I’d just grabbed the roll of wire from the truck bed when a pair of headlights crept up the road. It wasn’t a ranch truck, and I didn’t recognize it as belonging to one of my neighbors.
“Perfect.” I sighed. First the mysterious marker and now an uninvited guest.
The small SUV stopped on the side of the road, parked at an angle that suggested the driver wasn’t used to mountain roads or snowbanks. Then the door swung open, and a woman climbed out. Her coat was too thin, her boots not nearly sturdy enough to be traipsing around uneven ground, and her expression way too determined for her own good.
Morgan Carter. She was Mustang Mountain’s new town planner. I hadn’t had to work with her yet, but I’d heard the rumors. She wasn’t from around here. Folks said she was a city girl whose daddy pulled some strings to get her a job a few levels above her pay grade. She seemed hellbent on proving herself,and my buddy Dawson said she was more stubborn than every mule within a hundred miles combined.
She trudged toward me, her boots sinking deeper and deeper into the snow with every step.
“Slade Kincaid!” she called, her breath puffing out in clouds. “We need to talk.”
I resisted the urge to close my eyes and count to ten. “Based on you driving all the way out here, I figured you might say that.”
She stopped in front of me and thrust out her hand. “I’m Morgan Carter, the new town planner, and we have a problem.”
Before I could reach for her hand, she slipped on a patch of ice, her arms flailing as she tilted backward. I grabbed her arm without thinking. “Careful, ma’am.”
She straightened, trying to pretend she hadn’t almost face-planted into a snowbank. “I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.” I waited until she seemed steady before I let go.
Instead of thanking me, she shot me a glare that should’ve knocked me flat on my ass. “I got a call this morning. Someone reported unauthorized structures on publicly questionable land.”
“Publicly questionable land,” I repeated. “Is that what Mayor Nelson called it?”
“That’s what he wrote on the form.” She blew a chunk of dark brown hair out of her face. “We need to review the northern boundary. Officially. Which means I need access to the ridge.”
“This is my ridge.”
“So it seems, but that’s what the paperwork is trying to determine.”
I stared at her for a long second. She shifted her weight but didn’t back down.
“Look,” she said, softening enough to take some sting out of the words, “I’m not here to stir up trouble.”
“That’s exactly what you’re here to do.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “I’m here to do my job. Which requires verifying property lines. Which requires your cooperation.”
“And what if I say I’m busy?”
“Then I’ll wait.”
I snorted. “You’ll freeze.”
“No, I won’t.”
Right on cue, a gust of wind blasted a pile of loose snow off a pine branch and dumped it straight onto her head.
Her lips formed a tight line as she brushed it off her shoulders. “That was unfortunate timing.”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped. “Sure was.”
She let out a slow exhale, her breath fogging the air in front of her. “This isn’t personal. If the Kincaids have nothing to hide, the review won’t change anything.”
My jaw tensed. “What makes you think we have something to hide?”
“Nothing,” she said. “But people talk. And if this ridge really does have a contested history, the sooner we figure it out, the better.”
