Oklahoma Moonshine (The McIntyre Men #1) (4 page)

“You’re so sweet,” she said.

Then she stepped away from him, removed her small warm hands from his body, and took a careful look at the people around them, her eyes turning sharp and
interested. “Do you know if anyone else plans to bid on the place?” she asked.

He looked around too. “Most of these folks are locals. Probably just here out of curiosity.”

“And for the free goodies,” Joey
put in. “But hey, that guy’s new, front row, left of center. You know him, Rob?”

Rob looked where Joey was focused and spotted the stranger, a short man, heavyset, with male pattern baldness ringed by super dark hair. He wore an
expensive suit and was sipping coffee from a foam mug.

“Never saw him before.”

“He’s a lawyer,” Kiley said. Her tone had an edge to it that he hadn’t heard before. Not so much sweet southern twang anymore.

Both guys shot her a look and Rob asked, “You know him?”

“Nope. But I can smell ‘em a mile away. He’s here to bid for some client or other. I’m gonna keep track of him.”

Before Rob could reply, Kiley was moving away from him, weaving her way to the front of the room toward the stranger, and the next thing he knew she was
squeezing herself right in beside the man.

The stranger shot an irritated look her way, and she beamed up at him, blinking those baby blues and saying something to him.

The guy smiled at her,
almost visibly melting.

Joey elbowed him. “Holy crap, those eyes of hers oughtta be certified as deadly weapons.” Then he frowned, and shot his brother a look.
“What do you know about her, anyway?”

“Not a damn thing,” Rob said. “Just met her last night.”

“And you’re gonna go into business with her? Robby, are you sure this is a good idea?”

It was seeming like less of a good idea with every minute that passed, but the auctioneer banged his gavel, and the Kellogg ranch was the first order of
business. Within a few seconds, that lawyer standing beside Kiley Kellogg was raising his paddle. Every time Rob bid, the stranger bid a little bit higher.
Three others started bidding too, but as the price went up, they dropped out one by one.

Rob knew they were getting close to Kiley’s maximum. The alleged lawyer was looking down at a cell phone every few seconds, probably texting with his
client, and it didn’t look as if he’d got the “quit” message yet.

And then Kiley looked down, which made Rob look down too. In between elbows and arms, he saw her rummaging around in that white pharmacy bag of hers.

“What the hell is she—”

Joey elbowed him. “Rob, it’s your turn. Bid or you’re gonna lose it.” Distracted, he raised his paddle, and the auctioneer
recognized him and kept on barking. When he looked up again, Kiley was glancing back at him, and she flashed him a thumbs-up sign.

What the hell did that mean?

He looked at the man who stood on her right, sipping coffee from his white foam cup while looking down at his phone screen. Nodding, the fellow raised his
paddle once more.

The bidding went on, back and forth, just between the two of them, three more increments up. Rob was raising the price by smaller and smaller amounts,
which probably signaled to the other fellow that he was getting close to his limit. The guy smelled blood. He wouldn’t quit.

And then suddenly, the fellow spun around and shouldered his way to the aisle. Once clear of the bystanders he broke into a run, disappearing into the
hallway where the restrooms were.

“This is it!” Joey said, and he grabbed Rob’s wrist and lifted it, paddle and all.

The auctioneer accepted his bid, then asked for others, but of course there was no one there to give them. Bert, the auctioneer, glanced down at Kiley, and
said, “Is he coming back, ma’am?”

“I surely don’t know,” she said. “He muttered, ‘too rich for my blood’ and then ran outta here like the devil was on
his tail.”

The auctioneer shrugged and said, “Going once, going twice,” and then he banged the gavel. “Sold!”

“Holy shit,” Rob said.

Joey clapped him on the back, grinning, then he hugged him full on. “Congratulations, Rob! You did it! You got your ranch.”

Kiley sent him a gorgeous, innocent smile, and sauntered toward the exits, shoving her little white drugstore bag further down into her purse on the way.

Rob wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought maybe he’d just made a deal with the devil.

An hour later, Kiley was in the fire chief’s office, which had been commandeered for concluding auction business. Four folding chairs surrounded the
chief’s desk, all but two of them occupied. A handsome man sat behind the desk, but he got up, smiling when Rob walked in.

“Congratulations on the ranch,” he said, coming around the desk to shake his hand and clap him on the back. “I think you made a really
good purchase today.”

“Thanks Cal. Meet my new business partner. Kiley Kellogg, this is Caleb Montgomery,” he said. “Local lawyer and my stepbrother-in-law. If
that’s a thing.”

“Business partner?” Caleb looked surprised.

Kiley dropped her big duffle bag onto the floor beside her to free up her hands, then shook Cal’s. He was looking at her in a friendly, but extremely
curious sort of way, and then back at Rob.

The two women in the folding chairs stood as well, looking like opposite ends of the same coin, one, a stranger to her, was tall, painfully thin, with
black and silver hair cut very short. The other was the short, round, bubbly Realtor, who wore her bright red hair in a shoulder length, Texas Big sort of
style.

Rob continued with the introductions. “This is Mrs. Terwilliger, Big Falls Bank and Trust,” he said, introducing the thin one. “And I
think you already know Betty Lou Jennings.”

“I do,” Kiley said. “Hello again, Betty Lou.”

“Hello, Kiley. I’m so glad this worked out for you two.” She
smiled as if she meant it.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Terwilliger,” Kiley said to the banker, but that lady didn’t crack a smile.

They all took their seats, Rob pulling his folding chair up close to the desk.

“First things first,” Caleb said, “Do you have the payment?”

“I came prepared,” Rob said, and he handed over a certified check for his share. He’d run across the street to the bank while other items
were being auctioned.

“Me, too.” Kiley, the only one still standing, hefted her duffle bag up onto the desk and unzipped it.

Blinking at the bag full of banded bills, then at Kiley, Mrs. Terwilliger arched her brows over her silver rimmed specs. “
Cash
?”

Kiley blinked at her. “Cash is still legal tender in Big Falls, isn’t it?”

“Certainly, I just....just a moment. I’ll be right back.”  She crossed the office and left the room.

“Gee, she acts like she’s scared of it or something,” Kiley said. There was a warble in her voice, and she bit her lip. Wouldn’t do
to show nerves. But she sure didn’t need people poking around trying to figure out where she’d got all that cash.

“She’s probably not used to seeing that much money all stacked up in one place. Then again, who is?”

“Bankers are, that’s who.” But she smiled at him, regaining her sense of elation. Her dream was coming true after all. Well, sort of. She
hadn’t dreamed about a partner, other than her twin sister.

Mrs. Terwilliger came back in with the auctioneer, Bert Rowe, right behind her. Dour-faced, she returned to her chair, and nodded at the duffle on the
desk. “Mr. Rowe is going to count the cash and sign off on the amount, Miss Kellogg. And then I’ll ask Mr. Montgomery to do the same. This
protects both of us from any....”

“Shenanigans?” Kiley asked with a smile.

Betty Lou giggled and said. “That’s as good a term as any. I’ll count it, too, if you all want.” Her voice was as high and happy as
a bluebird’s song.

“Even better,” Mrs. Terwilliger said as Bert took the duffle off to one side of the room and began to count out the stacks.

While he did that, Caleb shoved documents at them, and they both signed several of them. Betty Lou, who informed Kiley proudly that she was not only Big
Falls’ one and only realtor, but also the town’s one and only public notary, witnessed their signatures and certified them with her handy
little notary stamp.

Finally, all was said and done and they had a receipt and a copy of the deed. “We’re sending the paperwork in today,” Betty Lou said.
“You’ll receive a deed with your names as owners just as soon as all the paperwork processes through. As a rule, that should take two weeks. If
it goes longer, you call me and I’ll look into it for you.”

Kiley lifted her brows. “You will?”

“Sure I will, hon. I help facilitate a lot of these county tax auctions. I’m on a
first-name basis with most of the pencil pushers in charge. Oh, almost forgot the best part.” She opened a briefcase and pulled out a set of keys for
each of them. “Congratulations on your new ranch,” she said. Then she quickly yanked two more documents from the case and handed them each one.
“I grabbed some Change-of-Address forms from the Post Office, just in case you need ‘em.”

Kiley stared at Betty Lou and wondered why the woman was being so nice. What did she have to gain from it? Her commission on the sale was already a done
deal. She didn’t have to do anything extra to earn that. So what was she up to?

Betty Lou Jennings would bear watching, that was for sure.

As they stepped out of the firehouse into the bright, late-morning sun, Rob turned to Kiley and held out a hand. “Congratulations, partner.”

“Thanks, partner.”

Her small hand was completely enclosed by his bigger one. It gave him a shiver of something sort of primal.

“So…um…are you…heading out to the ranch now?”

She was stammering a little. Maybe the contact was having the same kind of impact on her. “Probably not until morning,” he said. “I need
to pack up all my stuff. But first I have to break the news to the family. Caleb won’t say a thing without asking me first, but that Betty Lou loves
to gossip.”

“I know she does,” she blurted, then sort of gnawed her lip in that way she had, and averted her eyes, and he could hear her unspoken
“Oops.” She quickly found a new subject. “Your family, huh? You mean your father and your brothers, right? But Joey already knows, he was
here.”

She was looking around as if she’d only just noticed Joey was missing. Then she spotted him, waiting in his truck. He waved her way, and she waved
back.

“My brothers know. I haven’t told Dad yet, because that means telling his wife Vidalia, and her five daughters, the youngest of whom is my
half-sister Selene, and their five husbands, and—”

“Holy smokes. That’s a lot of family.”

He nodded and they started walking together back toward his truck, which was parked near his brother’s. Both vehicles were tuned up, souped up,
lifted up sources of male pride. Joey’s was green and Rob’s was red. Both were Fords. The McIntyres were a Ford family. “It is,” he
said. “And there’s my mother, down in Texas, and her new husband, too. How about you? Where’s your family?”

Smiling, she lowered her head. “Dad’s...out of the country. He’s a businessman. Kind of an...investment broker. Mom died when I was
three.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She shrugged. “I don’t really remember her.” Something passed through her eyes, but it was so brief he couldn’t tell what it was.
It felt awfully sad, though, and awfully big. “Kendra was my only sister.” Then she took a deep breath. “Your brother’s waiting to
congratulate you. And I’ve got stuff to do, so....”

“Okay.” But he didn’t turn away. Just kept looking at her, oddly reluctant to leave. “You want to meet me at the ranch tomorrow
morning? Take a look around as owners for the first time?”

Her smile returned, brighter than the Oklahoma sun. “You bet I do.”

She trotted away from him, around a corner and out of sight. Within a few seconds he heard the sound of a very sick engine coughing to life like a chain
smoker first thing in the morning.  

Then he headed to Joey and the pickups.

Joey leaned out his open window, and said, “Going back to The Long Branch?”

“Nope. The Corral. Gotta call a family meeting, fill
‘em in before the Big Falls grapevine does.”

“Good idea. Vidalia’s sure to whip up some kind of mouth-watering lunch, or brunch or something.”

“You ever think about anything but your belly, kid brother?”

“Rarely, big brother. Rarely.”

“I don’t know where you put it. Hollow legs, I guess.”

Grinning, Joey started his engine. “You might as well send a group text.”

The group text feature was overly utilized by the Brand half of the Brand-McIntyre clan and had taken some getting used to. There were three groups. One
with the entire family included, one with just the females, and one with just the men, which he still wasn’t sure the women knew about. He, his dad
and his brothers had been added to the other two groups, and as a result, he’d had to set his phone permanently to vibrate. Otherwise, the chimes
would’ve been as maddening as the bells of Notre Dame had been to Quasimodo.

He pulled out his phone, tapping on the most recent all-inclusive clan text and sent one out. “I have news to share. Can anyone spare a few minutes
this afternoon?” he typed.

The replies came so quickly, in such abundance that the phone almost vibrated right out of his hand.

Vidalia Brand-McIntyre’s OK Corral didn’t open until later, so they had the entire saloon to themselves, and Robert wasn’t surprised to
see the whole fam-damily had gathered. Vidalia’s youngest, Selene, met him at the batwing doors, and clapped an arm right around his shoulders.
“We’re taking bets,” she said, all silvery blond hair and mystical pale blue eyes. “Mom says you’ve fallen in love. Dad
thinks you’ve decided to move back to Texas.”

“And what do you think?”

“I don’t think things, I know things.” She gave him her most mysterious smile. “And what I know is that you are about to step out
of the shadows and into the light.”