Diamond in the Rough (Diamond J #2) by Lori L. Robinett Page A

outbuilding for the family. By the time she’d rolled to a stop, two tow-headed kids and a young woman with thick dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail had come out to meet her.
    The oldest, a boy just starting to show the muscles he would have as a man, held up a hand in greeting as she hopped down. “Want me to take it to the washout? She can help.” He motioned to the girl at his side.
    Lana tossed the keys to the boy. “Be careful,” she cautioned.
    His wide grin showed his crooked teeth. The girl hurried around the front of the truck and scrambled up into the cab, obviously not wanting to be left behind.
    Lana turned to the woman. “Rondo here?”
    The woman held up a hand to shade her eyes from the bright sun and nodded. “Inside.” Without waiting for a reply, she continued on her way, bony hips swaying.
    Lana strode across the dusty yard, her short legs eating up the distance in no time. The trailer she shared with Rondo was the newest in the compound, a super-single, ninety feet long and sixteen feet wide. While the other homes had metal roofs that were loud during storms, their home had a shingle roof. It was her favorite thing about the home. The spring storms with pounding hail scared her, though she wouldn’t admit that to anyone.
    Not even the man she shared a bed with.
    She tugged the screen door open and stepped into the air conditioned coolness of the living room. Rondo sat in his oversized camouflage recliner, a beer in one hand and a remote control in the other. His gaze focused on the flat screen television hanging on the opposite wall. Baseball. One glance told her the Royals were playing. She squinted at the screen. They were losing. That wasn’t good.
    Maybe now wasn’t the time to discuss the stockyard and Bobby Rafferty.
    His eyes flicked at her, then back to the television. “Another beer.” He sat his empty bottle on the wooden end table beside him.
    Her temper flared, but she tamped it down. It wouldn’t do to let Rondo know he’d irritated her. Not yet, anyway. She snatched his empty up on her way to the kitchen, then pulled two cold beers from the refrigerator. She returned to the living room and handed him one, sat on the sofa and twisted the top off of her own. Her eyes burned from lack of sleep, but she lifted the cold drink to her lips and took a long pull.
    She hated making long drives on her own, but Rondo insisted he couldn’t spare anyone to go with her last night. Once she sat down, the exhaustion was almost overwhelming. All she wanted to do was go crawl in bed, but she knew if she did, she’d be unable to sleep come nightfall.
    Rondo sighed heavily as he twisted the cap off and dropped it on the table. His eyes never left the baseball game playing on the television. “How many head did we end up with?”
    “Full load. Just shy of a hundred and fifty head.”
    “How shy?”
    “A hundred forty-seven.”
    Rondo took a long drink, then looked at Lana. “You shoulda gotten a few more head on there. That trailer’ll hold one sixty.”
    Lana held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. “That’s at total full capacity, and we had some good sized animals in this load.”
    “When’s the sale?”
    “Saturday.”
    He dipped his chin and looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Where’d you tell ‘em to send the money?”
    Lana felt her hackles rise. She knew this operation inside and out. She knew what the risks were, and how to minimize them. “I gave them the PO Box in Webb City.”
    Rondo had been a powerful man in his younger years. Though he remained thick and stout, the ruddy skin drooped under his chin. Gray now peppered his dark red hair and his thick mustache was nearly white. His most striking feature was his dark green eyes. He winked at her. “That’s my girl. Always thinkin’.”
    She cleared her throat. “This was my last run to that yard. Something was off. A new kid working the yard.”
    A muscle twitched under his eye and he stared at her.