Free Unforgettable (The Dalton Gang #3) by Alison Kent Page B

find sound even dirtier.”
    Except she wasn’t sure anything could sound dirtier than Cicely Warren soliciting a teenage Casper Jayne. But she only knew the middle-aged, and unfortunately unattractive, woman now. She hadn’t known her then.
    She hadn’t known any of the story’s players then. It was very possible what she found out about Boone might change what was so far her good opinion of him.
    The thought did not thrill her. “Does it worry you?”
    “What?”
    “That I might find out some things you’d rather I not?”
    “Whatever’s out there is in the past and can’t be undone. I figure you’ve got some skeletons of your own you might prefer I not know about.”
    “I do,” she said, glad to see they were on the same page, and supposing she should brace for her skeletons lifting a hand from the grave.
    “I guess we’re even then. Ask me what you will.”
    “Thank you.”
    “No need,” he said, the sound of food sizzling reaching her ears with the words. “Just making sure you get your info from the horse’s mouth rather than just horses’ asses.”
    She flicked a nail over the wine bottle’s label. “Do you think Casper and Dax will be as accommodating?”
    “No, but I’m happy to come along when you talk to them, keep them from giving you too hard of a time.”
    She’d never had a hero in her corner before, and her heart soared. Too bad she was going to put him on public display now that he was there. “I’ll be fine. I’d rather talk to them without a buffer.”
    “The offer’s there. If you should need me. Or just a buffer.”
    He was a nice man. “Who’s going to keep
you
from giving me too hard of a time?”
    “No one. Because I’m pretty sure hard is the way you like it.”
    And she was pretty sure she’d like it any way he wanted to give it to her. “I’ll see you Monday then?”
    “Make it noon. I have to stop for lunch anyway. I’ll meet you at the house.”
    “Will the others be there?” She didn’t want to arrive prepared for one man if she’d have the chance to talk to all three.
    “They’re going to a cattle auction. We’ll have the place to ourselves.”
    Just her, and Boone, and all those wide-open spaces. She took a deep breath, and a long swallow of wine. “You’re not going?”
    “I’m not a fan of spending more of the ranch’s money than we have to.”
    Interesting. “So they’re buying? Not selling?”
    “The only thing we have that’s worth selling is, according to Darcy anyhow, some antiques that belonged to Tess.”
    “Are you going to sell them?” she asked, sensing a hesitance in his voice.
    “We may have to. We did lease rights on a few acres for an oil well going in now.”
    “That’s exciting.” Wasn’t it? Black gold. Texas tea.
    “It boosted us over a bad hump. But we’ve got a lot more humps and no more guaranteed boosts. Unless we sell the antiques.”
    “Why is that a question?” she asked, frowning.
    “Selling them? Because they were Tess’s.”
    “But they’re yours now.”
    “Doesn’t matter.”
    “Don’t you think she’d want you to get what use out of them you could? Even if that use is the cash selling them brings you?”
    “Still seems wrong. And disrespectful somehow.” He went silent then, the sounds of dishes and utensils and the refrigerator door opening reaching her ears. “But we’re about out of options.”
    “The Daltons meant a lot to you, didn’t they?”
    “They meant everything. Listen, my food’s ready here and I’m starving, so why don’t I tell you about them on Monday?”
    “Okay. I’ll see you then,” she said, barely stopping herself from adding
I can’t wait
.
    Because it was the truth. She couldn’t.

EIGHT
     
    E VEN MORE THAN he’d missed his boys the sixteen years he’d spent away from Crow Hill, Boone had missed his mother’s cooking, especially her Sunday pot roast. Knowing it was in the oven at home, carrots buried in the juices beneath it, sometimes potatoes,