A Home in Hill Country (Harlequin Heartwarming) (19 page)

Kristin followed them out to Nora’s pickup. “I can’t thank you enough for taking care of Cody. It gave him a chance to get to know you two better, and I think he loved every minute.”

“Not any more than we did,” RaeJean said. “You can be real proud of that boy.”

Kristin hesitated, knowing RaeJean’s propensity for gossip. “If I ask you something, can you keep it between the three of us?”

“Of
course,
” RaeJean exclaimed.

“A while back, you told me some details about
my father’s car crash, Nora. You mentioned thinking that you knew who was responsible.”

Nora hitched a shoulder. “Weeellll…I have my suspicions, is all. Can’t throw a cat in any direction and not hit someone who figures Clint Gallagher pulls the strings in this county.”

“I needed more to go on than hearsay, so I’ve been doing some research. I found a front fender from Dad’s truck at Buddy’s Auto Shop.”

RaeJean’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, my.”

“The truck itself is gone, but this fender shows marks on it—possibly, paint residue from a vehicle that
might
have run Dad off the highway.”

“Like I always thought,” Nora said, her mouth a grim line.

“Trouble is, the residue isn’t from an original paint job. If it was, maybe the sheriff could’ve checked VIN numbers and manufacturer records, and at least come up with a list of possibilities. Someone repainted this car a dark, sea green.”

Nora’s brow furrowed. “The Four Aces trucks have always been black, same with Clint’s Lincolns. That oldest boy has a silver truck, but he hasn’t been around all that long.”

RaeJean nodded. “In a town this size, we’d probably remember an unusual color like that, but I can’t think of a single one. The Bates boys race fancy stock cars, but they paint theirs bright
yellow, with loads of emblems plastered everywhere.”

Kristin gave each of them a farewell hug. “Thanks anyways. If you think of anything, just give me a call.”

Maybe her aunts hadn’t seen the car in question, but she was closer to finding out the truth, she could
feel
it. Soon she’d be able to clear her father’s name and he could finally rest in peace.

Her mood lifted as she remembered the evening ahead. After going out for dinner with Ryan twice, she’d offered to make him dinner here instead.

She’d picked up flowers for the table yesterday, along with new tapers and dusty rose placemats. The flank steaks were already marinating in her favorite bourbon and honey mixture, and soon she’d need to start on the twice-baked potatoes and banana cream pie.

A quiet evening here would be lovely, and after Cody went to sleep, they could turn on the stereo and dance out in the moonlight. This would be another wonderful evening with him, building another memory to savor.

As much as she’d tried to convince herself otherwise, this was not a friendship. She wasn’t just falling in love…she’d never stopped, despite the heartbreak of years past.

And if her wishes came true, maybe it wouldn’t have to end.

C
ODY HAD LONG SINCE
gone to bed, and the dishwasher was humming. Candlelight flickered in the darkened living room, mirroring the dying flames in the fireplace.

Ryan brushed a lock of hair behind Kristin’s ear, feeling inestimable sadness as he looked into her lovely face. Her skin glowed in the dim light, her eyes were dark and luminous and soft.

“That was the best meal I’ve had in years,” he murmured. “You are amazing.”

“It’s the Cantrell family’s secret marinade. Guys fall for it every time.” Her eyes twinkled. “Just wait until you try the pie. You’ll be my slave forever.”

“It’s not the marinade I’m falling for.” A warning bell clanged in the far reaches of his brain, but he found himself moving closer and pulling her into a kiss that seemed to wrap around his heart.

Whatever had gone wrong in his life—whatever mistakes he’d made or the ways he’d failed—she was the one true thing. The one person he needed more than life itself. And somehow they were going to work this out, because he could no longer imagine life without her.

No matter what that warning bell was saying.

A
FTER A TENSE
Sunday dinner with Ryan and Adelfa, Clint took his coffee into his study, happy to escape Ryan’s attempts at polite conversation and Adelfa’s reproving glances.

When his private line rang he nearly didn’t pick it up, but a glance at the caller ID on the cordless phone base revealed Leland’s number. He grabbed the receiver and paced over to the bank of windows facing thousands upon thousands of acres of Four Aces land.

The view usually filled him with a sense of peace. But not this time.

“Clint…sorry I didn’t get back to you right away. I’ve been reviewing the reports from the investigator and the accountant I hired last spring. It’s water under the bridge, Clint. You’ll never see that money again because Oscar screwed up and Nate is dead.”

“I’m well aware of it,” Clint snapped. “And that’s what all of us have believed. But Ryan has gone back into the records much further. He says
significant problems existed long before Cantrell came on board.”

“You hired the best—a forensic accountant with a great track record and a respected P.I.—and they did their jobs. They’re
experts,
Clint. They spent months doing exactly what you paid them to do.”

“Maybe they didn’t do it well enough.”

Leland snorted. “Your son may have gotten a business degree, but ask yourself what he’s been doing with his life. Not accounting. Not investigating white-collar crime.”

“He can still run a calculator.”

“He’s spent his life in the
service.
” The impatience in Leland’s voice grew. “Trevor and Garrett wanted him here to help run the ranch office for a while, but he obviously isn’t capable of seeing the big picture. Given the way he defied you and walked out on this ranch years ago, maybe he just wants to stir up some trouble before he goes.”

Clint shifted uncomfortably as that final, heated argument with Ryan came back to him. Ryan’s fury, his promise to never return. Clint’s own scathing promise that Ryan would never inherit a blade of grass on Four Aces.

The past still festered between them—unmentioned, unresolved. Ryan had said as much on his first day back in August. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’d go that far.”

“No? Then remember the revised will you had
me draw up. I’m sure he always expected to be a wealthy man someday, and now he’ll be living on a service disability pension. Hell, for all we know, he could be finagling a way to use these accusations for his own benefit.”

Clint gripped the phone tighter.

“Look, my specialty is law, not accounting or business management. Maybe you should bring in another team to go over everything, just to settle things in your mind. I’ve got contacts in Dallas who could make some recommendations.”

“Let me think about it.”

Rubbing at his forehead where a headache was starting to pulse, Clint exhaled slowly. He hadn’t wanted to face the possibility that Garrett could have had a part in all that had gone wrong. And now, he felt the same about Ryan. Surely he’d raised his sons to be better men than that. Or had he?

Long after Leland hung up, he stared out the window going back over his life. He’d built the largest ranch in the county. Built it from
nothing.
He’d become a major force in the State Senate during his long political career.

Yet he’d failed at what should matter most to a man—his marriage and the children who should have been his most enduring legacy.

But his marriage was over and his boys were grown, and now it was too late to change a thing.

A
FTER A FEW HOURS
of work in his office—which amounted to frustration rather than progress— Clint paced through the house, wishing Lydia was around to talk to.

She dropped in now and then, breezy as ever, as if nothing was wrong, though she usually stayed at Trevor’s place. Her car had been by the barns earlier, and he’d thought about going down to see her, but then the phone had rung and he’d ended up on a long conference call.

That call had brought into sharp focus one of the things he admired most about Lydia. She’d always been direct as any man at cutting to the heart of an issue, but unlike those in his professional life, she never hesitated to say exactly what was on her mind. She was, he recalled with grudging admiration, the one person who didn’t give a damn what he thought.

He could have used her opinion, after his encounter with Ryan this morning. When had everything gone so terribly wrong in this family? When had Ryan become his enemy instead of his son?

At a light rap on the front door he turned, and his heart lifted when he saw her walking in.

She strolled toward him, with the nonchalant grace he’d once loved. “What a surprise. You aren’t at your desk making monumental decisions about…something?”

And she still had her talent for veiled sarcasm, as well, obviously. “Good to see you, Lydia.”

She gave a throaty laugh. “My, I guess it pays to be terminal.”

A sour feeling settled in his stomach. “I’d rather you didn’t joke about something that holds so little humor.”

“Then for you, I will be exceedingly grim.” She moved to the other end of the foyer and scanned the formal living room beyond, as if memorizing each detail. “I’ve always loved that room. The afternoon light hits it exactly right. But,” she added with a regretful sigh, “that isn’t why I came up to see you.”

She touched a button on the wall and Adelfa appeared a moment later, beaming at the sight of Lydia.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Could you bring us coffee, please? The library would be fine.”

After Adelfa soundlessly disappeared down the hall, Lydia caught the crook of Clint’s arm and sauntered to the library, where she let him go to prop a hip against the dark cherry desk. “Ryan tells me he’s leaving.”

“That’s his choice.” The angry words erupted before he even took time to think.

“Still fighting the same old battles…and the
biggest loser will be you. Aren’t you ever going to give up?”

Moments ago he’d been wishing he had her for a sounding board. Now he was having second thoughts. “Give up what? Having standards? Raising my family to be responsible?”

She shook her head, a hint of amusement playing at the corners of her mouth. “In case you haven’t noticed, your children have grown. They’re adults, Clint. Probably hopelessly damaged by what we put them through, but they’re adults, and the playing field has changed.”

“I still own this ranch. I make the decisions.”

Lydia flipped her hand, bored. “And you’re the big honcho senator and king of the universe. But you won’t take any of that to the grave with you, dear. It’s time we both tried to put things right.”

He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.

“I may be dying of cancer,” she added, “but you could have a heart attack tomorrow and beat me to it. What would you leave behind—other than the obvious tangibles? One of us is going to tell the boys what happened all those years ago, because it’s only fair to them. Perhaps we should tell them together.”

“I did the
right
thing. I did it for them,” he growled, shrugging off a niggling doubt. “You didn’t care about them—you were off gallivant
ing everywhere…and then there was Harris.” The name still felt like lye on his tongue.

“Harris? He was just a classmate when I was in graduate school, for heaven’s sake, and he’s my business partner now. He was never more than that. I love him—and his partner, Edward—like brothers.” Her cool veneer faded, leaving just haunting sadness in her huge dark eyes. “I told you the truth, but you wouldn’t ever believe me. You chose to assume the worst.”

Clint closed his eyes. He’d been consumed with jealousy over Harris, and when he’d finally gotten up the courage to confront her, he hadn’t been able to accept her words. The other man’s sophistication and education had too easily eclipsed Clint’s hardscrabble roots during those early years.

“Do you know why we failed with each other? Do you know why you and Ryan are forever at odds?”

She and Ryan had both been defiant. Outspoken. Independent to a fault, but it would do no good to dredge up those flaws now. She was dying and Ryan was leaving, and soon there would be an empty place in his life that no one else could fill.

“It’s because the three of us are
exactly
alike. Too strong, too opinionated, too intelligent to be fooled. Too unwilling to bend. Indomitable forces that were never in agreement about anything.”

Adelfa brought in a tray of coffee and set it on a side table, then quietly shut the door as she left.

Lydia went over to the tray and gave Clint a cup, then took one herself. “Do you remember Ryan when he was a little boy? If he set his sights on doing something, he couldn’t be swayed. He lost a new kite up in a tree one spring. You’d just bought it for him and you were
furious.
You ordered him to the house, but he went right back outside and worked at getting that kite down for over an hour, because it was too far out on those high, fragile branches for him to reach. He wouldn’t give up, and when he fell out of the tree with the kite in his hands, he broke his wrist. He was six years old.”

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

“I was making supper at the time, and didn’t realize he’d gone back outside. Trevor spilled the beans while we were waiting at the E.R.” She set her coffee aside. “It was always like that—you making demands, Ryan being defiant. I heard about what happened with the Cantrell girl back when he was in college, by the way, so I know why Ryan left Texas and never moved back.”

The room felt warmer. The collar of Clint’s shirt felt itchy and tight. “I did the right thing then, too. She was wrong for him. Wrong for this family.”

“Wrong for you and your political ambitions, you mean. You thought Kristin wasn’t good
enough for Ryan because of her father, yet you hired the man a dozen years later.”

“Being hired on is hardly the same as forming a permanent family connection,” Clint snapped.

Lydia sighed wearily. “I need to go lie down awhile. But think about what I’ve said, because whether you want it or not, I’m going to set the record straight for our sons before I die. And if you’re man enough, you’ll be there to help me tell them.”

“H
I
, S
WEETIE
. Is your momma there?”

Cody smiled at the sound of RaeJean’s voice. She had weird hair and fingernails like an assassin’s weapons, but she was funny and nice, and she’d baked his favorite cookies every time he’d been to her house. “She’s out feeding the horses.”

RaeJean chuckled. “You can write her a note so you won’t forget this, right? I decided to take Friday off and spend a three-day weekend in Fredericksburg with some friends. I’m leaving in a few minutes. I’d just call her later, but my cell phone fell into a shampoo bowl at the salon and it isn’t working.”

He reached for a pad of paper and a pencil on the kitchen counter. “Yes, ma’am. Ready.”

“Okay. She was asking me about a car. A certain color, sort of shiny blue-green? I knew I’d seen one around like that, and I just remembered
where. I saw it once on Main Street. It was such a pretty color—like the deepest water of the ocean—that I watched and watched for it to come back through town again. One day it did, and it parked right down the street in front of Leland Havens’s office. He’s that lawyer in town, you know. Tall, good-looking man.”

Cody chewed on the end of the pencil and fidgeted, realizing that this could take a very long time, and he
really
had to go to the bathroom fast before Trevor and Hayden came to pick him up.

“…so I just trotted over there, quick as a jack-rabbit, ’cause I thought I saw a For Sale sign in that pretty little car’s window. Only it wasn’t…it was just the boy’s school papers in the back window. Turns out he was the lawyer’s nephew, which is why I saw that car a time or two…and just fell in love with it more each time. I haven’t seen it in ages, though. That boy said he liked to race it on the back roads, so I expect it’s long gone by now. And of course, it might not have been the right shade of green at all.”

She fell silent. Then said, “So did you get that, honey? I know your momma wanted to know.”

“Uh-huh.”
A race car, here in this little town. Cool.
Cody stared down at the blank piece of paper, unsure of what he ought to write down and afraid she’d say every word again if asked. So he
said goodbye then dropped the pencil and raced for the bathroom.

He’d tell Mom about the car when he got home from Hayden’s house.

H
E AND
H
AYDEN
had started being friends because of football, but both of them had gotten sorta tired of it and now they mostly got together just to hang out. When Ryan was around they tossed the football back and forth with him, but there were other cool things at the ranch.

He and Hayden played explorers in the barn’s huge loft sometimes. Alien invaders. There were all those kittens, too. Today was the day Target—because of the bull’s-eye on her side—would be old enough to take home, which was why Trevor and Hayden had offered to pick him up after school.

But right now, the kittens had all disappeared.

“I’ll check the next barn if you want to look in here,” Hayden called out. “Then we can go search the cattle sheds.”

There were two huge barns with horses in box stalls, but this was Cody’s favorite, with its fancy office, and the big glass window that looked out into the riding arena. Ryan was usually easy to find, because he was either working in the office or on a horse in the arena.

Down the long aisle of the barn, the front of
each stall was polished wood paneling halfway up, topped with iron bars so the horses could look out and people could look in. Cody walked along, hopping up and down in front of each one, trying to find the kittens. No luck. Not in the feed room or the hay storage area, either.

Discouraged, he made his way back to the entrance to the barn, where Hayden was waiting. The other boy shook his head. “Your mom didn’t give them all away, did she?”

Hayden chewed on his lower lip. “I don’t think she’d do that. Geez! I hope not.” He raced for the office. “Maybe Ryan will know.”