you they’ve found a safe way to get the oil out, but the truth is, that’s basically a big pile of—excrement.” He brushed off the seat of his Wranglers with an exaggerated motion. “The truth is, any drilling process is hazardous—to the land and the people who live there. Carrigan might think they have the science down, but nobody knows what the long-term effects are going to be. And these projects just kill small-town communities. You seen Midwest? Or Pinedale? I’m not letting that happen to Two Shot.”
“How do you plan to prevent it?”
“Whatever it takes, I guess.” He looked straight at the camera. “Whatever it takes. Those rigs are not going on my land.”
Chapter 2
Sarah Landon stepped into the Carrigan tower and flashed a smile at the receptionist that felt about as deep as her silk camisole and steady as her high-heeled pumps. When she was a little girl, she’d dressed up as Wonder Woman for Halloween. Now she dressed up in a costume every day, smoothing her flyaway red hair, basting foundation over her freckles, and pasting on that confident, take-charge smile. While she might not leap tall buildings in a single bound, she managed to scale the tallest one in Wyoming every morning en route to her boss’s tenth-floor office.
But that wasn’t her greatest feat of strength. She’d climbed the hallowed towers of two Ivy League colleges too, earning a master’s degree in political science with a focus on energy policy and leaving her small-town roots behind forever.
Or so she hoped. Her hometown of Two Shot was only an hour’s drive from Casper, but it held so many memories she did her best to stay away. Even when she visited her sister Kelsey she avoided the place, keeping herself cloistered in the tidy single-wide at the edge of town.
Of course, Kelsey was always urging her to eat at Suze’s Diner, shop at the candy store on the corner, do all the things they’d done as kids. But Sarah knew better. When she left Two Shot, she’d left behind a lot of disapproving glances, gossip, and snide whispers about who she’d been and who she planned to be. She wasn’t about to let all that into her life again. The past was gone, and she was keeping it that way.
She pressed a button and stepped into the steel-sided elevator. The construction of the sleek, modern tower that housed Carrigan Corporation had been trumpeted as the start of a new age of prosperity for Casper, but most of the dollars drilled out of the ground bypassed the city, winging their way to various executives and speculators back East. Casper’s only skyscraper still stood alone, looming over crumbling brick storefronts and proving what everyone already knew: the Carrigans owned this town.
The building was cutting-edge architecture, spacious and contemporary, but entering Eric Carrigan’s office was like stepping into the past. The room was carpeted in plush hunter green and decorated with dark wood, leather, and brass in the style of a Victorian gentleman’s club. It was jarring to look through the window behind his hulking mahogany desk and see cars and trucks passing on the street below. It would have been more fitting to view a host of hackney cabs dodging Dickensian urchins.
A copy of the Casper Star flew through the air as she entered. It would have hit her if she hadn’t caught it. She bobbled it in the air a couple times before clutching it to her chest.
“I saw the story,” she said.
She wasn’t the only one. Everybody in town had seen it. Oil Heirs Battle Over Rights to Ranch, bellowed the oversized headline. It topped an account of Lane’s interview with the reporter from Channel 10 and a detailed history of the brothers’ lifelong rivalry.
“Looks like a job for the public affairs manager,” Eric said.
It looked to Sarah as if Eric needed a private affairs manager to deal with his brother, but she waved one hand with a suave confidence she didn’t feel and stepped up to the task. “I wouldn’t worry. A fight with your brother gives you a public forum to explain the process.”
Eric shot his cuffs and adjusted his tie. In some men the gesture would have looked vain and silly, but Eric moved with such assurance that it only emphasized the square strength of his hands and the chiseled masculinity of his jaw. With his dark good looks and designer duds, he looked like the boardroom hero of a Harlequin romance. Female interns and