Jason was tired of this crap. He was tired of everyone treating him as though he were the mentally challenged brother. He wasn’t. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t a bad person at all and he was tired of everyone assuming that he was. So right now he was willing to poke their mother probably a little more than was wise.
“Well, Mother,” Jason began in an openly sarcastic tone of voice. “We’re watching the same thing that the rest of Dallas is enjoying. I have seen five different angles of this particular incident and I have to say that every one of them is just a little funnier than the last. I especially like the part where you dump your bag onto a table that belongs to some random stranger. Then you don’t even appear to care that you’ve created a mess that will take hours to clean up for that poor coffee shop’s staff.”
“Poor staff!” There it was. Tisha’s tone was rising. It got more and more shrill with each passing second until she was screaming at the top of her lungs. “The only poor thing about that staff is their manners! Nobody even tried to help me.”
“Now that just isn’t true, Mother,” Jason told Tisha. He pointed to Zane’s phone. “I think we’ve all seen the end where that poor society columnist attempts to help you clean off your shoes and you absolutely start screaming at her as though you have lost your damn senses!”
“You better watch your mouth!” Tisha put her index finger right in Jason’s face. The tip of it was wagging scant millimeters from the tip of his nose and it was awfully tempting to bite her the way that he had when he was a kid. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on here!”
“Excuse me?” Jason didn’t care to let his mother start harassing Skye Kincaid all over town just because she was convinced that here was something going on between them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not the one featured in that society column. You’re the one they follow like a rabid dog, and most of the time it’s because you’re begging them to cover your life and make you seem important to your friends!” Jason swallowed. This was about to get ugly. “Maybe what we should all be asking ourselves is how are you benefitting from all of this? Are you getting something from it? I feel like you probably are! Attention! That’s all you freaking care about. You want attention. You want someone to stare at you when you walk down the street. You want them to look at you and want to be you and maybe right now the only way to do that is to make yourself the talk of the whole damn city!”
There was that outraged shriek again. The sound lifted into the kitchen and seemed to get trapped near the eleven-foot ceiling. It echoed around the tile floor and the granite countertops and right back at them again and again until Jason wanted to cover his ears with the horrible sound of it.
“Mother!” Orion said sharply. “Will you be quiet? Seriously. I cannot imagine why you think you need to scream like a twelve-year-old girl every time something doesn’t go your way.”
Tisha stopped making noise and put her hands on her hips. She was still wearing one of her designer outfits though Jason could not help but notice that the Prada sandals were conspicuously missing. No doubt Tisha had tossed those into the nearest garbage can right before she walked into the nearest store and bought herself an even more expensive pair.
That begged a rather interesting question. Jason could not help but wonder the answer and knew that he was about to become one of the most unpopular people in the room because he was going to ask it. But then Jason was just about always the most unpopular people in the room, wasn’t he? What was new about that?
“Orion, if you and Devon and Zane are going to split Dad’s share of the company and we all have to split the land, which pretty much makes it useless, then explain to me how Mother has any money.”
“Excuse me?” Orion frowned. “What do you mean? Mother has money because she was Dad’s wife.”
“She’s not Dad’s wife,” Jason said flatly. “Explain how Edward and I have to be satisfied with a salary that we earn and Mother can live in this house and spend money like it grows on trees.”
“Well.” Orion seemed to have no answer for that. How interesting. Big brother cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head and looked very uncomfortable. “I suppose going forward Mother will have an allowance. The company will pay for her house because that’s what Dad would have wanted.”
This seemed to cut right through Tisha’s momentary tantrum. She stopped screaming and pointing fingers and turned to gaze with shock at Orion. “Excuse me? Did you say allowance? Like limited funds?”
“Yes.” Orion drew himself up, and Jason realized with no small amount of surprise that this was actually kind of tough for his oldest brother. Did he have as much trouble standing up for himself where his mother was concerned as Jason did? “Dad isn’t running the company anymore. His shares naturally fall to us. And we will provide for you because that’s what Dad would have wanted.”
“Excuse me?” Tisha went from pissed off socialite to businesswoman in a split second. “That’s not true. Tex owns thirty percent of that company and I now control seventy percent. I’m the surviving spouse. It’s mine. So Tex and I will run it together.” Tisha curled her lip at the rest of them. “If you would like to stay on, I will offer all of you a competitive wage, but your input isn’t really necessary. Tex and I have it under control.”
Wow. That was absolutely clarifying Wasn’t it now? Jason hid a smirk and let his brothers deal with this one. After all, what their mother was describing didn’t change Jason’s situation one bit. His brothers had totally intended to pay Jason a flat rate salary and then let him contribute to the family business with no hope of bonus or return. That was what their mother was offering them, and for some reason it just didn’t sound reasonable when it was offered to them. Gee. How strange.
“If the four of you don’t mind,” Jason said gleefully. “I’ll just head upstairs to my room and start packing.”
“Excuse me?” Orion was struggling to keep his attention on both their mother and Jason. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know but away from here sounds good.” Jason shook his head. “And you can expect me to be consulting an estate lawyer about the way the three of you have decided to divide the assets. I feel like that’s not what Dad would have wanted and it wasn’t what he intended either.” Jason clucked his tongue and made a trigger motion toward their mother. “But then it also looks like you guys are going to be enjoying a nice big probate problem with our loving mother. So perhaps mine will just be one more complaint against the estate. That should keep things tied up for a good long time. Don’t you think? In the meantime I’m just an hourly employee anyway so I should be able to find work and a place to live just about anywhere I try.”
Tisha gaped at him. “You cannot be serious. What will people think?”
“I am actually.” Jason shook his head at her. “You just humiliated our entire family on every social media outlet in existence and you’re worried about what people will think if I move out?” Jason was already halfway down the hall. The back stairs were right in front of him. “Let’s just say that people will probably totally understand why I’m leaving when they see not only your behavior in that coffee shop but also the way that you’ve been behaving with Tex Johnson only days after your husband’s death.”
Zane shook his head. Then he stepped between their mother and Jason as though he were covering Jason’s exit. “Jason is right, Mother. You know an awful lot about shares and things for someone who was nothing more than a trophy wife.”
“What are you talking about, trophy wife?” Tisha was obviously incensed by the label. “I’m not a trophy wife. I have a business degree from Texas A&M!”
“But apparently not a law degree,” Orion retorted. “Because you apparently never read your husband’s will. You just assumed you knew what it said because you told him what you wanted it to say.”
Jason trudged up the stairs still listening to them arguing. It was obvious that they were all going to st
art yelling at each other any second. He wasn’t exactly proud of the fact that he had brought this about in a roundabout way, but he was also angry as hell at his brothers for deliberately excluding him from the company. He had a feeling that his father had condoned that bullshit. But not about the land. Dad would never have done that with the land. Splitting it five ways? That just wouldn’t fly.
About the time Jason got to his bedroom and found a bag, his phone started buzzing with texts. When Jason looked down and realized that the messages were from Skye he could not help but feel a pleasant sort of expectation at the prospect of seeing her again. His life seemed to be coming apart at the seams, but maybe that was all for the best.
Chapter Twelve
The coffee shop was back to normal. At least that was pretty much what it felt like when Skye took her place at her usual table in the very back corner. Lou and Martin were describing the scene from the previous day to Tom. Poor Tom was beside himself that he’d missed it.
“You should have called me!” Tom moaned. “I would have changed my plans.”
“You had a root canal,” Lou reminded him. “You don’t change those appointments. They’re kind of important.”
“So is being an eyewitness to Dallas history in the making!” Tom insisted. He was drinking his coffee so fast that he kept choking on the hot brew. Finally he slowed down and nearly slammed the ceramic cup on the tabletop. “Dammit! I cannot believe I missed the poo sandal lady because of a root canal!”
Skye pursed her lips and tried to focus on her work. She had pretty much completely given up working in her cubicle the Dallas Star offices. There was no way to get anything done with Carolyn hovering every second trying to get a peek of the next column that Skye was writing. Then, of course, Carolyn felt compelled to make suggestions and to constantly hound Skye with questions about whether or not she had actual proof that Tisha Olivares-King had been or currently was sleeping with Tex Johnson.
In the end, did it really matter?
“Oh look!” Marvin was gesturing to the coffee shop’s entrance. “I wonder if Shawn will be offering the guy free coffee this time?”
Lou snorted. “It’s not like the poor kid can be responsible for his mother’s bad behavior.”
“True,” Tom agreed. “You actually have to feel sorry for him. You know?”
Skye almost groaned out loud when she realized that the men were actually talking about Jason King. The “poor kid” had just walked into the shop from the sidewalk outside and was now staring at the old guys and shaking his head. Shawn must have realized the same thing because he was already pouring a cup of dark roast coffee.
“Here you go, Mr. King.”
Jason started to pull out his wallet.
Shawn held up his hand. “No way. I feel bad about the viral video incident. I cannot imagine how much humiliation that has caused your family.”
“Yeah.” Jason shook his head. “Because my mother really does a good job of hiding her real personality the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year.”
Shawn chuckled, but handed off the coffee without taking a penny for it all the same. Jason took a sip and seemed to savor the taste. Then he headed right for Skye’s table in the back. Jason did not say anything at first. He just sank down into the seat and exhaled a long sigh.
The two of them sat in complete silence for at least four or five minutes. Maybe it was longer. Oddly enough, it was a comfortable silence and Skye did not generally like silence as a rule. She stared into Jason’s handsome face and wondered what it was about him that seemed so much different from other men. He wasn’t like other people in general. There was something about him that wasn’t quite tame. And it had nothing to do with the fact that he had asked her to purposefully torture his mother with her society column—in a manner of speaking at least.
“You said you had something that I needed to see, right?” Jason lifted his cup to his lips.
The sight of those lips was kind of mesmerizing. For just a moment Skye could not stop staring at them. They were a dark pink color that complimented his swarthy dark skin. She loved the way the fullness of the lower lip was complimented by the curvature of the upper one. It always left him looking as though he had a secret.
“Ahem.”
“Right!” Skye felt her cheeks blaze as she realized that she had just been staring at Jason for quite a bit longer than she should have been. Groping in her bag, Skye pulled out the items she had rescued from the breakfast remains after the epic tantrum incident. “Your mother managed to leave some things behind that I thought you might find interesting.”
Jason’s dark eyes lit up with interest. “Is that right?”
“Oh yeah.” Skye laid the cell phone on the table. “Including this.”
“Holy crap!”
“And this.” Next went the appointment book. “And then these random bits and pieces of paper that don’t necessarily make much sense to me, but I thought you might be able to add some context.”
Jason eagerly began rifling through the items. He picked up the appointment book and laid it carefully aside. “We’ll have to look at this later because it’s going to take some thinking on. But this phone? I can’t believe she didn’t admit to us that her phone was lost. I think I’ve heard one of my brothers asking why she never returns her texts.”
“Surely she has a new one by now.”
“Surely my mother has never gone to an actual store and done anything with a phone contract,” Jason retorted.
Skye sat back in her seat and felt as though her brain had just stopped moving for a moment. It was so foreign to her to think that anyone—especially someone with money—could ever just not know how to replace their phone. How did that even happen? It was ridiculous!
Jason was fiddling with the thing. Skye was about to tell him that she’d already tried, but that the phone was password protected when he suddenly had the screen unlocked and was scrolling through information.
“Look at this,” Jason murmured. “My mother’s call log has more calls to Tex Johnson than it does to any other single person. She doesn’t even talk to her broker as often as she does to Tex.”
“How about before your father died?” Skye’s gut tightened as she realized that they might have some actual evidence to give over to the police.
Jason made a low noise of frustration. “The log doesn’t go back that far. But I can see her texts. They’re on the inappropriate side.”
“No way!” Skye could not help it. She snatched that phone out of Jason’s hand and started scrolling through Tisha’s text messages to Tex Johnson. Suddenly she realized what she had done. Glancing up at Jason, she felt the urge to say something to explain her behavior. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have grabbed like that, but I can’t believe the woman would be that brazen!”
“My mother is probably the most brazen woman you’ll ever meet,” Jason said irritably. He began flipping through the folded bits of paper. “And I don’t mind about the grab. If I had been hanging onto this thing for twenty-four hours without a way to get into it I would have been going crazy with curiosity.”
“I just don’t understand why she would be so blatant!” Skye was aghast as she read some of the messages. “Look at this! Less than twenty-four hours before the funeral she’s begging Tex to promise to take care of her now that she’s all alone in the world. She’s reminding him of all the promises he made to her!”
Jason grunted as he unfolded yet another piece of paper and seemed to be putting it into some semblance of order with the others on the table. “And yet there’s nothing in that statement to be overtly incriminating. There’s nothing that says for sure that the two of them conspired to kill my father.”
Skye exhaled a long sigh as she scrolled through text after text that made it seem like the first and last person that Tisha Olivares-King thought about every single day was Tex Johnson. “Do you honestly believe that your mother would be that callous?”
Something on Jason�
�s face gave Skye pause. She stared at him. What was it? He seemed as though he knew something huge and yet could not or would not say it out loud. What could be happening behind the scenes to cause Jason to have that much animosity toward his mother?
“Yes.” Jason exhaled long and slow. “I absolutely believe my mother could be that callous.” Jason pressed his lips into a thin line. “I realize that it seems extreme. But there are things”—he made a face as though he could not go on—“there are just things that nobody realizes about my father. My mother was tired of it, I think.”
Skye blinked. Holy. Cow. Had Mac King been a cross dresser or secretly gay? Was the secret that there had been a love triangle between Mac and Tex and Tisha? Talk about your juicy stories! Carolyn would absolutely lose her mind over this!
“You have to tell me what you’re trying not to say,” Skye murmured to Jason. She tried not to be pushy, but it was a bit hard when she actually was being pushy. “I don’t understand and I have to say that the options you’re leaving me are rather alarming. I just don’t see your father dressing in women’s clothing or something like that, but who am I to judge?”
Jason drew back as though she’d slapped him. “What? Women’s clothing? No!”
“Well, you made it seem like there was some kind of secret that a woman couldn’t deal with. That’s the kind of thing that comes to mind!” Skye said defensively. What had he expected her to think?
“Okay, that’s fair,” Jason allowed. Then he snorted. “But totally wrong. It’s—it’s just complicated, all right?”
Sick. That was the first thing that popped into Skye’s mind now. Big Mac King had been sick. Like he’s had some kind of terminal illness and the hunting accident had actually been a cover-up for suicide. That was it! The story made more sense. Maybe Skye was being cruel then. What if Mac had told Tex to take care of his widow? What if Tex and Tisha had started up their relationship with Mac’s blessing because his illness was so advanced that he could no longer perform his—er—husbandly duties?
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