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and cooking his books. What she had found was even worse than she had anticipated. The Logues had bought a business that was a rat’s nest of bad deals, expired contracts, and unfiled documents. When she told them what she found, they stared back at her in white-faced horror.
    But instead of giving up or suing Wild Bill, who had quietly moved to Yuma, they decided to make the best of it. With their backs against the wall, they made the decision to work hard and turn their business around. Cam became even more prominent, calling on property owners throughout the county, reminding them that he was there if they needed to buy or sell, trying to win their trust.
    His hard work had paid off recently in the listing of the TimberlineRanch by the squabbling Overstreet sisters. If Cam were able to sell it, even at the drastically reduced price it was likely to get, his commission would turn the company around.
    So, when Cam Logue stuck his face in Marybeth’s office, beaming a high-wattage smile she had never seen before, and asked if she could meet with him and Marie to hear some good news, Marybeth grinned and pushed back in her chair.
    L adies,” Cam Logue announced once he had closed the door to his office, “we’ve got a secret client interested in the Timberline Ranch!”
    Marie, who was petite, dark-haired, and attractive in an open-faced way, clapped her hands together. Her eyes shone. Marybeth was very happy for her.
    “So who is it?” asked Marie.
    Cam laughed. “I just said it was a secret client, Marie.”
    “I know, I know . . .”
    Marybeth asked, “How serious is he?”
    Cam turned to her. Cam was handsome, with light, wavy hair and sharp, blue eyes. He was ambitious in a way that seemed to encourage others to root for him. At least it worked for Marybeth. Her impression of him was that he was straightforward and entrepreneurial, if a little combative. He wanted to succeed not only for his business and his family, but also to prove something. Marie had told Marybeth that Cam had grown up as the youngest on a ranch outside of Saddlestring. She said that Cam’s parents had doted on Cam’s older brother, Eric, literally mortgaging the ranch in order to pay for Eric’s medical school so he could become a surgeon. The Logue ranch was absorbed by the Overstreet sisters’ Timberline Ranch, and his parents bought a small place in western South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Reservation. When cattle prices bottomed out, there was no money left over for Cam, who went to Black Hills State (where he met Marie) and later into real estate. Cam’s return to Saddlestring was a homecoming of sorts.
    Yet if Cam recognized the irony of now selling the property he had grown up on, he didn’t indicate it to Marybeth.
    “He’s serious,” he said, “but he’s doing due diligence. He’s no dummy.”
    “Due diligence?” Marie asked.
    Cam nodded. “He knows all about those CBM wells, and all of the water they discharge. Even though he knows he won’t have the mineral rights, he wants to get that water tested to make sure it’s okay when it flows down the river. He’s afraid if something is wrong with the water the enviros or the downstream users might sue him as the landowner.”
    “That’s smart,” Marybeth said.
    “He’s a pretty smart guy.”
    Marie sat down in Cam’s desk chair. “What if there’s something wrong with the water?”
    “There’s nothing wrong with the water, Marie,” Cam said, as if speaking to a child. “The water’s fine. It’s been tested before they sunk all of those wells, and it’s fine. It’s as sweet as honey.”
    “Then why . . . ?”
    “Marie,” Cam’s reaction was sharp, “it’s complicated. All of the testing that’s been done has been piecemeal, before each new set of wells. By different companies at different times in the last couple of years. Our buyer wants water collected from all of those different well sites and tested again to make sure they’re okay. To