Archie sucked in a quick breath at the thought of that.
“It’s only fair, baby,” he said softly.“If he agreed ornot, he’s reaping the bennies of your investment.He wants to be a slum lord,owning a property he doesn’t care for, he can buy you out.”
Jagger was right.
He really was.
Damn.
“And if he has an issue with it,” Jag carried on, “he eithersits down and has a rational conversation with you about it or he pushes it tougly.”
She didn’t have a good feeling about any of that.
Especially the last part.
“Ugly?”
“He could sue you, Arch, but I think it’d take a miracle toget a judge to agree that he’s not responsible at least for standard upkeep ofa property.”
“Or I could buyhimout.”
His head ticked.“Is that an option?”
“I’d either have to dig into the rainy-day nest egg I havethat’s what’s left of what I inherited from my grandparents and still, probablyhave to make payments.But the thing is, Elijah is such a pill, I’d rather hejust be out of it and not have to deal with him at all.”
Jagger got a look on his face that Archie did not like.
So she asked, “What, baby?”
“I told you about Dutch and Georgie looking into that murderand Dutch not telling me or Hound about him getting involved in that.”
He did do that, so she said, “Yeah.”
“The only thing in my life that hurt worse was when we foundout Hound waslookin’ after this old lady in hisbuilding, and I mean, they were really tight, and he never introduced us toher.We never knew anything about her, until after she died.”
It was Archie who was quiet then.
“What I’msayin’ is,” Jaggercontinued, “I’ve never met Elijah.And warning, I’m making this about me, butI’ll tell you truth, baby.If Dutch ever said his life would be better withoutme in it in any way, that would cut so deep into the bone, I’d never stopfeeling that hurt.”
He reached across the table and Archie stopped cradling hercoffee cup to give him her hand.
“Maybe if you gave that info to Elijah, he’d have anepiphany, feel the same way and do something about being such a drag on you andyour family,” he finished.
She sensed someone was having an epiphany, and it wasn’tElijah and not because he wasn’t there.
She sidestepped that too.
“I’ll have a conversation with him,” she said.
Jag nodded, letting her go and returning to his ColoradoBurrito.
Conversationally, they moved on before they went back totheir B&B, packed up, got on Jagger’s bike and locationally moved on.
But this didn’t mean Archie didn’t see the issue that laylike a sleeping dragon between them.
Her man was troubled.She didn’t know why.She wondered ifhe knew why.
She had come to terms with that, deciding to let that be hisand only hers if he offered it.
