by Leah Braemel
“Yup. And I need to make sure everyone’s set for the day.” He grabbed his hat from the hook by the door. “See you later, Gabe. And thanks for helping out with Cody.”
The ride home went too fast; before he knew it they were at his place, the horses brushed and turned out into the pasture, and she was racing into the house.
“I have to get ready for work.”
He leaned against the door as she grabbed the clothes she’d brought with her.
It wasn’t like he’d never watched a woman get dressed before, but he’d found himself entranced by her routine. Each item she’d put on, from the plain bra, to the silky half-slip camisole thingy and white button-up blouse, finishing with a no-nonsense blue skirt and blazer had been like watching a warrior donning his armor. She approached her makeup with the same sort of intensity. Then she’d started in on taming her hair, grumbling about the lack of hair spray or something or other to keep her hair in place. Maybe all that fussing made her feel better, more ready to face the urban jungle, but all he knew was he preferred the light, lacy demi-cup bra that let the top of her nipples peek out and her hair down over her shoulders, soft and loose, ready for him to thread his fingers through.
She smoothed the front of her skirt, a worried expression in her eyes. “How do I look?”
He caught her hands and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “Gorgeous.”
And out of place, his gut ached to admit. She packed the rest of her clothes and belongings into her overnight bag. Once she’d emptied the few hangers from the closet, she poked around under the bed and scanned the bathroom again. “I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything.”
“You got everything.” He swallowed against the realization that when she left, there’d be no trace she’d been there. No toothbrush left in the bathroom, or spare set of underwear or jeans in his dresser. No socks balled up under the bed. Just the scent of her shampoo left on the pillow, and even that wouldn’t be fresh since she hadn’t slept in this bed last night.
As much as he wanted to convince her to stay, he settled for kissing her. “You gonna get in trouble for being late?”
She shook her head. “I’ll just tell Kathy I was working on a case out in the field. It’s not a lie.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “I wish you could stay. I like waking up with you beside me.” Beneath me. Around me. Hell, just in the same room so he could talk to her.
“Sweet talker.” She smiled and lifted up on her toes to kiss him. “I’d like to stay too but I’ve got work to do, and I know you’re itching to check on everyone to make sure they’re hard at work too.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m a task master.” How the hell else would stuff get done if he didn’t take care of it?
“I’m saying you’re a ranch owner with a lot on his plate.” She trailed her fingers down his arms until they reached his hands, then laced them with his. “I know you don’t like to delegate, but you need to learn how. Gabe knows what he’s doing and you can trust him.”
“He’s a good man.”
“I know. So trust him to do his job.” She pressed her lips against his again but before he could take it deeper, she stepped away. “I need to get going or I’m not going to make it to the office today.”
Was that such a bad thing? He trailed her downstairs and out to her car. “I’d be willing to play hooky with you today.” Ever since she’d thrown that challenge out, he’d been turning it over in his mind. Then again, with Jake away, playing hooky really wasn’t an option.
To his disappointment she shook her head. “The sooner I can solve your case, the sooner we can spend more quality time together.” Her eyes widened at her statement and she looked away.
Damn it, she was still skittish about him. Cut her some slack, Grady. She’s been thinking of you as the enemy for fifteen years. Even though she couldn’t say I love you, at least she still wanted to see him after the case was over.
He caught her chin and gently tugged until she looked up at him again. “I like spending time with you. I’d like to spend a whole lot more. But there’s no need to rush into anything if you’re not ready.”
“I just...”
“My family hurt you. I get it. It’s hard to let go of things you’ve been hangin’ onto for a decade or more. I told you before, I’m not going to hurt you, Allie. That’s not saying I won’t screw up and piss you off from time to time, I’m a guy, but I promise I’d never hurt you intentionally.” He stroked her cheek. “Do you believe me?”
“Yeah. I do.” She pulled away from him. “I’ve got to get going.”
He stood in the driveway, watching her car disappear down the lane, waiting until the dust her tires had kicked up had settled.
At the fence to his pasture, Rusher whickered and pawed at the ground.
Ben laughed. “Getting bored? Or wondering why I’m standin’ here in the dirt like a lovesick fool?”
Shit, did he love Allie? Yeah. He couldn’t remember actually saying it out loud to her—if he had, she might have run screaming, claiming he was pressuring her—but the giant leap he’d thought it would be had turned out to be a gentle slide that he’d taken unaware. Now here he was, totally and completely one hundred percent in love.
He wandered over to the pasture and leaned against the fence to scratch behind Rusher’s ears. “How the hell are we going to make a relationship work when she lives so far away, huh? You got any ideas?”
The gelding leaned his massive head into Ben’s chest and snorted when he couldn’t find the treats he sometimes kept in his pocket. “Yeah, I love you too, you big oaf. But the lady’s right—I’ve got work to do.”
Leaving his horse to graze to his heart’s content, Ben climbed in his truck and headed toward the team Dale was originally supposed to be supervising as they worked on the irrigation of the new alfalfa field.
Was Allie right? Did he micromanage? Did Pop ride out to see if the teams had...No. Gramps hadn’t either. Oh, they might get around to checking it out if they were in the area, but they didn’t deliberately check up on everything every day. If Dale said the work had been done, they’d accept his word.
Shaking his head at the revelation, he turned his truck at the next driveway. Maybe he needed to loosen the reins.
Chapter Seventeen
A sense of dread mingled with anticipation as Allie approached the maître d’ at the restaurant and gave her name.
The man brightened. “Ah yes, Ms. O’Keefe, your party arrived early so we’ve seated them already. I hope you don’t mind.”
She followed the tuxedoed host through the tables and found a heavily pregnant blonde woman sitting at a corner table, watching her approach.
Once Allie was seated, the blonde held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Jodi Rodriguez. It’s nice to meet you in person.”
Allie shook the other woman’s hand, intrigued by the sharp assessment the other woman gave her. Somehow it made her feel like she was the one under the investigator’s microscope. “I was surprised that you wanted to meet in person. Normally your firm just couriers the reports to us.”
“That’s true of most reports, but there were a few things I thought might be better explained face-to-face with this case.”
“You found Ed’s child?” Why else would the investigator have called for a meeting? Allie put her water glass down, afraid she’d break the stem from how hard she was gripping it.
The two of them fell quiet when the waiter appeared to take their order. Listening to his recommendations they both ordered, Allie’s nerves jangled over what she might learn about Ben’s future. She ended up using Ben’s trick of waving toward Jodi and saying, “I’ll have the same.”
Once he’d retreated, Jodi resumed speaking. “I understand that you’ve had a chance to talk with the claimants about the situation with their father?”
“Yes. They were shocked—it was very obvious from their reaction that they knew nothing about their father having an affair.”
“Are you positive it wasn’t an act for your benefit?”
“Of course I’m sure. Ben can’t act. If he’s angry you know it.” Even Logan had been shocked. But Jake...Jake hadn’t been. Why hadn’t she noticed it at the time? Shit. Had Jake known all along? Did that change her case?
“Even when we tell you their half brother has been working for the Gradys for the last fourteen years?”
“What?” Allie had heard the cliché of a jaw dropping but hers literally did. How the heck could Ed’s child be living right there with them, and no one knew. Jake’s lack of reaction took on a whole new dimension. And cast a cloud of suspicion both on Ben’s reaction and Allie’s ability on her own judgment.
All the anger and distrust she’d thought she’d buried through surged back, setting her stomach churning.
Jodi removed a report from her case and placed it on the table beside Allie’s plate. “You know him as Gabriel Larson.”
Allie couldn’t stop the gasp of surprise. Gabe? She mentally searched for some similarity in his features with Ben or Jake. Their height maybe, though Jake was a couple of inches shorter than either of them. Ben’s hair was blond, Jake’s light brown and Gabe’s, with his Hispanic heritage, was black. Maybe there was a similarity between Gabe’s and Ben’s noses? And maybe the shape of their eyebrows.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why would Gabe Larson be working and living at Bull’s Hollow but not know he was related to them?”
“This is where it’s better if you don’t ask where we got some of this information, but from what we’ve found, we’re certain Agnes and George kept Gabriel’s birth a secret from everyone. But I gather once George learned Gabriel’s adopted father had left and Gabriel was having some legal problems, he decided to step in. From what I understand, he truly believed the family motto of Gradys looking after their own.”
“Then why wouldn’t George have told Gabe who he was? Or told Ed that Gabe was his son?”
Jodi placed her hand on her belly and stroked, her forehead creasing into a frown. “According to our source, while Mr. and Mrs. Grady were willing to make sure their grandson was properly cared for, they were unwilling to claim him publicly as a true Grady, given his Hispanic background.” When she met Allie’s gaze, her lips were pressed tight. Not surprising for someone whose surname was Rodriguez.
Nor was it surprising considering George Grady’s views, though he didn’t shy away from hiring field labor. It still disgusted her, but he was dead and couldn’t inflict his racist mentality on anyone else again. “I’m sorry.”
“Unfortunately it’s common, especially for older folks.” Jodi’s tone was flat, neutral but Allie figured it was a hard-won war.
But even with knowing Gabe was the missing child, it still left the question of what Agnes had been talking about in that conversation Tank had overheard. Was she or someone else suppressing a will giving Gabe a fair share of Bull’s Hollow?
“As for our investigation into the Panolas. In a nutshell, they’re in over their head in debt and, from what we can gather, they figured your claimant might pay them to make the case go away. It’s all in the report too. Basically it’s a fairly cut-and-dried case of attempted blackmail that went awry.”
“What about the conversation he claims to have overheard?”
Jodi shrugged lightly. “The likelihood is that he did hear something—what are the odds that he would have come up with the idea of a missing heir if he hadn’t?”
“Since the Memorandum is signed by a non-existent George Junior, it’s all moot anyway,” Allie completed.
* * *
Alone in the ranch office, the desk lamp the lone source of light other than the glare of the computer monitor, Ben tapped a note into this year’s breeding notes. It was either that or work on the expenses. That was a no-brainer, breeding schedules won over paperwork every time.
Headlights swept through the window, the long stream of bright white light illuminating the opposite wall then dimmed as whoever the visitor shut off their vehicle.
Heavy boots thumped up the stairs and the office door opened as Jake walked in. “What are you doing here still? Figured you’d be home in bed.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Ben muttered. He’d tried but he couldn’t get the image of his father sleeping with someone—not his mother—out of his head. “Where you been?”
“Dallas.”
Jake’s one-word answer had Ben abandoning his notes. “This whole time?”
“Yup.” His brother held out a worn blue notebook, the type his grandfather used to write up his farm notes. “You need to read this.”
A sense of trepidation raising the hair on his arms, Ben flipped through the journal. His grandfather’s firm writing filled its pages with notes about crop irrigation schedules, cattle breeding and employee performance, similar to the notes he’d been making himself on the computer.
“I turned down the corner of the page where you need to start reading, but it goes on for a few pages.”
Ben found the dog-eared page and scanned the writing.
I overheard young Ben tell his brother that he plans on proposing to that young Daniels girl before they both leave for college. While she’s better suited to being a ranch wife than Cissy ever was for Ed, Agnes is right. The Daniels girl isn’t a suitable wife for the future owner of Bull’s Hollow. The way the world is changing, that boy needs connections that the Daniels girl doesn’t have if the ranch is to stay in our family for future generations.
I’ve tried talking with both my son and the boy but nothing’s penetrated either of their hard heads. Agnes told me last night Cissy seems to think Ben will grow tired of her once he’s at college and exposed to other girls, but I am not convinced. I suspect she’ll soon be coming to us claiming that Ben’s knocked her up. Neither Agnes nor I will tolerate that trick again.
The guilt at the shouting match he’d had with his grandfather shortly after he’d learned Allie wasn’t coming back eased.
He turned to the next page, and the next finding no personal notes, then stopped at an entry written three days later.
Rode out to Stink Creek Pasture to do my own bale count this evening. My suspicion that Daniels had fudged the numbers was right. He’d reported they’d baled less than 100 bales because half the field had been flattened after last week’s storm. I counted over 400.
I suspect Harlan Vance might be in on the scheme to sell the unreported bales since he helped Daniels bale the pasture and stood right beside him when Daniels reported in, but didn’t say a word about the wrong bale count.
Looks like I’ve got two openings to fill in the morning.
Except only Pete Daniels had been fired. Logan’s father had continued to work on the spread for another eight months. A sense of foreboding filling him, Ben read the next day’s entry.
Got an interesting visit from Harlan Vance early this morning. Harlan admitted Pete Daniels had lied about the bale numbers. Claimed he had nothing to do with it and was ratting out Daniels because he knew it was the right thing to do. I suspect he saw me out at Stink Creek Pasture last night and is now trying to save his job.
After I reminded him that he’d not said a word while Daniels had lied to my face, I told Vance that in my eyes that made him an accomplice and I was firing his sorry ass too. Vance then showed me a video he’d taken of my grandson and his boy both fooling around with the Daniels girl yesterday. He told me if I fired him he’d show it to everyone. He threatened that he’d ruin not only Ben’s reputation but our family’s too. While I think it might ruin his son’s reputation just as much I agreed not to fire him as long as he gave me the video—I don’t imagine it will be long before I can find another reason to get rid of trash like him.
Ben left the book open in his lap and lowered his chin to his chest, his jaw locking in place as anger surged through him. “Son of a bitch.”
Vance had set them all up. Even Pete Daniels if he was reading between the lines properly.
Daniels is gone, his daughter too. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Ed is worried Ben might run after that piece of trash girl, but after I showed him the video, he agrees with what I’ve done. We’ve destroyed the video. Keeping such filth would serve no purpose.
Dale reported that two calves are missing from Humble Pie pasture. Looks like the fence was clean cut, not worn down. Reported the missing livestock to the sheriff.
The entry returned to the more usual agricultural report filled the rest of the pages.
“You just read the part about Harlan and the video?” Jake asked.
How the hell had Harlan Vance known to be at The Hollow?
They weren’t supposed to have been there that day. Thanks to his fight with Gramps, he’d been assigned to the western fence line all on his own. Yet Logan had shown up, Allie in tow, and offered to help. At the time he’d thought they were great friends to help him out, but was there something more sinister behind Logan’s offer? Had he manipulated them both?
He hadn’t been faking his injuries that morning—Ben had suspected they were there before Logan had taken off his shirt at the Hollow. The whole morning Logan had been bending carefully, holding his side. It had been his suspicion that those bruises existed that had convinced Ben to duck out of their chores and head for the Hollow.
No, he thought, that wasn’t exactly right.
Logan had suggested they go to the Hollow. Logan had been the first to strip off his clothes, and Logan had been the one to issue the challenge that they join him skinny-dipping. The only explanation was that it had all been planned in advance. Maybe Logan’s injuries hadn’t been as bad as he’d made out.