His jaw ticked and he took a moment to reply. “Her father stepped up his company’s attacks against King Oil to make themselves look better.”

And he hadn’t wanted to tell me. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I talked to Dad about why I think it’s gotten worse. We met with our PR team. They made sure a lot of our work with wind and solar development is more readily available on our websites, with factoids released regularly on all social media channels.”

“Nice passive counterattack.”

He slid a sly gaze toward me as he turned onto the highway out of town. “We’re also concentrating our factoids on our support of developing new wind technologies that are more efficient and less damaging to the environment than the big wind turbines.”

“Subtle.”

“But effective,” he agreed. “It’s actually been a real boon for our PR.”

He parked at the farm store and we ran inside. There were no run-ins like with Poppy. He found the battery he needed and then we were on the road again.

I relaxed in my seat and marinated in the efforts Aiden had gone to for me. Not just him, Gentry too. The sting of being the only one clueless about the trust was fading as the rest of Aiden’s family treated me as well as they had before.

We approached Dawson’s pastureland but the dirt road Aiden turned onto wasn’t the one that would take us up to his brother’s place.

At an approach, he pulled in. “I’ll open the gate. Want to drive through?”

Curiosity hounded me, but I didn’t ask what we were doing. Aiden and spontaneous didn’t usually go together. I scrambled over to the driver’s seat. I had to sit on the edge to reach the gas pedal. Aiden swung the gate open, looking at odds with the landscape in his nice sweater and jeans, his winter coat hanging open. His boots were buried in the few inches of snow that hadn’t gotten blown away. He looked like a city guy in the middle of nowhere, but he’d been born and raised on this land.

I pulled the pickup through, a thrill running through me as the engine roared with only minor pressure on the gas.

I put it in park and scooted back to my seat. Aiden closed the gate and hopped back in.

“Buckle up.” Anticipation ran through his expression.

I looked at him, then out the window at the snow-covered landscape. We were at the top of a small hill where the snow wasn’t as deep. It wasn’t mud, but with this ride, it’d still be fun to tear through it.

I buckled myself in. “Are you going to—”

“Yep.”