My Husband Exiled Me to the Ranch of My Dreams novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Headgate

Jed's POV

Curtis Ashdown stood at the Dunning gate in a pressed shirt, with his rental car's headlights on his back.

I had never laid eyes on him, and I knew him anyway.

He was soft in the middle and neat at the collar, and he held out his hand.

I kept mine on the gatepost.

"Mr. Halvorsen," he said. "I think we got off on the wrong foot."

"We never got on one."

"I'd like ten minutes."

"You've got till I get cold."

He glanced past me at the dark house, and I saw him count the windows for a light.

"She's not here," I said.

"I didn't ask."

"You looked."

He put the hand back in his pocket.

"I'll be direct, since you're a direct man. My wife is a stubborn woman. She's being advised by people who profit from it. Whatever you and she have, and I'm not a fool, I know what a woman does when she's lonely."

I said nothing.

"You could tell her the offer is fair. She'll listen to you."

"What offer?"

"Fifty thousand, for you. Not for her. A consulting fee, for your trouble, your cattle on this pasture for life, in writing." He smiled. "You'd never have to worry about the unwritten arrangement again."

"Get in my truck," I said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You want to talk about this place. Come see it."

I drove him up the rise behind the house with the heater off and the headlights on the grass.

He kept his hands on his knees.

At the top, I stopped under the big cottonwood and got out.

He followed me.

The stone was small, and I'd cut the letters myself, the winter after, with a chisel I borrowed from my father-in-law.

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