by Carsen Taite
After Dominic left, Peyton told Bianca to close the door and take a seat. She called Dale and put her on speakerphone. “Dale, she’ll be out this afternoon. I need you to make sure Mary has everything in place.”
“Not a problem,” Dale said. “Mary’s already set up in an apartment next door to Carmen’s and Carmen’s place is all wired up. I vetted the cops who are working with Mary, and we’ve got a whole network of CIs who’re putting out the word that Carmen’s being released because we messed up the evidence, and she has important information for the Vargas brothers.”
“How long will it take for them to get in touch with her?” Bianca asked.
“No telling,” said Dale. “She lost her job when she got arrested, so she’ll be staying put most of the time. If they’re going to approach her, it’ll be through a third party. Probably someone we haven’t seen before who can risk showing his face around Carmen without raising suspicion. Mary and her team will be right there, ready to listen in.”
“Okay, we’ve done all we can do for now,” Peyton said. “I want reports at least twice a day, and if there’s any movement, find me, no matter where I am.”
A few minutes later, alone in her office, Peyton called her mother to check in. The week since the temporary injunction hearing had passed with no word from Neil. Based on Roscoe’s arguments and Neil’s seeming indifference to the whole procedure, the judge had granted a thirty-day injunction, preventing any drilling during that time. If no agreement could be reached, then he would schedule a full-blown hearing and, if Gantry Oil wanted to enforce the contract, they’d be pitted against each other in a court of law. Not only would that impact the future of the ranch, but if Gantry’s attorneys alleged a conflict of interest, it could derail the criminal prosecution. Cyrus Gantry had millions at his disposal, and her only real weapon was the desire to do the right thing. Frustration clouded Peyton’s outlook. Why was she doomed to fight against the Gantry family at every turn?
After confirming with her mother that there was still no word from Neil, she closed her eyes and relived the memory of the first time she’d seen Lily at Cattle Baron’s. The surge of attraction she’d felt when Lily’s spellbinding gaze swept her way was fixed in her memory. From that moment, she’d been captivated. She still was, but she had a job to do, and if she did it right, she could minimize the pain she’d caused. Since Lily didn’t want anything more to do with her, that would have to be enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lily paced Courtney’s front porch while she waited for Skye to arrive. Day before yesterday, when she’d called Skye to tell her she was ready to try to contact Sophia, she’d never expected the meeting would happen so quickly. Apparently, Sophia lived less than sixty miles away, and Skye was on her way to pick Lily up and drive her there. She was a nervous wreck.
When Skye pulled into the driveway, Lily contemplated telling her she’d changed her mind. She walked to the driver’s side window and Skye lowered the glass. “You ready?” she asked.
Lily shook her head and looked back toward the porch. Skye touched her arm and said, “You don’t have to do this, but if it makes any difference, she’s very excited to meet you.”
“Meet me?” Lily felt her voice rise with frustration. “I’m thirty years old, and this whole time she’s had the advantage. If she wanted to meet me, she could have.”
“I don’t think it was that easy.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Not much, but I have a sense about these things. She has a comfortable life, but I get the impression it hasn’t been easy. Wouldn’t you rather ask her these questions yourself?”
Lily wasn’t entirely convinced she was doing the right thing, but she walked around to the passenger side and climbed into the large SUV. They rode the first half of the trip in silence while her thoughts skipped all over the place. Finally, tired of being in her head, Lily fished around for some banal conversation topic that would keep her mind off meeting Sophia. She noticed a child’s car seat in the back. “You have kids?”
“One. Her name is Olivia. She’s two years old.”
“What a beautiful name. Is she…”
“Adopted? Kind of. My wife, Aimee, is her biological mother, but I adopted her so we could both be her legal parents.”
“I’m sorry. That was none of my business.”
Skye shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me. Aside from the day I married Aimee and the day Olivia was born, the day I adopted my daughter was one of the most special days of my life.”
“Do you plan to have more?”
“Sure. We’d like for Olivia to have a sister or a brother.”
“That’s good.” Lily was sorry she’d broached this line of conversation. She wasn’t in the mood to talk about other people’s happy adoption experiences. She knew she wasn’t being quite fair. Until the last few weeks, her own adoption experience had been idyllic. Raised by a rich family, living a life of privilege, she’d wanted for nothing. Her ability to reject the money from her trust was partly due to the fact she’d been educated at the finest universities and was able to earn good money on her own. That might not have been possible if her life had taken a different path. If Sophia had kept her, how would her life have been changed?
“We’re almost there.”
Lily shook off her musings and braced for what lay ahead. “You came out here to see her?”
“I did,” Skye said. “I decided the news that her daughter was interested in a meeting would be best delivered in person.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She’s beautiful. You look just like her.”
Lily glanced out the window to hide the tears she felt gathering in the corners of her eyes. All her life, she’d watched as her friends grew up into versions of their parents. Such a simple thing, but one she’d thought she would never experience. She wiped the tears away. “Tell me something else.”
“She raises horses. She gave me a tour of the stables. Even tried to get me to take a ride, but I’m more of a Harley girl myself.”
Lily spoke fast to keep the tears from coming back. “I rode competitively for many years. My parents came to all my events, but it drove my mother crazy. She wanted me to have a more ladylike hobby.”
Skye shot her a sympathetic look as she pulled off the main road onto a gravel drive with a sign marked Valencia Acres. Dense woods lined the road for about a hundred yards, but then gave way to a modest two-story, pale yellow house with red trim.
As Skye parked the car, Lily glanced around. A few hundred feet from the house was a barn, painted the same yellow as the house. Another large building was set farther back on the property, and she assumed it housed the stables. The setup reminded her of the first time she’d pulled up at the Circle Six, and she wished Peyton was at her side to support her through whatever happened next.
“Are you ready?”
She looked at Skye. Peyton wasn’t in her life and that was her decision, just like coming here today was her choice. It was time to see if she’d chosen wisely. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
They’d barely stepped onto the porch when a woman appeared in the doorway. Lily knew instantly that she was Sophia. They didn’t merely share a family resemblance—Lily could swear she was looking into a mirror, and she was transfixed. Unable to speak, she stood rooted in place.
“Sophia Valencia,” Skye said, “this is Lily Gantry.”
“Hello.” Lily followed the one word by offering her hand in a tentative greeting.
Sophia grasped Lily’s hand in both of her own and offered a nervous smile. “Please, come in.”
The next few minutes were surreal as Sophia pulled a cold pitcher of lemonade from the fridge and offered them a tray of homemade biscochitos. They discussed the unseasonably warm temperatures, the lack of rain, and the price of hay. All the while, Lily grew more and more uncomfortable. The curious gaze of the stranger who sat across from her didn’t
help. Sophia wasn’t her mother. Biology didn’t make a mother. Neither did cookies and lemonade or small talk about mundane subjects. Anger itched inside her. She wanted to throw the plate of cookies against the wall. Splash the cold lemonade in Sophia’s face. Anything to distract her from thinking this was an afternoon tea party and not the biggest confrontation of her life.
But she’d been raised to be a lady, not to kick up a fuss. She wouldn’t cause a scene, but she couldn’t stay here and pretend things were normal. She stood abruptly, almost knocking over her chair. Sophia’s eyes widened and Skye reached out to grab her hand, but she shook it away. “I’m fine. I just need some air.” She backed toward the door. “I’ll be outside.”
Lily stumbled out the door to the porch and down the steps. If she’d had the key to Skye’s SUV, she would have jumped in and driven away. She walked toward the stables, imagining herself on a horse, riding into the distance, leaving all her cares behind.
“Would you like to see the horses?”
She whirled at the sound of the voice that sounded so much like her own. Sophia stood several feet behind her, her expression expectant. Lily couldn’t deny that as much as she wanted to escape, her need to know why Sophia had given her up and why she hadn’t tried to make contact since outweighed her want. The sheer force of her need sent the words spilling out. “Why did you abandon me?”
“Oh, mija.” Sophia took a step toward her and then stopped. “Please, can we talk? I mean really talk. There is so much I need to tell you.” She pointed at the stables. “I have an office in here.”
Lily looked back at the porch, but there was no sign of Skye.
“She’s in the house,” Sophia said. “I told her I wanted to talk to you alone.”
Lily wavered. If she left now, she’d spend her whole life wondering why. She’d opened this Pandora’s box and it was time to deal with whatever came out. She stood back to let Sophia lead the way. “Okay, let’s talk.”
*
Peyton walked through the doors of the federal building and checked the time. She had a meeting scheduled this afternoon with Agent Reed to go over Reed’s preliminary analysis of the records seized from the Gantry Oil offices. Peyton had a knack for numbers, but after spending the last few years in D.C. focused on white-collar crime, the sameness of it bored her. She’d much rather be interviewing witnesses and sifting through crime scene photos than poring over credits and debits on a financial statement. The only reason she’d agreed to meet with Reed was to keep Gellar in the dark as to what she was really up to.
She wouldn’t be able to keep up the charade for long. Eventually, he would notice that key members of the task force were spending a lot of time and resources without garnering much in the way of evidence to bolster the case against Gantry. She only hoped she would be able to bring him the Vargas brothers before he caught on.
Just as she was about to walk through security, she heard a voice call her name, and she looked up to see Dale walking toward her. “What’s up?”
Dale waited until she was right next to her to talk. “Mary called. Carmen got the call and she’s on the move. I’m parked down the street. Let’s go.”
Peyton phoned the office on her way to Dale’s truck. She told Ida she had a personal matter to deal with and asked her to reschedule the appointment with Reed. After they climbed into the truck and were driving out of downtown, Peyton asked, “Where are we headed?”
“A ranch in Wise County. Don’t know much about it. Carmen went out for breakfast this morning and some guy slipped her a disposable cell. She got a call not long ago, and Mary’s convinced it was Arturo. Carmen told him her attorney got copies of all the evidence and she needs to talk to him about it. He gave her an address and detailed instructions about parking by the highway and taking a trail directly to the stables. Mary already had a tracker put on Carmen’s car, so she sent her on her way. They’re taking another route to try to beat her there. We could all be walking into a cluster.”
“What do we know about this ranch?”
“Not a lot. It’s owned by a company called VA Enterprises, purchased a year ago. They raise quarter horses. I called Bianca and she’s seeing what else she can find out, but that’s it for now.”
Peyton looked out the window as the city scenery flew by. “Any chance we could get some of the local agencies involved?”
Dale shook her head. “Not a good idea. I don’t have a good contact in the area, and we don’t have enough time to bring someone up to speed. Besides, I don’t have a clue what we’re walking into and I don’t want to risk it. By the way, your gun is back in the glovebox.”
Peyton had turned in the gun she’d borrowed the night of the warehouse shooting. She opened the glovebox, pulled it out, and checked the slide. “Okay, what’s the plan?”
“Mary got an aerial map and marked what looks like bridle trails.” Dale handed over her phone. “You can pull up the map from her text. She and her guys are going to go in a back way and set up behind the stables. I’ll park us off the highway and we can take another way in to cover the front. We put a listening device and GPS on Carmen’s disposable cell phone that will record her conversations with Arturo. If we’re lucky and he takes it from her, then we’ll be able to track him if conditions aren’t right to nab him there. I’d prefer to get Carmen to safety before we take him down. That’s as far ahead as we can plan at this point.”
“I guess that’ll have to do.” Peyton studied the map and then set Dale’s phone on the console and pulled out her own. No new e-mails, texts, or messages. If they managed to arrest Vargas, they’d be up all night with the aftermath. She opened her messages and started composing a text to her mother to let her know she’d be working late, but stopped before she finished typing. She’d talked to her mother just before lunch and, if she texted her now, she’d think something was up.
Something was up. This was worse than the shooting at the warehouse where they hadn’t expected to be walking into danger. If she didn’t make it out of this alive, would she be content to let her earlier conversation with her mother be her last? They’d talked about the ranch and her mother’s plans for the horses. Maybe it’s time I looked into more modern breeding methods, she’d said. Try and turn things around. Before they’d hung up, her mother said her father was feeling much better today. He’d come down to lunch and was out on the porch enjoying the warm weather. If that was the last talk they had, it had been a good one.
Peyton backspaced over the letters and clicked the back arrow to return to the messages screen. Her last text from Lily was midway down the screen. She’d received it a week ago Sunday, the day she’d shown Lily the house at the Circle Six. Lily had sent it that night before she went to bed: Thanks for showing me your special place. You have a special place in my heart. Can’t wait to see you tomorrow.
The tomorrow Lily referred to in her text had only brought heartache, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to delete the text. Now she’d give anything if this text had been their last conversation rather than the painful scene outside Cyrus’s office.
“We’re almost there,” Dale said. “Start looking for a place we can park the truck out of sight.”
“Will do.” Peyton tucked her phone in her pocket. She needed to focus on the future, not the past, but she made a silent vow that if everything went according to plan and they were able to arrest the Vargases, she would do whatever it took to win back that special place in Lily’s heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“How many horses do you have?” Lily asked. She may have shunned the small talk in the kitchen, but now that she was alone with Sophia, meaningless conversation was her shield.
“We had a big sale a few weeks ago, so we’re down to fifteen. We stand five stallions including this one, Queen’s Ransom. He won the All American Futurity this year.”
Lily followed Sophia to the stall and was greeted by a beautiful Blue Roan who stood at least fifteen hands. All her anger dissolved i
n the face of his cheerful grin. “He’s gorgeous.”
“He’s my pride and joy. I trained him myself. If only I’d been blessed to be petite, I would have raced him too.”
“We’re both tall.” Lily felt silly stating the obvious, but she couldn’t help it. “It’s been both a blessing and a curse.”
“You carry your height well. You’ve grown into a beautiful woman.”
Too much, too fast. Lily wanted answers before they started getting melancholy for a past they hadn’t shared. “We need to talk and I need some answers.”
“You’re right. My office is right down here.”
Lily followed Sophia through the stables to an office in the corner of the building. Sparse, but neat, the small room contained a couple of file cabinets and a desk with a computer. The windows on each side provided plenty of light, and a door on the other side of the room likely housed a closet. Sophia invited her to sit, and she took the chair near the door while Sophia sat at the desk. After a few beats of uncomfortable silence, Sophia started talking.
“Your friend Skye, she explained how you found me. She said that you know Cyrus is your father.”
“She’s not my friend.” The anger was back, and Lily didn’t try to hold it in.
“I don’t understand.”
“Skye is a very nice person, but she’s not my friend. She’s someone I hired to find out whether I have any living blood family. I paid her because I had no idea my birth mother was alive and well and living an hour away. Imagine my surprise when I learned the truth.”