She felt herself begin to hyperventilate, felt the panic begin to take over, but forced herself to breathe deeply and evenly.
"What do you want, Charlie?" Her voice was harsh, guttural, not at all like her own.
"Geez, Annie. Relax. Can't a guy just come around to check on his family?"
"You don't have a family. Not anymore." You never cared about the family you had while you were here.
"How are the kids? The girl and little Charlie Junior?"
A chill started in her stomach and spread outward. "Fine. They're just fine."
"They ever ask about me?"
Where was this coming from? Charlie ignored both of the children when he lived here and she couldn't believe he would suddenly start caring about them after he left.
"No," she said abruptly.
He sat back down at the table and lifted the coffee cup to his mouth. "Well, that's too bad. I sure think about them. Especially my boy."
The chill seeped into her muscles, into her bones. "We had a deal, Charlie. You agreed to leave and not come back. You agreed."
"Things change. People change."
"We had a deal." A deal she had paid for with her soul.
"I know. But see, I've got this hankering to get to know my boy. You wouldn't begrudge a father the right to know his kid, would you? I was thinking maybe I'd stick around for a while and get reacquainted with him."
You'll have to kill me first. She didn't say the words, maybe because deep down she was afraid Charlie would take her up on them.
"We had a deal. The warrant for your arrest is sitting right on Sheriff Douglas's desk, just waiting to be executed. I'll give you one last chance to leave my house and then I'm calling him."
"You don't have the guts. You never did."
She thought of her children. "Watch me, Charlie. Just watch me. I will not let you come back and destroy their lives. Not again."
His expression hardened. "You want to play hardball? Fine. We'll play hardball. Maybe I'll just go pick my kid up from school. He ought to be getting out in an hour or so. I'm sure he'd love the chance to catch up with the old man."
The chill changed to heat. Sick, greasy heat. She sank into a chair, one hand pressed to her stomach. "You…You'd be arrested before you even reached the school."
"Maybe. Maybe not. You willing to take that gamble?"
"What do you want? I know you don't give a damn about C.J. You never have."
He was quiet for a moment and then he gave that smile, the one that could charm just about everybody in the whole county. It only made her ill. "I was thinking it's time to renegotiate our little agreement."
Ah, here we go. The real reason he was here.
"Renegotiate?"
"I'm not sure I got my fair share for all the years I poured my sweat into this place."
Money. It always came down to money with Charlie. That was the reason he married her in the first place. She had just inherited a wealthy cattle ranch and he wanted it.
Not her. Never her. Just the ranch.
"I gave you everything the Double C could spare and then some in the divorce settlement." Far more than he deserved.
He leaned back in his chair. "That was then. I hear you've had a couple good years. My baby brother might be a killer, but he does know cattle. Plus he's got you spreading your legs for him like you always did to give a little added incentive to perform."
She drew in a ragged breath at his crudeness.
Charlie noticed her reaction, saw he'd pierced her self-control and his mouth twisted into a satisfied smirk. "Didn't mean nothing by that," he lied. "Sorry. Whatever you and him do is your own business. But I figure the ranch is still my business."
"You signed documents saying otherwise. You gave up any future claim to the Double C in the divorce."
"Come on, Annie. Be reasonable for once. You can spare a little more."
"No. Absolutely not."
He was quiet, ominously so, then his expression grew even colder. "You ever tell my little brother about his bouncing baby girl?"
The blood seemed to seep from her face, the oxygen from her lungs. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I'm sure he would just love to know the real reason you entered into a life of marital bliss with me. I wouldn't want to have to tell him how you came begging me to marry you so the kid he put in your belly wouldn't have to grow up having to live with the shame of everybody knowing her daddy was a killer."
Here was his trump card, then. He could always pick out her weaknesses. She knew Charlie wouldn't hesitate to follow through with his threat. He would find sadistic thrill in finally breaking the secrecy around Leah's paternity, would twist everything to make it sound sordid and ugly. And he wouldn't give a damn about the lives he shattered in the process.
She couldn't let him do it. No matter what, she couldn't let him destroy Leah and C.J. and Joe.
"How much?" she asked, in a voice just above a whisper.
He chuckled and raised the cup to her in a mocking salute. "I thought you'd see things my way, sugar. The way I figure it, a guy who's giving up his son ought to get something worthwhile for his trouble. How about, oh, maybe a hundred grand?"
She stared at him. "I don't have that kind of money just lying around! I can barely make payroll each month."
"Little brother must not be as good as I thought. Tell you what, we're running a special this week. How about you give me seventy-five and throw in the keys to that new pickup out there?"
"I don't have that much either!"
He shrugged. "What time does the girl get home from school? Should I tell her first or should I give the news to the proud daddy?"
She closed her eyes, defeated. This would never end, she thought in sudden despair. She would never, ever be free of him. "I'll do what I can," she whispered.
"I thought you would see things my way. Just to show you what a hell of a guy I still am, I'll give you a week to scrape it together. Does that sound fair?"
Numb, she just stared at him and he grinned, shoving his chair back from the table again. "I'll take that as a yes. See you next week, Annie, sugar. Pleasure doing business with you."
Chapter 12
She went through the motions of living the next six days in a fog, feeling as if a live grenade had fallen into her lap and was ready to explode any second.
So many things made a terrible kind of sense now—that eerie photograph, Dolly's poisoning, the downed fences. Charlie had to be behind all of it. He was obviously up to his old tricks, showing her he was still very much in control of her life and making sure she would never be able to find a moment's peace.
His ultimatum hung over her like a gray, ugly cloud and she felt paralyzed by indecision. How was she ever going to meet his demands? To come up with that much money?
A review of ranch accounts confirmed what she feared, that she could only raise half of what he was seeking without borrowing money or selling off some of the stock.
Neither option appealed to her much—she was already extended about as far as she dared go with the bank. And with beef prices so low right now and her cattle thinned by winter she would take a big hit hauling them off to market. It was time to buy, not time to sell.
Still, that seemed to be the best course of action, so she and Joe had just spent the afternoon trying to pick out twenty of her healthiest steers and tagging them for market.
He thought she was crazy. What else would he think? She couldn't tell him the truth. She couldn't possibly let him know why she needed to raise so much extra cash right now so she made up some story about not feeling the ranch had enough on hand for emergencies.
He didn't seem to be buying her excuse but he just shrugged and said she was the boss and she had the ultimate say.
Annie felt miserable lying to him and even more miserable that in only two more weeks the Double C and its cash reserves wouldn't be his problem anymore.
"Looks like we're due for a big one," Joe said now
as they dismounted at the horse barn.
She frowned at him. "Why do you say that? We've seen better weather today than we have all winter."
All day a warm wind had been blowing out of the south, edging the mercury up into to the high forties for the first time since October and turning the Double C into a muddy, dripping mess.
Everywhere she went she heard the plop-plop of icicles melting, and the whole ranch—from the trucks to the cattle to her boots—was caked in cold, heavy muck.
"Spring's coming," she went on. "It's in the air."
"Not quite yet."
Joe pointed to a cluster of benign-looking clouds hovering around the Spanish Peaks. "In about an hour those clouds are going to let loose in a big way. Trust me."
Trust me. The talk of storms drifted right out of her head as her mind caught on the words. She wished fiercely that she could trust him to forgive her if she ever told him the truth.
If she wasn't so afraid of his reaction, she would tell him herself and get it over with and then she wouldn't be going through this angst over Charlie's ultimatum.
She couldn't tell him, though. And she didn't deserve his forgiveness. She had deceived him for thirteen years, had stolen something precious and beautiful from him, and she deserved all the scorn and contempt he would feel if he ever uncovered her lies.
"Annie?"
She blinked and found him watching her with a perplexed look on his lean features. "Did you say something?" she asked.
"I said I'm afraid we're going to lose some of the calves up in the winter range unless we bring them closer to home. I can round up the boys and have them down here by the time the snow hits."
"Whatever you think best," she mumbled distractedly.
He didn't answer her and after a few beats, she lifted her gaze to find him watching her out of those inscrutable dark eyes.
"Spill," he finally said. "What's going on?"
Heat soaked her skin. She couldn't tell him. What would he do if he found out Charlie had come back?
There was no brotherly love lost between the two of them. She knew Joe had threatened his brother to within an inch of his life if he ever bothered her again. She didn't want to see him end up in jail over someone as worthless as Charlie.
"Nothing's going on," she lied.
"So what's with all the short answers and preoccupied looks you've been giving everybody for a week?"
"You're imagining things." She busied herself wrapping Rio's reins around the split rail fence next to Quixote.
"Is it Leah? Before he went to that sleepover at Nicky's house, C.J. told me she was in trouble again."
"Yeah. That must be it." She seized on the excuse, which wasn't exactly a lie. She was upset about Leah, she just had a hard time focusing on anything but Charlie and his threats.
"What's she done now?"
"She had her riding privileges back for not even a week when she skipped half a day of classes yesterday with some of her friends."
"Played a little hooky? Can't say I've never done that."
His mouth curved nostalgically for a moment. When his gaze met hers, he quickly straightened it out into a grave expression. "Which, of course, I deeply regret now."
"I don't understand her. She was supposed to be having a math test—she studied so hard for it—so why would she want to ruin all her progress by skipping class and not even taking the test?"
"Maybe she had her reasons. Did you ask her?"
"All we seem to do is yell. She's now grounded from riding that horse of hers for at least another month. I don't know any other way to get through to her."
He gazed out through the double doors of the horse barn and winced suddenly. "Looks like you'd better come up with something in a real hurry. The horse thing doesn't seem to be working."
She followed the direction he was looking and her eyes widened in shock at the sight of Leah on her forbidden horse cantering toward them as if she didn't have a care in the world.
Annie reeled as if she'd been punched in the stomach. How could her daughter blatantly disobey her like this? Did Leah have so little respect for her that family rules meant nothing?
She could tell the instant Leah spotted them. Her smile faded, replaced by a pinched look of guilt and wariness.
Annie expected her to turn the horse around and flee but instead Leah stiffened her shoulders and reined in Stardust outside the barn then dismounted and led the horse into her stall just as if she had done nothing wrong.
"Easy," Joe murmured to Annie in a voice meant to calm her, but he could tell she barely heard him. She looked like she wanted to cry and he couldn't say he blamed her.
Leah was acting like a juvenile delinquent, flaunting rules and doing whatever she pleased. If she went on like this she was going to find herself in some serious trouble, if she wasn't already there.
He probably should leave. He didn't know if the instinct was self-preservation or just a natural desire to let Annie deal with her children in her own way.
But knowing mother and daughter shared the same temper, he thought he might be wise to stick around just in case things got too nasty and they needed a referee.
Annie took the offensive. "What do you think you're doing, young lady?" she said in an ominously quiet voice.
Defiance in every muscle of her body, Leah started removing the horse's tack. "She needed exercise. She'll go soft if I don't work her."
"You should have thought about that before you decided to skip class yesterday." Her shoulders slumped suddenly, and she looked completely miserable. "Leah, I don't know what to do with you anymore. How can I get through to you?"
"How about not making up punishments that are totally stupid? Barring me from riding Stardust is not fair. She's my horse."
"I'm just trying to make you realize that right now school is the most important thing in your life, whether you want it to be or not."
"You don't care about school or whether I'm flunking out." Leah yanked the saddle off and threw it violently to the ground. "You're just getting off on finally being able to push somebody else around for a change instead of you being the one getting pushed."
Annie swayed as if her daughter had slapped her with more than just bitter words.
Okay, this was getting ugly. Time for the referee. "That's enough," he said sharply.
Leah turned on him, her dark eyes glittering with tears. "Stay out of this," she snapped. "It's none of your business."
"You think I'm going to stand here and let you be deliberately cruel to your mother? Think again. She didn't deserve that from you."
"Yes she did. And you're as bad as she is."
"Watch it, Leah," he snapped. "You're not too big for me to turn over my knee."
"What do you care?"
Tears dripped out of her eyes now and she sniffled loudly and wiped them with the sleeve of her coat. "You don't even care enough about me to tell me the truth. Either of you."
He frowned, baffled by the fury in her gaze aimed not only at her mother but at him. "The truth about what?"
"I know. You can stop with the lies now, both of you. I'm so sick of them I could scream. I know everything."
Annie made a sudden distressed sound. He glanced toward her and saw that all the color had leached from her face, leaving her freckles standing out in stark contrast.
"You…you know what?" she whispered.
"I heard you and my…and Charlie fighting before he left for good. I heard everything. Were you ever going to tell me?"
Joe didn't know what the hell she was talking about but whatever it was, it sure was upsetting Annie. She looked so pale he was afraid she was about to pass out.
"I've been waiting ever since then for you to say something," Leah went on. "But I've finally figured out that you never planned to. Either one of you. You were both going to let me spend the rest of my life living a lie, weren't you?"
"Leah—" Annie began, but the girl turned away.
"I don't care. Do you h
ear me?"
She rushed to the door of the barn then turned back to face him, her face wet with tears. "I don't care that you're my real father. I don't care! I don't want you anymore than you wanted me."
With that bombshell, she ran out of the barn, leaving a stunned silence behind her.
Joe watched after her feeling as if the building had just toppled over on him.
Leah had to be mistaken. She had to be. No way in hell could he be her father.
But one look at Annie's pale face and trembling hands and he knew it was no mistake. She must have been conceived during their one and only time together, that afternoon of her father's funeral.
His hands shook badly as he raked both of them through his hair. "Is it true? She's mine?"
Silent tears coursed down Annie's cheeks and she was breathing as hard as if she had just wrestled a steer all by herself. "I didn't know what to do, Joe."
"You were pregnant and you didn't tell me?"
"How could I tell you? You left and then when you came back…" her voice trailed off.
"When I came back, I ended up in prison."
He drew in a ragged breath. He couldn't deal with this. In a matter of moments his whole life had been turned upside down and he just couldn't process it all right now.
And he especially couldn't face the woman he thought he had known, the woman he thought he had loved.
The woman who had lied to him for more than thirteen years.
"I have to go," he mumbled. He didn't trust himself to say anything else. Without looking at her again, he walked out of the barn.
After he left, Annie wanted to curl into one of the stalls and hide there forever. The grenade she had feared so much had finally exploded and now she had jagged shards of shrapnel lodged in her heart, in her soul. With every breath they drove in deeper.
She didn't know how long she stayed there, her arms huddled around herself, her cheeks soaked with tears.
Eventually reality returned. She couldn't cower in here for the rest of her life. She had spent enough time hiding from the truth and now she had to face it head-on.
She had to go after Leah. Her daughter would have questions—how on earth had she kept them to herself this long?—and Annie knew she owed her answers.
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