“The water rights can be settled,” Mel said.
“And the temporary dam?” she challenged.
“The Concerned Citizens brought that one on themselves. When they brought the injunction to stop working. But I’ve got a call in to Fabian. I’m going to tell him to make the dam safer, even if he has to violate the injunction. Even if he’s fined for it.”
Kitt looked at him in disbelief. He had told her more in the past minutes than he had ever before. “Can you convince him to do it?”
“Yes. I think I can.”
“Can I print that?”
“Not yet. But when he answers, yes.”
“Why the change of heart?”
“Maybe I’ve decided you’re too powerful as an enemy. I’d rather cooperate with you.”
She studied his face, unreadable in the dim light. “Does Fabian know about your decision to ‘cooperate’ with me?”
“No comment,” he said. “You’re starting to shiver again. Let me take you back to the hotel. You need a hot shower. And probably a good meal. Have you eaten?”
“I’m going to Nora’s,” she said.
“You should wait until the rain slows,” he said.
“I intend to.”
He stood. He offered her his hand, but she ignored it and stood, careful to keep her distance from him. She was conscious that the wet, skimpy fabric clinging to her body made her feel almost naked.
“Thank you for coming to find me,” she said. “But you didn’t have to. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can,” he said. “But will you ever let anybody get close enough to help you do it? Or is that too dangerous for you?”
She stared up at him. Lightning briefly illuminated his handsome face. His expression was hungry and intent.
Why’s this happening? I’m a lone wolf, and so is he.
“That’s a strange question for somebody like you to ask,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, an edge of self-mockery in his voice. “Isn’t it?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BACK AT THE HOTEL, Mel stripped off his soaked clothes. He wanted a hot shower, but he took a cold one. He needed to drive away the too-vivid memory of Kitt’s body pressed against his.
He’d accused her of fearing closeness with another person. This was ironic, for he’d always feared the same thing himself, yet now getting close was precisely what tempted him. He didn’t want to possess merely Kitt’s body, but her mind, her manner, her vivacious spirit, her very soul.
Mel’s problem, he saw, was to stay loyal to Fabian yet break down Kitt’s defenses. He would need every scrap of his skill and guile to make Fabian relent about the dam. He had come here prepared to be as cutthroat as any pirate. Now he was turning into a mediator, a man eager to make peace.
It was a hell of a thing. Nick would laugh his ass off.
Nick would also laugh about Mel’s infatuation with Kitt. Let him. Mel couldn’t help himself. When he stepped from the shower, he wondered if next door Kitt was doing the same thing. He imagined her compact body, her long hair hanging in shining streamers clear to her bare breasts.
Stop it, he commanded himself. Tonight she would be going again to her beloved Nora’s. He wished he was going with her. Instead he had quietly set up a meeting with a group of small landowners, including the noxious Walls.
Fabian had decreed that if he couldn’t buy a big bundle of land like Bubba’s, he would snatch up all the small parcels he could. Mel was to flirt at negotiating for them, to get the owners excited. Fabian wanted word to get around—people in Crystal Creek who cooperated with him could become very rich.
KITT HAD JUST SWALLOWED her last bite of apple pie at Nora’s when the telephone rang. Ken went into the living room to answer it.
“I know the town needs progress,” Nora said over her coffee cup. A copy of Fabian’s statistics lay on the table between her and Kitt. “I know it as well as anybody.” She wrinkled her nose with repugnance. “The problem is I hate Fabian’s master plan. It’s so—so phony, so plastic. A thousand doll houses, nearly identical—ugh.”
Kitt agreed. She didn’t love the Hill Country as Nora did, but Fabian’s plan did seem soulless. The land had its own beauty; it was unique. Why turn it into the same sort of gardened golf courses one could find anywhere? Why drown it under artificial lakes and stud it with look-alike houses?
Ken limped back to the table, his expression solemn.
“A thousand new houses,” Nora repeated. “It’s Attack of the Clones.”
“There might be more than a thousand,” Ken said, shaking his head.
Nora looked appalled. “More? How?”
Ken gave a sigh of disgust as he sat. “That was J.T. He got word something’s up. Mel Belyle’s meeting with a lot of small landowners tonight. He’s most likely trying to cut a deal with them.”
Kitt’s mind raced. Lots of people in the county who owned small chunks of land. Gloria Wall loved to brag of her five acres. There were folks with less, others with much more. “How much land could he get that way?”
“A couple hundred acres,” Ken said. “Over three hundred.”
“But that could be—ye gods!—three hundred more houses,” gasped Nora.
“Yeah,” muttered Ken. He tapped the papers on the table. “J.T. says since these damn stats came out, half the town is willing to sell out.”
“What will he do?” Nora asked. “He and the others?”
Ken shrugged. “He doesn’t know. Hold to his course. Keep Fabian tied up in court. Especially about that dam.”
Inwardly Kitt winced. The dam. Mel would plead with Fabian to give up on the dam. She hadn’t told this to anyone. It might build false hopes. Yet, if Fabian surrendered about the dam and the water rights, he’d take away J.T.’s strongest arguments in court. Fabian could lose a battle, but win the war.
Nora put her elbow on the table and her chin on her fist. “Ken, what’s Cal say about all this?”
Ken frowned. “Cal thinks the best bet would be to back Fabian into a corner and buy him out. Three Amigos wants to make him an offer.”
“But he’d never take it,” Nora objected.
“If they keep him tied up over the water rights—and more—he might have to,” Ken said. “What else can he do? Let the land just sit there?”
Kitt felt the guilty desire to squirm. There it is again. The water rights. The dam. It’s like a game of cards. And the water is the trick that’s crucial.
But again, she said nothing. Mel’s promise might be empty; maybe he wouldn’t even try to change Fabian’s mind. Or the promise might be futile. Perhaps he couldn’t change Fabian’s mind.
Nora looked both disturbed and puzzled. “Can Cal afford to buy that land?” she asked. “Can Three Amigos?”
Ken said, “No. And no. Lord knows how much they’d have to spend in legal fees to pull it off. They’d be in hock up to their necks.”
Nora cocked her head in frustration. “But if they spend that much to get the land, what will they do with it, to make it worth what they’ve paid?”
“That’s the catch,” Ken said. “They’d have to develop it.”
“Yi-yi-yi,” said Nora. “J.T.’s having none of that, I’ll bet.”
“You’re right. He’s having none of it.” Ken drained his coffee cup.
Nora drummed her fingers on the tabletop. She took a deep breath. “So J.T.’s set on doing it his way? Just try for an endless legal standoff?”
“That’s right,” said Ken. “With a little help from Cal.”
“Emphasis on the little,” Nora said glumly. “And you know where that leaves us?”
“Where?” Kitt asked.
“In a quandary.” Nora gave the papers a sharp flick with her finger, as if she could punish them for the trouble they’d created. “It can’t come out right. J.T. can’t win. I don’t think Cal and his friends can, either. Fabian has too much money. They shouldn’t even take the chance.”
“Cal
’s always taken chances,” Ken said. “That’s his strength.”
Nora didn’t look convinced. “It could also be his fatal weakness.”
When Kitt left, the conversation haunted her all the way back to town. She wondered if Mel was still at his meeting, buying pieces of the county, fragment by fragment. And she wondered for the dozenth time if he’d been sincere about changing Fabian’s mind.
The issue of the water controlled the entire future of Crystal Creek. But who, ultimately, would control the water? Would Mel decide the balance? Could he?
It struck her suddenly that she had listened to talk about Cal McKinney all night without cringing. It was as if he had at last become an ordinary man to her; the spell was broken. The man she had been unable to forget, for even a moment, was Mel.
CAL AND HIS FATHER WERE at loggerheads. The two men stood at the bar, J.T. glowering at his son.
“I can do it,” Cal vowed. “I’ve talked to my partners. They’re willing. We make Fabian a standing offer. If he balks, we turn up the pressure.”
J.T.’s glance was sarcastic. “With your free lawyers?”
“Okay,” Cal said, holding up his hands. “I admit it. The lawyers aren’t exactly a hundred percent free. They are only somewhat free.”
“Ha!” said J.T. “I knew it. What does ‘somewhat’ free mean?”
“I don’t know,” Cal said gruffly. “Just ‘somewhat.’ Not altogether free-for-nothing.”
J.T. pointed an accusing finger at him. “It means, you’re footing the bill—and not telling me.”
“Well, I’m telling you now,” Cal retorted. “Hell’s bells, so what if I pay—my partners are willin’ to help.”
“You and your partners,” J.T. said scornfully. “And what do you and your partners get out of it? A chance to take over the development yourselves? The point is that the ranchers here do not want a development.”
“We wouldn’t do it the way Fabian would,” Cal argued. “We’d do it different. We’d do it right.”
J.T. repeated himself. “The ranchers here do not want a development. Are you deaf, boy?”
Cal pulled himself up to his full height, which was one inch taller than his father’s. He looked J.T. in the eye. “Daddy, Crystal Creek is gonna change. Whether you like it or not. The question is how it’s gonna change and who’s gonna do it.”
Cal picked up the pages of statistics from Fabian’s PR firm and thrust them at J.T. like an indisputable piece of proof. “You’ve seen the numbers, and they work against you. People are going to want more population in this county. And it will happen. One way or the other, it will happen.”
It will happen. The words seemed to hammer through J.T.’s brain like three sharp nails. “It won’t happen while I’ve got a goddamn breath left in my body.”
He tried to stare Cal down, but couldn’t. “And how long do you think that’s gonna be, Daddy?” Cal asked quietly. “At the rate you’re goin’?”
J.T. looked in his son’s eyes and saw a stubbornness that matched his own. Had it always been there, that steeliness? Had he somehow never noticed it before, or was it something newly forged in the flame of conflict?
Cal’s gaze grew even harder. “I mean it,” he said. “How long are you gonna last, drivin’ yourself this way? Cynthia’s worried about you.”
Cynthia. J.T.’s resolve faltered, almost fell. This afternoon he had been utterly humbled in Nate Purdy’s office. He had wanted nothing so much as his old life back, and for things to be normal between him and his wife again. He was ready to do anything, to make any concession.
But where was Cynthia now? In their bedroom, alone, probably lulled to sleep by a pill again. She had retreated there, close to tears, earlier tonight, when he and Cal had begun to go at each other.
Serena had slipped away as if by magic, taking with her those rambunctious twins, for once miraculously silent. Even Lettie Mae, who had weathered every sort of family storm, had fled before the gathering force of this one.
Cal seemed to sense he’d hit a nerve. He hit it again. “Who you married to, Daddy? Her or a patch of land?”
It was nearly the same question Nate Purdy had asked, but put more relentlessly. J.T. felt as if his son had struck him.
Cal pressed on. “If you had to choose between them, which would it be? I think Cynthia’s afraid it’d be the land. And it’s tearin’ her apart. If you won’t think of yourself, think of her. And Jennifer. And me and Tyler and Lynn.”
J.T. tried to recover himself. “You’ve got no right—” he began.
“I got every right,” Cal said. “I love you.”
Oh, God, thought J.T., feeling battered. Why did he have to say that? Cal was the only adult male McKinney who could say those words without having them extracted from him like a battlefield bullet.
J.T. tried to defend himself by charging. “I forbid you to meddle in this. I forbid you and your fool partners to put in some crazy bid and—”
“You’re too late,” Cal countered. “I meddled. My fool partners faxed him this afternoon. Promised to stand behind your lawsuit with everything we got. Forbid all you want. What’s done is done.”
J.T. felt his jaw going slack. He stared at Cal in disbelief. Cal’s eyes flashed in defiance and something else that J.T. could not even start to name. “You—you’re crazy,” he managed to stammer. “You can’t wade into the middle of this mess that way. It isn’t your fight.”
“It is if I say it is.” Cal paused and looked into J.T.’s eyes again. “And I’ll make you a promise. If we get that land, I’ll buy a piece of it. Build a little place. Settle down, sort of. Right next door to you.”
“My God,” J.T. said, stunned, “you don’t have to risk everything on a crazy gamble like this. If you want land, I’ll give you all you need—”
“Daddy,” said Cal. “You gave me life. You raised me up. You want to give me something, let me help. It’s time you learned to receive.”
Cal’s eyes welled, and J.T. was alarmed. Cal was the most mercurial of his children, the only truly light-hearted one, and the most emotionally open. Was he going to cry? God forbid.
But Cal saved him. “I’ve said what I got to say,” he muttered. He kicked at the carpet with the toe of his boot, then turned and left the room.
J.T. stared after him with churning emotions.
CAL STRODE into the bedroom where Serena sat in bed, pale-faced and waiting. “How’d he take it?” she asked, her smoky green eyes wide.
“He was mostly struck dumb as a fish,” Cal said. He shook his head. “Lord, but he is obstinate.”
“Cal,” she said softly, “don’t you worry about this? About plunging in on this? It’s such a gamble….”
He came to her, threw himself down on the bed beside her, and grinned. “Hell, sugar. Don’t worry. It’s not a gamble. We’re gonna win. We’re gonna win because Fabian won’t ever give up on those water rights. And on that point, we got him. We’ll win. It’s in the bag.”
AT THE HOTEL, after his meeting, Mel frowned and tried for the sixth time to call Fabian’s home number. There was no answer.
He had checked for messages when he got back. Fabian hadn’t returned his call—damn. He’d hoped, foolishly, for a call from Kitt. There was none, of course. If she’d heard about the meeting tonight, she probably wouldn’t talk to him. He’d have to scheme a way to get in her good graces in spite of his night’s work.
The only message was to phone DeJames. When DeJames answered, he sounded uncharacteristically cranky. “Hell, it’s time you got in,” he said. “You know what time it is in New York? I’m seriously sleep-deprived.”
Mel felt no sympathy. “The natives were restless. They wanted to know why they couldn’t have their money now. It was a long night. You were supposed to have Fabian call me. He didn’t. What’s up?”
“He was having tests all afternoon. He’s got more in the morning. He’s not to be disturbed.”
“Disturbed, damn,” Mel snarled. “Th
is is important. What kind of tests?”
“Allergies,” DeJames said. “They think he’s got allergies. He itches.”
Mel swore more colorfully. DeJames only laughed. “I’ve got to talk to him, too. Guess what happened today? He got an offer for the Crystal Creek property. From California. The Three Amigos.”
Mel sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his forehead. “How much?”
“Forty-three and a half million,” DeJames said with a laugh. “Exactly what Fabian paid for it. Cash.”
“They’re idiots,” Mel said scornfully. “And McKinney can’t afford a deal that size. It’d bankrupt him.”
“I don’t know,” DeJames reflected. “The others pulled it off in Hawaii.”
“They weren’t dealing with Fabian. Look, DeJames, I’ve got to get through to him. If he lets the locals have their way about these water rights and the dam, he wins. He takes away the one good case they’ve got against him. He’ll start construction again—within weeks.”
“Man, you know he wants that lake. Bart Knox has lakes, so Fabian wants lakes.”
Mel nearly swore again. Bart Knox was a real estate mogul that Fabian wanted to rival. He wanted Bluebonnet Meadows to torture Bart Knox with envy. It was stupid, it was petty, and Mel needed to talk him out of it fast. “There could be a problem with that dam—if it gives way.”
“There’s no problem with the dam,” DeJames said confidently. “The engineering firm guarantees it.”
“I’m telling you,” Mel said between his teeth, “all he has to do is concede the dam and water rights, and he’s got the whole shebang. It’s a sure thing. He’ll win. No contest. It’s in the bag.”
“I’ll try to get word to him,” DeJames said wearily.
MEL COULDN’T SLEEP. He tossed. He turned. He thought of Kitt. DeJames had found no more information on her years at Stobbart, but was trying to trace another former teacher or classmate who’d talk.
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