, “I’m sorry for losing my temper.” In her heart, though, Becca knew how hard this was for her dad, how scary it was for him to let her take on a case that could well determine their future with Ag-Sure.
She met Gert’s gaze across the room and took in the office manager’s almost imperceptible nod. Yep, this was as good an apology as she was going to get.
She flipped open the file, scanned it. “Asian dodder vine? I’ve never heard of it.”
“Never been east of the Mississippi, according to the insurance company. But there’s a group of farmers claiming it’s overtaking their cotton like kudzu.”
“But, Dad, how can you fake kudzu?”
“That’s your job to figure it out. Get busy. You’ve got a day to research, and then you’d better be packed and headed south. The insurance company wants to see results…If you don’t, they’ll have our heads on a platter.”
[email protected]: I’m leaving on a business trip that I have to take, don’t know if I’ll have Internet access, so I may go radio silent for a few days.
[email protected]: I thought you just finished up that big project for work? Figured you could take a break.
[email protected]: I did finish it up, but it sort of imploded on me. I screwed up. So this trip is a penance of sorts.
[email protected]: Your job’s not on the line, is it? Because if you’re short on rent money there in the big city, you can always head down here, grab a hoe and remember what it’s like down on the farm.
[email protected]: I miss being on a farm…well, my grandparents’ farm, at least. Sometimes I wish I could go back.
CHAPTER TWO
“WHOA, LADIES! Easy! No call for fighting!”
But Ryan MacIntosh’s exhortation fell on the deaf ears of a pair of six-year-olds bent on destruction. He pulled back just quick enough to escape a female fist flying for the other’s face.
He made a grab for the fist, saw that the nails were done in a metallic purple nail polish with a constellation of stars. He closed his fingers around the wrist and shoved—as gently as he could—the two girls apart.
Stepping between them, his chest heaving, Ryan struggled for some earthly clue as to what to do next. “Enough!”
“But she started it!”
“She did! She was holding!”
Ryan squelched back his own temper, not an easy thing to do with the August sun beating down on his red hair. He set his jaw and gazed at the upturned faces of the two soccer players.
“Both of you. On the bench.”
When they would have argued with him, he shook his head and pointed toward their respective benches. “Go on and you might get a shot at playing again before the game ends.”
As the girls trudged off the field, Ryan could feel parental wrath lasering in his direction. A fight had to break out on the one game that the referee didn’t show up for.
The other coach shrugged his shoulders and called for a time-out. Ryan indicated for his crew to get a drink. He didn’t have to say it twice. They gathered around the Thermos like cows around a salt lick.
Cows would be easier, he thought. A chuckle brought him back from a momentary image of cows in shin guards, kicking a soccer ball up and down the field.
The chuckle came from Jack MacIntosh, his cousin—and the reason Ryan was here rather than on his John Deere, plowing his sadly neglected back forty.
“What?” he asked.
Jack laughed again. He adjusted the casted leg he had stretched out on a folding chaise lounge. “You nearly got clocked by a six-year-old. Doesn’t say much for your reaction time.”
“Hey. It was supposed to be you out there, remember? I could have left your sorry—” Ryan did a quick edit, mindful of