Lahat ng Kabanata ng Redheads & Ranchers: Kabanata 141 - Kabanata 150

Chapter 141: Non-Negotiable TermsWith another glare at Poppy, Slade stalked back to his seat and snatched up the booklet. Behind her, Poppy heard Howell flipping through the pages.Slade squinted at the print on the page and looked back at her, wide-eyed. "You've got to be shitting me.""Nope. Not shitting you. I'm serious as fuck."Benjamin Howell cleared his throat. "This is absurd. You can't possibly think we'd ever agree to this.""It's a difficult decision, I know." Poppy's voice dripped with mock sympathy. "But these are my terms. The alternative gets very messy.""What are you planning to do, march into the Idaho governor's office with your little booklet? You have no proof, you have no evidence, you have nothing a court will believe." Slade sat back and folded his arms across his chest.Poppy held up the flash drive Dana had given her. "I have all the documentation for every charge I've laid out. Including the phony environmental report.""Suppose you don't leave

Chapter 143: A Visit HomeClutching the handle of her rolling bag, Poppy clipped past the security checkpoint at the McGhee Tyson Airport. Just beyond the secure area, she saw her parents waiting for her, huge smiles on their faces. Hanner and Jourand Chastain had been college sweethearts, and they'd been married for thirty-two years. When Poppy had called them early that morning to say she'd be arriving by dinnertime, they hadn't hesitated."We'll pick you up, hon," her mother had said. "Your dad can leave the office early."Truthfully, it had been over a year since Poppy had come back to visit. She'd been so busy working to build her career, she hadn't taken the time. As she approached the handsome middle-aged couple, she sighed deeply. Now her career was in shambles. Her life was in shambles. She wanted to crawl into her childhood bed and sleep for a week."Hey there, gorgeous," her father said, wrapping her in a big embrace. Hanner Chastain, the owner of his own accounti

Chapter 145: Ranch Life"D'ya think we ought to move the critters?" Gazing out over the pasture, Rolly chewed on a long piece of grass.Hunter shrugged back his annoyance. Of course, they needed to move the herd. The cattle had devoured nearly every blade of grass in the north-western section of the ranch. Hunter had been determined to leave the animals on the property the state had taken and not move them until someone showed up and demanded that he do so. And maybe not even then, he was spoiling for a fight anyway.Except that no one had come to tell him to move the cattle. No one had even come to straighten up the markers the herd had trampled. In fact, he hadn't seen anyone over there since that first day, and that had been weeks ago.It struck him as odd. They'd been in such an all-fired hurry to take his land. And now? He shook his head in disgust. It didn't matter. The land was theirs. And he had to move the herd to better grazing. It might be time to take them up

Chapter 147: AloneBy mid-September, Poppy still had no good news on the job front. She'd been on another couple of interviews but hadn't landed a new position. Strangely, at least to her, she didn't feel panicked. Not yet, anyway. She was earning enough at the coffee shop that by being very frugal, she didn't have to dip into her savings. She sighed heavily. She'd need to live on savings once the baby came and she was out of commission for a while. As for what she'd do for childcare, she had no clue.She'd finally worked up the nerve to tell her parents about the baby. After an interminable moment of shocked silence, to their credit, they'd been extremely supportive. Again, her father had mentioned the idea of coming back to Tennessee and living with them until she found a job. But Poppy knew she was too independent to rely on her parents.Her mother was already making plans to come to New York shortly before her due date. Poppy figured she'd need help at that time anyway,

Chapter 149: StarlaNot ready to head back to the ranch, Hunter drove the quarter mile from the diner to the North Star. He felt a twinge of nerves as he did. The last time he'd been there, he'd been with her. Up to now, being in a noisy, crowded bar was something he just didn't think he could stomach. For now, though, he craved human contact, craved to be where other people were, even if he didn't particularly feel like speaking to them, just some noise to drown out the desolate silence of his soul.The parking lot in front of the North Star was reasonably full for 8:00 on a Wednesday night, which Hunter took as a good sign. Several of the folks from the meeting had also come for a drink. Maybe he could just slip in and find a quiet place at the end of the bar where he could have a quick drink and not garner unwanted attention.As he approached the door, he heard Bon Jovi singing about bad medicine. Again, that boded well. He wanted to be a fly on the wall and forget about th