A Home in Hill Country (Harlequin Heartwarming) (12 page)

“I…I was hoping to find a particular vehicle,” Kristin said faintly.

“Most people come during business hours,” he retorted. “Those who come out here alone are usually up to no good.”

“I—I’ve been trying to get here during your business hours, but I work at the clinic in town and you’re always closed after five.”

“The front door is closed,” he corrected her. “Most folks around here know that I’m usually
in back, working till late.” He studied her. “What are you looking for?”

“My father’s pickup. A ’67 Chevy that rolled over just about eighteen months ago. Sheriff Montgomery said it was towed here. Are you Buddy?”

“Yep.” The man visibly relaxed. “But it won’t do you no good to go looking, there wasn’t much of anything usable left on that truck. It got crushed and hauled a long time back.”

Kristin’s heart fell. “You’re sure.”

“Sorry, but that probably ain’t how you want to remember your daddy anyway, is it?”

She looked past him to the rows of vehicles she hadn’t searched yet. There might even be some vehicles she couldn’t see, from this side of the fence, and that thought gave her renewed hope. “But—”

“Come on down to the office.” He smiled kindly. “I got to keep book work on what comes and goes out of here, and everything gets tagged with a number. I’ll show you, so you don’t keep thinking that ole truck is here. I’ll meet you out front.”

She made her way back down the hill to the open door of the shop, where Buddy stood. “Just one more minute,” she called out to Cody as she passed.

He hopped out of the truck to join her. “This
looks like a cool place. How come I couldn’t go see those cars with you?”

“There was nothing to see, really.” She hesitated before letting him come along into the cramped office. A badly crumpled vehicle might have raised frightening images for him, but documents would have much less emotional impact. She curved an arm around his shoulders for a quick hug. “I just wanted to find out about your grandfather Nate’s old truck.”

Obviously not yet in the computer age, Buddy lifted a big ledger from a shelf jammed with small auto parts, a well-stained coffee mug and some old rags.

He flipped through the pages, then turned the book around for her to read an entry written in an awkward, looping scrawl.

She held her breath as she read it, then sighed with disappointment. “You’re right. I’m sorry to have bothered you like this.”

“And I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. I knew Nate real well, and I kept that ole truck around longer than I should have just because it was his.” Buddy closed the book and rested his grease-stained hands on it, as if saying goodbye to his old friend. “I’m real sorry about your loss.”

R
YAN LED
J
AZZ
over to the electric walker, snapped one of the dangling lead chains to the colt’s halter and gave him a congratulatory pat on the neck. “Good job, fella.”

Outside the enclosure, he flipped a switch to start the rotation of the octopus-like metal arms that radiated from the central motor. The colt obediently set off at a slow walk around the circular path. In a half hour, he’d be cool and dry, ready to turn out into a corral for the night with his kindergarten-level buddies, who were all in training, too.

Ryan shouldered the colt’s cotton lead rope and started for the tack room, feeling better physically than he had in a long time.

Months of surgeries and therapy had put him back on his feet again. Leaving behind the wheelchair, and then his cane, had been victories hard won.

He knew he’d never forget the horrors of what he’d seen and done in the service. His shoulder and knee might never be right again. But on the
back of a young horse, he’d felt truly
alive…
as if he was finally able to decide his own future without the shackles of permanent disability holding him back.

He’d stepped into the tack room when he heard a soft rustle, and the presence of another person suddenly registered. He turned back into the darkened aisle.

Partway down, almost hidden in the shadows, a tall, thin figure stood at one of the stalls, petting the nose of the horse inside. She turned. “Hello, dear.”

A multitude of emotions surfaced—surprise, delight, a touch of irritation at seeing her standing so casually here as if she’d never left. “Mother.”

She sauntered forward, all angular sophistication and grace, her salt-and-pepper hair swinging in an oblique cut at her jaw. Her rough-woven cream sweater and beige slacks looked more Houston than Homestead. “It’s been a long time, dear.” She rested her slender fingers on his shoulders, brushed a cool kiss against his cheek, then leaned back to survey him. “You look marvelous.”

Marvelous
wasn’t the way he felt right now, but he returned her smile. “As do you.”

Her face seemed to fall for a split second, then she rallied, a conspiratorial smile deepening the feathery wrinkles at her eyes. “I do believe I sur
prised your father this morning, the old goat. I probably took two years off his life.”

“I’m not sure he’d want to give you that pleasure.”

“Score,” she said lightly. “Although it might surprise you to hear that I really don’t wish him any harm.”

“I remember. You were the best of friends.” He laughed. “As long as there were at least three hundred miles between you.”

“Divorce was the right choice,” she agreed. She fingered the heavy gold chain at her neck. “For the two of us at least, but not for you boys. I’ll always regret some of the decisions made back then.”

He doubted that. Lydia Gallagher had been a free spirit, a strong woman with a streak of stubborn independence that matched Clint’s, and they’d been like gasoline and flame. The wonder was they’d stayed together long enough to produce three children.

“What brings you here?” He smiled. “Or do you come out often, now?”

“You
are
joking.” She pulled a face. “I see the boys, of course, and Trevor’s family, but I choose to not overstress your father by arriving when he’s in town, and I always stay with Trevor. I believe Clint prefers it that way, and so do I.”

The Gallagher home had been a shining example of marital bliss—and where it could lead,
if everything went wrong. Armed camps. Careful awareness of enemy lines. At least with the Gallagher money, there hadn’t been the financial devastation of divorce he’d seen in the lives of some of his buddies in the service.

Long separations and the continual stress of knowing a loved one was facing constant danger certainly took its toll.

“But you’re staying here this time?” he asked. When she nodded he raised a brow, imagining the silence and solitude of the big old house erupting into World War III.

“I heard you were here, and I knew I had to come. It’s been so many years since we spent any time together.” Her breezy veneer seemed to crack just a little. “I know I wasn’t very attentive when you were tykes, and that your father and I can’t undo how we handled things. But I’d like a chance to be with you for a while.”

She studied him, the faint hope in her eyes making him feel as if perhaps he should hug her, though his first impulse was to shake her hand. The awkward moment lengthened, trapping him as if his boots had been glued to the floor, until she released him with a light laugh.

“Don’t worry, dear. I don’t intend to pounce like your Great Aunt Flora. Remember her—with the jangling bracelets and head scarves? She used to smother you with hugs when you were a toddler.”
Lydia rested her hand on Ryan’s cheek. “I think I’ll go back up to the house and turn in early. I’m sure you must have a thousand things to do out here.” With a flutter of her fingertips she strolled out of the barn, thin and graceful, and as coolly unapproachable as ever.

Her dry humor was still there. The flinty attitude. But something wasn’t quite right, and Ryan just hoped that his premonition was wrong.

M
INDFUL OF HIS ACHING
shoulder, Ryan lifted yet another battered cardboard box from the floor of the closet in the office and dropped it on the desk in a haze of dust. He kept thinking back to what Kristin had said last Saturday.

What was it like, losing your father and wondering if his was a wrongful death? Coming back to a town where rumors still flew about his association with a man many mistrusted or downright feared?

Ryan had grown up on the Four Aces, but he hadn’t been deaf to the whispers and the cautious, sidelong glances. Kids had talked at school, repeated what parents said.

Most thought Clint had risen to political power through carefully placed cronies and well-spent money. No one doubted that he could still call in favors and influence the future of anyone he chose. And Nate Cantrell, who’d been an oc
casional employee and who’d also been part of several minor business schemes, had been tarred with the same brush.

The hurt in Cody’s eyes at that football game a week ago had touched Ryan. Having an absentee father like Ted had to be tough enough, and now Cody was aware of the ill will against his grandfather, as well. Poor kid.

Ryan lifted a dozen rubber band-bound manila folders out of the box on the desk, stuffed with yellowed receipts, notes scrawled on scraps of paper and bank statements. There hadn’t been any organization to the previous box he’d gone through, and this one looked just as bad.

He fired up the computer and launched Excel, then painstakingly went through each slip of paper, recording equipment, feed, supplies, services, sales receipts. He separated them into the cattle or horse operations where possible.

By the time he got to the March boxes, he’d developed an uneasy feeling that there were inconsistencies. By the time he got to May, he was sure of it. He printed off what he’d completed for the most recent twelve months and what he’d done so far for the year before, then went through each bank statement, each bill and receipt.

None of it made sense.

There was almost no consistency in the numbers from last year until now. Expenditures were
far higher—or missing altogether—and some goods and services had been added in the past year that had never appeared before, from what he could see.

In disgust, Ryan tossed a stack of files back in the box and abandoned the office to watch Trevor and Garrett working some young colts in the outdoor arena.

Garrett glanced at Ryan but kept working his mount in smaller and smaller circles at a lope.

Trevor jogged over to the side of the arena, eased his horse to a stop and shook out some slack in the reins. “What’s up?”

“I’ll trade you jobs,” Ryan said. “I’d much rather work a colt than wade through the mess in that office.”

“It’s my fault, much as anyone’s, I guess. I should have been in the office more.” Guilt flashed in his brother’s eyes. “Oscar was always grumbling about how much there was to do, but I always figured it would all get done, somehow. When Nate came he seemed so much more efficient that I was just relieved to make him responsible. Put me on a horse or a tractor, and I know what I’m doing. A computer—good luck.”

“How did y’all ever handle quarterly taxes the past few years?”

“Leland, Clint…it all worked out, I guess.”

But a tax audit now would be a nightmare…and the possibility of fines, late taxes and the levy of interest on overdue payments could deliver a crushing blow to a ranch that already appeared to be on shaky ground. “Did you talk to the accountant who tried to sort this out—the one who discovered the embezzlement?”

“Briefly.” Trevor tipped his hat back and rested a forearm across his saddle horn. “But that was last spring, when I was gone for six weeks. Donna and I were hauling the new stud and some younger stock to the bigger quarter horse shows.”

“I’m finding boxes of old records. Haphazard filing…”

“Yeah, that’s what the accountant said. What you see is how he found it—and he was plumb irritated, too. I hear he stayed at the ranch for two weeks longer than he’d planned. He finally said there was so much missing documentation that he could only guess.”

“I’ve read his report. It was just what you and Leland said. Huge losses and the lost or altered records were probably a cover-up.”

Trevor stroked the sweaty neck of the buckskin. “We got what we deserved, I guess…but I swear, I always thought Nate was a good guy. Had a run of tough luck over the years maybe, but he always seemed like a straight shooter.”

“I feel bad about that grandson of his.”

Trevor’s jaw tightened. “I had a long talk with Hayden afterward. He knows better than to talk about ranch business with his buddies, so there won’t be any gossip about Cody’s grandpa at school.”

“Cody’s a new kid on the block around here, with a dad who’s a jerk and a grandfather who was probably an embezzler. What kind of male role models does he have? I think we should try to help him a little.”

Trevor nodded thoughtfully. “We can help the boys patch up their differences, maybe…and try getting them together more often.”

“Right.”

A corner of Trevor’s mouth lifted. “And that would have nothing to do with Cody’s pretty momma.”

“I’m thinking about the boy, not her,” Ryan retorted.

“Riiiight.”

Trevor’s Texas drawl filled the word with implications Ryan didn’t want to think about. But he couldn’t deny that Kristin had lurked at the edge of his thoughts 24-7 since he’d arrived in Homestead. Not to mention for the past fifteen years.

He’d long since realized he wasn’t ever going to marry, though. Not with the kind of career he had, the kind of risks he took every day. The divorce
rate among his fellow Rangers was astronomical, and seeing firsthand what a bitter breakup did to the children, he would never take the risk.

Maybe Kristin brought back memories of when he’d believed differently. It didn’t matter. Soon he’d be leaving for the East Coast, while she was obviously settling in for the long haul on her homesteaded land.

But she and her son deserved so much more than a legacy of lost trust and the shame of Nate’s misdeeds. Had he
really
stolen the money? How could anyone be sure, when the ranch records were so flawed? If Clint’s failures meant Nate was still taking the rap for something he hadn’t done…

On his way back to the office, Ryan set his jaw and made a silent vow to himself.

Before he left Texas, he was going to uncover the truth about what had happened here over the past few years. Perhaps Oscar had been the one who’d taken off with the money, or perhaps the losses were simply the result of massive incompetence.

Given Clint’s history, it wasn’t beyond belief there might’ve been other reasons for that money to disappear.

Kristin believed in her father’s innocence, and even Trevor had doubted his guilt. Whatever the answer was, Ryan was going to find it.

C
LINT PACED THROUGH
his spacious bedroom with a highball in his hand and a half-empty bottle of bourbon on the dresser, his shirt collar unbuttoned, his tie loose.

He’d had Trevor fly him back to Austin in the ranch helicopter for the afternoon, where he’d met with his campaign manager to discuss next year’s election. After a late dinner and a few drinks with some of his cronies, he and Trevor had flown home at about midnight.

It had been a long, difficult day. He was exhausted. But he already knew that sleep would elude him, just as it had the night before. Lydia was here in the house somewhere, though he hadn’t seen her since that first chance meeting.

The thought made him want to smash his glass into the fireplace.

Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years of solitude. Peace. Utter control. And now she was back.

He stalked to the king-size bed, with its cool sheets that were turned down at a precise angle each night by Adelfa. Fresh, crisp sheets every night. He considered, then discarded the possibility that he might be tired enough to sleep anyway…so he jerked open the sliding-glass doors and stepped out into the crisp night air.

An ancient live oak shaded the enclosed courtyard by day. At night, it filtered lacy moonlight onto the stone walkways and flowering bushes,
the wrought-iron benches. He tipped back the glass and finished off his bourbon, welcoming the smooth liquid fire down his throat as he headed for a bench at the base of the oak.

Where, with any luck, perhaps he could sit and doze.

It took him a moment to realize he wasn’t alone.

“We used to come out here together,” Lydia said as she stepped out of the shadows. “Remember?”

Her throaty chuckle reminded him of all the times they’d kissed out here under the moonlight. The days when they’d been young and impassioned, their verbal battles sometimes escalating beyond anything he had the energy for now. He turned to go, but her soft laughter stopped him.

“We were all wrong for each other, weren’t we?” She stepped closer, her white shimmery robe glowing in the moonlight. “A disaster from day one…yet we sure didn’t go wrong with those boys.”