Reed jerked as if he’d been hit. His gaze shot to Miles then immediately back to her.
“Grandfather,” he repeated. His face closed off.
Then, after a brief moment, his tone both steely and soft, he went on. “That makes sense. Actually explains some things.” He nodded slowly as his eyes took on distance, as if he was recalling the past and making connections. Then his eyes cleared, and his gaze turned sharp as it settled on her. “But what still doesn’t figure is why you got riled at me. Where’d you get the idea I’m working with the old man—excuse me, your grandfather—and trying to run your life?”
He glanced at his boss and got a single headshake in response. Lainie also looked at Miles, who was still up on his high horse. She opened her mouth to contradict him, but then realized he’d neither confirmed nor denied that he’d conspired with Reed to get her married and settled, tied to the ranch and to him.
When Reed looked back at Lainie, his expression was so brittle it seemed it might crack. “Well, which way is it? Am I guilty as charged?” When she didn’t respond, he said, “So maybe you’re thinking now he didn’t tell me anything. Didn’t conspire with me. But instead of giving me benefit of the doubt back there, much less a little information, you chose to take a swing at me.” He snorted with disgust. “Smart of you, Lainie. And trusting. Real trusting.”
Miles’s stance faltered. His gaze darted from her to Reed and back again.
Lainie stared at Reed as if mesmerized, registering both his surprise and his hurt. She saw now, beyond doubt, that it wasn’t his breach of trust but her lack of trust that was the issue. Her knuckles felt raw and sore. His left cheekbone was red, but the hurt she saw in him wasn’t physical. It mirrored her own. And he was masking it with anger, just as she had.
Suddenly she felt exhausted, defeated by her own deception and suspicions. She’d not gotten anything right since she’d first crossed the Texas border—except for loving Reed, and even that she’d messed up. She put her face in her hands, fingertips pressing into her forehead, and wished she could rub away the whole past year.
Reed’s cold gaze settled on his boss. “And you were playing your own game, calling me because you were so worried about her. But you just wanted her back and used me to get her here.” His voice was so tight, it occurred to Lainie she might not get to slug Miles after all. Reed would beat her to it.
“Neither one of you trusted me enough to tell me the truth.” His voice was harsh, no more respect in his manner now than in Lainie’s or her grandfather’s. “You’re a couple of real winners.”
When his gaze again fell on Lainie, it felt so heavy she flinched. “Seems to me you deserve each other, so I’ll leave you to it. For now. But we’re going to talk—all three of us—real soon.”
He turned curtly on his heel. She heard his boots striking the floor, fast and hard, then the front door opened and closed with a thud. She glanced at Miles, who was still looking at the empty doorway. Just a little honesty, she thought, some straight shooting, but all she shared with her grandfather was temper. Distrust. One-upmanship. Reed was right. They deserved each other.
She slammed the office door shut with as much force as she could muster, and Miles’s attention snapped back to her. She crossed the room, stopped in front of his desk and flattened her palms atop it.
“Now, just what the damn hell do you think you proved by dragging me back here?” Gripping an edge of the desk’s leather pad in each hand, she swept it to the side. It crashed to the floor, taking everything with it, and the action was as satisfying as it was destructive.
Miles’s face darkened, but in her reckless rage she felt immune.
“Reed has my keys. I want them. And I want them now.” Her first sweep had missed a crystal vase of yellow roses at the corner of the desk. She slashed it with the back of her hand and sent it flying.
Miles’s gaze followed the flight of the vase, then his attention snapped back to her. He shot out one hand and gripped her wrist. His fingers tightened enough to hurt, but she didn’t struggle. He had her right hand but her left was free—to make a fist or to rake her nails down his face.
His eyes narrowed briefly, then he released her and straightened. He was too tall and the desk too wide for her to reach him. He no longer looked angry. She saw wariness, and speculation—smug speculation.
“You want to hit me, don’t you? You’d give just about anything to take a swing at me.”
“You got that right, old man.” She made sure the title didn’t imply endearment.
“Appears you’ve been a mite too free with your fists already tonight. Maybe if you’d talked to Reed instead of swinging at him, you wouldn’t be asking me now for your keys.”
“You shouldn’t have sent him after me.”
“You think he would have let anyone else bring you back?”
“Why bring me back at all? What’s the point?”
He made no response, his face that familiar mask she couldn’t read. Placing her hands on the desk she leaned toward him. “The way I see it, you just plain got mad. I defied you, but you have to win. At whatever cost. Guess my mother knew that, too.”
When he finally spoke, instead of responding to her question he asked one of his own. “Why did you come out here in the first place, Lainie Sue?”
She noted again that his eyes were much like her mother’s. Silently she answered, I was looking for family, and then she wrenched inwardly at the thought. She said, “I don’t know why I was stupid enough to ever show up here. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t.”
“I’m a wealthy man—”
She guessed where he was going and blew up before he got there. She slammed the side of her fist down hard enough on the desk that she hurt her hand. She cradled it at her chest, staring coldly at him and silently cursing herself for being such a fool. She couldn’t hurt him, so she’d hurt herself.
“You poor, pitiful old fool. You can’t see beyond yourself. Never could. That’s why you lost my mother all those years ago, and now you’ve lost me, too. You ever give me anything, ever try to give me a damned thing, I’ll spit on it and throw it back.”
Miles seemed to age as he stood there, showing all of his years and more. She came close to regretting her words, but in that moment she wasn’t capable of compassion.
“Now I want my keys.” She felt as implacable as she’d ever seen him be. Perhaps it was a family trait. “And I want them right now, or you and I are both going to find out just how much fight I’ve got left in me.”
Heavily, he dropped into his chair and then rubbed his hands across his face as she had earlier, possibly also wishing he could rub away the past. Then he nodded without looking up. “All right. You can have your keys in the morning.”
“Now.”
“No. Getting behind the wheel in the mood you’re in would be like trying to drive when you’re drunk.”
“I want them now.”
“I said no.” He continued to massage his forehead.
As she watched him, she felt her anger slipping away by degrees. Like it or not, she wasn’t going to get the keys tonight. And he might be right. In less than an hour, she’d run the gamut between tense rage and draining exhaustion, and then right back again.
“Okay,” she breathed. As she let the tension go, she swayed, came close to collapse. Quickly, defiantly, she pulled herself up straight. “Someone has to go after my car. But don’t send Reed, with the car or the keys.”
He looked up then. “He’s not guilty of anything, Lainie. This was my doing. All of it.”
“Don’t send Reed,” she repeated. Yes, it was her grandfather’s doing, and hers. Reed had been dragged into it and thrown every which way like a leaf caught in a windstorm.
“Lainie, don’t—”
“I don’t want to see him.” She couldn’t see him. He’d break through what little control she had left, and she wouldn’t be able to leave. But she had to get out of here. Off the ranch. Out of the state.
Miles slumped. “I’ll have it seen to.”
She started across the room. The brunt of anger had worn off but a residue lingered. She felt it in extremities, fingertips and toes. Guilt lay heavy in her gut, and hurt still burned behind her eyes. Traveling to Texas was a mistake, the worst she’d ever made. The urge to run almost blinded her, and on its heels was a sense of loss so sharp it wanted to bend her double.
“Lainie.”
She paused, muscles tightening, but didn’t turn around.
“Where will you go?”
With a soft laugh, but no humor in it, she shook her head. “Why even ask? You’ll trace me, too.”
When she turned and faced him from this distance, she got the whole effect. The computer sat at the short end of the otherwise bare L-shaped desk. The floor was littered with pens, pencils, notepad and the notary deck of file cards. A limp yellow rose rested atop the broken picture frame. The telephone hung by its cord, receiver not quite reaching the carpet. Because it wasn’t beeping to tell the owner it was off the hook, she figured she’d broken it. Too bad.
“You can start looking for me in California. Should’ve never left there in the first place. Or you could just wait for me to send my address. That should be simple enough. I can’t pack everything tonight so I’ll have to send for my things.”
He remained slumped in the chair. She got the hall door open before he spoke again.
“You were right about one thing tonight,” he said quietly. No strength, no life in his voice. “And you were wrong, too. I let your mother go all those years ago and shouldn’t have. When you ran out of here tonight, I was furious, yes—maybe still at her as much as with you. I was bound and determined you weren’t going to run away from me, too. But I can’t stop you now, any more than I could’ve stopped her then.”
Staring into the hallway, she almost relented. If not for the detectives’ reports he’d so freely admitted to—the fact he’d kept vigilance from a distance, unknown to Elizabeth or Walter or Lainie—she probably would have. But she couldn’t get her mind around such cold-hearted noninvolvement. He’d known Elizabeth was dying, yet even then had refrained from reentering her life.
And Lainie’s life had been an open book long before she’d even considered traveling to Texas. All the time she’d been regretting her deceit, he’d been practicing it on a far grander scale than she. She was guilty, but so was he. Too bad they didn’t have a family trait more bonding to share.
“Listen very carefully.” She turned one last time, and waited for him to look up. “This is the first and last time in your life you’ll ever be called by this title. Goodbye, Grandfather.”
*
Dawn was breaking when Lainie heard the sound of her car’s engine. Dressed and ready, half zombie and all nerves, her gaze shot to the front door. She held her breath, clenched her fists. If Reed was out there, she’d lose the only option she had.
Staring at the door, strained almost to the breaking point, she heard the car door open and close, then receding footsteps. She opened the house door just far enough to recognize Randy’s lanky form as he disappeared around the corner of the main house.
She stepped outside, bent to look inside the car and spied keys dangling from the ignition. Her purse still lay on the passenger seat where she’d thrown it last night.
Moving with brittle urgency, she went back for her single suitcase, packed with the bare necessities, and threw it into the back seat. The driver’s seat was too far back and she fought with the lever, almost dissolving into the tears she’d been fighting all night. Finally it gave, and she got the seat in position, but that jab of emotion cost her. An image of Reed, steadfast and sure, flashed into her mind’s eye.
She swallowed hard, got the car started and left Lone Tree behind her.
On top of her pillow she’d left a note, containing three words: Reed, I’m sorry.
She’d spent the whole night composing those three words.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lainie found an apartment in Sacramento and a job with another mortgage company. Rent was more reasonable there than on the Peninsula. It’d also be warmer, but after Texas she didn’t think that’d bother her. She put off sending for her things and charged what she had to on her credit card. She figured Miles would leave her alone, at least for a while, but she wasn’t sure about Reed. She wanted to give him time to either get so mad he’d brush her off or grow so cold he’d stop caring.
Her apartment was upstairs, over a carport and a laundry room, and her arms were full of the only set of sheets she owned, still warm from the dryer, as she climbed the stairs. Halfway up, she absently compared the feel of the sheets with the smooth lining of Reed’s sleeping bags. In an instant the familiar pain hit. Automatically she straightened her back, raised her chin and sucked in her gut like an athlete preparing for an event. In the six long weeks she’d been in California, she’d had a lot of practice combating loss.
She’d also done a lot of thinking, working around the same issue in countless ways, and had ended up with the same bottom line every time. She and Reed had no future together. She’d made a lot of mistakes, so had Miles, and Reed had been pulled in and dragged along like a man tied behind a galloping horse. It was impossible to go back and undo anything, and equally impossible to go forward with things as they were.
Reed loved the land, the ranch, was as much a part of Lone Tree as Miles. Yanking him out of there, asking him to settle somewhere else, would only make the injustice fester. Their relationship had already taken a hard hit, and in time the stress of a forced relocation could too easily destroy whatever she and he had left.
Neither could she return. The rift between herself and her grandfather was jagged and wide. Another factor, which had grown insidiously throughout her time in Texas, was that due to her own guile and guilt, she’d never been completely at ease there. Her memory of the state held an unpleasant edge she was loath to revisit.
She unlocked her door, let herself in and elbowed it closed behind her. The apartment was sparsely furnished, but what was there was a godsend. She dumped the sheets on the double bed. The mattress sagged in the middle and was lumpy everywhere else. To make up for it, she’d bought a decent pillow when she’d purchased the sheets. But she’d chosen foam, not feathers.
Quickly, she again squared her shoulders, stared at the scarred dresser and fought back another stab of memory.
The break had been made. Poorly and hurtfully, but it was done and there was no going back. She’d misread everything, absolutely everything and everybody. What hurt the most was misjudging Reed. Perhaps she’d been right about one thing; she didn’t deserve his love.
Once she’d made the bed, she again considered sending for her things. Her wardrobe was too limited to maintain an office position, and her credit card couldn’t take much more. So she sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a short note to Rosalie, asking her to box up her belongings, and she apologized for the way she’d left. Strain was evident in the letter, no matter how she phrased the sentences. Within a week, her possessions arrived, along with an equally short note that politely wished Lainie well, strain in it also.
As she unpacked, she came across the pale blue nightgown, and stoic resolve couldn’t save her. Feeling Reed’s anguish as strongly as her own, she sprawled across the bed as the sobs racked through her and left her drained and empty.
That evening, though she knew a clean break with everyone was best, thoughts of Jackie Lyn haunted her as they had so often since she’d left Texas. It’d been such a short time since Jackie had suffered at Carl Henry’s hands that Lainie decided she had to talk to her one last time. Since the day had already been packed with emotion, she decided to call now, and perhaps then she truly could put Texas and its people behind her.
“Girl, I’ve been so worried about you,” Jackie Lyn said, voice breathless with relief. “And mad.” Quickly her tone changed. “What do you think friends are for? That pot of stew mig
ht not’ve bubbled over with such a stink if you hadn’t kept such a tight lid on it.”
“Always clearer after the fact, isn’t it,” Lainie said more sharply than she intended.
Jackie’s rejoinder came fast. “You stop that right now, Lainie Sue Johnson. I’m talking about friendship, before the fact and after it, and don’t you make light of it.”
Lainie closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jackie’s voice softened. “You’re uptight, which isn’t surprising. Your whole world has fallen down around you.”
“It got to a point where I couldn’t think straight, Jackie. I still can’t.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“My mistake was in sticking around so long.” Lainie decided not to get into particulars, not knowing how much Jackie had been told, or even by whom. Again she thought of the small community. “It got away from me. Everything did.”
“So you ran.”
“Yeah, I ran.” She swallowed past a sore lump in her throat. “Jackie, I called because...well...are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m working through it. One step at a time, one day at a time, like I told you. No other way to do it. How about you, girl? You okay out there?”
“Oh, yeah. I got a job, a place to live, a paycheck.”
“You had that here. Wish you were close enough I could shake some sense into your hard head.”
Lainie managed a smile. “Guess I’m glad you’re not.”
“If my mama ever gets hold of you, she’ll do worse. She’ll shake you till you rattle. There you were, the daughter of Elizabeth Ann Auburn, but you didn’t own up to it. She said you didn’t play fair.”
Lainie sagged, in body and spirit. “She’s right.”
“No, she’s not.” Jackie’s voice was quiet. “A lot was going on she didn’t know about. None of us did. You did the best you could, I think.”
Hot tears flowed down Lainie’s face. Her throat was too choked for her to speak. Her body tightened into a solid block as she tried to keep the sob inside.
Lone Tree Page 26