Chapter 27

"This is not the date I had in mind," Laney said Saturday afternoon as she bounced along a rutted gravel road in the crew cab of one of the Hawthorne Hills ranch pickups, crammed between Zach and Josie Riley in the front seat. They were headed toward a private airstrip on the ranch, where Quinn Shannon kept his plane.

"No, I can see that." Josie held tight to the handle above the door. "But the boys will have fun, and when the fires continue, we'll be able to prove it wasn't them."

"Fun?" Parker snorted from the back. "You got us jobs on a stinking farm." Though he was keen about the adventure and getting out of town, he hadn't been thrilled with the plan to send him to work for a former college intern at the library, who'd married and moved to a farm in the north. "Same crap as around here, but with llamas and goats."