Josie closed the door after her daughter as a precaution, then in a tone filled with feigned politeness, she said to Seth, “You may think you’re here to talk, but we have nothing to say to one another.”
His gaze flickered down the length of her, taking in her summertime attire with too obvious an interest. As if he was taking stock of her—tike a cowboy sizing up a potential breeding mare. When his eyes reached hers again, they were filled with heated resentment.
“Polite talk, no,” he agreed, his voice harsh. “But this is in regard to a business-related matter.”
“Business?” She shook her head at the absurdity of the notion. “I wouldn’t do business with an O’Connor if you were the last man on earth who could offer me sanctuary.”
A faint smile curved his mouth. “I might just very well be.”
Fed up with whatever game he was playing, she stared him down. “Get off my property.” She directed her finger toward his horse to emphasize her point. “Now!”
He didn’t budge, and there was enough smugness touching his features to make her uneasy. “Don’t be so hasty, darlin’.”
Her temper flared at his sweet talk. “Do I need to call the sheriff out to arrest you for trespassing, not to mention assault?”
“Assault?” His dark brows rose incredulously, right along with his voice. “You’re the one who damn near blew my head off!”
She lifted her chin a defiant notch and gave him a cool smile. “I was feeling...threatened.”
“Like hell you were!” He clamped his lips shut and glared. “If anybody is calling the sheriff, I am. I’ve got a deed that states the Golden M belongs to me.”
“You’re crazy!”
“I’m perfectly sane.” He rocked back on his booted heels, looking altogether too pleased with himself. “Has your father been around lately?”
The casual way he asked the question, and the insinuation behind his words, put her on the alert. Her father had been gone for two days, since that past Friday, though this wasn’t the first time Jake McAllister had taken off without warning. She’d grown used to her father’s drifting and the fact that he’d lost interest in the ranch years ago. She’d been handling the business end of the Golden M for almost eight years now, and with Mac as their longtime foreman running the day-to-day cattle operation, the ranch was still thriving. Nothing grand, but she was paying their bills and keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table.
So why was Seth so interested in her father...and why was he spouting this nonsense about a deed to the Golden M? It had to be nonsense, or a ploy of some sort.
She tried to keep calm and not let the panic within her claw its way to the surface. That would never do, because someone as unscrupulous as Seth would take advantage of her weakness.
“My father’s whereabouts are none of your business,” she snapped.
He walked toward where she was standing and circled her, so close his arm brushed her bottom. Deliberately? she wondered. She suppressed the urge to give him a sharp jab in the ribs with her elbow. She refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled her.
He stopped in front of her. “Did you know your father has a penchant for gambling?” His tone was casual, but there was nothing nonchalant about what he was suggesting.
Josie’s heart dropped to her stomach, and a peculiar sense of dread filled her. While Seth’s father had been notorious for drinking and being loud and obnoxious, her own father had gained a reputation for being an easy gambler. He loved poker, could sniff a game five miles away. There were many times he’d start the game of cards himself in some back room in a seedy bar. Sometimes he was lucky; most times he was not. Bottom line, he was addicted to the game, to the point where she feared he’d sink the ranch into bankruptcy. So far, she’d been successful in thwarting every attempt he’d made to take out a second loan on the ranch, knowing he’d use that money to finance his gambling habit.
She moved away from Seth to the white banister enclosing the porch. Unable to meet his disconcerting stare, she looked out at the fertile land stretching for miles in front of her. Land that had been in her family for three generations. Land that had once belonged to an O’Connor. “What does my father’s gambling have to do with any thing?”
She heard one of the pair of wicker chairs behind her creak as he settled his weight into it. “Your father gambled away the Golden M, and I won it.”
Josie’s world tilted, and she grabbed one of the columns for balance. She glanced over her shoulder at him, denial pumping up her adrenaline. He sat there in the white wicker chair, his long body stretched out, his legs crossed at his boots, looking entirely too arrogant.
She pressed a hand to her churning stomach. God, this had to be an awful dream, a nightmare she’d wake up from and laugh about. But Seth was flesh-and-blood real, his persistence too intense to be anything but genuine.
“Prove it,” she blurted, despising the desperation in her voice. But that’s exactly how she was feeling, grasping at straws in hopes of finding a discrepancy in his outrageous claim.
Withdrawing a square piece of paper from his shirt pocket, he unfolded it, then handed it toward her. “Here’s all the proof you’re gonna need.”
She stared at the proffered document for what seemed like an eternity, the words “Quitclaim Deed” swirling in front of her. With a trembling hand, she reached for the paper and forced herself to read the contents. She got as far as the statement transferring ownership of the property to Seth O’Connor before a wave of disbelief crashed through her.
“How can this be?” she asked, more to herself than him.
“It’s all very simple,” he said, his eyes dark and unfathomable. “Your father and I were at Joe’s pub Friday night and he challenged me to a game of poker in the back room.”
“And you took advantage of him?” she demanded to know.
Seth laughed, the sound deep and rich despite the tension between them. “I know you’d like to believe I did, but I wasn’t the only one in the game. There were five of us present, but I seemed to be the one with all the luck. Your father lost all the cash he had on him and resorted to writing IOUs. At one point, he owed me over ten grand, and Gary Rial four grand.”
Josie groaned, staggered at the debt her father had incurred. “What happened?” she asked, not sure she really wanted to know.
“It came down to my hand against his, and since he had another three grand of IOUs in the pot and was about to write another just to stay in the game, I struck a deal with him.”
Her loathing gaze narrowed on him. “What kind of deal did my father make with the devil himself?”
He lifted a dark brow at her derogatory comment. “I told him if he put in the deed to the Golden M and he won the pot, I’d forgive his IOU to me and I’d pay off Gary’s. The same would apply if he lost. Either way, he’d have no outstanding debts.”
“My, wasn’t that generous of you!” Her fingers curled tightly around the deed in her hand. A deed that made the very porch she stood on, the house and ranch she grew up on, his. The thought made her nauseous.
He sat up in the chair, his gaze holding hers steadily. “He didn’t have to put in the deed, Josie.”
“Doesn’t sound like he had much of a choice.”
Anger flashed in his eyes, hot and dangerous. “He made every choice on his own. I offered a deal, and he accepted it with a stipulation of his own that I agreed to. If he wasn’t prepared to lose, then he never should have challenged me to join the game in the first place.”