Although he hadn’t touched her, Freddy felt crowded.She’d never realized how Eb seemed to gobble space.“Just a little bad luck is all, Eb.”
Manny, one of only two waiters they kept on during the summer months, came by the table with a trayful of salad plates.“Just the two of you at this table, Miss Singleton?”
Freddy sincerely hoped not.She’d invited Eb as a little dig at Ry, but now she was in danger of spending the meal alone with her silver-haired neighbor.Both Leigh’s and Ry’s assessments of Eb had been weighing on her mind.“I’m not sure, Manny.Why don’t you leave another salad, just in case?”
Eb glanced at her.“Isn’t Leigh out on a sunset trail ride?”
“Yes.”
His expression of goodwill dimmed.“Then I guess you must be expecting your prospective buyer,” he said.“Before he arrives, we need to talk.I was hoping your trail ride would discourage him.”
“So was I, but he doesn’t discourage easily.”
Manny put salads in front of both of them.“Where would you like the third one?”he asked.
Eb patted the place mat beside him at the same moment Freddy pointed to the seat next to her.Manny paused as he looked from Eb to Freddy.
“Here, I’ll take that from you,” Ry said, sitting down next to Freddy.“You look lovely tonight,” he murmured to her.
“Thank you.”The compliment filled her with pleasure, far too much pleasure for her own good.
“So, McGuinnes, you survived,” Eb said.
“So l did.How are you doing, Whitlock?”He reached across the table to shake Eb’s hand.“How’s Gold Digger?”
“Gold Strike,” Eb corrected.
“Oh, yeah.”Ry grinned.“You’ll have to forgive me.I’m new around here.”
“So I noticed.I was wondering how you found your way to the table without a maître d’.”Eb gave Ry a wide smile that looked totally insincere.
“We city dwellers learn to be resourceful.I just followed the light flashing off your bolo tie, Eb.May I call you Eb?I’ll bet you need a winch to hoist that hunk of silver over your head every morning.”
Eb’s smile disappeared.“I’m surprised to see you up and about, McGuinnes, much less cracking jokes.”
“Yeah, me, too.”Ry hoisted his water glass in Freddy’s direction.“To the power of...youth.”
Freddy knew she shouldn’t be enjoying this, but Eb was always so darn full of himself that it was fun to watch someone pricking his balloon of self-importance.In the next moment, she felt guilty.During her father’s illness, Eb had almost made a pest of himself with offers to help out.Once, he’d graded the road to the ranch without asking and another time he’d rounded up several of her strays who’d wandered through a break in the fence, returned the cattle and mended the fence.Freddy had been grateful, but Leigh had contended he was building up points toward some future goal.
“I suppose Freddy’s told you about the curse on this place,” Eb said between bites of salad.
“She has.Fortunately, I’m not a superstitious man.”
Freddy glanced at Eb in surprise.“You don’t believe in the True Love curse, do you?”
“I didn’t used to.”Eb pushed away his empty salad plate.“But consider the run of bad luck you’ve had recently, Freddy.First your father’s cancer.Then you were forced to sell to this big-shot corporation, but the place still hasn’t turned a profit.Maybe there’s something to that curse business.Even a relatively minor thing like Mikey getting cut up, or your stock tank springing a leak.And remember, too, that calf was stillborn, and pack rats chewed the wiring in two of your trucks.”
“Pack rats and stock-tank leaks are just part of living out here in the desert, Eb,” Freddy said, irritated by his catalog of mishaps.
“Don’t happen that much to me.”Eb leaned back in his chair and puffed out his chest.
Or you keep quiet if they do, Freddy thought, and felt uncharitable for thinking it.
Manny replaced the salad plates with servings of T-bone, baked potatoes and beans.
Ry picked up his steak knife.“If I didn’t know better, Whitlock, I’d say you’re trying to scare me off so you can buy this place for a song.Not that I blame you,” he added, cutting into his steak.“Any good businessman would try the same thing.”
“Oh, I’m no businessman,” Eb said, with a sly nudge of Freddy’s knee under the table.“I’m just a rancher.”
