“Anita, a beer for the best performer of the night.”
Jessie took a drink. “You in town to buy it?”
“Something like that,” Clover said. There was no use lying. Everyone had heard about her buying the warehouses at the end of Miner’s Gulch, plus other properties. When Rico Pueblo opened, she would rename the street Torro Boulevard.
“My husband, Jones, and I are curious about your plans,” Lavonda said with a pleasant smile. “We own a guide company and more people visiting here would certainly be great for our finances. But this area is ecologically fragile. There are archaeological sites nearby that need to be protected, too.”
Clover hadn’t known about any sites. There hadn’t been any noted on any of the surveys or maps. “There are?” she asked noncommittally.
“Jones has been exploring. He’s an archaeologist.”
Clover nodded, waiting for more from Lavonda.
“Talk about that another time,” Jessie said. “I want to hear what Clover’s been up to, besides being a business mogul.”
Clover tried to understand what Jessie was really asking and decided to take her at face value. She gave them the short version. “What about you?” she asked Jessie when she’d finished her short bio. “Still riding, even with the baby?”
“Not the trick riding,” Jessie said. “Gave that up, but I have a therapeutic horse-riding program for youngsters. Kids with physical and emotional challenges.”
Lavonda added, “Don’t get her started on Gertie. We’re out so that she can live it up and act like a normal human being.”
Jessie gave her sister a dirty look, the kind of sibling communication Clover always wanted to have with Knox and didn’t.
Lavonda said, “This is the first time Jessie has gone out on her own since Gertie made her grand entrance. That girl already has the flair for the dramatic.”
“She does?”
“Yes,” Lavonda said, shushing her sister. “Jessie’s husband is a pediatric surgeon, operated on thousands of kids, probably. When Gertie made her appearance at their ranch—Jessie kept saying the pain wasn’t bad enough to go to the hospital—he fainted. Smacked down on the floor. The three of them shared an ambulance.”
“Stop telling that story. That’s not the way it happened,” Jessie said. “Payson didn’t faint. He tripped.”
“He tripped because he was faint.”
“Faint because he hadn’t eaten or slept.”
The sisters bantered back and forth for a few minutes before returning to their interrogation.
“Bet you were surprised that Danny is mayor, huh?” Lavonda asked.
“He was a popular rider,” Clover said flatly.
“Popular with you,” Jessie mumbled, sounding suddenly unfriendly.
“We were very young.”
“You’re older by a couple of years, aren’t you?” Jessie asked without a hint of humor.
“I don’t remember,” Clover lied.
“Really?” Jessie’s sage-green gaze locked on to Clover. “Never knew a woman who forgot her first—”
“Danny is our baby brother,” Lavonda broke in. “We might feel a little protective.”
“He’s a grown man,” Clover reminded them. “I don’t think he’d appreciate you discussing his...private life.”
“Sorry about that. Like Lavonda said, he’s our baby brother.”
“He’s lucky to have you two,” she said, meaning it. Nothing like her and Knox. They had shuttled between their separated parents until Knox settled with their dad in New York and she chased tiaras with her mother in Texas.
Lavonda smiled and said, “He’ll probably disown us...again...if you tell him we talked to you. So could we just keep this between us hens?” Jessie nodded agreement.
“Sure,” Clover said. “One thing, though. Why did Danny agree to be mayor? He won’t tell me.”
“That’s his story,” Jessie said, “and it’s time I head back to my baby. Come on, Lavonda.”
“I’m proud of you. I expected us to leave at least an hour ago.”
Clover watched the sisters stand and said, “It was good seeing you, and your secret is safe with me.”
“Wait—one more thing,” Lavonda said as Jessie gave her an impatient look. “This isn’t a warning or anything. Danny is different than when he was a teen, but one thing that hasn’t changed is how much he...cared for you when you were young.”
Before Clover could respond, the women walked away. What did they mean by that? Danny had some torch for her? But they said to leave him alone? The bonds between siblings made her envious and confused. She didn’t understand exactly how it all worked.
Time to finish her beer and head home. The chat with Danny’s sisters hadn’t been anything more than a little girl talk. A lot of water and everything else had passed under the bridge since Danny and she had been a couple. He might be a better kisser and had aged well. That didn’t mean anything more than that she’d been working too hard and neglecting her social life. She’d take care of that as soon as this project got off the ground.
She’d spend her time reworking her numbers and tweaking her presentation for the council. She planned to win over this town and prove to her father she was the kind of executive he needed. Not much at all riding on this upcoming meeting, where she’d be laying it on the line in front of an old boyfriend who could still make her forget her name when they kissed.
As he waited for the town-council meeting to start, Danny’s tongue pushed at the empty space between his teeth. The dentist required payment up front and Danny was a little short. He’d been desperate enough to look on the ground around the stairs for the knocked-out tooth but he hadn’t found it. He’d been nodding along to the conversation, not opening his mouth and holding his lip down over the gap. He’d never thought of himself as vain, but a big old hole in his mouth made him want to hide.
Of course, Clover, in a professional but formfitting suit, sat front and center in the audience at the council meeting. Her proposal was number two on the agenda, after the Pledge of Allegiance. He looked around at the four other members of the board. They’d called Angel Crossing home all of their lives, and like a lot of the old-timers, they didn’t want their town to change. But they also understood that without change their children and grandchildren would never stay. He had a vague idea of how they might view Van Camp Worldwide’s proposal. He’d been explaining his own ideas, but they were long-term solutions, not the quick one that Clover would be presenting.
The president of the board looked at his watch and hammered down the gavel. “Let’s get this show on the road. I want to be home before that dancing program starts. Everyone stand for the Pledge.”
Danny stood, turned to the flag and caught the gleam of Clover’s auburn hair out of the corner of his eye. He would not be distracted by her or the memories of their recent kiss.
“Miss Van Camp,” said Bobby Ames, the president of the board and Angel Crossing’s lone attorney and taxidermist. “Your presentation, please. You have ten minutes.”
Clover stood and picked up a stack of printouts. She quickly went down the table handing out the colorful and slick paper. Danny would not feel bad that he hoped her big-city presentation raised the hackles on his fellow board members.