She heard someone open the office door behind her, and then the sound of Zander levering himself out of his squeaky chair.
“Trent! Thank God you’re here! Maybe you can help me talk some sense into Ms. Susannah!”
Oh, great. She needed this right now.
Susannah turned to see Trent moving into the office, his lean height dominating it more thoroughly than even Zander’s bulk could ever do. He shut the door behind him, then came over and shook the foreman’s outstretched hand, simultaneously slapping him on the shoulder. They were old friends, and suddenly she felt outnumbered.
“No one needs to talk sense into me.” She included both men in her scowl. But damn it. What was it about Trent’s lazy, amused grin that made her feel like a kid stamping her foot? “I make my own decisions. I know what I’m doing.”
Trent raised his eyebrow, as if she’d said something cute, and transferred that annoying grin to the foreman. “Come on, Zan. You know her. When she makes a decision, you and I and Hell’s army couldn’t talk her out of it. Save your energy for a battle you can win.”
“I would. God knows, I usually do. But this is different. She’s getting ready to hire Eli Breslin.”
Trent’s eyebrow went up even farther. “Really?” He glanced at Susannah. “Why?”
“Because I need workers, that’s why. Because Eli applied, and he sounded sincere about needing the job. He went out of his way to apologize for everything that happened with Nikki. He explained that he was just lonesome. Homesick. That’s why he wants a second job now, to save up to buy a plane ticket back home to El Cajon.”
Trent chuckled. “He actually said that?”
“You should have heard the little weasel.” Zander grimaced. “Kid should be an actor. He spread honey on her like she was his own personal biscuit. Ninety-three percent of it pure baloney, if you ask me.”
“But I didn’t.” Susannah tightened her voice. “I didn’t ask either of you. It’s my decision.”
Zander growled under his breath, like a fussy old hound. “You do remember what he did at the Clayton place, don’t you? You remember he walked away from a sick horse, didn’t care whether the animal lived or died? You remember Trent had to fire him?”
“She remembers.” Trent’s smile was gone. In its place was cool speculation. “Is that part of the appeal, Susannah? Do you think it would be fun to tweak my nose a bit?”
It might be fun, she thought, to see if she could slap that insufferable arrogance off his face. But she gritted her teeth and braided her hands behind her back. Her famous self-control was the only thing that kept Zander from quitting. She’d heard him say it was beneath him to work for a woman, but Ms. Everly didn’t really act like one, so he didn’t mind too much.
She lifted her chin. “As I’ve pointed out before, Trent, not everything I do is about you.”
But he just grinned again, and her palms itched. How did he do this to her? Why couldn’t she learn to be immune to his snarky comments and his laughing eyes?
She had been vacillating about Eli, but suddenly her mind was made up.
She moved to the door, opened it, then turned to her foreman. “Hire him. Ask him if he has a brother, an uncle, a dog. Hire them all.”
“Dumb decision,” Zander muttered. “You’ll regret it.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Trent said pleasantly. Susannah had let the door begin to fall shut, so she almost missed the rest of the comment.
But his words were loud enough to follow her, like a dart finding its bull’s eye.
“Our Susannah’s a clever woman, Zan. Trust me. If she regrets it, she can always find a way to wriggle out of it.”
CHAPTER THREE
AT THREE O’CLOCK that afternoon, Trent knocked at the baby blue door of a little white cottage over in Darlonsville.
“Trent!” Peggy Archer held out her hand. Her eyes were wide, and she seemed momentarily speechless. “I didn’t expect to see you today. Shouldn’t you be with…her?”
Trent sensed the trembling in her fingers and squeezed them reassuringly. “I’ve had a date with you every Saturday afternoon for five years now, Peggy. Marriage isn’t going to change that.”
She nodded slowly. “Especially that marriage.”
“Not any marriage. You told me your satellite dish is broken. I know you can’t live without your Sunday night football.”
He smiled, aware that Peggy never watched sports on TV, but hoping to distract her from the subject of Susannah. It was a sore one in this house.
Long ago, when they were kids, Peggy’s son Paul had been part of the inseparable quartet, the Fugitive Four. Trent, Chase and Susannah had all been Peggy’s surrogate children, eating her corn dogs and hot chili every summer afternoon at the Bull’s Eye ranch, the ten-thousand-acre Archer homestead.
But then, eleven years ago, a quarrel between Trent and Susannah had escalated into tragedy, and Peggy’s son, Paul, had ended up dead. It had been about ninety-nine percent Trent’s fault, and it had taken him years to find the courage to come back to Texas and face what he’d done.
Facing Peggy had been the toughest. But little by little, she had forgiven him and let him slip into the role of surrogate son once more. Oddly, as the years had gone on, she had ended up blaming Susannah the most.
When Trent had told her about the one-year marriage, the news had seemed to distress her out of all proportion. Trent had assumed it had been because of Paul, but he wondered now if Peggy had simply feared she’d lose Trent’s weekly visit.
Darn it. Foolishly, he’d taken for granted that she would understand. He’d never stop coming to see her, not as long as she needed him.
His debt to her was eternal. It would never be paid.
He tightened his grip on her hand. “Hey. Don’t I get invited in?”
“Of course, but—” She glanced over her shoulder as she backed away from the door. “I thought you weren’t coming, so—”
Just at that moment, her ex-husband, Harrison Archer, ambled in from the kitchen, muttering under his breath and studying the bracket that ordinarily held the satellite dish up on the roof.
Harrison was a balding, Texas-sized good old boy with a chest as round and barrel-shaped as any of his steers. At his heels trailed his son Sean, who at eight years old already looked shockingly like Paul. Both sons from Harrison’s second marriage did. It was the red hair, mostly. Harrison’s new wife, Nora, was half Peggy’s age, but otherwise could have been her clone—same fiery hair, petite body and smart hazel eyes.
Everyone knew what Harrison was doing when he married Nora, only two years after Paul’s death. He was doubling back to square one and starting over. Or trying to. But in spite of the healthy new sons and the pretty wife, there was still something dead in his eyes that made Trent uncomfortable whenever their gazes met.
“Trent. Thank God you’re here.” Harrison held up the bracket. “I can’t figure this blame thing out to save my life. And Sean has a game tonight. All right if I let you take over?”
“Sure.” Trent smiled at Harrison and then at Sean, who was a cute kid, gangly in his miniature polyester Red Sox uniform. “Hi, kiddo.”
“Sean is pitching today,” Harrison said in his deepest proud-father voice, his chest expanding subtly, stretching the buttons of his five-hundred-dollar denim shirt.
Trent wasn’t sure how to respond. For starters,