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it.”
    It sounded like Jeremiah was slurping on a cup of coffee and then he went on, “Tell me she doesn’t turn your head just a little bit and I’ll tell you that you are crazy.”
    “What good would it do? She’s only here for a month and then she’ll be gone. It would be a poor business deal,” Greg answered.
    “Got to go. Client calling back,” Jeremiah said.
    Greg didn’t even get in a good-bye before the line went dead. He didn’t believe in love at first sight any more than he believed in Internet dating. Even though his good friend, Lucas Allen, over in Savoy, had wound up with a helluva nice woman last Christmas that he’d met over the Internet. But Lucas said it damn sure wasn’t one of those crazy dating services where people can put up any old picture or say anything in their profiles. He’d met Natalie through a mutual friend that she talked to on Skype every night.
    “I still don’t believe in love at first sight,” he declared as he crawled inside his work truck with a fixed radiator and drove out to the place where Max was repairing fences.
    ***
    The tractor ran smoothly and the CD case in the cab was filled with country music. Emily wondered if they’d be playing Shoot the Moon or Chicken Foot in dominoes that evening. And how in the devil did they bet? Did they all lay out five bucks and the winner got the pot?
    She whipped the wheel of the machine around and started back down the long side of the acreage when her phone rang. She picked it up from the seat and said, “Hello, Taylor.”
    “I hear an engine and country music. Are you on a tractor?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “What the hell are you doing that for? I thought they hired you to be a personal assistant,” he said.
    “Personal assistant wasn’t needed at the house today so she’s helping on the ranch. I mucked out stables this morning and I met a woman who has helped Clarice get used to computers. Her name is Prissy and I think she may be OCD and she’s taught the whole bunch of these people to write every waking thought on sticky notes and plaster them to the refrigerator. There’s something fishy going on with her and Dotty and Clarice. I can just feel it in my bones,” Emily said.
    “You did what? Are they crazy?” Taylor yelled into the phone. “Don’t they have hired hands to do that kind of work?”
    “I also cleaned up a tack room and fixed the radiator on an old truck,” Emily said.
    “Are you nuts?”
    “Hard work never hurt or killed anyone,” Emily answered.
    “Em, darlin’, if you want ranch work, I’ll hire you tomorrow as ranch foreman. You don’t have to take a job mucking out stables, for God’s sake.”
    Emily shifted into a lower gear when she hit hard ground. “It’s good for me to get my hands dirty. Call it therapy, and I think Gramps likes what I’m doing. I get the feeling that he is right beside me here and that he’s tellin’ me to stay.”
    “Marvin is gone, Emily. Face it, and what’s this fishy thing going on?” Taylor growled.
    Emily sucked air. “I have faced it. I faced it every day for five years, every morning when I went to see if he’d died in his sleep. I need this time away from Happy to get my bearings and get over his death. So don’t preach at me, Taylor. And the fishy thing is just that. Prissy came to dinner and she and the ladies had these little coy looks going on. It’s got something to do with Greg, I’m sure.”
    The click of a cigarette lighter said that he was lighting up. “Be careful, honey. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
    “Anything exciting on the home front?” she asked.
    “Valentine’s dance over at the Franks’ place next week. Melinda called and asked me to be her date,” Taylor said.
    Melinda came from good ranching stock. Her father, Gus Franks, owned the ranch right next to the Cooper place. Melinda got her dark hair and big brown eyes from her Latina mother. She’d be a good match for Taylor.
    “Have fun,” Emily