before, and asked if she could meet with him and Marie to hear some good news, Marybeth grinned and pushed back in her chair.
“Ladies,” Cam Logue announced once he had closed the door to his office, “we’ve got a secret client interested in the Timberline Ranch!” Marie, who was petite, dark-haired, and attractive in an open-faced way, clapped her hands together. Her eyes shone. Marybeth was very happy for her.
“So who is it?” asked Marie.
Cam laughed. “I just said it was a secret client, Marie.” “I know, I know . . .”
Marybeth asked, “How serious is he?”
Cam turned to her. Cam was handsome, with light, wavy hair and sharp, blue eyes. He was ambitious in a way that seemed to encourage others to root for him. At least it worked for Marybeth. Her impression of him was that he was straightforward and entrepreneurial, if a little combative. He wanted to succeed not only for his business and his family, but also to prove something. Marie had told Marybeth that Cam had grown up as the youngest on a ranch outside of Saddlestring. She said that Cam’s parents had doted on Cam’s older brother, Eric, literally mortgaging the ranch in order to pay for Eric’s medical school so he could become a surgeon. The Logue ranch was absorbed by the Overstreet sisters’ Timberline Ranch, and his parents bought a small place in western South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Reservation. When cattle prices bottomed out, there was no money left over for Cam, who went to Black Hills State (where he met Marie) and later into real estate. Cam’s return to Saddlestring was a homecoming of sorts.
Yet if Cam recognized the irony of now selling the property he had grown up on, he didn’t indicate it to Marybeth.
“He’s serious,” he said, “but he’s doing due diligence. He’s no dummy.” “Due diligence?” Marie asked.
Cam nodded. “He knows all about those CBM wells, and all of the water they discharge. Even though he knows he won’t have the mineral rights, he wants to get that water tested to make sure it’s okay when it flows down the river. He’s afraid if something is wrong with the water the enviros or the downstream users might sue him as the landowner.”
“That’s smart,” Marybeth said. “He’s a pretty smart guy.”
Marie sat down in Cam’s desk chair. “What if there’s something wrong with the water?”
“There’s nothing wrong with the water, Marie,” Cam said, as if speaking to a child. “The water’s fine. It’s been tested before they sunk all of those wells, and it’s fine. It’s as sweet as honey.”
“Then why ... ?”
“Marie,” Cam’s reaction was sharp, “it’s complicated. All of the testing that’s been done has been piecemeal, before each new set of wells. By different companies at different times in the last couple of years. Our buyer wants water collected from all of those different well sites and tested again to make sure they’re okay. To make sure, I don’t know, that they haven’t hit any bad water since they tested the first time, I guess. But you don’t need to worry about it. The water’s going to be just fine.”
Marybeth thought Cam was a little more prickly than necessary. But she had never seen him this excited before.
“Our ... difficulties may be over soon,” Marie said as much to herself as to Cam or Marybeth. Cam beamed at her, then turned his full-force grin on Marybeth. As suddenly as a lightbulb going out, Cam’s face fell into a mask of seriousness.
“But we need to keep this absolutely quiet,” he said gravely. “It’s got to be kept in the strictest professional confidence.”
Marybeth nodded. The sale of property of this magnitude would electrify the valley, she knew. Other realtors would try to poach the secret buyer and try to get him to look at other ranches that might have more appeal or fewer wells. Property owners on the fence about selling may suddenly decide to try the market.
“It’ll be hard to keep this a secret,” Marie grinned. “But we can do it.” “Marybeth?” Cam asked.
“I’ll tell my husband,” she said, meeting their eyes. “We don’t keep secrets from each other. But it will go no further than that.”
When neither of the Logues spoke, Marybeth felt compelled to explain. “He tells me things that go on in his job that need to be kept confidential, and I do that. I’ve never breached Joe’s confidence, and he wouldn’t breach mine. Besides,” she said, “he doesn’t talk much as it is.”
Marie snorted a laugh and turned in her chair to Cam. “You remember meeting Joe, don’t you? At that back- to-school night? I think the only thing he said all evening when Marybeth introduced us was ‘Pleasure.’ That’s it. One word in three hours.”
“Okay then,” Cam said, clapping his hands once as if to dispel the hint of suspicion that had entered the room.
Marybeth glanced at her watch.
“Oh my goodness, I’ve got to go. The girls are out of school.”
Marie said, “Feel free to have Lucy come over to our house with Jessica. Hailey Bond is already coming. Those three have a great time together.”
“But . . .”
“Don’t worry. I’ll bring Lucy home later. Around five or five-thirty, right?” Marybeth nodded, and left them both in their giddy state.
As she left the office, pulling on her jacket, she noticed a man sitting in the reception area reading a magazine from the stack on the side table. He was lanky and in his sixties, with round, steel-framed glasses.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you need to see somebody?” Marie worked as the receptionist as well as the office manager, and she had obviously not been available.
The man looked up. He wore heavy boots, faded jeans, and a khaki work shirt. On his lap was a thick manila file. He had an experienced and kindly manner.
