When the ailing Otis Lambert had contacted Gage earlier that year, the developer had immediately started envisioning one of his trademark luxury resorts on Rambling Mountain—which had always been privately owned land. But once Otis died, ostensibly intestate, Gage had determined that the development wasn’t worth the cost—not after he’d learned there was a mining company prepared to outbid him.
But April—who’d been sent to Weaver by Gage in hopes of getting a jump on the deal—had instead fallen hard for Otis’s right-hand man, Jed Dalloway.
Then Otis died and it looked as though a distant relative of his would inherit it all. Gage had determined then that the development wasn’t worth the cost—not after he’d learned about the mining company’s interest.
April, though, had other ideas. Jed had worked Lambert’s mountain ranch, and once his boss’s will had actually been found, it was clear that Lambert had wanted the proceeds from the sale of the Rambling Rad to go to Jed. Otis also—despite a lifetime of hoarding the rest of his mountain—had bequeathed everything except the ranch to the state of Wyoming for the purpose of establishing a state park.
Rather than see the man she’d fallen for lose the home that had come to mean so much to him, April convinced Gage to reconsider his interest in the mountain ranch. Instead of razing it all and starting fresh—which had been his initial idea—she talked her boss into saving it. She’d even kicked in her own trust fund to sweeten the deal and ensure that he succeeded.
Now, instead of a luxury resort, Gage was looking down the barrel of a guest ranch plan for a property that clung to the side of the Wyoming mountain. And a guest ranch was something he’d be the first to admit he knew nothing about. Jed and April were set to live on the ranch, with Jed running the operations the same way he had when Otis was alive, but adding in the element of guests.
It was the type of nightmare that hazard insurance agents salivated over.
The ranch sale still hadn’t made it through all the red tape, and the state’s powers that be still hadn’t decided whether they could—or even wanted to—establish a new state park with the rest of the land. If that answer turned out to be a polite “no thank you,” then the responsibility for the mountain would be tossed squarely into the lap of the town of Weaver.
Either way, Otis’s intention was that his pristine land become available for public use. And people would come to Rambling Mountain. It was a sportsman’s paradise just waiting to happen. Whether they stayed at the planned guest ranch to play at herding cattle and God only knew what, or crowded into dive motels like the Cozy Night in Weaver, they would come.
It was simply a matter of time.
But until then, Gage was keeping Archer busy navigating through all the moving parts, hedging against the worst-case scenarios while laying groundwork for the best-case one.
Generally, Archer appreciated a challenge. But his mind kept drifting away from the business at hand to Nell.
He didn’t exactly blame her for it, but he wasn’t thrilled by the distraction.
Until Lambert’s will was discovered, she’d been assisting the attorney assigned to administer the estate. She’d also unexpectedly been the one to give Archer the heads-up that Winemeier Mining was working with Louis Snead, who would have inherited the land if not for that will being found, literally at the eleventh hour. Snead, whose only interest in his dearly departed relative was the mountain, would have signed off on a sale to the mining company while the ink was still drying on the court’s decision. If that had happened, the mountain would have been sliced and diced until none of its natural resources remained.
Archer still was surprised by Nell’s actions. Not that she’d been breaking any rules. There’d been no confidentiality breach. But all the same, she’d approached him. And usually, she avoided him even more than his stepsister did. She had ever since he’d made the mistake of making more out of their furtive friendship than she had.
“I need something stronger than a warm beer,” he muttered, more to himself than the other man.
“Amen to that.” Gage immediately shoved away from his desk and stretched as he stood. “The lounge or my place?”
“The lounge,” Archer said immediately. It was three floors down from Gage’s high-rise office. Closer than his penthouse that was five floors up.
It helped that the man owned Stanton Tower from the ground floor to the top.
They took the elevator down to the restaurant, which in reality was one of the best in the city. And—not surprisingly—also owned by Gage Stanton.
Gage greeted the hostess as they passed her on the way to the private club where one needed an official invitation to enter. There were a few patrons sprinkled around the tables. Nobody gave them any attention as they walked through to the open-air patio hugging the corner of the building.
They’d barely sat down when an attractive woman in a svelte black dress appeared. She set a tray on the low table between them. “Shall I bring your usual, Mr. Stanton?” She directed the question to Gage, but her eyes slid over Archer.
“As soon as possible, Theresa. Thanks.”
Theresa immediately glided away and Gage reached for one of the fancy little appetizers on the tray she’d left. He popped it in his mouth and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He extracted one and rolled it between his fingers as if he were savoring the feel of it.
Archer had yet to see his old friend actually light up one of the cigarettes he always carried. “You’re not that worried about the guest ranch, are you? We can bring in an
