It Takes Two: Deep in the Heart, Book 1 (23 page)

Zach snorted. Limited, indeed. Limited to whatever Carter could suck out of Pop. But if Carter had Pop in his sneaky grasp, then he was ultimately trying to get at Zach. If the partnership went south, Pop owed Carter money, and Pop didn’t have anything but the leaky roof over his head. That meant Zach would have to come rushing in to bail Pop out. Carter knew that.

Chilling awareness flooded Zach. “By the way, Pop,” he said slowly, “just how much did Carter loan you, anyway?”

Finally, a trace of conscience seemed to invade Pop, because he lowered his head, refusing to meet Zach’s eyes. “Not that it’s any of your
business
,” he said, “but Carter paid off what I owed on this house.”

Shock lanced Zach’s mind. “You mortgaged your own home in return for your silence on a shady deal?”

Pop jumped to his feet and began stomping around the room. “You’re jealous, Zach! You don’t want me to have anything but what you dole out, like I’m too pitiful to do anything for myself. Well, this time, somebody thought enough of me to make me their partner, and I don’t care what you say, this deal isn’t shady!” He stopped to poke a gnarled finger Zach’s way. “You think you’re the only one that can live the high life, screwing beautiful women and driving that damn flashy car. Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Too-good-for-your-old-man, I can do just as well without you! I don’t know why I agreed with Carter to cut you in on the deal!”

Zach frowned, a red alert sign flashing in his mind. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“George Smith and Partners—that’s you
and
Carter, ’cept I told Carter we didn’t need you. I said just to give you a little bit but Carter wanted to share. Said he owed this to you—”

Zach leaped to his feet, the flimsy chair crashing over behind him, as hot, painful comprehension flooded him. Carter had made damn sure he’d closed every loop, and greedy, hate-filled Pop had made it easy for him to make certain Zach was completely under his control. Maybe it wasn’t all Pop’s fault, because he could never hope to match wits with Carter, had never seen past his own blind greed.

Zach could hardly rein in the bitter rage filling him. “Fine, Pop. You’ll have to eat from the hand you’ve chosen to feed you. Don’t blame me when you find yourself hungry.”

“What’s the matter? Can’t face the music? Don’t like your old Pop making a success outta hisself?” Pop demanded.

Zach ignored him, striding outside. He flipped his keys out of his pocket and opened the car door.

Pop made it to the porch, calling, “You’ll see! Carter says me and him are going to do more deals together! I’ll be bigger than you one day, and all you’ll have is that silly bimbo and her fat-cat daddy. They just want you for the political ride they’re hoping you’re gonna give ’em!”

At that Zach halted. “What in the hell are you babbling about?”

Pop smirked from his position on the porch, clearly enjoying this last bit of power he had over Zach. “Never knew, didya?”

“Never knew what?”

“That big-breasted blonde lover of yours is hoping your brown skin and good looks is going to get you a brass plaque and a desk in the state congress one day, good Republican that she and her old man are gonna make of ya!”

Pop bent over, roaring with laughter at his own words. Zach slid into the hot sports car, watching the old man clutch his sides with mirth. Obviously, those words had come straight from Carter’s mouth, because Pop had never had a single original thought of his own in his life.

Zach started the car, gunning it. It was past time for a heavy-duty talk with his vice president.

Annie opened the front door, expecting to see the sheriff. It took her a second to recognize the elderly lady standing on the porch, dressed in street clothes rather than hospital white.

“Gert!” Annie exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“Heard about your troubles from one of my nurse friends at the hospital. It’s my day off, you can see,” Gert said, gesturing at her polyester pants and print blouse. “I figured you had enough worries without trying to see to your rascal of a father’s therapy, so I came out to help.”

Annie felt gratitude—and instant recognition that Gert was harboring some kind of feelings for Travis. It was something Annie might have realized at the hospital, perhaps, but she’d been too buried in her own troubles.

Gert’s blush highlighted the wrinkles in her cheeks as she waited for Annie to invite her inside. Annie smiled and stepped back. “Please come in, Gert. I’m not sure how Papa will greet you, but you are certainly welcome where I’m concerned.”

“Thank you.” Gert nodded, no nonsense, and walked into the hall. “What have we here?” she asked, heading into the living room, where Cody eyed her cautiously from the sofa. “You’re the crazy man who tried to stop the fire with a tractor.”

Cody threw a look Annie’s way that appeared pleading. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think Slick had arranged this,” he complained.

Annie hid a smile, knowing that Gert would enjoy martialing two patients in her care. “This is Cody, my brother-in-law.”

Gert nodded sagely. “I’ve heard of you. They call you Crazy Cody in town, don’t they?”

Cody didn’t answer, but Gert sat down in a chair across from him. “Is the tractor story true?”

He sighed, realizing the determined woman wasn’t going to allow him to escape her questioning. “I’m sure it’s been greatly embellished, but yes, slowing the fire down with empty dirt rows seemed reasonable at the time.”

Gert thinned her lips. “Name fits, then.”

Annie placed a small end table near Gert’s chair and laid a frayed straw coaster on top of it. “How did you hear all this?”

“Some of the firemen came down to the hospital,” she said mildly, positioning herself in the chair to have a better view of Cody.

Annie gasped. “No one was hurt, were they?” In her shocked state, she hadn’t even thought to ask after the men who’d put out the fire.

“No one was hurt at all. Occasionally they make a run through to get supplies, whatever, maybe check on a patient they’ve drug in there. This time, I ’spect they was looking for you to give in and make a run to the hospital, Cody. But I guess being crazy doesn’t necessarily mean you got sense.” Gert grinned to take the sting out of her words. Cody eyeballed her warily, probably aware that this woman was here to stay—and likely he was going to get more caring for than he’d had in his entire life.

“Now, Ms. Gert—” he began, but Annie interrupted him with a meaningful stare.

“Cody, Gert coming by is a wonderful thing. I’ll be so busy talking to the sheriff and insurance company that taking care of Papa is going to be a handful. Not to mention that I’ve got Mary, and, of course, your mother has her share of work cut out for her trying to hold the farm down without you around—”

Cody held up a hand. “All right. I surrender. But please, ma’am, I’ve managed on my own for a good long time. I appreciate your intentions, but if you can—”

“Keep the mothering to a minimum?” Gert asked with a grin.

“If you could,” Cody replied, his smile relieved.

Gert leaned forward to whisper, “Well, you’re awfully handsome, but the truth is, I’m here to see the old man, though I wouldn’t mention it if I were you. He doesn’t think he cottons to me.”

“What the hell is she doing here?” Travis roared from the hallway.

Annie glanced up. Her father stood completely transfixed by the sight of the white-haired woman in his living room.

“Who let
her
in the house?”

“I did, Papa. You remember Gert, don’t you?” Annie asked unnecessarily. With a smile, she turned to the nurse. “Would you care for a glass of tea, Gert?”

“That sounds wonderful.” Gert turned a delighted grin on Travis, who hovered in the dark hall. “Come here, you old coot, and tell me you ain’t been smoking in bed and starting this fire.”

Travis’s expression was incensed. Annie couldn’t help a small giggle. Cody caught her eye, his eyebrows raised significantly, and Annie nodded. He leaned his head back on the sofa arm, grimacing as he focused his gaze out the window.

Annie went into the kitchen to get tea for everyone. Gert’s visit would mean a couple of apple carts would be upset, but Annie needed her help. God bless the old woman for caring enough about Travis to come by. Annie put a sugar bowl and some napkins on a tray, sighing. If her father would calm down long enough to be civil, he might actually find that Gert could be a companion for him.

Unfortunately, he was a lot like Cody in that he’d gone unbranded far too long.

Quite the opposite of Zach, who was going to be branded as a married man in less than two weeks. Why that had popped into her head, Annie didn’t know, but she wished it hadn’t. Slowly, she placed the tea pitcher on the tray, willing the pain in her chest away. Tiny stings at the back of her eyes told her she was feeling sorry for herself. She wasn’t the right woman for Zach—but oh, how she wished she could be.

Zach turned the sports car in to the parking garage. He pulled out the cardboard box he’d stopped to get. There were only a few things in his desk he wanted to retrieve and a few personal mementoes scattered about the office. After he tossed them into the box, he was going to say good-bye to his old life and start over.

Completely over.

The elevator carried him swiftly up to the top floor. He was greeted efficiently by the receptionist, whom he barely noticed as he made a beeline to his office. Tossing the box carelessly on the floor, he strode to Carter’s office. The outer office was empty, although the door to Carter’s private chamber was closed. Zach shrugged. His vice president obviously was out for a late lunch, because he was usually pacing in the office, shouting into a portable phone at some unfortunate person.

Zach walked to the closed door, thinking to knock on it just in case Carter was inside. After a second, he thought better of that. The receptionist would know whether Carter had gone out; it’d be better to ask her. Bearding the lion properly required an appropriate time and place other than the small, personal sanctuary where Carter kept only a long sofa and a cocktail table. It would be a poor choice for a major confrontation.

Zach turned to head back out to the waiting area and the receptionist when a map on Carter’s desk caught his eye. Slowly, he approached the desk, recognizing that there was a circled town on the map.

Mesmerized, he stared down. Small dots lay along the line near Desperado, but off the area where the new highway had been drawn in. In fact, the dots formed a semi-circle, as if land in the middle was being enclosed. Pinpointed.

Zach put his hand on the desk to peer more closely at the dots, knocking off something as he did. He stooped down and grasped the rolled-up map, automatically opening it as he stood. It was a chart with seismic data from a certain region. He glanced to the top of the map, somewhat surprised to see Desperado written there.

A chill hit the middle of his stomach, making it clench painfully. Disbelieving, he looked from one map to the other, his mind denying what he was seeing.

And yet, Zach knew, without a doubt, that at last he was holding the key to Carter’s game.

If this data was correct—and this chart appeared to be recent—dirt-poor Annie Aguillar was sitting on top of something she never dreamed she owned.

Oil.

Chapter Fifteen

Rage turned inside of Zach as he stared at the map showing seismic data. Carter was buying up the land around Annie, on the pretext that it was for Ritter International. But Carter’s fingerprints weren’t on the deal, just Zach’s. He’d even gotten Pop involved so there’d be no ties to himself, and it was an excellent cover. Carter hadn’t bothered to inform Pop about the oil, obviously. Zach knew that his father would have spouted that charming factoid instantly, just to be able to brag about how he was finally going to be a rich man.

It niggled at Zach why Carter had used Pop as an accessory, besides the fact that his father wasn’t the brightest man in Austin, and his greedy nature made him an easy mark for Carter’s scheme. There was more, much, much more that Zach wasn’t seeing. He frowned at the data, wondering how he’d allowed himself to get snared in this scurrilous web. It was as if a dark cloud obscured his brain’s capacity to see what he was afraid should be clear to him.

A low giggle punctuated the austere silence of Carter’s office. Zach jerked his head up, surprise pulling his brows together. Where had that sound come from? Eerie silence settled once more in the room; it was so quiet Zach could feel his heartbeat thundering in his rib cage. After a moment, he shook his head, thinking that the receptionist, Judy, must have been laughing in the greeting area.

Except that he hadn’t noticed her speaking to anyone. Zach shrugged and went back to perusing the data, memorizing it, hoping to see more than what the squiggles and lines could reveal. If there really was oil under the Aguillar farm, how in the hell did Carter think he could get away with buying Annie out at a fire-sale price?

Fire. Zach’s intuition became razor sharp. It would be simple for Carter to have a mineral rights clause slipped into the contract. As unsophisticated as the Aguillars appeared to be—and since they apparently had no idea of their possible wealth—they would likely sign the contract without blinking an eye at the innocent-looking clause. After all, what was their land good for, besides growing corn and harboring rattlesnakes?