My Husband Exiled Me to the Ranch of My Dreams novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Fourth Letter

Jed's POV

I went across the yard in the dark with the rifle in one hand and the dog loose beside me.

Behind the barn, a lantern sat on the lip of the old well.

Two men worked in its light.

One was a boy in a surveyor's vest, driving a stake into the ground with a mallet.

The other was the man in the quilted vest.

He was holding a clipboard and checking his watch.

"Evening," I said.

The mallet stopped.

My two hired men had come up quietly on either side of the barn, and neither of them was smiling.

"Mr. Halvorsen," the man in the vest said. "This is a misunderstanding."

"You're standing on Audra Dunning's ground at one in the morning with a sledge."

"I'm authorized by the certificate holder to confirm the point of diversion."

"By who?"

"By Mrs. Ashdown. She told me the property had been abandoned."

I said nothing for a moment.

Audra had come up behind me with her coat over her nightshirt.

I heard her stop.

"Abandoned," she said.

"That's what I was told."

"She said it to you in her own voice?"

"She said it on a voicemail." He held up his phone with the hand that wasn't holding the clipboard. "I kept it. I keep all of them."

The boy with the mallet had stepped back from the stake.

"He said it was all legal," the boy muttered.

"You'd better go home," I told him.

He looked at the man in the vest, and then at the rifle, and then he put the mallet down and went.

I watched his headlights go down the lane.

"You, though," I said to the man. "You stay."

"I have a daughter in college."

"Good for you."

"I took this job because it paid." His voice was not steady. "I didn't know about the grave."

The wind moved over the grass.

"What grave?"

"The one on the rise." He swallowed. "Mrs. Ashdown said the buyers need the access road from the headgate to the county lane. It goes up the rise. She said a rancher's old cemetery marker could be moved."

← Chapter 20 · All chapters · Chapter 22 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend