Stubborn Truth (The Stubborn Series Book 3)

by Arnold, Jeanne

  “Friend, my ass,” Caleb muttered.

  “Lieutenant Halden—settlement papers have been filed in Texas. Why have you avoided commenting about the fate of your company? Does it have to do with the loss of your ex-wife?”

  Another reporter shouted. “HalRem property was transferred to an undisclosed name. How can you deny this?”

  Mr. Halden raised his hands. “I have no comment. Please be respectful and keep your voices down. This is a place of healing and rest,” he said.

  Across the room, I spotted Meggie and Lane. I waved and she nodded. Gabe’s father backed away from the microphone and the media moved in like vultures.

  “Lieutenant Halden, are you stepping down from your position as CEO of Halden-Remington Global Holdings and International Trading Corporation? Can you give a statement?”

  “Does this have anything to do with your mother’s will?” I asked Gabe. “Aren’t things like that private?”

  He leaned in to speak. “They’re yanking theories out of their asses. They love to push his buttons when he gets like this.”

  “We should march right up there and tell him we’re getting controlling shares. Stop him in his tracks,” Caleb snarled.

  “Sir! Satellite offices in Houston and the Halden Tower in San Antonio are being emptied as we speak. We’ve reached out for comment from your representation. They refuse to respond. Do you still deny that HalRem is in trouble?”

  Gabe’s father drew his gaze around, starting in one corner where we were hiding and landing on the wall where Meggie and Lane stood. He stepped back to the microphone, looking irritated, yet poised.

  “Excuse me. Did I not make it clear that this is not a press conference about my business standings?”

  Someone yelled from the back of the crowd, “Better now than never!” Everyone laughed except Meggie. She scowled.

  The press threw questions in the air like confetti. The volume in the room cranked up a notch.

  A security guard stepped up to the microphone. Mr. Halden lifted his hat as if to silence the crowd. “Your continuous, inaccurate conjecture of all things industry related leaves me no choice. Y’all want a statement—I’ll give y’all a statement.” He took a deep breath and folded his arms over his shirt as the room fell silent of chatter.

  The quiet was filled by a siren from an incoming ambulance speeding to the emergency entrance. The newspeople held up their cameras in anticipation while I held my breath and squeezed Gabe’s hand.

  “At the start of spring, the entirety of Halden-Remington’s headquarters will be relocating from Texas to a sprawling lot west of Williston, North Dakota. On the contrary—no one is stepping down.”

  The crowd fired up. Meggie leaned on the wall, and Lane set a hand on her arm. I watched for Mr. Halden to look to her for a reaction, but he continued to field questions. He wasn’t rebuilding his mansion in Texas after all.

  “Holy shit, he’s double-backboned,” Caleb said. “My ears must be plugged.”

  “Isn’t this good news?” I asked as I glared at Gabe’s profile to gauge his reaction.

  His jaw locked and he appeared flush. I wasn’t certain if he was holding in his elation or preparing to swear into the heavens. I knew he had no intention of working for his father, beside his father, or in the same state as his father, once he finished his commitment.

  “Hell, if we’re gonna pilot this ship—it’s damn good news, legs. No more running back and forth to the lone star state.”

  “Meggie doesn’t look happy.”

  “She should be,” Caleb replied. “She never wanted to move to Texas. She stuck to her guns. This way she gets everything she wanted.”

  “That explains the blueprints for a new home,” I said.

  “Explains why Jud’s here to babysit. Lieutenant had this all planned out,” said Gabe.

  “I didn’t think he knew your uncle was coming. Your father was surprised when he first saw him. He didn’t share any of this with Meggie. That’s probably why she looks mad,” I said.

  “Man, he thinks he’s slicker than a boiled onion,” said Gabe.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Sometimes the things that came out of their mouths pulled me up short. When I opened my eyes, I spotted a man in a HalRem hat move toward Mr. Halden. The man’s hand covered the microphone while Gabe’s father huddled in to listen. Straightaway he grabbed the microphone and spoke, “Folks, I’m gonna have to cut this short.”

  Mr. Halden made a beeline to Meggie. She cried out, “Joel? What is it? Is it Emmie?”

  As quickly as the media quieted, they started shouting questions. “Miss Paulsen. Were you aware of your fiancé’s plan to relocate HalRem headquarters?”

  “What is your motive behind the move, sir?”

  Mr. Halden’s security officers held back the reporters while he and Lane ushered Meggie down a hallway and out of sight. My heart pounded in my chest when I spotted the man with white hair standing in the crowd of journalists. I didn’t have a second to tell anyone that Brigg Barrett was among the commotion. Gabe grabbed my sling to pull me along and I gasped. His eyes widened with horror, and he gave me the biggest apologetic look he could muster.

  “I smell trouble,” Caleb drawled. “Lieutenant doesn’t give up the spotlight that easily.”

  Lane called after us. “Hold up!”

  I stopped and rested against the wall.

  “You gotta follow dad. Some guys from the coop have been trying to get ahold of us, but reception here at the hospital is spotty.”

  “What the hell for?” Gabe said. He was as willing to take orders as I was. His older brother tried to turn him around and guide him down the hall.

  “Just follow the lieutenant to Meggie’s. Holler when you get there. Call maternity and ask for Molly’s room,” Lane ordered.

  We headed out the door into the blinding sun. Caleb climbed into Gabe’s truck and set his hand on my knee.

  “There they are. Put the pedal to the metal,” he drawled as a black SUV tore out of the parking lot. Reporters raced to their vans. Gabe pulled off an escape before anyone followed us.

  I pushed Caleb’s hand onto his own leg.

  “Lieutenant’s usually got a driver. I’ve never seen him drive like this. He’s a freaking maniac. I thought only you ran stop signs,” Caleb said.

  “Shut up,” Gabe snapped. He had his knuckles on the horn and wasn’t holding back. At one point, we drove into a ditch to pass a snowplow.

  I held my sprained wrist to my chest and tried to stay still. I leaned away and scowled when Caleb tugged my sleeve off my shoulder to reveal the sling.

  “Aw, come on, legs. Lemme look at it. Your brace is on all wonky.”

  The truck jerked sideways, and Gabe drove over a curb to avoid a line of trucks sitting at a broken stoplight. Power was out in some places—a common occurrence in the overwhelmed city grid.

  “Just give me your hand, and I’ll fix it,” Caleb said.

  Gabe huffed. “Don’t touch her.”

  I held onto his leg to assure him it was okay. I allowed Caleb to fix my brace only because it was irritating my hand. I winced when he straightened my arm. His attentiveness distracted me from Gabe’s driving. When the Velcro closure was undone, he ran his finger across my palm and sent a chill rolling up my arm. He immobilized my wrist and fixed my arm back in the sling. Then the side of his hand grazed my cheek and he dragged the back of his fingers down my neck so Gabe couldn’t see. I snarled quietly so Gabe wouldn’t hear.

  “Y’all might wanna hold off on the gymnastics after sundown.”

  Gabe leaned forward and side-eyed his brother. I would have elbowed Caleb if my arm hadn’t ached. The two of them drove me crazy.

  “Where are you going?” I asked. Gabe turned off the road that led to Meggie’s house. “Did you lose them?”

  “I’m snaking around the back. If it’s a demonstration, the media could be blocking the road.”

  I squeezed his thigh. He looked down as
his eyebrows lifted.

  “The field is covered in snow. You can’t drive through it. Tell him, Caleb.” I turned to find him leaning into his door, gazing at me with a come hither look he had no right to make. He always picked the worst time to flirt.

  “You can always tell a Texan, but ya can’t tell him very much,” he said with an exaggerated twang.

  I grunted. “You think it’s a protest? Why would they hold a protest at Meggie’s house? How would anyone know your father made that announcement about moving HalRem headquarters to Williston? It just happened.”

  Gabe bit his lips and gunned the truck straight into a snowbank. I pressed my arm inside my jacket.

  “Legs, he probably let it leak first because you were hogging all the attention,” Caleb said as he lifted his HalRem hat and scratched his head. “Or maybe we’re getting robbed.”

  Maybe there was a fight in the coop. Maybe Emmie’s babysitter had an emergency.

  The wind gusted across the plains and gave the illusion of a blizzard. My stomach jumped with the front tires when Gabe plowed through another snowdrift.

  “This better not have anything to do with you-know-who,” Gabe said.

  “Hell, I never mix business with pleasure. You know that.”

  The white landscape raced by as Gabe veered toward Meggie’s property. I bumped his shoulder and pointed when I spotted a cloud of smoke blowing sideways in the wind. “Is that smoke from one of your oil wells?”

  He squinted before he pulled his glasses out of his pocket and fixed them on his nose. Without answering, his boot slammed the gas.

  “I hope this isn’t a blast like we saw last summer. Do you think Hunt’s father is trying to take down HalRem oil wells? I saw him at the hospital.”

  Gabe shot a look at me and grimaced.

  “This is so damn typical. Nothing ever goes right on the wrong day,” said Caleb.

  We cruised through the snow, and our bodies jostled and shook. The truck scrambled up an incline, and when we crested the hill, the horizon became visible—and we all gaped at the shocking discovery.

  Caleb’s hands smacked the dashboard. “Gun it, brother!” he shouted. “That ain’t no blast. That’s Meggie’s farmhouse!”

  Seven

  A hook-and-ladder truck blocked Meggie’s driveway. Gabe left his truck running in the side yard where the three of us sat paralyzed by the view, unable to take our eyes off smoke billowing out of the front door. Caleb rolled down his window halfway, and the smell hounded our noses. Finding the farmhouse surrounded by fire companies and rescue vehicles was as upsetting as finding the Halden mansion in Texas flattened by a tornado. Morning looked like night.

  Mr. Halden banged a fist on Caleb’s window. We all jumped out of our skin. Caleb pushed the door into his father and took off without a word. “Y’all stay in the truck until they get this under control. Stay out of the way.”

  An inbound engine fired a siren. Blood rushed from my face as I called Mr. Halden. “Is Emmie okay? Was she here?”

  He slid his hands into his coat pockets and turned. “No one was home.”

  I rolled up the window to block the smoke from blowing in the cab. The wind on the plains made the horrible situation worse. I couldn’t find my aunt amidst the trucks and bystanders. I didn’t know what I would say. Her house was on fire.

  “Should I call Lane? He said to call when we got here. I don’t know if he knew this was happening and didn’t want to tell you or he’s waiting for word. What do you think?”

  Gabe didn’t answer. I shook his leg and faced him. His glasses balanced on the tip of his nose. He didn’t blink or remove his hands from the steering wheel. He stared at the house.

  I found the hospital’s phone number and asked for maternity. They rung Molly’s room, and Lane picked up on the first ring. My voice cracked as I spoke. I told him there was a fire at Meggie’s, but we didn’t know any more.

  “Your brother thinks the old electric could have caught fire,” I told Gabe.

  “I know what happened,” he said in a low voice.

  I stared out the window and watched the firefighters in action. “How? What happened?”

  “I did all this,” he said as he knocked the side of his forehead on the window. He wasn’t making any sense.

  “Jud just pulled in. Do you want to talk to him?”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror and watched Deliah jump down from Judson’s truck and run around the yard toward the back porch of Meggie’s house. Her head was bandaged from the hospital. She was still wearing pajama pants under her dress.

  Gabe’s door flung open. He took off after Deliah, practically leaping into the air as he ran.

  “Gabe!” I screamed, but my voice didn’t project enough to stop him. “Don’t go in there!”

  Deliah sprinted toward the porch steps. Two firefighters tried to stop Gabe before he tore past them to grab her. Judson was on his tail. I slipped off the seat and stumbled face first into the snow. I bit my lips in an attempt not to cry when my wrist crushed under my weight. Someone lifted my shoulders until I was kneeling.

  Caleb set his finger under my chin. The pain eased.

  “Help him, please,” I pleaded as I dared take a glimpse at his eyes. He clutched my jacket at the neck. I was covered in snow. Meggie’s house was burning down thirty feet away, yet the spark in his eyes bothered me. I needed him to chase after Gabe and Deliah. Instead, he pushed me against the front tire and exhaled in my face.

  “I love you, legs.”

  He crushed his lips into mine and smothered me with the force of his upper body.

  Not again.

  I tried to stop him with one hand. He carried on, hungrily biting my lip and kissing me. The repulsive thoughts I had were vulnerable to his spell. My own lips betrayed me in that split second.

  Smoke and cologne choked my airways after he pulled his face off of mine and tossed a glance over his shoulder. The roughness of his scruffy jaw left a burning sensation on my chin. My fighting thoughts returned, and I grabbed a handful of snow.

  Deliah shrieked on the other side of the truck.

  “Stop it, Gabe! Lemme go. Mom’s stuff is in my room! I have to go get it! Her guitar and her letters and books and everything!”

  I readied myself to shoot snow at Caleb and knock him over while he wasn’t looking. He took a leap backward and raised his hands in the air. “I couldn’t let you forget how I feel,” he said.

  I got to my feet and threw the snowball at his head. Then I skated around the hood of Gabe’s truck holding my wrist to my chest. I was going to be sick.

  Gabe seized Deliah’s arms and dragged her away from the smoke as emergency responders cordoned the yard with yellow tape. She fought with all of her might, screaming and kicking until she collapsed in the snow. Judson ran over and scooped her up to haul her over his shoulder. He set her on the backseat of Mr. Halden’s SUV where Meggie was in the passenger seat with her hands over her mouth.

  “Get off this property before I get a shotgun and chase you out,” Judson shouted behind me when a news van skidded into the center of Meggie’s yard. He kicked the bumper with his boot heel. The van didn’t retreat. A police officer intervened and directed the van back onto the road.

  I glanced around, confused, when I realized Gabe was gone.

  “Gabe!” I screamed into the haze.

  “Legs,” Caleb said. He set his hands on my shoulders and nudged me toward the SUV. “Mona Deliah needs you.”

  I took a deep breath and jerked my shoulder back. Everything hurt. My feelings. My arm.

  “Get your hands off of me. If this wasn’t happening right now, I’d tell everybody what you did. Find Gabe. Don’t let him go near the house.”

  Caleb released me. Giving him a lecture about his unrelenting behavior would only fuel his ego.

  Meggie spotted me and opened her door. I thought she would be in tears. I ruined her truck and now her house was disappearing in the smoke.

  “Aunt Megg
ie,” I choked out.

  “Oh, kiddo, you’re trembling,” she said as she climbed down. “I can see it now—the papers are going to have a field day covering the eternally homeless Haldens.”

  I didn’t have the right words. I didn’t know what to say. I expected she thought I was upset about her home. I truly was. But Caleb rattled me to no end. He downright destroyed the last shred of respect I held for him.

  “It’s okay, honey. Please, no tears. Okiedokie?” She appeared to be choking down her own emotions.

  “What do they think started the fire?” I asked.

  She didn’t get to explain. Lane ran through the maze of trucks and called her name.

  “What are you doing here?” she yelled to him. “Go back to the hospital. Molly needs you there.”

  “Her family just arrived. They’re gonna stay with her. I had to be here. I can’t believe this is happening,” he said breathlessly. “Is everyone out? Where’s Emmeline? Where’s Josh?”

  My aunt set a hand on his shoulder. “We’re all fine. Deliah’s having trouble with all of this.”

  “She tried to run inside the house, but Gabe stopped her,” I told him.

  Lane slipped a hand under his cowboy hat and exhaled a cloud of steam.

  “You haven’t slept all night, kiddo. You don’t need to be here,” Meggie said. “They’ll put the fire out, and we’ll move forward from there.”

  “Have you spoken to him yet?” Lane asked her. I assumed he was referring to his father and the announcement about moving his company from Texas to North Dakota.

  “I haven’t had a chance. He’s a solo act,” she replied as she motioned to Mr. Halden at the end of the driveway. “There’s nothing left for me to do. The last few days have been taxing.”

  Lane set a hand on Meggie’s arm. “Go pick up Emmie at the sitter’s house and bring her to my place. Y’all are staying with me as long as you need to. I’ve got all the baby equipment you’ll need. We’ll make it work.” He turned to me. “Where’s Gabe?”

  “He ran off somewhere. Caleb’s looking for him.”