Suzanne Mcminn - High-Stakes Homecoming

He jerked his head at the drive. “Here.”

“Uh, what?”

“Limberlost Farm.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s mine.”

Double blink. Had her hearing been affected?

“You’re mistaken.”

“I don’t think so.”

Now she forgot to breathe for a full beat. What was going on here?

“This is my farm,” she said. Rain, soaking her now. She didn’t care. Who was he? She was just about to ask that question but he beat her to it.

“Who are you?” he asked, and stepped toward her into the light from his beams.

Fully into the light.

Before she could open her mouth, he answered for her, his voice oh-so-familiar, and she knew exactly why. Oh yeah, she knew why he was so familiar and why she was so scared. Her head reeled.

“Willa?”

Total panic, that’s what Penn read in Willa’s eyes. Willa…North these days. She’d married Jared North. Five weeks and three days after Penn had left Haven, not that he’d counted or cared or paid much attention at the time. Liar.

But he’d certainly made a heroic effort to forget about her after that. At least until tonight. There was no driving down Laurel Run Road without thinking about Willa, but running into her—Literally. That he hadn’t expected.

He was stunned, knocked off balance by a barrage of feelings—regret, anger, pain—as he stared for one pounding, frozen moment into her pale, shocked face, while the storm seemed to recede around them, leaving them on a planet all by themselves. She stood there in the light, and he was speechless.

It was her, it was really her. She was a mature woman now, not a teenage girl, but all he could see in those lost, scared, hazel eyes was the girl he’d once held in his arms.

He’d thought she was perfect fourteen years ago. Delicious, sweet, innocent Willa, with her apple cheeks, sparkling river-green eyes, ribbons of wavy, gold sunshine tumbling around her shoulders. Totally oblivious to her power over every boy in town—especially the boy who lived up the road and watched her picking corn, riding her horse, swimming in the river…. Walking down the road to the river right past his granddad’s farm in her itsy-bitsy bikini, carrying a damn parasol, for Christ’s sake, like she’d just stepped out of a wet dream and into real life.

It’d been all in fun at first, then it had turned so wild, so hot, that they’d burned each other to the ground in the end. And what a bitter end it had been. He wasn’t proud of his own behavior, but there was nothing good he could have said about hers.

He didn’t have any excuses to give for the past, but neither did Willa. She had betrayed him, not the other way around.

She was still gorgeous. Drop-dead gorgeous. And she still had it—that regal air, that natural elegance, even as she stood there soaked to the bones in jeans and a work shirt that did nothing to hide the fact that her body had lost little in the translation from teenage girl to mature woman.

He felt a buzz, like some kind of electrical charge zapping through him. He hadn’t felt that kind of buzz since….

No, don’t even go there. He wasn’t that stupid. His body might be that stupid, but not his brain. And he was no teenage idiot anymore.

“You’d better start walking.” Willa whipped around—oh yeah, she was still regal—and headed for the piece of crap pickup truck in the beaten-down rock drive.

“Not so fast.” He was on her in a heartbeat. Penn took her arm, stopped her in her tracks. In the past, he knew what her game had been then, or had by the end of things. She was a player, a user, a cheater. What her game was now—that’s what he was going to find out.

A shocked breath escaped her at his grip.

“Get off me,” she yelled at him, trying to shake off his grip.

She was surprisingly strong, but she wasn’t stronger than him.

Rain lashed down. “I think we need to talk.”

“I don’t think so,” she spat. Those green eyes rolled hot at him. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is my farm. Go back to New York City or wherever you came from, Penn Ramsey. Leave. Turn around and walk away! You’re good at that!”

That shine in her eyes almost looked like tears, and that socked him hard. He shoved the feeling back. This was some kind of scam. Otto P. Ramsey had died six weeks ago while Penn was working on an overseas account, his last trip for Brown and Sons. He hadn’t made it back for the service. The executor of the estate had sent him a letter and Penn had gotten in touch with him immediately on his return. He’d had the will for a few months. Otto had sent him a copy before his death, and he’d been too busy to do more than briefly argue with the old man over the phone about its details. The executor’s warning had convinced him to give up fighting the residency clause. He’d spent the last month arranging his life so he could give up thirty days to fulfill the requirements in the will before coming out to West Virginia. He’d shuttered his apartment, handed in his resignation, and gotten on a plane.

There had been nothing in that document about Willa North. Hell, he had no idea what Willa North had to do with Otto at all.

“I want to know what the hell is going on here, Willa, and I want to know now. This is my farm. I’m here to claim it. If you’ve been squatting here, that doesn’t make it—”

“I’m not squatting anywhere! This is not your farm, it’s mine. I live here, and I’ve been living here for over a year, and if you were ever in touch with your grandfather, maybe you’d know that.”

If she was trying to make him mad, she was doing a fine job. Yeah, he’d been out of touch much of the time, but not completely, and his grandfather had never mentioned Willa.

And on top of that, he was almost speechless at her gall. Or maybe he just liked being angry with her. It felt good. Better than guilt. He had plenty to be angry with her about, going back fourteen years, so it was no effort.

“When I did or didn’t talk to my grandfather is none of your business. What is my business is this farm. Who else is living here? Jared?”

Wow, bitter, that tone in his voice. He hadn’t expected that from himself. Anger, yes, but bitterness? Jared could have her.

“No. Not that it’s any of your business,” she told him through gritted teeth.

He barely caught her voice over the storm. Maybe they were both crazy, standing there arguing in the pouring rain. And what did she mean by that response anyway? Were she and Jared divorced then? Not the point, he reminded himself.

“I want you to leave,” she repeated. “If you want to contest the will—” She looked terrified and determined all at once. Her hair—short, not long like he remembered it—plastered to her cheeks. Her clothing soaked to her body. “Then fine. You do that, hotshot! Talk to my attorney.”

Like she had an attorney. He could tell she was bluffing on that one by just looking at her frightened face. She was driving some beat-up piece of crap and squatting on a farm that didn’t belong to her.

Maybe she really had been living with his grandfather. The old man kept secrets, he knew that. Or maybe she’d moved in after he died. She was an opportunistic excuse for a human being, he knew that, too. Maybe she thought he’d never show up to claim his property and she’d live there for free forever.

She had another think coming. He was smarter than she’d bargained for, fourteen years ago and now.

“Brilliant, Willa. Just brilliant.” He dropped his hold on her arm, suddenly unable to bear the contact. “Now, why would I contest anything? The farm is mine. And if I have to go to the legal system to get you removed, I’ll do it.”