Texas_Winter (10 page)

"There's no going back from this once we decide to go to press," Jack said, and passed the draft interview and photos to Riley. Jack then sat back in the seat with a bottle in his hand and a serious expression that unnerved Riley.

"All we have to do is sign off on this, and that's it?" Riley wasn't really questioning the article; he just wanted to be sure.

Jack stared down at the words Sean had written. "It's good," he said simply. "It doesn't dramatize Lexie's death, or belittle the loss. It doesn't mention Sarah or her idiot of a husband. It paints us in a good light." He traced his fingers over the headline, a simple
The CampbellHayeses welcome Riley's daughter, Hayley, into their family
, and Riley stretched in the chair. It was past midnight, and Sean had only left half an hour before. He had arrived at seven with Eden, and there was an open affection between the two that no one could miss. Eden was happy, and Riley tried really hard to tamp down a big brother's instinct to maim. Jack, the bastard, knew what he had been going through, but his idea of helping was to grin inanely and wink. Fucker. Hayley was long since in bed, and it was just the two of them. His cell had been mercifully silent this evening. Even though it was in his pocket just in case; they'd left him alone.

After what had happened in the office the day before, how could he even think of keeping a secret from the man who was his other half? Jack would understand.
Please God, let Jack understand.
He would listen, and he wouldn't think back to the old Riley Hayes; he would trust the new Riley Hayes would be telling the truth.

Knowing he should be sharing everything with Jack was eating away at him. Ever since the day Jim had pulled him to one side and told him what Jeff had done, Riley had debated coming clean with Jack. But they had Hayley, and Jack was experiencing problems with Taylors, and… it was all excuses really. At the end of things, he was scared all the way to his core. It would probably be best if he waited until after everything was settled with Hayley to tell Jack. Or until… Shit, he needed to tell Jack everything. Not tonight though. He could cross that particular bridge another day.

Which was why he was so damned surprised when he suddenly blurted the whole mess out in one long case of verbal overload.

"Jack, there's something I need to talk to you about. It's important. Jim said the Office of Inspector General was investigating this guy, Abraham Jenkins. They say he used inside knowledge of government contracts to assist oil companies like HayesOil in gaining an advantage over other companies when bidding."

Jack sat there with his mouth wide open, and Riley inhaled deeply. Shit. How had all of that come out of him so clearly and on one single breath?

"Like Jenkins gave HayesOil a heads-up," Jack summarized.
It wasn't unknown. Riley had intimate knowledge that it wasn't what you knew but who you knew that drove the oil machine.
"Yeah in two thousand and seven…" Riley paused. He had to try to remember this right if it was going to make sense. "An exploration and contracts management subsidiary of HayesOil called Elementrix paid Jenkins around one point two million dollars."
"And this was Jeff finding ways to get contracts first? Is this what has been keeping you on the cell? It's too late for people to be worrying about it now; Jeff's dead." Riley looked uncomfortable, and Jack picked up on it immediately. "What is it, Riley?" Jack leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the table.
"It isn't Jeff's name on the paperwork."
"Gerald then?"
"Elementrix was mine, Jack, and it was my signature on the checks." Riley dropped the bombshell and waited for Jack to hit the roof—shout at him or rail at him. He didn't. In fact, he simply shrugged and then rested his chin on his steepled fingers.
"How did Jeff do it? Did he forge your signature?"
Overwhelming relief flooded Riley at Jack's casual acceptance Riley had nothing to do with any of it. He hadn't realized how weighed down he'd been by the possibility Jack might not understand.
"He must have. I know I didn't do it."
"And the OIG? What do they say?"
"They said they will put it through handwriting analysis, the whole thing, but they aren't looking at me really. They wanted to make me aware of what had been happening at HayesOil. Like I didn't know what my brother, and Gerald, were capable of. The OIG also suggested this may well unearth a whole area of shady shit Jeff had hidden. All the payments were signed off by me as director of Elementrix, and because the exploration contracts side of Hayes was mine, he could hide his involvement. I never had anything to do with budgets and accounts."
"What about audits? Wouldn't they pick up the anomaly? They would have told you."
Riley looked uncomfortable. "I didn't take the time to know what was happening, Jack. I never did. To anyone who looks, it's Riley Hayes who broke the law. It doesn't stop there though." He stopped and closed his eyes briefly, anything not to see Jack's disappointment or horror. "It's bigger than Jenkins. Two people involved in this case have died in suspicious circumstances. It looks as if whoever was forging my signature from HayesOil was involved in something far larger. They think it was Jeff. All evidence points to him and to Gerald."
"Suspicious deaths? Shit. What the hell was your family doing?"
"I'm sorry, Jack." Riley's voice was small and tired.
"So are they trying to pin this on you now? Do we need to get lawyers involved? I can get Josh here."
"They want me to help them is all. Something about wearing a wire and getting close to this Jenkins guy. I can't get this out of my head. What did Jeff do? What the hell am I in the middle of? Why would you even want to go through any more shit with my family? And jeez, what if you think it was me all along?"
Jack, to his credit, didn't interrupt once. If anything, the veil appeared to have been lifted from his eyes, and understanding dawned in their depths.
"This is what has been tying you in knots these last few weeks. You didn't think I'd believe you had nothing to do with this?"
"After the way we met, why not? After I blackmailed you?"
Jack raised his eyebrows at the words. "Riley—"
"No," Riley said tiredly, "I never really thought you would think it was me. I trusted you would know I didn't have any more secrets."
"So what do we do now?" Riley was never more thankful to hear the heavy emphasis on
we
.
"The OIG have pulled in the FBI."
"Jeez, it's letter hell." Jack snorted, but Riley didn't crack a smile.
"Apparently this whole thing is one huge conspiracy, and it goes a hell of a lot deeper than just some signed paperwork. They want me to approach Jenkins with an offer, give him some shit about how I need to recoup money from Jeff's mismanagement, and get Jenkins to meet me, while I wear a wire."
"When is this happening?"
"I don't know. They're feeding the bull to him now, setting up the whole line on contracts."
"And all you're doing is meeting him?"
"Wired."
"Wired. Okay. And you haven't told me this because…" Jack raised an eyebrow to punctuate the question. Riley looked at his husband, searching for evidence he was pissed or disappointed or any of a hundred different things that might mean Riley had fucked up again.
"I don't want anything to do with what Jeff did. I'm still feeling…" He couldn't find the right word. "Ashamed? Yeah, I feel ashamed at some of the shit he pulled," he said simply, and watched as Jack relaxed. That was definitely the right thing to have said, and who said he shouldn't just tell the truth. "I have to pretend like I'm not the person I am, and I'm no more than…" He couldn't finish the sentence, and instead, he shrugged.
"A criminal."
"If they don't get him and they decide to come after me… Fuck, Jack." Riley felt a million different kinds of hate and resentment building in him, and it all threatened to spill out. Jack held out a hand across the table, and Riley gripped it hard. "They don't have to have any evidence to undermine the new work I'm doing. And they could bring shit down on this family by dragging my name in the dirt."
"You didn't do anything. It's not your signature on those papers. You could step away from what they're asking you to do now, and they would have nothing."
"I can't do that to Hayley. I can't leave this hanging over us. They said, if I do what they ask of me, I wouldn't be named anywhere and the Hayes name would be kept out of it."
"Okay, so, you're just acting. Doing a good thing," Jack concluded, summing up the whole mess with an extra shrug and a yawn. Riley couldn't believe, after all his weeks of worrying, Jack was this laid back about the whole thing. "Come on. We'll sleep now, and then talk in the morning." Riley followed him out of the kitchen towards the back of the house. They paused outside Hayley's room, and he concentrated on the small lump under the quilt, but he couldn't make out which way her head faced and which were her feet. She slept just like he did; curled under the quilt and so deep in sleep it was like she would never wake up. He couldn't go in and kiss her goodnight because she was buried so deep. Jack tugged him from the doorway, and with a smile, he allowed himself to be led to the bedroom.
"Can we shut the door tonight?" Jack asked softly.
"Please."

The pony arrived two days before Hayley's birthday, and Jack spent a long time making sure Hayley was equipped with all the right "horsey things". Well, that's what Riley called them. He had actually glazed over when Jack stood and explained the bloodline for the smaller version of Taylors and Solo. He zoned out somewhere between temperament, pinto, skewbald and Tobiano.

"It's kind of brown and white," Riley teased. He loved it when Jack got all up in his face with horse facts and figures and never failed to find a place to rag on his husband.

"Is it a girl or boy?" Riley added innocently. Jack looked at him pointedly, and Riley smiled.
"It's a gelding." His husband looked so proud and excited about the pony he had found for Hayley, and Riley just about fell in love with the man all over again. Hayley was still sleeping, Donna was at Neil's, which meant it was just the two of them leaning on a fence watching Hayley's pretty pony investigate his surroundings. Riley turned with his back to the pony and leaned on the fencing with one foot up on a railing and considered his husband as he talked on and on about Taylors and the upcoming foaling. There was such passion in this cowboy, for his horse, for his ranch, and for life. He never did anything by half, and he had been so damn understanding about Hayley and the HayesOil mess.
"I love you." Riley interrupted whatever Jack had been saying, and for a second, Jack just stared at him.
"Yeah?" he finally said, and took those few steps until he pressed close to Riley's side. "What did I do to deserve you saying that, het-boy?"
It was Jack's usual way to lighten any intense situation with humor. But this wasn't
that
time. Riley had things to say, and saying them out here on D land with the house behind them and acres of land beyond them, seemed just the right thing to do.
"For Hayley," Riley began. He reached out and curved his hand around Jack's face. The feel of Jack's skin was prickly and rough with stubble, and Riley noticed a few lines around his eyes. Tough Texan-sun-toned skin and eyes that were a deep clear sky blue made one sexy package. Jack pressed against Riley's palm, and he didn't drop his gaze. "I love you for Hayley. You are doing this for her and taking it so seriously. I love that you are going to teach her to ride properly so she is safe, and I love that you give her and me time to be us."
"Riley—"
"No. Wait. I love that you trusted me about those contracts and you didn't immediately think I had anything to do with it. Despite our past, you trusted me." He stopped briefly. He had so much more to say. "I love the coffee you make me, the way you don't fight me sprawling and taking up more than half the bed. I love the noises you make when you lose it inside me. I love the way you close your eyes when we kiss and the wonder I see there when you open them."
"Oh," Jack said, and raised his eyebrows. "That's kind of an intense thing to lay on a guy at six in the morning."
Riley had a second of worry this was Jack's way of escaping the intensity of what he had said. That thought only lasted a second as Jack leaned in and gripped handfuls of Riley's shirt.
"I love that, even before you knew Hayley was yours, you were her daddy," Jack said simply. "And I love you want to make things right at HayesOil, but I hate that you were worried I wouldn't think either was good—"
"Jack—"
"But I know why you thought these things. I understand. Okay?" Jack was asking far more than just a response to his words. He wanted Riley to know he would always acknowledge Riley's fears and hopes as being real. Riley dropped his hand and, instead, put both arms around his husband and held him close. He smelled of the shower gel they used and the early morning air. Riley inhaled deeply. Jack smelled like home.
"Daddy!" Hayley's voice was coming nearer, and Riley released his hold on Jack, and they exchanged goofy grins. "Daddy! Is Red awake?" It had been difficult to keep the pony a secret, and Jack had been way too excited not to tell her the minute Red had arrived a few days before.
Getting Hayley to sleep had been near impossible last night, and Riley was amused she had slept this long this morning on her actual birthday. She reached them, and in a smooth move, Jack caught her and swung her up on the top rung. She scrambled to sit, and suddenly it was the three of them looking at the new pony. Hayley was visibly vibrating with excitement.
"Pappa, he really is so beautiful." Riley looked at her. That was a new one, calling him Pappa when he was normally Daddy.
"I know he is. Jack chose well, didn't he?" Riley smiled at her as she turned to face him.
"Yeah, he did, but I'm talking to Jack, Daddy, not you; he's Pappa."
Riley's heart nearly exploded in his chest. This moment here, looking at Red, standing with the man he loved and listening to his daughter call his husband Pappa… This was way past incredible.

Hayley's birthday passed without a hitch. Riley wanted to buy every single toy and game he could find. He wanted her to have everything. Common sense slapped him in the face, and with Red saddled and waiting, they really had given her the best birthday ever. He worried she would be sad as it was her first birthday without her mom. There was an apprehension building inside him as to how the hell he was going to deal with it. In the end he just held her when she cried.