Ms. Demeanor

by Danica Winters

  She couldn’t understand her dad’s dislike of them. Though things were tense between Wyatt and Rainier, she could still feel a resounding warmth. And the fact that Merle would go to such lengths to help his son keep out of more trouble spoke volumes about his character.

  Laura’s father hadn’t told her why he held such animosity toward the Fitzgeralds, only that they weren’t to be trusted.

  Then again, she’d never been very good at following her dad’s advice.

  Hopefully, this time it wouldn’t come back to bite her, but the knot in her gut told her there was a very good chance it could.

  Wyatt and Penny disappeared behind the barn, following Merle. Maybe that was what the knot was all about—what they were about to find. No doubt the place would be filled with their investigation and forensics team, and the coroner would soon arrive. Then the questions would start. She’d have to keep her story straight, and she’d never been one for lying.

  “Laura, how about you and I go ahead and step inside.” Mrs. Fitzgerald motioned for her to follow her into the house. “Unless you need to get running.”

  The word running echoed in the air, almost as though someone had struck a bell. No matter how badly she wanted to leave the ranch and resume her normal life, she couldn’t go anywhere. They would have questions for her about her involvement, and if she left, she would only fall under further scrutiny.

  “I could go for a cup of coffee,” Laura agreed.

  “So could I,” Rainier said, but not before darting one more glance after his brother.

  They made their way back inside. Though it hadn’t been that long since Laura had been in the kitchen, with everything that had happened in the last hour, it felt as if days had passed. As she made her way through the living room, the sparkle of silver bows atop colorful presents under the Christmas tree caught her eye. There were piles of wrapped gifts—red, green, blue and even a stack of pink ones adorned with Disney princesses.

  “Do you have grandchildren, Mrs. Fitzgerald?” she asked, gazing toward the princesses in her best attempt to mask the elephant in the room—the coming investigation.

  Eloise beamed. “Just one for now, a beautiful little girl named Winnie. She, Christina and Waylon should be home in a couple of days. He’s in the army, working as an MP, and they’ve been living at the base. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”

  “I’m sure. That’s something to be quite proud of,” Laura said, but as she spoke she noticed the way Rainier’s entire body seemed to tense as they mentioned familial pride and accolades.

  “They’re going to get married soon.” Mrs. Fitzgerald reached over and gave Gwen’s hand a quick squeeze. “Just like my Gwen and Wyatt, and Whitney and Colter. I was hoping that we could have one big wedding over the holidays—you know, put everything bad behind us and use it to start the New Year off with something to really celebrate. Whitney and Colter have been in Spokane, getting everything they think they’re going to need. She sent me a picture of her dress the other day. It’s just beautiful.”

  So all the brothers were engaged, except Rainier. Laura had an idea how he must be feeling. Both her sisters were spoken for, but not her. Her mother had made talking about her failing love life into one of her favorite pastimes. And she loved nothing more than giving Laura regular style hints. Last week’s had been that she should dye her hair, as she was starting to, as her mother put it, “get a little less shiny...you know, that happens as we ladies age.”

  Laura had no idea how dying her hair would make it shinier, but she doubted her mom had meant it as anything other than another jab at her aging-spinster lifestyle. She was the same with her sister—which was part of the reason the three of them rarely had anything to do with one another. Recalling her mother’s words nearly made her groan aloud, but she checked herself. Whether her mother knew it or not, Laura had no intention of living a life completely devoid of love from the opposite sex. She just had no desire to have a relationship her family knew anything about. She hadn’t forgotten how poorly it had gone the last time she’d brought a man around.

  The other ladies made their way into the kitchen, while Rainier walked over to the Christmas tree and ran his fingers reverently over one of the boughs, rolling the needles between his fingertips. His simple action made Laura smile.

  He had missed so much in the last couple years. The closest he had probably been to a Christmas tree had been seeing them in pictures in the magazines that had been passed around his unit.

  “Did you miss this?” she asked, gesturing around the room at the holiday trappings.

  She suddenly realized how alone the two of them were, and it made her feel something almost like attraction toward him. She tried to stuff the feeling away. There could be none of that nonsense.

  Maybe she’d identified her feelings incorrectly. Maybe it was just that she pitied him. If that was the case, she couldn’t fall into the trap of letting her empathy for him morph into something it shouldn’t be.

  “You know, growing up, I used to love Christmas,” Rainier said. “We always had a tree like this one—spruce. Those and ponderosa pine grow all over in this area. It was such a big deal to go pick one out. We’d spend all day in the woods, Dad pointing out what he thought was the perfect tree and my mother inevitably shooting each and every one of them down. It was like a game between the two of them, and it would only come to an end when the daylight faded and they were forced to compromise.”

  That was a far cry from her family’s out-of-the-box trees that they had thrown together each year in just a matter of minutes. One year they had even plastic-wrapped the tree with the ornaments still on, so they wouldn’t have to bother decorating it again the next year.

  “We would have hot chocolate and s’mores that my mother would warm up on the heater on the dashboard,” Rainier continued, as he picked up a red ornament that had fallen to the floor and rehung it on a branch.

  “That sounds really special,” Laura said, not quite sure if she should interrupt his reminiscing.

  He nodded, but she could tell from the distant look on his face that his mind was in the past.

  “It really was.” He turned to face her, and she could see a glistening in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. “I just can’t believe that I’m at risk of losing them all again.”

  Oh, so that was what this was—some veiled attempt to pull at her heartstrings in order to make sure she wasn’t tempted to change her mind about his fate. She wouldn’t let him play that game, either.

  “You have it all wrong if you think you can make me your mark,” she said, taking two steps back from him.

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “You can’t try and manipulate me to get what you want. I know all about your kind.”

  “My kind?” He spat the words. “You mean convict, or do you mean orphans?”

  He was trying to pick a fight. It was a good diversionary tactic from the real issue at hand, but she wasn’t going to let him pull that one over on her, either.

  “I’m just saying that you’re not the first ex-con to think he’s smarter than me.”

  Or hardly the first man who thought himself smarter than me, either, but she bit her tongue before she let the words slip from her. She didn’t want to come off like some scorned woman. She wasn’t anything of the sort, but Rainier needed to remember his place—and his place, right now, was under her thumb.

  “If I was smart, the last place I’d be right now is here.” He stared at her.

  “If push came to shove, if a deputy found out I’d lied for you, I would likely be charged with accessory after the fact,” she whispered, just loudly enough for him, but not the women in the kitchen, to hear. “That would mean we would both be headed to prison. Have you thought about that?”

  “I know what you did back there was a ga
mble,” he said, tipping his chin toward the barn outside. “Your sacrifice doesn’t go unnoticed. You can trust me when I tell you that I had nothing to do with that body.”

  He moved toward her, and she carefully stepped back until her legs pressed against Mrs. Fitzgerald’s ’80s model velveteen sofa. The little hairs of the couch upholstery jabbed into the back of her calves, but it was nowhere near as uncomfortable as Rainier was making her when he looked at her like he was now...a look of compassion, respect and maybe something more.

  “You have to know that I would never compromise you like that,” he added. “Though I’ve only known you...what? A couple of hours? I believe you’re a good person. You’re not the kind of woman who would risk everything if she didn’t think a person was telling the truth.”

  The little zing she had felt for him returned, making her wonder if she would ever be able to control her body’s responses whenever Rainier said something that made her want to smile.

  He moved so close that the only way she could get away from him was by sitting on the sofa, so she plopped down in a most unladylike fashion—complete with a little oomph as the air rushed from her lungs.

  “I’ve been wrong before, Rainier,” Laura said, gripping her hands in her lap so as to not reach out and touch him.

  Thankfully, he stopped his advance and glanced back at the tree. “We all make mistakes, Laura. No one more than me.”

  “So you agree that what you did to your father was wrong?”

  “It wasn’t wrong to do what I did. My biological mother and father may have been the worst parents on the planet. I don’t even know how I made it out of there alive.” He sighed. “How much do you know about my real parents?”

  She had done her research on Rainier Fitzgerald, but it seemed that all his records had started when he’d been about sixteen and had gotten his first speeding ticket. His file had been dotted with a few misdemeanors, just the odd fine here and there that often came with a rambunctious teenager; that was, until the assault on his biological father in some low-end beer joint on the south end of town.

  “Not much,” she said, shaking her head.

  “That night in the bar, when the assault happened, it had been a long time coming.” Rainier turned away from her and went back to studying the tree. “My birth father was an evil man. He did things that should have sent him to prison and kept him there until his dying day, but instead, he got off scot-free... And in the end, I was the one sent away. Life has a wicked sense of humor.”

  She wanted to ask what exactly his father had done, but before she could, there was a knock on the door.

  Mrs. Fitzgerald came shuffling out of the kitchen, a white apron tied around her waist and what looked to be fresh flour on her hands. She smiled at them as more knocking reverberated through the room.

  “Be right with you,” she called, wiping her hands on her apron. “I don’t know why they bother knocking. If the police are done, I would hope that Wyatt would know to just come right on in,” she said, more to herself than to them.

  She opened the door and her hands dropped to her sides and she stumbled backward. “What are you doing here, William?”

  There, standing in the doorway, was a sour-faced man in a business suit. As he looked inside, he smiled, and the action was as crisp and polished as the rest of his exterior.

  “I thought it was high time that I stopped by the ranch and said hello,” William Poe said. He nodded toward Laura. “How goes it, Ms. Blade? Your father mentioned that you were going to be poking your head in at the ranch from time to time, thanks to the family jailbird. You know, if it were up to me there would be more than one Fitzgerald prison bound.”

  The man looked as out of place at Dunrovin as a fox in a henhouse, and just as predatory.

  “What are you really doing here, William?” she asked, getting up from the couch. As she did so she made sure to pull her skirt just a bit lower on her knees. The man had a reputation, and she didn’t want him leering at her.

  He opened his jacket and withdrew a letter. On the front, in big bold red letters, were the words Final Notice.

  “Something was incorrectly sent to my house. I think it belongs to you all.” He flipped the letter toward Mrs. Fitzgerald, but she didn’t bother to try and catch it, and it fell to the floor at her feet.

  “Why would you be getting our mail, Mr. Poe?” Eloise asked, her voice taking on a dangerous edge that Laura wouldn’t have imagined the woman capable of unless she had heard it for herself.

  “Well, Mrs. Fitzgerald, I would hardly know,” William said, a sleazy smile spreading over his face. “But from that note on the front, I thought it better make its way into your hands.” He nudged the envelope with his shoe, leaving tread marks on the paper. “I’d hate to stand in the way of justice being served. You know me. I’ve always tried to be helpful.”

  “We know you to be a thorn in our side,” Mrs. Fitzgerald retorted.

  Rainier walked over to the man. “Why don’t you just get the hell out of here?” he said, pushing him back out the door.

  “How dare you touch me,” William said, his tone filled with hatred.

  “What was that old commercial... Reach out and touch someone?” Rainier asked with a wicked laugh. “You’re lucky all I did was touch you. The next time you set foot on this ranch, you are going to wish that all I did was touch you.”

  “You are going to wish that you never laid your hands on me.” William readjusted his suit jacket in what Laura assumed was his best attempt to save his ego. “I’d threaten to sue, but based on what you’re about to learn, we both know that you and your family wouldn’t have the money to pay me if I won, anyway.” He laughed, the room filling with the foul sound.

  William turned toward Laura. “You know, if you were like your father, you would save yourself some time and just arrest Rainier now.”

  Her stomach clenched. Had he seen something? Had he witnessed her lying for Rainier?

  “There’s no way that man is going to stay out of trouble. In fact, I bet that’s why the police are outside, isn’t it? Are they just waiting to arrest him?” William continued on, seemingly unaware of the questions raging through her. “It wouldn’t surprise me. This family is nothing but trash.”

  “You know what, William? I think Rainier was right,” Laura said, as she walked over to the doorway. “You need to get gone and stay gone.” She slammed the door in the man’s face.

  As she did, she knew it would come back to haunt her. But right now she didn’t need anyone to tell her who or what the Fitzgeralds were. To her, they were just another family that needed her help.

  Chapter Six

  The affection Rainier felt for Laura had grown tenfold in a matter of seconds. The last thing he had expected was for her to stand up to William Poe, his family’s arch nemesis.

  He watched as she leaned over and picked up the envelope from the floor, her skirt pulling tight as she moved, making him want her just that much more.

  He forced himself to look away. His family didn’t need any more drama right now. Since he’d gotten home today they’d found a body, he’d nearly been sent to prison and now William. Rainier hated to imagine what was coming just around the corner. Though, admittedly, if it somehow turned into having Laura in his bed, he wasn’t sure that he would mind so much...as long as no one found out. If his mother ever discovered that they were sleeping together, it would probably be the thing that would push her over the edge.

  She walked back to Eloise and handed her the letter.

  His mom stood still, staring at the door as if she was just waiting for it to open and William to come strutting back inside. The letter in her hands trembled.

  “Mom,” he said gently. “Mom, why don’t you sit down?” He walked over to her and, taking her by the arm, led her to the couch and helped her se
ttle there.

  Her gaze never moved from the door.

  “Do you mind if I take a look at the letter?” he asked.

  She lifted her hand, motioning for him to take it, but said nothing.

  He’d never seen her like this, at least not since the day he’d been sentenced. The memory of her sitting in the wooden stands of the courthouse made shivers run down his spine. He’d vowed he would never make her feel like that again, yet here they were...although this time he wasn’t entirely sure it was his fault. William’s appearance at his family’s home had to simply be a coincidence—at least he hoped so.

  On the other hand, William had mentioned that he’d known Rainier was being released. Maybe he had planned his arrival to coincide in hopes that his homecoming could be ruined. Maybe it was William’s hope that they’d never be happy again. Little had he known that their day had already been ruined.

  Now it was up to Rainier to fix what he could, and help them all to move past what they couldn’t.

  He took the envelope from his mother. It was addressed to the ranch, care of his parents. When he tore it open, a letter fell out, with the same red lettering as on the envelope. It read Final Notice.

  He pulled open the letter and saw it was from the county. As he read the words on the page, they seemed to blend together into a jumbled mess of lines and swirls as he tried to understand how “back taxes” and “working ranch taxation rates” had resulted in “Payment due on or before December 31. If not paid in full, a lien will be placed against the property for $150,489.”

  The number rolled around on his tongue like a sour grape. His family couldn’t owe that much. There had to be some kind of mistake. Where would they get that kind of money?

  According to his mother’s letters over the last few months, they had been barely scraping by, and it was only because of the Yule Night festival that they had managed to pay their bills for the month. Now this?