“I did. Do. So, put the man on the phone, would you? I need to talk to him.”
“Oh, so that’s why you called my phone,” she teased wryly as she crouched down and slipped through the horizontal space between the wide-set metal rails. “Not to talk to me after all, but to your good buddy.”
“At least from him I might get the straight scoop on how you’re really doing.” There was no joking in Jake’s voice.
Leandra stopped next to Evan and extended the tiny phone. “Here, spy man. Your accomplice wants to talk to you.” She jiggled the phone. “Jake.”
Evan took the phone. “Yo.”
Leandra grimaced and turned away.
Her father caught her gaze, his dark blue eyes unreadable. “You still talk to Jake?”
She shrugged and he fell into step with her as she walked away from Evan, heading toward the big, state-of-the-art barn. She didn’t really want to hear whatever report he might be giving Jake.
The fact that there might be any reporting at all annoyed her right down to her bones. She was having lustful thoughts about Evan and he was merely keeping tabs on her for Jake.
“Don’t worry, Dad. We’re not getting back together or anything.” There was too much water under that bridge. And Leandra wasn’t up to emotional entanglements, anyway.
“Jake was—is a good enough guy.” Jefferson’s low voice was wry. “Maybe not good enough for my girl, but—”
She tucked her hand under her father’s arm. At six-plus feet, he still towered over her. And though his blond hair had a good portion of silver now, it was still thick and often longer than his wife’s shoulder-length hair.
“Nobody would be good enough to suit you, Dad.”
“Me?” His lips quirked. “It’s your mother who’s the hard one to please.” He nodded his head toward the slender, dark-haired woman who was striding toward them. “Tell her, Em,” he said when she reached them.
“Tell her what?”
Leandra suffered a head-to-toe examination from her mother’s all-seeing brown eyes. She was ten years younger than Jefferson, and more than once had been mistaken for Leandra’s sister, rather than her mother. “He’s claiming that instead of him, it’s you who thinks no man is good enough for me.”
Emily smiled. “Well, we both know what a tale your father can spin. So, how much longer are you going to be following poor Evan around? You know we’re all going into town tonight to meet at Colbys, right?”
“Sarah told me.”
“I really wish you could stay out here with us.” Emily closed her arm around Leandra’s shoulder. “I know it’s not too practical during the week because of the drive, but what about the weekends?”
A part of Leandra wanted nothing more than to escape to the sanctuary of her childhood home. To sink into the comfort and care of parents whose love was a constant in her life. A bigger part of her resisted those very same things for fear that she’d never make her own way. “I’ll still be working on the weekends,” she told them truthfully. “We just won’t be actively following Evan.”
“Working on the weekends.” Emily sniffed wryly. “Why does that sound familiar?”
“Because you grew up on Squire’s ranch,” Jefferson drawled. “And there ain’t no time off on a ranch.”
Emily tilted her head up, looking at her husband. “Oh, and you’re so different from your father, are you?”
Jefferson closed his hand around his wife’s hand. “Hell, yes. I’m nothing like Squire Clay.”
Leandra snorted softly. Her mother laughed and her father smiled before dropping a kiss onto his wife’s forehead.
There was no way that Leandra could ignore the contentment radiating from her parents. It blossomed around her as surely as the sun rose and set. “I’ve got to round up my crew and get them back to town,” she told them. “So I’ll see you later at Colbys.”
“Even if you’re not staying with us, I’m glad you’re here.” Emily kissed Leandra’s cheek. “It’s been so long since you were home.”
Not since Emi.
Leandra kept her smile in place, but it suddenly took an effort. And she knew that her parents were aware of that fact, which made the effort even harder. “I know. So…later.” She hurried away from them, retracing her steps back to the small arena.
Evan, though, was nowhere to be seen.
Paul and Janet were busy loading up the rental van with equipment. “Looking for this?” Janet handed over Leandra’s clipboard.
She hadn’t been, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need the jumble of schedules and notes and other assorted items that were clipped together on the large brown clipboard. “Where’s Evan?”
“He left a few minutes ago.”
For some reason, the news startled Leandra. “When?” She hadn’t noticed his pickup truck driving away from the ranch, but then she’d been on the opposite side of the barn, facing away from the road.
“A few minutes ago. We’re still finished, right?”
“Right.” Leandra realized she was looking in the direction of the road, as if she would be able to see Evan’s departure. They probably wouldn’t see each other until Sunday, when the show aired and the crew threw a promotional event in town to play up Evan’s debut. The thought nagged at her, and she deliberately looked down at her clipboard. She was there to work and that was all. Work was good. Work was safe.
And amid her work was a big pink note, taped on top of her collection of pages. Call Marian.
She automatically reached for her cell phone.
Which she’d given to Evan.
“Don’t suppose he gave you my cell phone before he left?”
Janet shook her head. “Nope. Sorry.”
Well, if for no other reason than to retrieve her cell phone, Leandra would be seeing Evan before Sunday, after all.
“Guess you’d better lend me yours, then,” she told her assistant.
The young woman handed it over and Leandra dialed Marian’s phone number.
Even the prospect of talking to her half-sane boss again wasn’t enough to dull Leandra’s sudden burst of cheerfulness.
She wouldn’t be waiting until Sunday, after all.
Chapter Three
“Does your daddy know you still play pool?”
Bent over her borrowed pool cue and the side of one of the pool tables situated inside Colbys Bar & Grill, Leandra’s stroke hesitated. When had Evan arrived at the bar? She angled her chin, looking beside her. “Does your daddy know you’ve taken up drinking beer?”
The corner of Evan’s lips twitched. “I’d have to say he did since he’s the one who bought it.” His fingers were looped around the slender neck of the bottle and he tilted the bottom of it, gesturing. “He’s at the bar over there.”
Leandra followed the gesturing beer bottle. Sure enough, Drew Taggart was standing at the bar.
From Leandra’s vantage point, it looked as if the only thing that had changed about Evan’s father were the strands of silver threading through his black hair. He was talking with one of her uncles. Tristan Clay was as golden blond as he’d ever been, and standing there, the two men—one dark haired and one light—made a striking image.
“I