Barbara Dunlop - An Intimate Bargain

“You don’t get to talk about that night.” Not now, not ever.

“It doesn’t matter if I talk about it or not.” His gaze smoldered for a silent second, transmitting the unspoken message that he remembered it as well as she did.

“It’s nothing more than a blur to me,” she bluffed.

He eased closer. “You can’t lie worth a damn.”

“Yes, I can.” The protest was reflexive. She didn’t want to be a good liar, and his opinion meant nothing to her.

“I need your help, Doll-Face.”

She leaned in, pointing an index finger at his chest. “You can’t have my help.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I can.” His tone was mild, but his eyes had gone hard as flint.

A cloud moved over the setting sun, cooling the air and darkening the world, while a sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach.

“I saw your look of panic inside the house,” he finished.

“That wasn’t panic,” she lied again.

“You don’t want your brother to know about us,” Zach stated.

As if on cue, Travis appeared in the doorway, leaning on the jamb, arms folded over his chest and a scowl on his face.

Abigail didn’t dare let Zach know he had the upper hand. “Believe me when I tell you, you don’t want my brothers to know about us.”

“I’ll take my chances with your brothers.”

Did she dare call his bluff? Was it a bluff? Was he willing to risk her brothers’ wrath over a water license? Her skin prickled and her heart rate doubled.

Okay, this might be the beginning of panic.

“I am certain,” he continued, voice lower, leaning ever so slightly toward her, “that you want to keep every damn thing we said and did that night a secret.”

She refused to answer.

“And that gives me a whole lot of bargaining power.”

“Are you blackmailing me?” she demanded.

“Yeah,” he admitted. Again, something flickered across his face. It could have been regret, but that seemed unlikely. “Sorry about that. But I’m in a hurry, and I need your brain.”

“Was that supposed to be a joke?” she demanded, arms reflexively crossing over her breasts.

“What joke?”

“That you’ve already had my body?”

“I never said that.”

“You thought it.”

“You’re paranoid.”

She swallowed convulsively, attempting to moisten her throat. “How can you do this to me?”

“I wish I had a choice.”

“You have a choice,” she rasped. “You can walk away right now and forget any of this ever happened.”

He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Forget about today or forget about that night?”

“Go to hell.”

Zach didn’t flinch.

Travis stalked out onto the porch, and she knew he was about to intervene. He couldn’t break this up. Not yet. Not until she convinced Zach to go away and never come back.

“Follow me,” she told Zach, turning for the path that led to the river.

With a glance at Travis, Zach fell into step. “Is he going to let us leave?”

“Fifty-fifty,” she allowed, wondering the same thing herself.

They cut off the edge of the driveway, moving onto the narrower path, where willows would partially screen them from Travis’s view. She took a surreptitious glance over her shoulder, making sure her brother wasn’t following.

“It’s not like I’m asking you to knock over a bank,” said Zach.

“You’re asking me to betray my community.”

“Don’t be melodramatic. Nobody even has to know you’re helping me. It’ll be a secret.”

“So you can blackmail me with it later?” she challenged.

He gave an exaggerated eye roll. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How is that ridiculous? You’re blackmailing me now.” Her voice came out more shrilly than she’d intended.

“There’s only one thing I want from you, Abby.”

“Don’t call me Abby.” That nickname was reserved for her family.

“I like it.”

“You don’t get to like it.”

His gaze stayed on her, while he obviously regrouped. “How can we make this work?”

“You can go away and never come back.”

“I’m definitely not going away. I need a variance on my water license. Nothing more, nothing less. Hundreds of jobs depend on it. And from everything I’ve learned in the last week, you’re the only person who can help.”

“I’ll email you my research,” she offered out of desperation.

“I need more than your research. I need to know who to ask, what to ask them, how to write the application and how to fight my way through the bureaucracy.”

“My brain is not for sale.”

“Yeah? Well, when it comes to my employees, my morals and values are open to the highest bidder.” Passion and determination moved into his tone. “Don’t push me, Abby. I’ll do anything, anything to keep them from losing their jobs.”

“If I help you set a precedent for varying a nonranching water license, my family’s cause gets set back by miles.”

“You’ll have to gain the ground back later.”

“You couldn’t care less about me, could you?”

He didn’t answer.

Then again, maybe he did. His silence said it all.

She clamped her jaw against her anger, realizing there was nothing left to say, no argument she could make that would change his mind. Zach had given her an impossible choice. She could be secretly disloyal, or blatantly disloyal.

If she was blatantly disloyal, there was no going back. If she secretly helped Zach, maybe, just maybe, the fallout would be manageable. At least she’d know the ins and outs of his strategy for getting around the water license. Maybe she could use that later, in some kind of political counterattack. Maybe.

“Well?” he prompted, and she knew her time was up.

“Fine,” she ground out, accepting that she was trapped. “I’ll do this for you. But if you ever dare tell my family anything-” she lifted her index finger, jabbing it against his chest “-and I mean anything about anything, I swear I will hunt you down and shoot you dead.”

“Not a word,” he vowed.

She paused, shaking off the sick feeling of disloyalty. “We can’t talk here.” And meeting in town was also a risk, with Seth and his staff all there.

“Come out to the brewery,” Zach suggested.

It wasn’t her first choice. But at least it was out of the way.

“It’ll take me a couple of days to pull things together,” she told him. “And I’ll need to come up with an excuse to leave the ranch.” She’d only just returned home to help Travis. It was going to take some fast talking to get away again. And she’d be leaving all the work to him. “I hate this.”

“I’m not crazy about it either.” Zach’s eyes unexpectedly softened. His lips parted. A breeze washed over them, rustling the leaves.

He reached out, grazing the top of her hand with his. “You know, I really wish we could-”

“Don’t,” she warned him, darting away, even as her pulse leaped at his light touch. “Don’t you dare try anything. I am not going to sleep with the man who’s blackmailing me.”

He dropped his hand. Then he blinked his expression back to neutral. He gave a sharp nod of acceptance. “Of course you’re not. The brewery, then. Thursday morning. Be there.”

As she turned onto the Craig Mountain Brewery road, a Sawyer Brown tune came through the stereo speakers, and Abigail cranked up the volume, letting the beat pound its way through her brain. After she’d lied to her brother Travis this morning about where she was going, she’d promised herself she’d give Zach one day. She’d work fast. She’d work hard. And he’d have everything he needed to apply for his license.