Kissin' Tell (Rough Riders #13)(7)

“I can hope.” Tell let his head fall back on the couch cushion and closed his eyes. He did not want to think about the f*cked-up family shit now when he’d have to deal with it again tomorrow.


“So who did I pull you away from at the bar that’s put that crabby look on your face?” Dalton asked.


The thought of Georgia snapped him out of a potentially sour mood. He raised his head. “Georgia Hotchkiss. Remember her?”


Dalton whistled. “Of course I remember Hot Lips Hotchkiss. You had it bad for her.”


He felt his cheeks heat. “I did not.”


“No need to lie, bro. You let her run roughshod over you. But damn, I might’ve let her roll over me, too. She was all that and a bag of chips. A little stuck-up, though. She still that way?”


“No idea. You called right when I started talkin’ to her. I haven’t seen her since a week after graduation.”


Dalton gave him a considering look. “Weren’t you friends with her twin brother, RJ?”


“I knew him, pulled a couple pranks with him, but we weren’t friends since he ran with Deck.”


“You weren’t around the summer he was killed. Sad deal.”


Landon stirred.


Tell stood, carrying him to the spare bedroom and slipping the kid into bed. He pulled the blanket up and smoothed back the boy’s hair. Then he returned to the living room, plopped back on the couch and stretched out with a sigh.


“I take it you’re staying tonight?”


“Yep.”


“What if I had plans?”


Tell quirked a brow. “At ten o’clock when we gotta be up at five?”


Dalton sighed. “I wish I had plans. Been awful damn hard getting back into the swing of havin’ a social life after calving. Don’t know if I’ll ever catch up on sleep. Man. Was this year brutal or what?”


“We added an extra hundred head and Brandt is uptight and so, yeah, it was rough.”


“Glad it’s not just me bein’ a whiny *.”


“That’d make me one too.”


“Now I feel better.” Dalton drummed his fingers on the chair arm. “I heard something that might interest you.”


“What’s that?”


“It’s all over for Jim and Charlene Fox—’cept for the fightin’.”


Tell frowned. “Why would that interest me?”


“You dated Charlene, right?”


Dated. More like he banged her a couple times and then she married someone else. “Yeah. Like six years ago. Why?”


“She remembers your time together fondly. Hell, I think she remembers every man fondly, which is probably why her marriage is on the skids.” Dalton smirked. “But she told me—in confidence—that when it gets down to the wire with Jim, she wants to sell off everything and move to Austin to live with her sister.”


“When did Char spill her guts to you, D?”


“She stopped by here yesterday when me’n Landon were outside. Something about a cute kid makes a woman go all soft and talkative. Anyway, if we play our cards right, we could get first crack at it.”


That caught his interest. “First crack at everything?”


“Yep.” Dalton’s face turned into pure business. “The land is already divided into two parcels. That larger section wouldn’t be a bad investment. Especially if you were serious about starting a feedlot in a few years.”


“I am serious. But given land prices, there’s no way we can afford it. Even if she gives us a friends and former lovers discount, even with what we’ve got saved up.“


“There’s no way we can afford to pass up this opportunity, even if it takes us a few years to get the feedlot up and running. This time we wouldn’t have to rely on someone else to run interference for us. We could handle the details ourselves and no one would know until after the fact.”


They both had a bad taste after a land deal had fallen through a year and a half ago. “I don’t know. I’d hate to get my hopes up again. We’ve been talkin’ in abstracts. What if I’m wrong and a feedlot isn’t viable?”


“You’re not wrong. You’re the smartest person I know, T, and if anyone can make it profitable, you can show us how. You’ve done more than talk in abstracts. You’ve already studied up on the regulations.”


His brother’s faith in him was humbling.


“And wouldn’t it be sweet to stick it to Little Miss Know-It-All-Ecologically-Sustained-Agriculture after what she done to us?”


He spit out his beer at hearing Dalton refer to sweet Rory Wetzler in such a way. “Hey, you’re the one who got drunk with Rory and spilled the beans about us wantin’ to buy her mom’s land so we could turn it into a gigantic feedlot.”


Dalton sighed. “Yeah, that wasn’t smart of me, especially since we managed to keep that part of our plan even from our cousin Ben.”


“You should’ve expected Rory would blab to her mom right away, which is how Rielle ended up selling to Gavin so fast. Both Rielle and Rory have that hippie attitude and don’t want any changes to the land.”