Revenge (36 page)

“You all seemed to survive.”

“If that's what you want to call it.” He was driving north where the highway cut through the foothills of the mountains. The sun was shining, but thin clouds had appeared on the horizon. “Max did everything he could to please Dad. Became a damned yes-man for a while. And Mom, hell, she knew Dad cheated on her, but she pretended that it didn't happen, that he was faithful. She still goes around acting as if he were some kind of saint. Casey's a hothead, always runnin' off at the mouth and getting herself in trouble. Doesn't seem to know what she wants out of life. Like I said, I know spoiled.”

“And what about you?” Beth asked as he drove past the tree-lined lane leading to the ranch house.

“Spoiled rotten.” His smile turned cynical. “I did everything I could to be a pain in the old man's backside. It seemed to work, too,” he admitted, though he didn't seem pleased with himself.

Giving the wheel a sharp turn, he drove off the main road and onto an overgrown gravel drive that was barely more than two ruts cutting through a stand of pine. A gate with a No Trespassing sign nailed to the top rail warned them off the property, but Jenner ignored the faded red lettering as he climbed out of the truck, grabbed his crutches and hobbled to the fence. After extracting a ring of keys from his pocket, he tried several in the rusted lock before the latch gave way and the chain fell to the ground.

“Drive through,” he yelled, pushing the gate. It opened with a squeal of seldom-used hinges.

Beth slid behind the wheel and shoved the pickup into first. Barely able to reach the pedals, she eased the truck through the opening and Jenner closed the gate. A second later, he was back in the truck and she was sliding across the seat. “Mind telling me where we're going?”

“To my place.”

“Your place,” she repeated. “But I thought you lived in the apartment.”

“Temporary accommodations.” He angled the nose of the pickup up a steep slope. The truck bucked as it hit unseen rocks, and long, dry grass and thistles scraped the undercarriage. “I wanted you to see something.”

“What?”

He cast her a glance that nearly melted her bones. Her breath stalled somewhere above her lungs and her heart began to beat more quickly.

They were nearly at the crest of a hill when the road seemed to give out altogether. Jenner didn't even slow down, just kept driving through the openings in the trees until the pines gave way to a meadow. He cut the engine, then climbed out of the cab. Cursing his crutches, he managed to climb the short distance to the crest of the hill with its view of the valley below.

“What is this place?” She saw the John Day River, little more than a blue-green thread weaving along the bottom of the canyon, and the ridges of red rock that she'd always viewed from the valley floor were now huge bolders that felt the sun's warming rays.

The town of Rimrock was visible, a webbing of streets and buildings spreading around the bend in the river.

“This was the original homestead of the McKee family.” He pointed to a cabin standing near the edge of the clearing. It was small, barely more than one room from the looks of it, the porch sagging, the roof caved in. Other nearby buildings, sunbleached and tumbling down, were covered in brambles. Farther away was a graveyard, fenced and overgrown, the last resting place of McKee pioneers, Beth guessed.

“Over there—” Jenner motioned beyond the edge of a cliff “—is a parcel that used to be Ned Jansen's copper mine—well, at least the back of it. The main entrance is half a mile west of here.” He leaned against one of the boulders and set his crutches beside him. With one hand shading his eyes against the sunlight, he pointed to the south. “That bit over there is still part of the Rocking M. It's kept separate from the homestead, but I guess this could all be considered part of it because McKee Enterprises owns the old copper mine.”

“The mine is abandoned, though, isn't it?” Beth asked. She was standing so close to him she could see the small creases in his skin caused by hours of squinting against the sun. His scent drifted on the breeze. All male and clean, it made her insides shiver in anticipation.

“Was abandoned. Jansen had just about given up on it—thought he'd mined all the copper out of it. His team of geologists agreed.”

“So why did your father buy it?” she asked, dreading the question, dreading the answer more.

“Well, Ned got himself into some trouble. He's been married a couple of times and divorced. The divorces were expensive. When the mine seemed worthless, he had to borrow money somewhere and the banks turned him down.” He leaned back and studied her, his gaze lingering on her face. “But he was in luck. Good ol' Jonah P. McKee was more than willing to help bail an old friend out of trouble. He loaned Ned enough money to get his wives off his back and pay off some overdue child support and alimony. Took the mine as collateral. Ned could never repay him, of course, and Jonah ended up with the mine. And lo and behold, guess what?”

A knot of tension had been tightening in Beth's stomach. She hardly dared breathe because she knew the answer. “The mine was valuable.”

“Give the lady a prize!” Jenner mocked. “It was valuable, all right, probably worth millions in copper and silver.”

“But why would Ned's own team of geologists lie to him?”

Shrugging his shoulders, Jenner stared into the distance. “I don't have any proof, but my guess is that they were bought off—paid more money than they would ever see in their lives—to fudge their reports.”

“You're saying that your father had his eye on the mine all along?”

“Of course he did! Don't you understand? Haven't you figured the old man out yet? Jonah never got involved in any deal unless it would make him money. That was the bottom line. Always. No exceptions.” Pain seemed to flicker in his blue gaze.

“What did Ned do?”

“When he found out?” Jenner shrugged. “Nothin'. He couldn't do a thing. Jonah hadn't done anything illegal.”

“Except bribe the experts.”

“But that couldn't be proven, could it? And Ned tried to sue everyone involved, but his geologists had moved out of state, dissolved their partnership. Ned had no recourse because he couldn't prove criminal intent. Even geologists make mistakes now and again.”

The wind crept up the hillside and goose bumps rose on Beth's skin. She rubbed her arms and wondered about the man Jenner had called father, the man who had rejected her son as his grandchild. She remembered him as imposing, with thick white hair that ruffled in the breeze. She'd gone to the ranch to find Jenner, and instead had come face-to-face with his father. Jonah had just dismounted. A cigar had been clamped between his teeth, a rifle clenched firmly in his hands. Seven or eight squirrel carcasses were tethered to his saddle, little, bloody scraps of brown fur that were his trophies for the day.

“You're here lookin' for Jenner, unless I miss my guess.” His smile had almost seemed sincere as he'd closed the gate behind him and motioned for one of the hands to deal with his horse. “You just missed him. He took off two days ago for some rodeo in Canada, I think. Alberta or British Columbia, I b'lieve.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Because of the baby.” She'd been stunned, had felt her skin go white. “This is a small town—bad news travels fast.”

“But no one knows. Just me and Dr.—” Her words had nearly strangled in her throat when she'd seen the flicker in Jonah's eyes.

“Oh, hell, there's plenty of people who work in the clinic. Word's bound to get out.”

“But not about the father.”

Jonah had shrugged, struck a match against the fence post, and puffed on his cigar. “Doesn't matter. Jenner'll never claim the kid and Doc Fletcher can arrange to have the whole business dealt with. There's a physician in Dawson City who'll—”

“No!” she wrapped her arms protectively around her middle. Jonah's eyes had narrowed; he wasn't used to people disagreeing with him. “I'm not going to get rid of this baby.”

“It's not a child yet.”

“It's your grandchild, Mr. McKee.”

His face had turned to stone. “It's a bastard—nothing more. Things would be different if you and Jenner were dating seriously, but you aren't. He's about to become engaged to Nora Bateman and I won't have you ruining his life, or hers.”

“I just want to talk to him.”

“Why?” He rolled the cigar between his teeth. “Do you think he even remembers you? He and Nora, they broke up a few months back and Jenner decided to sow a few wild oats, kick up his heels, but now he and Nora are planning to get married and you're just one of a dozen or so women he's had a fling with.”

She swallowed hard and felt like being sick.

“What?” Jonah asked, smoke sailing into the sky. “You didn't think you were special to him, did ya?” He barked out a laugh that rattled her to the bone. “Jenner's not the settlin' down kind. If it wasn't that he's been in love with Nora since he was sixteen, I wouldn't believe he'd ever get married. But he loves that gal. Always has. Always will.”

There was more than a trace of truth in Jonah's words. Beth had seen Jenner and Nora together years before. They'd dated in high school and even later when he was on the road. Then Nora had gone off to college and Beth had assumed they'd broken up. It had been a long time ago.

“It just took Jenner a long time to grow up, but now he's ready to take a wife.” His smile was brittle. “Nora, now she's a good girl, comes from a good family in town. The Batemans have been in Rimrock nearly as long as the McKees. Nora's parents have been married nearly thirty years and they're strong, upstanding citizens who've worked hard and increased their land.” He chuckled and puffed on the cigar. “Nora, she's just the girl for Jenner.”

Beth had eventually believed him and, she realized now with a guilty conscience, accepted his bribe—money to help her start a new life far away from Rimrock and his son. Jonah had convinced her that Jenner didn't want her or her child in his life, and she'd turned heel and ran, never trying to contact Jenner again.

“Are you all right?”

Jenner's voice brought her crashing back to the present, and she shoved the image of Jonah from her mind. “Fine,” she lied. “But you didn't bring me up here to tell me about your father's business dealings.”

“That's true,” he admitted, rubbing his hand around the back of his neck. “We should have that talk you wanted and I thought we should get some things straight about Cody.”

Here it comes,
she thought, bracing herself. “Something other than the fact that I'm spoiling him?”

He studied her so intently she wanted to step back. Instead, she held her ground and wrapped her arms around her middle. “You
are
spoiling him, but I'm not too worried about that—”

“You shouldn't be.”

“But I am concerned about his safety.”

“Safety?” she repeated. “Look, Jenner, I take good care of him! You're the one who's talking about letting him catch crawdads and ride horses and—oh!” Suddenly Jenner reached out, curled his fingers over her arm and yanked her hard against him—so hard he nearly fell over.

“This isn't about keeping little fingers away from hot stoves,” he said through lips that barely moved.

“Then ... what?” She tried to keep her mind on the conversation because he was telling her something important, but she couldn't ignore the feel of his hands, rough and possessive, surrounding her wrist, nor could she force her gaze away from the blue depths of his. She licked her lips and thought she heard him groan, but it could have been the soft sigh of the wind rushing through the canyon.

“All this business with my father—his supposed murder.”

“That has nothing to do with Cody.” Fear, stark and piercing, drove a stake into her heart.

“Maybe, maybe not. There was also the fire in the stables. The fire chief is calling it arson. People seem to think that the same person was probably involved—someone with an ax to grind against the McKees.”

“But—”

“Some sicko's got it in for my family. A maniac with a helluva grudge. No one seems to know which way he'll turn, but the sheriff doesn't think he's gonna stop—not until he gets his vengeance, whatever the hell that is.”

“I still don't understand.”

“If this sleazeball heard you claiming that Cody's my boy,” he said, his skin stretched tight over his face, “you could be placing your son in danger.”

“What?”
Beth shook her head. She refused to hear any of this craziness. But a chill as cold as death crept through her blood. “I can't believe—”

“You'd better,” he insisted, his fingers digging more deeply into her flesh. “Max's worried about Hillary. He never lets her out of his sight when she's visiting him and he's warned Hillary's mother, but Colleen has her hands full with twin girls about Cody's age and doesn't always have time.”

“But no one knows about Cody.”

“Except you and me and everyone at the ranch and whoever else your mother or my grandmother wants to know! Look, I'm not trying to scare you, Beth—”

“But you are!”

“I just want you to be careful.”

She swallowed with difficulty. If anything ever happened to her son... “Maybe we should get back,” she said, her voice the barest of whispers.

“That's a good idea.” But he didn't make any move to release her. He studied her mouth for a heartbeat before lowering his head and brushing his lips slowly across her own. Beth told herself to pull away from him, to fight this stupid attraction she felt for him, but instead she opened her mouth to him and felt his tongue slide easily between her teeth.