“I’d asked Mel and company to look into him,” Jake said. “Shortly after the funeral.” He looked over at his brother. “I hadn’t liked that he’d tried to tell me he had a spoken agreement with Harold, Michaela’s father, when I knew he hadn’t. Harold Powell would have told me about it, and then he would have asked me to find out what kind of an agent he was, and he would have asked me to find another agent, so he could play them off, one against the other. That’s how Harold rolled, and he did none of those things. Gowan also showed up at the funeral, but he didn’t, according to Michaela, even bother speak to her or give her his condolences. He seemed…furtive.” He turned to look at Lewis. “So the two of you are not off, in my opinion, to be suspicious of him. He’s acted suspiciously.”
Jake put his attention back on his cell phone. “That’s the preface. Now for the report. Gowan has no criminal record, himself, but his father was recently released from prison in Oklahoma, where he served a fifteen-year sentence for theft and fraud. The senior Gowan is currently living with his son. Connor noted that this is a fairly recent development. Neighbors report they saw the old man arrive—via taxi with a wheelchair and oxygen tank. They’ve only seen him come out of the house a couple of times since, with his son. He’s not, apparently, one to sit out on the front porch.”
“How’s Gowan’s business doing?” Adam asked. “Does he seem to be desperate?”
“No. According to the report I’m reading, he isn’t getting rich, but his head is well above water. He’s making a decent living, and he’s got a moderately good retirement portfolio.” Jake looked around the table. “I see nothing here to raise even one eyebrow.”
“All right. Here’s what I know.” Adam steepled his fingers together and looked down for a moment. When he looked up again, he met Lewis’s gaze. “Those who begin with petty ‘nuisance crimes.’ as it were, often have no trouble escalating from the petty to the dangerous. I need the three of you to be hyper-aware of your surroundings and immediately suspicious of anything you see that’s out of place—anything that’s not normal. And don’t focus that on this Gowan person, either. I understand why you’d be suspicious, but there’s no evidence you should be. Just because his father is a criminal doesn’t necessarily mean he is.”
Lewis reached over and picked up Michaela’s hand. He knew she thought they were being overly cautious. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“Michaela, I believe you’re right,” Adam said. “You seem to be the target of whatever’s going on here. I think it would be a good idea if you didn’t go anywhere alone, at least for the immediate future.”
“You think I’m in danger?”
“I don’t know, and I’m sorry that’s so. It could just be someone’s being an asshole. God knows there are enough of them every damn where these days.” He ran a hand through his hair. He looked from his own brother to Lewis and Randy. And then he put his focus back on Michaela. “The truth is there are a lot of assholes around who might think that you, being a woman, have no place claiming and planning to work this land. You won’t hear that crap from anyone in the families, but that attitude does exist in the world in which we live.
“However, regardless of who this is, or what their motive, I have a gut feeling that whoever attacked the fuel tank and then the electric wire is the same person, one who’s just getting started. We’re all going to do our best to figure this out, and then you can damn sure bet I will be throwing his ass in jail.”
Lewis read the resolve in Adam Kendall’s eyes. His brother, Jake, looked equally determined. And because Lewis had already developed a keen appreciation of Adam’s instincts, he met Randy’s gaze.
In that moment he reaffirmed what he’d already known. He and his cousin would do everything to protect their woman—and get to the bottom of whatever was happening.
* * * *
“Well, what do you have here, sweet girl?”
Michaela grinned at Grandma Kate. The nonagenarian had just arrived with Jordan and both Lewis’s and Randy’s brothers. The men were all outside, preparing to get to work on the exterior of the house. Jordan had gone over what needed to be done. There’d be a final scraping of the old paint—Michaela had actually done the task herself, once—and then they’d make any repairs to the wood siding that might be needed. When the prep work was done, they’d cover the windows and prepare to spray-paint the house.
Since a lot of ladder work was called for, Lewis and Randy had suggested that she attack their attic finds while they do the heavy lifting outside.
Michaela was proud of herself for letting go and agreeing to the plan. Still, it was more than amazing that Kate Benedict had come along for a visit. The few times she’d sat and chatted with the older woman—at both the Roadhouse and Lusty Appetites—she’d enjoyed herself immensely. And, like nearly everyone else in the vicinity, she had indeed agreed to call her Grandma Kate.
Michaela turned her attention to what Grandma Kate was looking at—one trunk, unmarked, and four boxes, all labeled.
“Before everyone arrived, I decided to have a look in the attic, to see if there were any farm records. I can’t remember what my father used to grow, or any other details, and I thought, well, since I want to do something with the ranch, it would be nice to know the history.”
“That make’s perfect sense to me.”
“So, I went up into the attic…and this is all that was up there.
