by Diana Palmer
“Try to remember that today, while I’m at work. I’ll see you tonight. Unless, of course, you want me to move out.”
His answer was gruff, but reassuringly automatic. “No, damn it. I just wish you’d think about what you’re doing. Jeremiah Kincaid isn’t worth the grief this will cause you, and neither is Baldwin.”
“That’s for me to decide, Jackson.”
With that, she left, feeling as if her heart were hovering perilously close to the ground. This must be love, or arguing with him wouldn’t hurt so darn much. She climbed into her car and looked up at the bedroom window. Jackson waved and blew her a kiss. She blew one back and, feeling a little better, drove away from the house.
To be honest, she had no real desire to attend any of the functions connected to the burial of Jeremiah Kincaid. She really hadn’t liked the man the one time she met him. And, while she appreciated Mary Jo’s efforts with the kids, she had to admit it was pretty difficult to warm up to the woman. Bonnie’s remarks about Dugin didn’t sound very encouraging, either. So why the heck was she willing to fight Jackson so hard in order to do any of this?
It was the principle of the thing.
The issue really had nothing to do with any of the Kincaids. If she let Jackson tell her what to do before they were married, he would expect to go on doing so. That wasn’t the kind of marriage she intended to have. Her mother had drilled the importance of maintaining her independence so thoroughly into her head, Maggie felt uneasy enough about committing herself to a man for a lifetime.
She might have viewed the situation differently if he had asked her not to go. But he hadn’t asked. He’d ordered, and she couldn’t tolerate that. She would never be able to go through with a wedding unless he understood and accepted her need to be treated as an equal, as well as her need to live by her own set of principles.
Keeping that thought firmly in mind, Maggie drove on into Whitehorn and went about her business. After checking in with Bonnie, she ordered flowers for the funeral, drove out to the Kincaid ranch and made a brief sympathy call on Mary Jo, who appeared to be grieving, but holding up well under the circumstances. She also met Dugin Kincaid, who appeared to have every intention of staying drunk for the foreseeable future.
Needless to say, Maggie was not impressed with the man. Nor was she impressed with the gorgeous Kincaid house. It was actually a mansion, by Whitehorn standards, with expensive furnishings and meticulously landscaped grounds. But the whole place had a cold, dismal atmosphere that Maggie was more than happy to escape.
The atmosphere back at Jackson’s house was better than she had expected it to be. To his credit, he’d adopted a let’s-agree-to-disagree attitude, which Maggie found encouraging. She had made no effort to hide her visit to the Kincaids or her attendance at Jeremiah’s wake on Tuesday. When the word got out on the res, she began to receive angry phone calls. While Jackson wasn’t exactly sympathetic whenever she had to handle one, he refrained from saying, “I told you so.” He also remained affectionate with her, which Maggie also found encouraging.
By Thursday, the day of the funeral, she was eager to be finished with the entire mess. Just one more day, and they would have weathered the worst of this particular storm. Perhaps they could even go away for a romantic weekend together.
Maggie felt painfully out of place at the funeral service. She had often been the only nonwhite person attending an event, but she’d never before experienced the subtle waves of hostility she sensed coming from some of the members of the congregation. She didn’t understand it until the pallbearers wheeled the casket down the center aisle of the church and cowboy hats started blooming in every pew.
Of course, she thought, calmly returning the cold glances she received from the men who wore those hats. It only made sense that the members of the Whitehorn Ranchers’ Association would be among Jeremiah’s closest friends. With the grazing leases set to expire in a month, they were bound to see any Indian they encountered as “the enemy.” So why had Mr. Baldwin asked her to represent him?
That question plagued her during the graveside ceremony, but she couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer. When the mourners dispersed, Mary Jo approached her with an obviously inebriated Dugin in tow.
“Thank you for coming, Maggie,” she said, daintily dabbing at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. “You’re coming to the reception, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to intrude, Mary Jo,” Maggie said.
“Nonsense, ya gotta be there,” Dugin said, his voice loud, his words slurred. “We’re gonna have us a party to send the old man off in style. If you don’ show, I’ll have to call that bastard Baldwin and tell him you were a bad girl.”
Mary Jo elbowed him in the ribs, then gave Maggie a pleading look. “Please come. Most of these people are Jeremiah’s friends. I’d like to have some of my own there this afternoon.”
Unable to help feeling sorry for the poor woman, Maggie agreed. “All right. But just for a little while.”
Dabbing at her eyes again, Mary Jo nodded and dragged Dugin off to the funeral home’s limousine. Maggie returned to her rental car and drove to the Kincaid house again. A uniformed maid answered the door and directed her to the dining room, where a lavish buffet had been set out.
Maggie served herself a cup of coffee, then carried it into the adjoining living room, hoping to find an out-of-the-way place to sit. The sofa and matching love seats grouped in front of the massive stone fireplace were occupied, but she spotted an empty pair of wing chairs tucked into a corner. Carefully making her way through the clusters of chatting guests, Maggie claimed one of the chairs with a quiet sigh of relief.
Trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, she sipped her coffee and listened to the general buzz of conversation, mentally planning the romantic weekend with Jackson that she’d been considering all day. Then a tall, gray-haired man wearing a Western-cut suit broke away from a group standing near the grand piano and headed straight toward her. Half expecting a verbal assault, Maggie braced herself while she plastered on a polite smile.
Without waiting for an invitation, the man sat in the other wing chair and looked her over with an expression that was barely short of insulting. “You work for Baldwin?”
“That’s right. I’m Maggie Schaeffer. And your name is?” she asked, declining to offer her hand.
“Robert Myers. I’m the new president of the Whitehorn Ranchers’ Association.”
Maggie studied him for a moment. Myers wasn’t nearly as handsome as Jeremiah had been, but he had the same arrogant bearing she remembered. “Is there something you need from Mr. Baldwin?”
“Yeah. You tell him he’s not off the hook, just because Jeremiah’s dead. We still expect results, and he’d better produce ’em, if he knows what’s good for him.”
“Results in regard to what?” Maggie asked, struggling to maintain a neutral tone of voice.
Myers looked her over again, and this time he made no bones about being insulting. Then he leaned closer, giving her a predatory smile that chilled her blood. “I don’t think I have to spell it out to you, honey. Just tell him what I said. And you can also tell him he’s got one hell of a warped sense of humor to use you as his messenger.”
Then Myers walked back to his companions. Her stomach knotted with fear that Jackson had been right about her boss all along, Maggie got up and left the room. She had to find Mary Jo and say goodbye as quickly as possible. And then she had to talk to Jackson.
Mary Jo Kincaid stood in the entryway, warmly greeting guests as they entered and left, silently cursing her idiot husband. Dugin should be the one listening to all this phony sympathy. But no, he was too busy celebrating the death of the old son of a bitch who’d sired him. Still, she had to admit it was fun to flaunt her wealth in front of all these self-righteous prigs.
Dugin was a wimp, but as Jeremiah’s sole surviving heir, he was now a filthy-stinking-rich one. God, it was wonderfully ironic. Here she was, wearing designer clothes
, playing lady of the manor, with the town’s leading citizens sucking up to her like she’d always been one of them. Hah!
If only they could have seen her the day she was standing on a street corner with her boobs practically falling out of a tank top and a short, tight skirt barely covering her ass, trying to pick up her first trick. It seemed like it was only yesterday, but it wasn’t. She was a different person now. Completely different.
“Mary Jo?”
The sound of her name startled Mary Jo out of her memories. Turning, she saw Maggie Schaeffer staring at her with concern and sympathy. Dear, sweet Maggie. If it wasn’t for her, those other damn Indians wouldn’t have allowed a Kincaid onto the reservation at all.
“Hello, dear.” Mary Jo clasped Maggie’s outstretched hand between both of hers. “I’m so glad you could come. Do you really have to leave so soon?”
“I’m afraid so,” Maggie said with a smile.
“Well, then, I’ll walk you out to your car. I could use a breath of fresh air.”
Mary Jo brushed past the maid and opened the door herself. An old lady dressed in a ratty-looking black polyester pantsuit stood on the porch, her hand raised, as if she’d been about to ring the bell.
“I’m Winona Cobb,” she said. “I’ve come to pay my respects to Jeremiah’s kin.”
Mary Jo shook Winona’s hand. She’d much rather chat with Maggie, but she could hardly neglect her duties as a hostess. The old woman’s eyes widened, then rolled back in their sockets. A second later, she slumped to the floor in a dead faint. Maggie dropped to her knees beside Winona.
“She’s breathing, but you’d better call an ambulance, Mary Jo,” she said.
“When there’s three doctors in my living room?” Mary Jo ordered the maid to fetch one, then knelt down on the other side of Winona. “Winona. Yoo-hoo. Winona, can you hear me?”
The old woman frowned, but didn’t open her eyes. “No need to shout,” she muttered. “I’m psychic, not hard of hearing.”
Mary Jo barely repressed a snort of laughter. “Are you having a vision, Winona?”
Winona opened her eyes, but only to scowl fiercely at Mary Jo. Before she could say anything, however, Dr. Wilson arrived. Mary Jo and Maggie stepped out of the way while he examined the old woman. Five minutes later, he came over to talk to them.
“I think she’ll be fine, but I’d better get her over to the hospital for tests. Would you mind calling an ambulance, Mrs. Kincaid?”
“Not at all,” Mary Jo said, giving him her sweetest smile.
Maggie reached over and squeezed Mary Jo’s hand. “I really do need to leave now. Thanks for inviting me.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll be back out to the reservation next week,” Mary Jo said. “I’ll probably see you then.”
She watched Maggie walk out to the long, curved drive, and, for a moment, wished she could go with her. Even the reservation was a happier place than this big old house, with only Dugin for company. Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she went inside to call an ambulance for that weird old bat on her front porch. A psychic. Hah!
Maggie took one last glance at the Kincaid house, then heaved a sigh of relief and drove away. She ought to demand combat pay for this day’s work. Thank heaven it was finally over. It would feel wonderful to get back to the res.
When she passed the city limits, she reviewed her conversation with Robert Myers. The longer she thought about it, the more worried she became. If Myers felt confident enough to pass on such a direct threat to a U.S. congressman, something was definitely going on, and it had to involve the grazing leases.
She wanted to call Mr. Baldwin and demand an explanation, but she no longer trusted him enough to do so. No matter how hard she tried to rationalize the message from Myers, it smacked of dirty political deals between Baldwin and the ranchers.
Damn it, much as she would love a romantic weekend with Jackson, her instincts said she should head back to D.C. and see what she could learn from other sources. Gripping the steering wheel more tightly, she mashed the accelerator to the floorboards. She had to talk to Jackson and Frank.
Jackson shook his head, unwilling to believe what his old friend Bennie Gonzales had just told him. “Say that again, Bennie.”
“I wouldn’t kid about something like this, Jackson. I know it’s a disaster for your people. Do you have any idea what Schaeffer put in that report?”
“Yeah. She read it in front of the whole tribe, and spent two full days revising it. It was great.”
“Did you read the final version?”
“Well, no, but—”
“It’s too damn big to fax, but I’ll send out a copy by express mail tonight. This thing is so damning of the tribal leadership, she must have pulled a switch on you. I’ll get off the phone now, so you can start calling around for support. You’re gonna need a lot of it, pal.”
Feeling as if he’d been kicked in the face, Jackson hung up the phone and stared into space. God, no. Maggie wouldn’t have betrayed him like that. She wouldn’t have betrayed the tribe. She wouldn’t—
His throat slammed shut. A burning ache pierced his chest. A bitter taste filled his mouth. He was a lawyer. He believed in facts and evidence. And the evidence in this case pointed toward Maggie.
She had never promised to marry him. She hadn’t said she would accept a job with the tribe. She’d insisted on representing Baldwin at Kincaid’s funeral. She hadn’t shown him or Frank the final report.
Hearing a car door slam outside, he turned to the window and gripped the padded arms of his chair so hard, it was a wonder they didn’t crumple. The Little Fed had arrived. Well, wasn’t this just as convenient as hell? Taking deep breaths, he forced himself to release the chair arms, sat back and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Jackson? Frank?” she called from the reception area. “I need to talk to both of you.”
“Frank’s gone home for the day,” Jackson answered. “Come on in my office.”
She rushed into the room a second later and perched on the chair she always used, her forehead wrinkled with worry. “I had a strange conversation with Robert Myers after the funeral today, Jackson. I think I’d better go back to Washington right away, so I can find out what’s going on.”
Jackson shook his head in feigned admiration. “You’re good, Ms. Schaeffer. Damn good. But you can save the theatrics. I already know what’s going on.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, staring at him as if he’d suddenly started to speak in Chinese.
“You’re not the only one with contacts in Washington. I went to law school there, and some of my old classmates work on the Hill. One of them called me a few minutes ago and spilled the beans.”
“What beans?” she demanded. “Jackson, start at the beginning.”
“Now, why should I do that? You probably know more about what’s going on than I do. I’ve gotta hand it to you, Maggie. You fooled me, and everybody else on this reservation. I never dreamed you could be involved in something so vicious.”
“For God’s sake, what are you accusing me of?”
Damn it she really was good, he thought. In fact, she probably had Academy Award potential, if she ever took her act to Hollywood. Well, enough of this bull.
“Your beloved boss introduced some legislation today. According to Bennie, he quoted extensively from your report.”
“So?” she asked. “What parts did he quote?”
“The parts where you recommended the termination of this reservation. And the parts where you recommended that all of the people here be relocated to the Northern Cheyenne reservation at Lame Deer, because our tribal leadership is too weak to adequately serve them. Besides, that way we won’t clutter up so much of Montana’s valuable land.”
“What?” She came off the chair as if a nail had suddenly poked through the seat and into her rump. “I didn’t recommend anything of the sort. There’s got to be some mistake.”
“Yeah, and I’m the o
ne who made it. At the very least, the court will extend those damned leases until Baldwin’s legislation is passed or defeated. It could take months to settle this mess. Maybe even years. I can’t believe how easily you suckered me in.”
“I didn’t sucker you, or anyone else! I read that report in front of the entire tribe. The only changes I made were the ones everyone agreed to.”
“Then why haven’t I seen the final copy? Why hasn’t Frank? We’ve both asked you about it.”
She rolled her eyes as if she were exasperated beyond endurance. “It’s in the back seat of the car, where I tossed it when I was on my way to the post office to mail Mr. Baldwin’s copy. I just forgot to bring it in.”
“Yeah, that’s what you said before.”
“Well, I’ll go get it, then.” She pivoted on one heel and stomped toward the doorway. Jackson called her back.
“Don’t bother. It’s easy to fake a document with all the computer equipment your daddy donated. How would I know if what you show me now was what you actually sent to Baldwin?”
She turned back to face him again, her shoulders rigid, her chin lifted, her eyes flashing with fury. “You could trust me.”
“You don’t know how much I wish I could, Maggie. But I’m afraid it’s too late.”
“I see. Then I’ll, uh…” She paused and cleared her throat before continuing. “I’ll go pack my things and get out of your house. Goodbye, Jackson.”
He sat there, rigid as a chunk of petrified wood, until he heard her car door slam and the sound of the engine faded into silence. Then he rubbed his burning eyes and reached for the phone. He couldn’t allow his emotions to get the better of him. He had to call Uncle Frank and tell him the bad news. Maggie wasn’t the only one who’d been sleepin’ with the enemy. Jackson Hawk had, too.
Fifteen
“Then is it your testimony, Ms. Schaeffer, that Congressman Baldwin has grossly misrepresented the facts cited in your report, in order to pay off illegal campaign contributions from the Whitehorn Ranchers’ Association?”