Bench Trial in the Backwoods

by Maggie Wells

  “Abe was a miserable coot, and this proves it,” Margo added, spitting out the words the way the chilly late October rain was spitting at them. She kicked the side of the headstone.

  Janessa really wanted to disagree with that insult, and the kick, especially since Margo had aimed both of them at Janessa’s father. Or rather her father because he had that particular title in name only. However, it was hard to disagree or be insulted after what she’d just heard from Abe’s lawyer. Hard not to feel the bubbling anger over what her father had done, either.

  Good grief. Talk about a goat rope the man had set up.

  “Do you understand the conditions of Abe’s will?” Asher Parkman, the lawyer, asked, directing the question at Janessa.

  “Yeah, do you understand that the miserable coot is trying to ruin our lives?” Margo blurted out before she could answer.

  Yes, Janessa got that, and unlike the stupid social media posts, there was nothing amusing about this. The miserable coot had just screwed them all six ways to Sunday.

  Twenty Minutes Earlier

  “SOMEBODY OUGHT TO put a Texas-sized warning label on Abe Parkman’s tombstone,” Margo Tolley grumbled. “A warning label,” she repeated. “Because Abe’s meanness will surely make everything within thirty feet toxic for years to come. He could beat out Ebenezer Scrooge for meanness. The man was a flamin’ bunghole.”

  Janessa figured the woman had a right to voice an opinion, even if the voicing was happening at Abe Parkman’s graveside funeral service. Janessa’s father clearly hadn’t left behind a legacy of affection and kindness.

  Margo, who’d been Abe’s second wife, probably had a right to be bitter. So did plenty of others, and Janessa suspected most people in Abe’s hometown of Last Ride, Texas, had come to this funeral just so they could make sure he was truly dead.

  Or to glean any tidbits about Abe’s will.

  Rich people usually left lots of money and property when they died. Mean rich people could do mean, unexpected things with that money and property. It was the juiciest kind of gossip fodder for a small town.

  Janessa didn’t care one wet eyelash what Abe did with whatever he’d accumulated during his misery-causing life. Her reason for coming had nothing to do with wills or assets. No. She needed the answer to two very big questions.

  Why had Abe wanted her here?

  And what had he wanted her to help him fix?

  Janessa gave that plenty of thought while she listened to the minister, Vernon Kerr, giving the eulogy. He chirped on about Abe’s achievements, peppering in things like pillar of the community, astute businessman and a legacy that will live on for generations. But there were also phrases like his sometimes rigid approach to life and an often firm hand in dealing with others.

  Perhaps those were the polite ways of saying flamin’ bunghole.

  The sound of the minister’s voice blended with the drizzle that pinged on the sea of mourners’ umbrellas. Gripes and mutters rippled through the group of about a hundred people who’d braved the unpredictable October 30th weather to come to Parkmans’ Cemetery.

  Or Snooty Hill as Janessa had heard some call it.

  The Parkmans might be the most prominent and richest family in Last Ride, and their ancestor might have founded the town, but obviously some in her gene pool weren’t revered.

  Margo continued to gripe and mutter as well, but her comments were harsher than the rest of the onlookers because she’d likely gotten plenty of fallout from Abe’s firm hand. It was possibly true of anyone whose life Abe had touched. Janessa certainly hadn’t been spared from it.

  Still, Abe had managed to attract and convince two women to marry him, including Janessa’s own mother—who’d been his first wife. Janessa figured the convincing was in large part because he’d been remarkably good-looking along with having mountains of money. But it puzzled her as to why the women would tie themselves, even temporarily, to a man with a mile-wide mean streak.

  A jagged vein of lightning streaked out from a fast approaching cloud that was the color of a nasty bruise. It sent some of the mourners gasping, squealing and scurrying toward their vehicles. They parted like the proverbial sea, giving Janessa a clear line of sight of someone else.

  Brody Harrell.

  Oh, for so many reasons, it was impossible for Janessa not to notice him. For an equal number of reasons, it was impossible not to remember him.

  Long and lean, Brody stood out in plenty of ways. No umbrella, for one. The rain was splatting onto his gray Stetson and shoulders. No funeral clothes for him, either. He was wearing boots, jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt that was already clinging to his body because of the drizzle.

  Once, years ago on a hot July night, she’d run her tongue over some of the very places where that shirt was now clinging.

  Yes, impossible not to remember that.

  Brody was standing back from the grave. Far back. Ironic since according to the snippets Janessa had heard over the years about her father, Brody was the person who’d been closest to Abe, along with also running Abe’s sprawling ranch, Colts Creek.

  If those updates—aka gossip through social media and the occasional letter from Abe’s head housekeeper—were right, then Brody was the son that Abe had always wanted but never had. It was highly likely that he was the only one here who was truly mourning Abe’s death.

  Though he wasn’t especially showing any signs of grief.

  It probably wasn’t the best time for her to notice that Brody’s looks had only gotten a whole boatload better since her days of tongue-kissing his chest. They’d been seventeen, and while he’d been go-ahead-drown-in-me hot even back then, he was a ten-ton avalanche of hotness now with his black hair and dreamy brown eyes.

  His body had filled out in all the right places, and his face, that face, had a nice edge to it. A mix of reckless rock star and a really naughty fallen angel who knew how to do many, many naughty things.

  A loud burst of thunder sent even more people hurrying off. “Sorry for your loss,” one of them shouted to Brody. Several more added pats on his back. Two women hugged him, and one of the men tried to give Brody his umbrella, which Brody refused. You didn’t have to be a lip-reader to know that one of those women, an attractive busty brunette, whispered, “Call me,” in his ear.

  Brody didn’t acknowledge that obvious and poorly timed booty-call offer. He just stood there, his gaze sliding from Abe’s tombstone to Janessa. Unlike her, he definitely didn’t appear to be admiring anything about her or remembering that he’d been the one to rid her of her virginity.

  Just the opposite.

  His expression seemed to be questioning why she was there. That was understandable. It’d been fifteen years since Janessa had been to Last Ride. Fifteen years since her de-virgining. That’d happened at the tail end of her one and only visit to Colts Creek when she’d spent that summer trying, and failing, to figure Abe out. She was still trying, still failing.

  Brody was likely thinking that since she hadn’t recently come to see the man who’d fathered her when he was alive, then there was no good reason to see him now that he was dead.

  Heck, Brody might be right.

  So what if Abe had sent her that letter? So what if he’d said please? That didn’t undo the past. She’d spent plenty of time and tears trying to work out what place in her mind and heart to put Abe. As for her mind—she reserved Abe a space in a tiny mental back corner that only surfaced when she saw Father’s Day cards in the store. And as for her heart—she’d given him no space whatsoever.

  Well, not until that blasted letter anyway.

  She silently cursed herself, mentally repeating some of Margo’s mutters. She’d thought she had buried her daddy issues years ago. It turned out, though, that some things just didn’t stay buried. They just lurked and lingered, waiting for a chance to resurface and bite you in the butt. Which wasn�
�t a comforting thought, considering she was standing next to a grave.

  Reverend Kerr nervously eyed the next zagging bolt of lightning, and he gave what had to be the fastest closing prayer in the history of prayers. The moment he said “Amen,” he clutched his tattered Bible to his chest and hurried toward his vehicle, all the while calling out condolences to no one in particular.

  Most of the others fled with the minister, leaving Janessa with Brody, Margo and Abe’s attorney, Asher Parkman, who was also Abe’s cousin. It’d been Asher who’d called her four days ago to tell her of Abe’s death, and to inform her that Abe had insisted that she and her mother, Sophia, come to today’s graveside funeral. Both had refused. Janessa had politely done that. Her mother had declined with an “if and when hell freezes over.” That was it, the end of the discussion.

  But then the letter from Abe had arrived.

  The letter had been postmarked the week before his death, but because she’d been away on business, Janessa hadn’t opened it until this very morning. After reading it, she’d dropped everything and made the four-hour drive from her home in Dallas to Last Ride. She’d arrived just as the funeral had been about to start so there hadn’t been time to ask anyone about the letter.

  “Abe insisted I read his will at the graveside,” Asher announced when Brody turned to leave. “He wanted you to be here,” the lawyer added, giving glances to Janessa, Brody and Margo. Asher huffed, though, when he reached in his jacket pocket and came up empty. “I just need to get my reading glasses from the car.” He kept an eye on the swirling storm clouds as he hurried off.

  “Abe wants it read graveside because he probably hoped we’d all get hit by lightning,” Margo grumbled. Keeping her purple flowered umbrella positioned over her perfectly groomed head of seriously colored black hair, she walked to the tombstone and kicked it with the pointy toe of her red heels. “You miserable puss ball.”

  Janessa saw the muscles tighten in Brody’s jaw. Felt her own stomach tighten, too. Even if the miserable puss ball and flamin’ bunghole labels applied, those things shouldn’t be said at a funeral, and it definitely didn’t seem right to kick a man’s tombstone.

  “I guess you’re wondering why I married him,” Margo went on, talking to Janessa now. “Since it’s obvious I hate every puss-ball inch of him.”

  This definitely didn’t seem like graveside conversation, but yes, Janessa had indeed been wondering that just minutes earlier. Actually, she’d wondered it when she was seventeen and first met Margo, who had already been in the process of divorcing Abe. Instead of asking for an answer, though, Janessa simply shrugged. That lukewarm gesture was apparently enough to keep Margo going.

  “I hate Abe because of the way he treated me after our marriage went south,” Margo continued. “After things fizzled, he fizzled, too, and he turned dirty. And I don’t mean dirty in a good-in-the-sack kind of way.” She paused, and her fit of temper seemed to be waning fast. She sighed. “But before that, Abe did have...appeal when he wanted to have it.”

  Janessa had never actually been on the receiving end of that appeal. Her earliest memories of Abe were of the custody court battles between her mother, Sophia, and him. Shout-filled confrontations and spearing glares aimed at Sophia, but it had spattered onto her, too. Janessa had seen Abe’s angry face plenty of times, and even at that young age, she’d wondered why this man was fighting so hard to get her when he hardly spared her a glance.

  Abe had lost his final custody appeal when at age twelve, she was asked by a judge which parent she wanted to live with. It hadn’t been a fair question, of course. Live with the mother who’d, well, mothered her or the father who wasn’t a father. Of course, Janessa had chosen Sophia, and Abe had walked out. Again, without looking at her. And he hadn’t contacted her since.

  Not until sending her the letter.

  “You didn’t know Abe, not really,” Margo went on. “I mean, your mother divorced Abe when she was still pregnant with you, and she only lived at the ranch a couple of months before she hightailed it out of here.”

  True, and Sophia hadn’t come back. Ever. Added to that, she hadn’t wanted Janessa to come. Ever. Ever. Sophia might have gotten her way on that, too, if Janessa’s teenage rebellion hadn’t kicked in and she’d made the trip to Last Ride. A trip where Abe still hadn’t looked at her and she’d met Brody. It’d been a crazy summer of discovery and mixed emotions.

  Margo glanced over her shoulder in the direction of Asher’s car, and she huffed. “Asher’s sitting in there making a call while we’re all out here risking life and limb.”

  Janessa looked back to confirm that Asher was indeed in his sleek silver Mercedes, and behind his rain-streaked window, he did have his phone pressed to his ear.

  There hadn’t been any lightning in the past couple of minutes so that lessened their chances of losing life or limb while waiting for the lawyer. But the rain was still coming down. That’s why Janessa maneuvered away from Margo and went to Brody, so she could cover them both with her umbrella. He gave her a look with those amber brown eyes that somehow managed to be both chilly and sizzling at the same time.

  “It’s not necessary. But thanks,” he said, his voice a slow Texas drawl. However, there didn’t seem to be any actual gratitude in his tone. Maybe because he believed he couldn’t get any wetter than he already was.

  “You’re welcome,” Janessa answered.

  And with that brief exchange that barely qualified as a conversation, they seemingly ran out of things to say. Apparently, a past intimacy like tongue-kissing a bare chest didn’t keep you connected. Well, except the heat was still there. On her part anyway. She could feel it coming off her own body in thick hot waves.

  “Abe had better do right by me,” Margo grumbled, taking another kick at the tombstone. “He’d better have put in his will that I can keep my house.”

  “Her house?” Janessa asked Brody in a whisper.

  Oh, my. That set off some more muscle twitching in Brody’s jaw, and she didn’t know if that’s because it was a sore subject or if Brody disliked talking to her.

  “Margo got a house on Colts Creek as part of her divorce settlement,” he finally said. “She hated Abe, loved the ranch.”

  Okay, Janessa got that. While she couldn’t say she loved Abe’s ranch, Colts Creek was indeed beautiful. “If Margo got the house in the divorce, then why is she worried about losing it?”

  “Because Abe only gave her the house, not the land beneath it,” Brody explained after a long pause.

  Janessa pulled back her shoulders. What a crappy arrangement, and yet another example of the angry man she remembered from childhood.

  “Why’d you come?” Brody asked, drawing Janessa’s attention next to him. Apparently, they hadn’t exhausted personal conversation possibilities after all.

  It was not the right time to get into the letter so Janessa answered Brody’s question with one of her own. “Uh, how was Abe before he died?” She kept her voice low so Margo wouldn’t hear.

  He stared at her a long time. “Not sick if that’s what you want to know. He was just Abe.”

  Which, of course, could mean a lot of things. “When Asher called to tell me, he said they thought it was a heart attack that’d killed him.” She left it at that, hoping he’d either confirm or dispute that.

  Brody didn’t do either.

  Mumbling something she didn’t catch, he looked away from her, fixing his attention on the tombstone. “Abe had high blood pressure,” Brody finally said several rainy moments later. “High cholesterol, too. He refused to take meds or change his diet so, yeah, the doctors figure it was a heart attack.”

  She jumped right on that. “Figure? They don’t know for sure?”

  “The autopsy results aren’t back yet.” Brody paused, his jaw muscles stirring again. “I wasn’t with him when he died. No one was.”

  The way he said
that made Janessa think there was more that he wasn’t telling her. Of course, there was more she wasn’t telling him, as well. But she also detected something else in his tone. Regret maybe.

  “I know you were close to Abe,” she threw out there.

  He scrubbed his hand over his face. Then he groaned. “Yeah. Abe was an asshole to most people but not to me.”

  “The son he never had,” Janessa said in a mumble. “I remember the way he treated you when I was here that summer.”

  Abe had invited Brody to eat meals with him where they’d talked about business deals he wanted Brody to be part of. Pretty heady treatment for a seventeen-year-old. Janessa had eaten some meals with Abe, too, but not at his invitation. Abe had done a superior job of freezing her out despite the triple-digit temps that summer.

  “He treated you like a son,” Janessa added.

  “Maybe, but you’re Abe’s only child,” he grumbled, “and he had the DNA test to prove it.”

  Janessa turned to him so fast that her nose nearly knocked into the umbrella stem. “He did a DNA test on me?”

  Brody nodded. “He told me it was something he demanded before he filed his first suit to get custody of you.”

  Well, heck. Janessa hadn’t heard a word about this. “He didn’t believe I was actually his daughter?”

  “He wanted it confirmed. Abe wanted a lot of confirmations,” he added in a snarl. “That included proving to the gossips that he hadn’t bedded my mother. He hadn’t.”

  “Why would he want to prove something like that?” she asked.

  “Because you and I are both thirty-three, and I’m only six months older than you. My mother was involved with Abe right before she married my dad and got pregnant. Abe had the DNA test done on me when I was born. I guess because he didn’t want your mother to have any ammunition to use against him in the divorce.”