The bank could own the fossil. Laura didn’t know what to think about it as she sat in the passenger’s side of Ted’s truck, her shoulders hunched and her hands folded in her lap. Ted drove with a deep scowl creasing his forehead, tense and silent. She would have tried to say something to comfort him, but she wasn’t sure she could.

She knew of a case in Montana where a valuable fossil had been found and all sorts of glorious promises had been made. Until it turned out that the supposed owners of the land where the fossil was found were just leasing. The actual owner of the property ended up suing the dinosaur hunter who had sold the fossil for theft, and there was nothing the man could do but plead guilty.

She didn’t think that was the kind of story Ted wanted to hear right then.

The First Bank of Haskell was located right in the middle of town, on Main Street, where it had been for a hundred and fifty years, since the town’s founding. Ted parked as close as he could on a side street and cut his truck’s engine.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Laura said, reaching for her door.

Ted sent her a long, anxious look. He attempted a smile, mostly failing, and reached out to cover her other hand with his. “We will.”

They paused for the briefest moment, then hopped out of the truck and started down the street with a purposeful march. If she had felt more confident about their chances in the situation, she would have made a joke about how, if they put on sunglasses, they’d look like a pair of gangsters about to take care of business. But losing ownership of a fossil they’d worked so hard for was no laughing matter.

The mood inside the bank was tense from the moment they opened the door. While the exterior of the bank hadn’t changed much since it was built, the interior had been renovated in a slick, modern style. The crisp white and grey marble counters were matched by tastefully framed antique photographs of Haskell on the walls. A few customers stood in line at the main counter or sat talking to financial experts at ebony desks to one side of the room. Ted bypassed all of it, marching straight toward the largest office, off to one side near the back.

Through the glass wall lining one side of the office, Laura saw Sandy standing beside an ebony desk that was a larger version of the ones in the main section of the bank, talking to a man who must have been her father. He had the same chocolate skin and patrician features, with salt-and-pepper hair and a thick moustache. Even sitting, Laura could see he wore a fine suit that screamed “successful banker.”

Both Sandy and her father spotted them before they made it to the office door.

“We were just talking about you.” Sandy greeted them without a smile. Her father stood and came out from behind his desk.

“What’s going on?” Ted demanded, still with enough patience to prevent a scene. “What was that letter we got this morning.”

“Ted.” Mr. Templesmith came forward, offering his hand for Ted to shake.

Ted took it, but let go as quickly as he shook. “I know you’re a fair man, Mr. Templesmith, so will you please explain why you think you own our fossil?”

Mr. Templesmith turned to shake Laura’s hand, saying a quick, “Wainright Templesmith.”

“Laura Kincade.” Laura returned the greeting.

“You’d better come in,” Sandy said before the greeting was finished. She touched Ted on the arm, sending him a look of sympathy and camaraderie.

Laura froze. Mr. Templesmith moved back to his desk, but it was Ted and Sandy that grabbed her attention. There was a level of familiarity between them that she’d noticed before but hadn’t given much thought to. Sandy’s touch on Ted’s arm lingered as she ushered him into the room and gestured for him to take a seat in front of the desk. Sandy, who was so tall and elegant, with perfect, chocolate skin and a svelte figure that any man would love.

Laura blinked, and it hit her. She knew Ted and Sandy had dated years ago, but the impact of everything that meant, everything Ted had hinted about the other women he’d slept with, was suddenly clear. Sandy was the sophisticated type that everyone thought Ted should go for. She was the one who the whole town had gotten excited about when she and Ted started dating. And Laura could see it. She could see exactly why all of Haskell would flip their lids over such an attractive couple. Heck, they’d have gorgeous babies.

Double heck, they’d had sex. Smart, confident, beautiful Sandy had done all of the hot, sexy things she’d done with Ted, and probably more. And she was probably better at it. Sandy was better at everything. Why the heck had Ted broken up with Sandy, and why on earth would he be interested in her, dino-Laura, when he could have power-chick-Sandy?

She was going to lose him. Ted was perfect. He could have anyone. So what if he woke up one day and decided he didn’t want her? Even the idea of losing him turned her stomach and paralyzed her with fear.

“Laura?”

Laura blinked out of her stunned thoughts when Sandy said her name. “Sorry.” She zipped clumsily into the room, spilling into the chair beside Ted.

“I just found out about the letter this morning,” Sandy said, moving to stand next to her father. “And let me tell you, I’m furious.”

“You’re furious?” Ted glanced from Sandy to her father, his anger barely contained.

That was enough to snap Laura and her sinking heart out of her funk. “No offence, Mr. Templesmith, but it’s your bank that’s trying to claim the fossil. You’re the one causing the problem.”

Mr. Templesmith sighed and shook his head. “It is my bank, but it’s not me personally.”

“I don’t understand,” Ted growled.

Mr. Templesmith sat forward, folding his hands on his desk with professional calm. “While the Templesmith family owns the bank, it is controlled by a board of trustees. The board is made up of several individuals with a personal and professional stake in the bank’s operations. While our family does hold the largest percentage of interest in the bank, a number of other board members formed a coalition to initiate these proceedings.”

“How does that even work?” Laura asked, shaking her head.

Ted came up with a more important question. “Who?”

Mr. Templesmith fixed him with a look that said “Who do you think?” before saying, “Richard Bonneville has a thirty-nine percent stake in the bank and is on the board. He swayed two of the other members to his side. Together, they pushed for a lawsuit laying claim to the fossil discovered on your land.”

Laura wanted to shout, “They can’t do that,” more than anything, but the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach grew with the worry that maybe they could.

“Bonneville.” Ted huffed an ironic laugh and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Why is it that whenever anyone in this town experiences a lick of good fortune, the Bonnevilles circle in like vultures to grab at it?”

“Because they’re Bonnevilles,” Sandy said, crossing her arms. “They’ve had a chip on their shoulders where this town is concerned since they first moved out here and staked a claim next to the Haskells.” Even with a frown, she cut an elegant figure in her power suit and heels.

Laura hunched deeper in her seat. “That must be what Ronny wanted to talk to me about the other day,” she said, feeling like she’d caused the problem, even though she hadn’t told Ronny anything.

The other three stared at her. “Ronny said more to you than just—” Ted pressed his mouth shut, glancing so briefly at Sandy that the others probably didn’t catch it. Laura did, though, and it only confirmed her depressing suspicions about Ted and Sandy.

“He wanted information,” Laura explained, feeling worse by the second. “Granted, I didn’t give him any, but he found out how valuable the fossil is.”

“That’s my fault.” Ted sighed and rubbed his face. “Me and my big mouth.”

“It’s okay,” Sandy reassured him. The look that passed between the two of them brought to mind other things Ted’s big mouth had probably done in the past. To Sandy. Down there.

Laura squirmed in her chair, unable to get comfortable.

“Ronny probably realized he couldn’t get Laura to talk and found out what he needed to know from someone else,” Ted went on.

“I’m sorry,” Laura apologized anyhow. “I can’t help but feel like I screwed up somehow.”

“None of this is on you.” Ted reached for Laura’s hand on the arm of her chair as he did. His warm, firm touch surprised her. Hope sprouted in her chest. It withered a bit when he turned his attention back to Sandy, though. “I’m not letting the Bonnevilles take away everything that we’ve worked so hard for. Laura has poured way too much effort into excavating the fossil,” Ted went on. “She’s the one who’s done all the work, called in the experts, and made the connections we needed. Without her, we’d probably still be letting the cattle roam over the site with no idea what was out there.” He turned to her with a look of stalwart determination. “I’m not letting the Bonnevilles take that away from you.”

A weak smile flittered across Laura’s lips, but it didn’t stay for long.

“I’m not either,” Sandy said.

Ted glanced to her. Sandy smiled when their eyes met. Laura had to remind herself to breathe.

Sandy took a step to the side, fetching a sheaf of papers from a low cabinet behind her father’s desk. “Dad gave me a heads-up about the letter this morning. I started formulating a legal response right away. This is definitely a case we can argue.”

“Isn’t there a conflict of interest in you being our lawyer for a case against your own father?” Ted asked. His hand slipped away from Laura’s. She pulled hers all the way to her lap, clenching her hands together.

“Not if we make a strong argument for the bank not to proceed with a lawsuit before the case can come to trial,” Sandy went on.

“But that letter,” Laura said, her voice way softer than it usually was. “You…I mean, they sounded so certain of their rights. And it could be argued that the fossil was discovered while the ranch was mortgaged.”

“And that’s what Bonneville will argue,” Sandy agreed with a nod. “But he’d be wrong. Ted—” She turned to him, smooth familiarity in her expression and posture. “I need you to look back through any sort of family records you have—photographs, diaries, legal papers—for any mention of fossils or bones or anything unusual as part of the landscape. The fossil has obviously been there for far longer than the mortgage, and if there is any record of it prior to the bank’s involvement, they don’t have a leg to stand on, much less to build a case on.”

“I’m not sure we’re going to find anything like that,” Ted replied with a wince. “I remember the first time we noticed that bone sticking up out of the ground. It was about a year after Dad took out the mortgage.” He shifted to tell Mr. Templesmith, “I was seventeen, and me and Brian Pickering and Linus Pettigrew were out there, well, anticipating our twenty-first birthdays.”

“When you were seventeen?” Laura asked, brow furrowed in confusion. Ted sent her a guilty look, and the dots connected in her brain. “Oh.” She blushed and looked away, biting her lip.

“Yeah, well, we all did a little anticipating our senior year,” Sandy added with a sheepish grin and a sideways glance to her father. She and Ted shared a look with decades of history behind it.

Laura wanted to sink into the ground. Not only had she not tasted so much as a sip of alcohol before she was legally allowed to, she didn’t have the history with Ted that Sandy had. No wonder, no wonder, no wonder everyone wanted them together.

“Just because you first noticed it while the property was mortgaged doesn’t mean someone in your family history hadn’t noticed it before that,” Mr. Templesmith cut into the nostalgic mood. “That’s the sort of documentation we need you to find.”

“Wait, are you saying that you want the bank to lose this case?” Ted asked.

“Absolutely.” Mr. Templesmith nodded. “We don’t stand to incur any financial loss by not winning. We would only lose something that isn’t ours to begin with.”

“But the cost of arbitration,” Laura suggested.

Mr. Templesmith shook his head. “It’s a small price to pay if Richard Bonneville ends up with egg on his face.”

Laura’s lips twitched to something resembling a smile. It made sense that Mr. Templesmith would want a hostile member of his board of trustees to have some smack put down on him. Especially someone as troublesome as a Bonneville. She’d only lived in Haskell for a year, and already she’d developed a deep suspicion of anyone with that last name. Unfortunately, she was quickly developing a suspicion of anyone named Templesmith too.

“I’ve only just begun to work on this,” Sandy said, crossing to hand the papers she’d picked up earlier to Ted. Their hands brushed as Ted took them from her. “There’s a lot more work to be done. I can come out to the ranch later to explain it all to Roscoe, or he’s welcome to come into my office, if you’d rather.”

“Thanks, Sandy.” Ted sent her a grateful smile. Laura could easily imagine him smiling at her in a lot friendlier ways. “I’ll ask what he wants to do.”

“I’m pretty sure we can beat this,” Sandy went on. “So don’t worry too much.”

Ted broke into a full smile at last. “With you as our lawyer, I’m not worried at all.”

Laura, on the other hand, was so worried that she could hardly stand up as Ted rose to shake Mr. Templesmith’s hand and leave.

“Hey, are you okay?” Ted asked her as they walked out of the bank and into the hot Haskell morning.

“Yeah,” Laura lied. She bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder into the bank. She could just see Sandy talking to her father in the lobby through the glass front door. “I’m fine. Nothing wrong with me. Nope.”

She turned back, only to find Ted staring at her with a puzzled expression. “Sandy’s a great lawyer. She’ll get us through this.”

Laura swallowed. “Yeah.” She might be able to get them through their fossil troubles, but it was the rest of her troubles she was worried about.

“Laura.” Ted took her hand, forcing her all the way out of her inner turmoil. “We’ll get through this. I’m sure there is something in our attic that indicates people knew the fossil was there ages ago. The fossil will be okay.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. If she was being honest with herself, she was exhausted from running on the hamster wheel of anxiety. But that didn’t make anxiety go away. She wasn’t sure what would do that.

“You wanna get some ice cream?” Ted asked.

Okay, that comes close, her inner voice drawled.

“Sure,” she said aloud on a long exhale. “Ice cream sounds good.”

“I thought so.” Ted started down Main Street, holding her hand. “I love a girl who loves ice cream.”

She sent him as enthusiastic of a smile as she could…which wasn’t much. She knew she should have taken things between them more slowly, like Dr. Ashford had advised her. She wasn’t ready to face the possibility that something might come between her and Ted to end things, whether that was a lawsuit or an ex. She wasn’t ready for any of it, but it was too late.