Blame it on Texas: Lightning in a Bottle (Kindle Worlds)
Page 12
“That angry Mr. Carpenter? He’s really a client?”
“He is now. And he’s angry for a good reason. Now, it’s up to me to fix it for him.”
“So you did send him a letter?”
“No, but I know who did.” Without elaborating, he headed out the door to the parking lot. After tossing his briefcase onto the passenger seat, he started the Jeep, and drove to Kingman Lane.
Hamilton Carpenter was nowhere near the doddering fool Wade had described. He was tall, lanky, with gray hair, a thick mustache and a gravel voice that spoke with intelligence and lucidity. After inviting Drew into the house at the Kingman Ranch, he handed him the letter and corresponding envelope.
“Thanks. I appreciate you allowing me to handle this personally.”
The old man shrugged. “Long as I know you weren’t behind it, I think it would be best you find out who’s using your office for their own deeds. In my case, all I lost was my temper. You might lose your license and your whole career over something like this.”
How come this old rancher understood, but Wade couldn’t?
Right away, Drew knew this “official document” hadn’t come from his office. In fact, it was anything but official. The envelope was a standard #10, with a triangular flap, and the return address for his law office was typed in the left hand corner. In the right was a postage stamp. Drew’s office used cream-colored envelopes with a straight flap, embossed with the return address, and a postage meter. The letter was typed on his stationery, no doubt about that, but there were several typos, and the scrawled signature on the bottom looked nothing like his neater, precise script. This was all Wade.
The question now was what the hell he planned to do about it.
****
As she kind of expected, Drew went radio silent after the night of the soft opening, and guilt ate her insides to shreds. It was an automatic reaction for her these days, this assumption the man she’d placed her trust in had somehow screwed her over. She couldn’t help it and couldn’t explain it—not unless she wanted everyone here to know about what happened in New York.
No way. Who’d want to be in business with her or patronize her establishment if they knew she’d once been married to a man who stole money from charities for his own nefarious purposes? In her former building, where for years, the tenants had sucked up to her for friendship and donations and invitations to her annual New Year’s Eve bash, those same residents had turned their backs on her when she needed support, painting her with the same guilty brush as Rob. They made assumptions that, of course, she must have known, must have been a party to his crimes, when in truth, she had her own money, her own accounts, her own interests. For God’s sake, in the last six months of their marriage, she and Rob hadn’t even shared the same bed, much less any financial secrets. Then, when all the sordid details of Rob’s need for the money came out, she went from co-conspirator to media freak in the public eye.
Her conscience chided her that she was still making assumptions about Drew, this time expecting him to shun her like her so-called pals in New York. Maybe. But, in the grand scheme of her life, did it matter? She’d always known the relationship was temporary, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed.
Oh, well. It was probably for the best. She didn’t have time for a love affair. All that mattered now was Empire and the grand opening. Still…
“I never even got to see the sunset.”
“What was that?” Quinn looked up from his seat at the bar.
“Nothing.” She waved him off and went back to stocking growlers of her recently bottled lager on the shelf. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud.
“You wanna see a sunset, take my car and go.”
“No, forget it, I was just—” She reconsidered. “Actually, on second thought, yeah. Give me your keys.”
He glanced at the clock behind him and frowned. “It’s two o’clock in the afternoon. I’m pretty sure you’ve got several hours yet before the sun sets.”
She clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes the way they all had as teenagers. “Duh. I want to take care of a few things in the meantime.”
“Well, okay, I guess.” Dangling the car keys from his fingers, he asked, “You want some company?”
“Why? Do you need a pedicure?” She held out her hand.
In reply, he grimaced and dropped the keys into her open palm. “God, no. Have fun.”
She snorted back her laughter while curling her fingers around the cold metal. All of her brothers were the same. Mention anything girly and they couldn’t deal. “Thanks. Tell Mitch I’ll be back in about six hours.”
“Six hours?! What kind of pedicure are you getting?”
Unable to hide her smirk, she leaned over the counter and whispered, “It’s awful. I’ve got Sasquatch feet. The hair is thick enough to braid and my toenails look like raptor claws. I have to pay extra just to get them to let me in the door.” While he struggled to get that picture out of his mind, she took off for a little solitude.
Once she got into his two-door rental coupe, she sat in the parking lot, engine running, for several minutes. Now what? She really didn’t want a pedicure, wouldn’t know where to go for one, if she did. She had no friends in this town, except the ones inside the brewery.
The other night, Abby Wilson had invited her to stop by and visit her sisters, but she couldn’t remember the name of their ranch. Besides, Abby was probably just being polite. Bo doubted any of them would be thrilled if she showed up on their porch out of the blue. She didn’t want to wind up in her silent, empty house. So, where could she go?
One name came to mind, and she grabbed her phone to scroll through her contacts until she found Connie. “Umm…hi,” she said when the older woman answered. “Are you home?”
“Yeah, just me and Mama. Is something wrong, Bo?”
“No. Not really.” She glanced out the window. Never had she been surrounded by so many people yet considered herself so alone. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. All throughout the trial, she’d had that same sensation. She thought she’d shaken the feeling along with the New York dust. Apparently, she was wrong. “Can…umm…can I come by?”
“I’ll put the coffee on. You know where we live?”
“No, but if you give me an address, I can put it in the GPS in my phone.”
Connie rattled off a house number and street name. “Where you coming from?”
“The brewery.”
“Then it shouldn’t take you more than fifteen minutes. If you get lost, call me back.”
With a destination in mind, Bo put the rental in drive and headed out of the parking lot. Sure enough, within fifteen minutes, her navigation system announced she’d arrived at her destination, a pretty one-story ranch-style house with colorful baskets of flowers hanging from the porch eaves and a rusty wheelbarrow on its side, “spilling” blooms onto the grounds along the walkway. The front yard was a literal fairy land of purple bluebonnets, white morning glories, pink primroses, daisies, and a host of other plants Bo couldn’t name. Connie had always been a nurturer, whether it was plants, animals, or motherless girls. Some things never changed.
Bo turned off the engine, unbuckled her seatbelt, and climbed out of the car. The front door opened, and Connie waited, her smile lighting up her face. But as Bo approached, the smile flipped to a frown.
“Uh-oh. I know that look. What’s wrong?”
She forced a lighthearted air. “Nothing.”
Connie shook her head. “Get inside out of the heat and we’ll talk.”
Bo would have liked to fight, but knew better than to try. Connie would wheedle and cajole and poke until she got the information she wanted. When all that didn’t work, she’d ply her with treats until Bo revealed whatever troubled her. As a teen, she’d often thought Connie had worked with the FBI at one time, sweating mobsters into confessing. The woman was that good—no rubber hose needed. With a defeated sigh, she followed Connie into the house.
“Probably your scent. She’s about eighty percent blind these days, but all her other senses are still sharp.”
Poor thing. “How old is she now?”
“Sixteen. The weather here’s been good for her, believe it or not.”
“I believe it.”
“Come on.” Connie wrapped an arm around Bo’s shoulder. “Let’s catch up.”
Oh, boy. Bo dreaded those words. This was a mistake. She shouldn’t have come here. “You know what? I’m okay. Really.” Her speech was too rapid, a dead giveaway, and she tried to slow down her pace. “I…just…didn’t realize how muchImissedyou until I saw you theothernight.” Crap.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You came to me for a reason. Come on. Let’s sit in the kitchen. I’ve missed our talks.”
The kitchen was indicative of everything Connie had been to Bo over the decades: warm, cheery, cozy, soul-fulfilling. The last of her shields crumbled as the older woman pressed her into a chair.
“Sit,” Connie crooned. “You want coffee, or do you prefer iced tea?”
“Tea, please,” she murmured.
“Good choice. I have some iced oatmeal cookies. Those were always your favorite.”
Bo was a dead duck.
****
Drew stared at the letter and the envelope, his brain buzzing with options. Should he confront Wade directly? Let him know both he and Mr. Carpenter were on to his nonsense and if he tried it again, Drew would press charges? Or should he simply file charges and be done with it? Be done with his only brother—his only remaining family? Could he live with the consequences if he did?
As luck would have it, his intercom beeped again, and Rosa announced through the tinny speaker, “Drew? Mrs. Merrick is on line one. Says she needs your help with a custody issue.”
Mrs. Merrick? A custody issue? Odd. But any interruption right now was welcome. “Did she make an appointment?”
“She doesn’t want to make an appointment. She says this can be cleared up if you’ll give her five minutes of your time right now.”
Well, she definitely knew how to pique his interest. “Okay, Rosa. I’ll take it.” He picked up the phone and punched the blinking first line. “Mrs. Merrick, this is Drew Garwood. What can I do for you today?”
“You can stop being a wuss, for starters.”
He pulled the receiver away to stare at it, waiting for someone to pounce out from some hiding spot and announce he was the butt of an elaborate joke. When that didn’t happen, he replaced the receiver to his ear. “Excuse me?”
“No, I will not excuse you. Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
“About what?”
“About Bo.”
He made a face, realized she couldn’t see him and corrected her. “Bo McKenzie?”
“Don’t play games with me,” she snapped. “You know who I’m talking about. Why are you ignoring her when she needs you most? Come on, Drew. I thought you were smarter than that.”
“Does Bo know you’re calling me?”
“Hmmph. What do you think?”
He rotated his chair to the bookcase behind his desk and back again, enjoying their verbal sparring. “I think she’d be pretty ticked off, if she knew.”
“See? You are smarter than that.”
He chuckled. “Why don’t you tell me whatever it is you want to tell me? Directly. I promise I won’t let her know I heard it from you.”
“You can’t. You and I are engaged in an attorney-client privileged conversation.”
No, they weren’t. But he let her have her way, since it suited his purposes. Besides, this was not a discussion he planned to share with anyone, especially because it did brush up against a real client. “So, tell me.”
“All I’ll say is she’d really like to talk to you, maybe explain things to you about why she reacted the way she did that night. And if you’re interested in hearing what she’s got to say, I sent her off to see the sunset tonight in the best place to view it. I thought you might want to meet her there.”
Click. The line went dead.
The sunset. He’d promised to take her to see the sunset, but over the last few weeks, they’d never seized an opportunity. He winced at the twinge of guilt that pierced his conscience. He should have insisted, should have dragged her out of work late one afternoon, maybe packed a picnic meal to bring with them. But he always thought the brewery was her sole obsession. If Connie was right and Bo had left work early, without outside pressure, something troubled her. Connie seemed to think that trouble was him. Only one way to find out if she was right.
He didn’t have to figure out where she’d gone to see the sunset. There was one perfect view in the canyon, and he’d bet his last dollar Connie Merrick had sent Bo there.
Chapter 10
Bo drove away from Connie’s house, her brain exhausted and drained. Four hours. Four hours of questions and answers, of sweating every word she uttered, monitoring every blink, and struggling to keep one or two secrets to herself—a struggle she’d lost. She felt like she’d just survived a hostage negotiation. The only good thing about the ordeal was, as a reward for revealing all her thoughts, fears, dreams, everything but her Social Security number and blood type, Connie had given her directions to the ideal place to watch the sunset.
She kept her eyes on the sun as she made the trip, gauging the descent. Connie assured her she’d get there in plenty of time. A glint from that bright orange light landed on something metallic on her left, and her gaze caught the gleaming chrome fender of a motorcycle at the end of a driveway, a For Sale sign tacked to the top of the handlebars. Intrigued, she pulled to the side of the road and stopped. The bike looked pretty decent.
She climbed out of the car and walked over to get a closer look. As she studied the bike from every angle, low and high, appreciation for this diamond in the rough sparked her excitement. Definitely a nice option for her. A red Yamaha R1, seven years old, according to the sign, and in possible need of a new clutch. After looking around and finding no one in sight, she swung her leg over and straddled the bike. She’d want to take it for a ride, maybe have a mechanic look at it, but it was in her price range and would definitely solve her transpo issue. She tilted her head back, imagining the wind on her face, and the roar of the engine. Yes, this might be perfect.
The sound of tires crunching on gravel had her leaping off as a guilty flush flooded her cheeks. An old pickup truck came bouncing into view and slowed to a stop beside her. The driver’s window rolled down, and a young man leaned out. “You lookin’ at the bike?”
Well, this was a stroke of luck. “Yes, I am. Are you the owner?”
“It was my brother’s,” he replied. “He asked me to sell it for him.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have the key on you, would you?”
He jerked his head at the passenger side. “It’s in the glove compartment. Hang on a sec.”
Great. While she waited, she walked around the rest of the bike, checking for any cosmetic damage or obvious signs of wear that might affect the price. The slam of the truck door brought her attention back to him.
“Here ya go.”
He was tall and slim, dressed in what she now considered the official uniform of Palo Duro Canyon: plaid work shirt, hard-worked jeans creased with dirt, scuffed boots. His face was sun-baked, and deep grooves creased the corners of his eyes when he smiled.
She took the key. “Thanks. Any particular reason your brother’s selling it?”
“Hank’s married with a kid. Made a deal with his wife that until their son was grown and on his own, he wouldn’t ride.” He shrugged, then must have thought better of what he’d revealed because he held up a hand. “Not that there’s anything wrong with the bike. The clutch sticks a little, but that’s all. Honest.”
“I beli
eve you,” she said. “New moms have a tendency to always think the most horrible things are going to happen. That’s why they say things like, ‘You’re going to poke your eye out with that stick.’”
“You got kids?”
She stiffened as she straddled the bike. “Nope.”
“How come?”
“Never wanted them.” To avoid further conversation on the topic, she kicked the engine to life. For some reason, strangers who wouldn’t normally dare ask anything so personal seemed to think her childless state, by choice, was theirs to debate. Whenever she thought about the last several years, she thanked her lucky stars she hadn’t dragged a child or two through that mud. She revved the motor, listened to the roar, and nodded her approval. “Okay if I take it for a ride?” she shouted. “Let me get a feel for the clutch?”
He waved. “Yeah, sure. Just take it slow for now.”
“Great. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She accelerated out of the driveway and took off down the road. For a few minutes, with the wind in her face, her hair whipping wildly, and the hundred-fifty horses beneath her, she forgot to be unhappy.
****
Drew had stopped at the diner to fill a soft cooler before heading into the canyon. Sure enough, he found Bo exactly where he expected. She sat on a quilted blanket, those mile-long legs stretched out into the dirt, her upper body leaning on her arms, with her hands planted flat behind her back. Her hair was a wild blond cloud around her face, and she wore a blissful smile he’d only seen on her in one other place, his bed. All his resentment drained away while he watched her. Here sat the woman he admired: tough but soft, troubled yet content, guarded and open at the same time. She was unique and challenging and so damn beautiful, inside as well as out. He could probably spend a lifetime with her and she’d still find ways to surprise him.
She never turned her head when she spoke. “How’d you find me?”
“How’d you know it was me?”
She craned her neck to look at him with surprise, which she quickly masked to a frown, before returning her attention to the landscape. “I didn’t. I thought it was Quinn coming to get his car back.”