Arizona Homecoming Read Online Free PDF Page A

face as if she’d just swallowed a pickle. She had the same glimmer of passion in her eyes that she’d had last week while examining the skeleton, and there was a little smudge of brown under the left side of her chin, letting him know she’d been playing in the dirt again.
    Instead of asking her whose dirt she was digging in today, he said, “I didn’t come here to change Apache Creek. It’s perfect the way it is. I’m building one home. I’m a builder, not a developer. And I’m not the home owner.”
    “If you want to stop more homes from going up, you’ll need to buy the land yourself.” This advice was aimed at Emily and came from a tall blonde woman.
    Emily frowned, and Jacob stepped in. “Donovan, you’ve not met all my girls. It’s a rare occurrence they’re all here. Eva’s my oldest and will take your order. I hope you’ve not eaten.”
    Now Donovan saw the resemblance. Eva looked a lot like Jacob, light haired, while Emily and the other sister must take after a dark-haired mother. And Eva was obviously pregnant. Her advice about buying the land was sound, and Donovan wondered if Jacob could afford to do so.
    “I’ll take iced tea and help myself to your pulled-pork sandwich with homemade chips.” It was what he’d had last time he ate here. The aroma had lured him the moment he stepped out of his truck.
    “No one can afford to buy all the land that needs to be preserved in this area,” Emily protested, “and no one should have to. It should be made into a state park, part of the Superstition land trust.”
    “We didn’t find Native American remains,” Donovan said, claiming the only vacant chair, which happened to be next to Emily.
    “You could have. He wasn’t buried very deep. Decades of wind could have covered him up. And just because he’s not more than a century old doesn’t mean he’s not Native American, and—”
    “Emily,” the sister at the table said gently.
    While Emily continued talking, ignoring her big sister, Donovan studied the other female, a taller, more slender version of Emily. When Emily finally stopped her impassioned tirade with a harrumph, the woman held out her hand and said, “Since no one is going to introduce me, I’ll do it myself. I’m Elise.”
    “Donovan Russell. I met your fiancé Cooper a few days ago. I stopped by his outfitters store. He told me all about gold panning.”
    She looked at her little sister with an indulgent expression, and then back at Donovan. “And my little sister has told me all about you.”
    “All good?” he joked.
    “I like to judge for myself. I’ve been keeping up with what the house you’re building looked like. So far, I’m not sure.”
    Donovan doubted she’d be impressed, considering where Elise lived. The Lost Dutchman Ranch blended in with its surroundings, making a visitor take in the whole package: house, land, mountains. George Baer definitely wanted visitors to notice only his house.
    No, not the house, but his money.
    “Then, I went to your website,” Elise continued. “You’ve done some impressive homes.”
    “Back in Omaha? Or the last three years?” he asked.
    “Definitely back in the Omaha area.”
    Made sense. There he’d not been building true luxury homes. He thought back to the first house he’d worked on with Tate Luxury Homes in Springfield, Illinois. It had been a fourteen-thousand-square-foot split-level mansion with marble floors and two elevators. The master bedroom had a fireplace and a waterfall! Two of the bedrooms were for little girls and had castles with stairs and a tower, jutting from one wall.
    For show.
    There’d also been a two-tiered Jacuzzi with a flat-screen television and its own bar.
    “And you build tree houses.” A young boy spoke right in Donovan’s ear before pulling a chair over to sit next to him. Excitement emphasized each word.
    “My nephew, Timmy. Eva’s stepson,” Emily introduced.
    Here was the type of future homeowner Donovan wanted to build