Spring at Saddle Run

by Delores Fossen

  Millie couldn’t stop herself from moving. From sliding into the long strokes that were definitely pushing right where they needed to push. It was as if her body, her lock, had made the adjustments, because it didn’t take long before she felt herself climbing, climbing, climbing.

  Joe must have felt it, too, because he moved faster. Harder. Hitting the spot that spiraled her, climbing, climbing, climbing until everything inside her gave way. The coil of tension and need snapped, filling her with the rush of pure pleasure. Wave after glorious wave.

  She wanted to go limp, to collapse against him, but she wanted something more. She wanted to watch him as she pushed him over the edge.

  Because she knew his spot, too.

  She was already slick and ready so Millie could take him in, and in, until she felt him buck beneath her. Until the wave after glorious wave racked him, too.

  There was another reason Millie enjoyed this position. With them still face-to-face, she could kiss him while they both shuddered. While their breaths gusted.

  Smiling, she dropped her head onto his shoulder. His arms came around her, holding her close. Heart to heart. And yes, everything was perfect.

  Millie heard herself murmuring something through the haze of pleasure. Words, but it took her a moment for those words to sink in. And they caused her heart to lose more than a couple of beats. Because those words were definitely something she should have never, ever, ever said.

  “I love you, Joe.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I LOVE YOU, JOE.

  Millie knew that had been the worst possible thing she’d ever babbled. He’d known it, too, because she had felt him freeze. Then, he’d cursed. What he hadn’t done was ask her why she’d said it. Joe had continued holding her for a while, and then after he’d made a pit stop in the bathroom, he had told her that it was best he head home.

  And he had done just that.

  He had dressed, given her a peck on the mouth that was missing any and all the heat of his usual kisses. Millie had sat there, still wearing her boa and garters and had watched him walk away from her. Pull away from her, too.

  Millie had dressed as well, gone home and then taken the advice she’d given Skylar. Plenty of wine and ice cream. Those items had become staples in her diet for the past couple of days, but the indulgent pity food hadn’t helped. Nothing would. She had basically taken a really good thing and shot the hell out of it by blurting out “I love you.”

  It wasn’t even true.

  Well, it probably wasn’t. She cared deeply for Joe. He was a good person. A good father. An amazing lover. And she’d told him things she’d never spilled to another living soul. But that couldn’t mean she was actually in love with him.

  Because love would ruin everything between them.

  Maybe if she just played it cool, he’d eventually want another date. Perhaps even a sex date. If she got that chance again, she’d use a ball gag—there had to be one somewhere in one of the porn rooms—so she wouldn’t get the chance to blurt out anything else that fell into the stupid category.

  It was her day off from the shop, but Millie considered going into work just to get her mind off Joe and the research she’d been doing on Ella, but then she thought of something else that could occupy her mind. It had risks though. It might also spur her into a deeper foul mood, possibly even the dreaded pit of despair, but it was something she needed to finish.

  Bringing along her lunch glass of wine, she went into Royce’s office.

  It was cleaner than it had been when she’d last been in here. That’s when she’d walked out on her mother. Laurie Jean must have dusted and straightened up. Must have picked up her wedding rings, too, because Millie saw them on the center of the now-clean desk.

  Millie had no idea why Laurie Jean was so insistent that she hang on to a marriage that no longer existed. Maybe because her mother had put her own marriage in such a precarious position? Perhaps. But it could be something as simple as Laurie Jean not wanting to deal with the talk there’d be when her widowed daughter started dating again.

  Public dating, that is.

  Even though plenty of people probably knew that she’d been seeing Joe—correction, that she had seen Joe—they hadn’t gone out together as a couple. Now that might never happen.

  Drinking more wine and cursing that thought, Millie dropped down into Royce’s chair and laid out a search plan. No more willy-nilly prods and pokes. She wanted to go through every inch of the place, thoroughly, and then she could put the room, and maybe Royce, to rest.

  She searched back through all the desk drawers again. Top to bottom. And didn’t see anything she hadn’t already seen. So, she went to the filing cabinet. It was white, modern, and the top drawer slid out with just a touch. There were some client files inside, but there were also gaps, probably ones that Asher had had removed and taken to the law office. According to her father, Royce had a habit of doing most of the work for clients in his home office before moving them to the law firm.

  The second drawer had folders of receipts, paper credit card statements and such. Millie thumbed through those and realized that a thorough search would include her going through each statement line by line to see if Royce had made any unusual charges. She might be able to ask Frankie to help with that. They could turn it into a girls’ night, and then Millie would have a shoulder to cry on if she found something that shattered her into a million more pieces.

  She sat on the floor when she opened the bottom drawer and saw it was filled with photo albums. And his baby book. Thumbing through it, she could see that his parents had been diligent about taking pictures of him and keeping up with his milestones. He’d learned to walk when he’d been eleven months old.

  Millie doubted that she’d need to go through the albums and baby book with the same “digging for secrets” eye that she would the credit card statements, but she would take another look.

  For now though, she moved back to his laptop, turned it on and started scrolling through the genealogy emails again. If Royce and Ella were indeed related, the proof of it might be in one of those.

  None of the emails mentioned Royce by name and had been sent through an email that he must have set up through the genealogy site. Royce had used a reference number for his ID, and the people who’d contacted him had mostly stuck to that, too. However, there were some from people giving multipage info dumps about their family trees when matched as Royce’s third, fourth and even fifth cousin. Millie didn’t recognize any of the names, and since it didn’t appear Royce had responded to them, he might not have known them, either.

  She continued to skim, but the skimming came to a quick halt when she saw the email from a woman named Roberta Guthrie.

  “‘I believe I know who you are,’” Millie read aloud from the email, “‘and I’ve put off writing to you many times. I hope contacting you is the right thing to do. Your DNA connects to mine through my brother, Harlan Guthrie. I believe you’re his biological son which would make me your aunt.’”

  Millie stopped, reread that and repeated the name, Harlan Guthrie. Like the names in the other emails, she didn’t recognize it, but none of those other DNA cousins had purported to be Royce’s aunt. Or hinted that he hadn’t been the son of David and Sarah Dayton.

  “‘You were put up for adoption when you were just a baby,’” Millie continued to read, “‘and because of the circumstances, I was told it was best if I didn’t try to contact you. I suppose that was the right thing to do, but I want you to know there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought of you, and I pray you’re well. There’s so much I’d love to tell you about your family. If you want to talk, let me know and I’ll send you my phone number.’”

  Millie couldn’t move her fingers fast enough, looking for a response, but she didn’t see one. However, using the search function in his emails, Millie did find one with the name Ha
rlan Guthrie. Royce had sent that particular message to Wilbur Franklin, the PI that the law firm used. And Royce had copied Asher on it.

  She sat back, trying to process that. So, Royce had taken Roberta’s claim seriously enough to involve the PI. Her father, too. They must not have found anything or surely Royce or Asher would have told her, but Millie kept looking.

  Until she found Wilbur’s brief reply.

  Report on Harlan Guthrie attached.

  It, too, had been sent both to Royce and Asher. Millie clicked the attachment, wondering if she was experiencing the same kind of jitters that Royce probably had when he’d opened it. However, her jitters soon turned to shock as the words jumped out at her.

  Confessed to murdering his wife in Houston. A life sentence, no possibility of parole.

  She sat there, staring at the words. Then, cursing them. Well, cursing one word in particular. Her father’s name. Asher had known about this. Millie took out her phone to call him, but she was going to take a page from the PI on this and go over it in person. However, she did make a quick call to Asher’s assistant, Vonnie Diaz, to make sure he was in the office. He was.

  Fuming, seething about being kept out of the loop on this, Millie changed out of her yoga pants, brushed the wine off her teeth and grabbed Royce’s laptop in case her father had a sudden case of amnesia and claimed he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  However, before she left the house, she fired off an email to Roberta Guthrie, just a quick hello to tell the woman that she was Royce’s wife and wanted to talk to her. It took only a few seconds after she hit the send button to get an automatic reply that the email address was no longer valid. Millie had no idea if that meant the woman was no longer alive, but she would need to do a search on her. After she confronted Asher.

  She got in her car and drove straight to the law firm. It wasn’t far, right in the center of town, and she would have easily walked there, or rather marched there, but she hadn’t wanted to risk running into anyone. She had questions, and she wanted answers to those questions right now.

  Vonnie welcomed her with a bright smile. “Your dad’s in with a client right now, but he’ll be finished in just a few minutes. I told him you were coming in.”

  Millie doubted he’d try to sneak out without seeing her, but she decided to keep watch on the parking lot just in case. She paced while she waited. And glanced up at the oil portrait of her father. It was huge, at least twelve feet tall and maybe just as wide, and the artist had captured Asher’s wealth, power and cool sneer.

  “It does make a statement, doesn’t it,” Vonnie remarked.

  Yes, it did, but “flattering” wasn’t one of those statements. However, it did cause her to think of something.

  “Did Royce ever mention having a portrait like this done of himself?” Millie asked.

  Vonnie smiled. “Why, yes he did. In fact, I’m the one who brought it up to him. I’d seen the paintings you had in Once Upon a Time. I told Royce he should hire that artist to do a painting of him.” Her smile faded. “He said he emailed her, but I guess he didn’t have time to go through with getting the painting done.”

  “When was this?” Millie asked. “When did he say he’d emailed the artist?”

  Vonnie tipped her eyes to the ceiling a moment and then shook her head. “I’m not sure, but it wasn’t long before the, well, before the car accident. Maybe a couple of months before,” she added.

  So, perhaps that’s what had first brought Ella and Royce together. The start of their affair. If there was an affair, that is. For two years Millie had been certain the reason Ella and Royce had been together was because they’d been heading off for an afternoon of sex. But maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe everyone had been wrong.

  The door to her father’s office finally opened, and Millie saw Mr. Lawrence come out. He eased off the hat that he’d just put on and gave her his usual friendly smile. Millie attempted to smile back, but she got a flash of her mother between the sheets with him.

  She exchanged a short greeting with Mr. Lawrence and went into Asher’s office. He was seated behind his impressive desk, reading through some papers, and he didn’t even look up when she came in.

  “I’m assuming this is important,” Asher said.

  “It is. Why was Mr. Lawrence here?” she asked.

  Now he looked up at her and frowned. “He’s a client. I can’t discuss him with you.”

  She ignored that, opened Royce’s laptop to the emails from the PI and set it on the desk in front of him. “Can you discuss this with me?” And, no, didn’t tone down the venom in her voice.

  Her father took one short, audible breath and leaned back in his chair. What he didn’t do was look at the emails. Because he clearly already knew what they were.

  “I advised Royce to delete those,” Asher said. Unlike her, his tone was calm as if discussing the weather. So was his demeanor.

  “Delete them?” she snapped, and she was loud enough that it prompted him to get up and shut the door. That told her that his assistant had been kept out of the loop on this, too.

  “Yes,” Asher verified. He was still calm, on the surface, anyway, but he went to his liquor cabinet and poured himself a shot of his favorite Oban scotch. He downed it like medicine. “I knew you’d be upset if you found out.”

  Apparently, this was going to be a conversation where she did a lot of repeating. “Upset.” She was snarling now. “What about Royce? He had to be upset, too, when he learned his father was a killer.”

  “He was.” Asher set his glass aside and went back to his desk to sit. He stared up at her. “Royce didn’t even know he was adopted so I’m certain he hadn’t expected to hear any of this because of a DNA test.”

  So, his parents had kept his adoption a secret. Millie wasn’t sure how they’d pulled that off, but she hadn’t heard even a whiff of gossip about Royce not being their biological child.

  “His parents did the right thing,” Asher went on. “It would have been traumatic for Royce to learn his biological father murdered the woman who gave birth to him. And what would be the point?” He outstretched his hands in a gesture that she was certain he’d used when pleading a case to a judge or jury.

  “The point would have been for Royce to know the truth about who he was,” Millie argued.

  “And what would be the point of that?” Apparently, Asher was going to do some repeating today, too. “Royce certainly wouldn’t have wanted a relationship with a killer. Telling Royce and letting the word get out would have done nothing but feed the gossips.”

  Millie couldn’t dispute the gossip angle. Oh, yes, there would have been plenty of that, and it was probably the primary reason the Daytons hadn’t told Royce. Still, Royce should have known. Too bad neither of them was alive so she could ask them exactly why they’d thought they had a right to keep such a vital piece of information from their son.

  “After Royce got over the shock of what he’d learned,” Asher continued, “I advised him not to tell anyone, including you.”

  Oh, that gave her another slap of anger. “I was his wife,” she reminded him.

  “Yes, and there was no reason for you to know this. It had nothing to do with you and, frankly, it was nobody’s business.”

  Millie heard the sound of strangled outrage burble from her throat. Outrage not only for Asher and his advice but for Royce for taking that advice. But the anger that had lit so fast and so hot fizzled out as quickly as it’d come. It left her with bone-deep weariness. Along with the realization that this was yet something else she hadn’t known about her husband. But Asher did. In fact, her father could have some missing pieces of a very important puzzle.

  “Does Royce have any biological siblings?” she asked.

  Asher blinked, frowned. “I don’t know. That’s the truth,” he snapped when she groaned. “Royce said he wanted to do a thorough bac
kground check on Harlan Guthrie and Harlan’s sister, Roberta, but I talked him out of it. Again, what would have been the point?”

  Because it could be the answer to why Ella and he were together. That was a huge point. One of the biggest in her life. But Millie didn’t tell her father that.

  What would be the point?

  Picking up the laptop, she walked out. And she knew just where to go. Millie got in her car and drove to Joe’s ranch. Only after she got there, it occurred to her that he might not be home, but she spotted him in the corral. He was climbing out of the saddle on a dapple-gray horse.

  And looking pretty amazing while he did it.

  Then again, Joe had “pretty amazing” down pat.

  He didn’t smile when he saw her, but he did come out of the corral toward her. No way was he glad to see her. Not with the walls he was trying to put up between them, but as he got closer, she thought she caught a glimmer of heat in his eyes.

  “I was thinking about doing an H. G. Wells display in the shop,” she said. “I could add a time machine. Then, I could take back what I said to you. I’m hoping you’ll consider it post-orgasm insanity.” She managed a chuckle.

  No chuckle for Joe though. “Millie,” he said on a rise of breath. He said it in such a way that she heard every bit of the weariness he was feeling.

  He was probably about to launch into a talk about why they shouldn’t see each other, but Millie decided to nix that. For now, anyway. She could give him the chance to crush her heart later.

  “I’ve learned a whole bunch of stuff about Royce that you should know,” she started, and then tossed out the million-dollar question. “What if Ella and Royce were brother and sister?”

  Obviously, she should have provided some backstory first because he just gave her a long stare.