She ended the call, shoved the phone in her pocket and faced them. “So eavesdropping is just normal now, huh?”
“Something’s got you in a dither,” Nora drawled. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
Walker didn’t think he’d ever seen Elizabeth look so flummoxed.
“It’s just… it’s just a problem with my job.”
“The job you’re quitting?”
“The job where I still care about my coworkers and the effort they’re putting in to make this a better world,” Elizabeth retorted. “Surely you all understand about that.”
“We understand about wanting to change the world,” Addison put in calmly. “But we also want to win this ranch, and you’re spending way more time talking to that coworker than you are talking to Walker.”
“You ever tried talking to Walker?” Elizabeth stalked off to the bunkhouse before any of them could answer.
“She’s got a point,” Clay said.
“She does,” Nora agreed.
“What’s going on?” Avery asked, coming out of the bunkhouse with a cup of tea a moment later. “I heard yelling.”
Her presence focused Walker’s mind on what was important. “Your marriage can be annulled in four days.”
“Only if Brody agrees, and he’ll never do that. Don’t think I haven’t tried to convince him.”
“You all are giving up way too easily,” Eve spoke up for the first time. Walker had noticed her sitting nearby but hadn’t known if she was following the conversation. “We need to find footage of Avery’s and Brody’s lives from the time of their so-called marriage up to the present. We need to prove they’ve lived separately all that time, never mingled their money, never lived together, never even spoken to each other in all these years.”
“Then what?”
“Then we put it on the show. If Fulsom won’t help us get a rushed annulment, maybe someone else will step up. We can put pressure on the Vegas chapel that married them, make it clear what an opportunist Brody is being by refusing to sign the paperwork. We can tell fans to send him hate mail. I don’t know!”
“It’s a good start,” Renata said slowly. “Avery, pull together all the evidence you can find that you weren’t with him all this time. Statements from boyfriends, friends and family, photos from that time period, emails that reflect your single status, rental records for the apartments where you lived. Eve and I will find evidence about Brody’s life. We’ll stay up all night if we need to, right, Eve?”
“I’ll help, too,” Greg spoke up. “We did this once before, remember. We can do it again.”
“Sure, I can do that,” Avery said. “I don’t know if it’ll work, though. He’s pretty stuck on the idea of staying.”
“I have another idea,” Eve said. She lowered her voice, casting a look over her shoulder to make sure Brody wasn’t in earshot. “Brody’s getting awfully close with Jess these days. I think you should ignore him, Avery. Don’t even go near him. He’ll make a play for Jess sooner or later. That type of guy can’t stand not to have an adoring woman on his arm.”
“Who’ll get that footage?” Greg asked.
“I will,” Eve said confidently. “Just leave it to me.”
“What do you think?” Renata asked Walker.
“Do whatever it takes,” he said. “Let me know how I can help.”
If Elizabeth had been consumed with her phone before, now she clung to it like a Jack Russell terrier who’d caught a rat. She tapped at it all day long. Took calls at all hours. Grew as snappish as a wolf guarding its kill when anyone came close.
“You planning that wedding?” Sue asked Walker one morning, calling him from her school.
“I’m not doing anything but keeping my distance,” he told her honestly. “Elizabeth’s like a wolverine who’s been poked with a fishing rod. You want a wedding, you plan it!”
Sue hung up on him.
Everyone else at Base Camp was busier than ever, and he should be busy, too, but instead all he could do was wait. Wait for Avery to amass footage of her life. Wait for Renata and Greg to research Brody’s and wait for Eve to catch Brody in the act—if there ever was an act between him and Jess.
Boone had ordered Avery to the manor, on Renata’s recommendation, telling everyone Avery was giving the building a top-to-bottom clean, a ridiculous notion since the women had just done that and closed it up.
Since no one could be alone, Boone had assigned Angus, Win, Hope and Curtis to join her. Walker found his way there whenever he could until Boone intercepted him one morning before breakfast.
“You’re supposed to be spending time with Elizabeth.”
“Don’t want to.”
“There’s no guarantee Renata’s plan is going to work. You need to marry someone in two weeks. If Elizabeth takes off—”
“What makes you think she’ll take off?”
“She doesn’t look like a woman who plans to stay,” Boone pointed out. “In fact—” His attention was captured by something behind Walker, and Walker turned to see Jericho running their way.
“It’s Montague. He’s sent his men here again. They’re staking out more mansions.”
“Not again,” Boone exclaimed.
He marched off to confront them, and Walker followed, knowing his friend was near the breaking point.
“Don’t mind us,” Montague’s foreman said cheerfully when the three of them reached him. “Just bringing our beautiful housing development to life.” He unfurled a sheaf of plans. “Want to see?”
An army of men swarmed around the sloping ground, groups of four staking out the corners of homes all over the place. They’d come with premeasured ribbon this time, he realized. Four men to a group. Each held a stake and marched as far as he could go until the ribbon went taut. Then they pounded the stakes into the ground. An entire neighborhood of rectangular houses was springing up before them, an awful vision of what was to come.
“If you’re trying to intimidate us, it isn’t going to work,” Boone said.
“I’m trying to show you the light, friend. Tiny houses are over. People want space and lots of it. They want to
