Gambling on a Secret (24 page)

She tugged free of his grasp and flailed the sheet of paper at him. “That’s not what this says.”

Dylan dropped his hands to his side, his face full of chiseled regret.

He turned toward the desk and tossed his hat on it. As he shoved his hands through his dark hair, he gruffly said, “You were never supposed to see that letter.”

“Oh. So, were you just gonna take off and I’d never see you again?” She hated the brittle sound of her voice and the fear crashing over her. The pain in her chest made it hard to breathe, and she wrapped her arms around her middle. He didn’t love her, but she’d never believed he’d abandon her.

* * * *

Dylan turned and hated what he witnessed. Charli backed away from him like a scared little animal. How could he cause her so much pain and fear? He took her into his arms and pulled her close to him again.

She didn’t fight him, but she made no move to hug him back.

“I’m not leaving you. Unless you tell me you don’t want me. I wrote that letter this morning while I was still drunk.” When she looked up at him, he wiped at the wetness on her cheek with his thumb. “I’m scared I can’t be the man you deserve.”
I’m afraid you don’t love me.
“I never wanted kids. I don’t think I’ll be a good father. My own father was never around, but he was around enough for me to know I’ll never measure up to Bob Quinn.” Muttering, he added, “I never did in any other way.”

“I’m scared, too.” She slipped her arms around him. “Too much is going on at once. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. But I told you I’d be here for you, and I will. When do you expect to get your...eh...”

Charli swallowed and tears shimmered in her eyes. “I’m late, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Nodding, he glanced away and his shoulders slumped.
Damn.
“Charli, I can’t play games with you. I saw the kiss the other night.” He met her widened eyes. “What does Leon mean to you?”

“Nothing. He has feelings for me I don’t return.” She paused and swallowed so hard her throat moved. The pulse fluttered at the side of her neck. “What does Brenda still mean to you?”

“Not a damned thing.”
What do I mean to you?
But he couldn’t get the words past his tight throat. “But even if you are pregnant, I’m not ready for marriage again.” He couldn’t let himself get in that deep. Marriage to a woman who didn’t love him was the last thing he wanted.

Charli slowly nodded and turned away. She wrapped her arms around her middle and looked out the screen door. “And I–I don’t want a marriage either. I won’t be trapped in a marriage for a child’s sake. That’s worse, in my opinion, than living separately. Actually, I never want to get married. I’ll never let a man have that much control over me.”

Her words cut through his heart like a mower through grass. But didn’t he feel the same way? He forced air past the knot in his throat. “Are you going to take a test?”

She faced him again. “I will, but I’ve been late before. I’ll give it a couple more days.” He nodded his agreement, and then she jutted her chin toward his desk. “I saw the report.”

He cleared his throat before turning toward the desk. “Yeah. Jimsonweed poisoning.”

“Are you going to come back to work on the house?”

He wanted to. He missed her, their meals, the conversations about everything to nothing, her icy glares, her sunny smiles and her fiery arguments. She made him feel alive, and because of the joy she found in his work, he could take pride in something again.

To flush out the tool who’d poisoned the animals and to prevent any other calamities, he had to work alongside him. “No. Isn’t Tom working out?”

“Tom’s okay.” She moved away and faced the window behind his desk. “But he doesn’t let me help and doesn’t work as fast as you. I really want to get the house done. You’d told me Kyle could handle the ranch work.”

He looked down at the floor and clenched his fist. He hated not telling her the whole truth. “After the poisoning, the work has doubled. I won’t buy hay again, and getting it in from your fields takes both of us.”

“Oh.” She sniffed and didn’t look at him. “Maybe I should just hire a general contractor to do the work. Leon has offered his company.”

At the mention of the name, he turned her to look at him. “No. Not Ferguson.” Despite her glare, he headed off her argument. “If you want to hire someone to come in and do the work, that’s fine. As long as it’s not Ferguson.”

Her expression remained defiant. “What if I want Leon’s company to do the work? I’ve seen some of the houses his company has built. They’re beautiful.”

“And shoddy.”

She shook her head and pushed his hands away. “Dear God, Dylan, I know you don’t like him, but it’s not like Leon himself will be driving the nails and painting my walls.”

“No, he wants you on your back and your deed in his name.” He stepped away with clenched fists. Heat crawled up his neck. “Maybe he’s already gotten you into bed, but I won’t let him take this land the way he swindled my grandfather out of his.” The moment the words were out, he regretted them.

“I can’t believe you! Do you have any idea how insulting that is?” Charli shot him through with blue-green fire. “Yes, Leon wants me, but I haven’t slept with him. I don’t want to! And I can’t believe you still think he wants my land. Why? Why the hell would he want my ranch when he can buy whatever land he wants?”

“You can’t be this blind or naive. Think! You know everyone in town was shocked when you took the bid for this place out from under Leon. In all the years I’ve known him, he has never gone after a local woman, and then you show up and suddenly he’s all over you. Is being socially accepted by this town so damned important, you’d willingly fall for his act?”

The tears misting her eyes extinguished the fire. Damn, he didn’t mean to hurt her.

“But why? Why does he want my ranch so badly?” She hugged herself again. Her face went pale, and she sat in the old chair in the corner by the door. Finally, he’d made her think.

He leaned his backside against the desk, facing her. “I wish I knew why. I only know Leon has wanted this place for almost as long as I’ve known him.”

He looked down at his crossed boots. “When we were kids, my family came to Oak Springs for Christmas. I was about seven, Leon was twelve or thirteen, I think. Anyway, we were fooling around like boys do, and we snuck over here. He wanted to check out those old derricks. When we got to the bridge, Leon stopped the four-wheeler we were riding. I looked toward the house and saw old Jock standing on the front porch with one of his girlfriends and Johnny–Jock’s first son. He’s about the same age as Leon. And I figured they probably knew each other.”

He stared into the past as he spoke. “Jock looked up at us, and it was almost as if there was some silent exchange between him and Leon. After a moment, Leon looked at me with so much hatred in his eyes it scared me.”

As he submerged himself into the long ago scene from that mild winter day, he remembered the way Leon’s face turned hard at seeing Jock with his family. Something tripped in him. He looked up to find her watching him. “We were about halfway back to Oak Springs when he said to me, ‘I’ll own that ranch someday.’ I laughed and said something about Jock’s kid, and Leon looked at me and said, ‘His bastards don’t matter. Blackwell Ranch will rightfully be mine.’”

He paused, his mind buzzed with a hunch so outrageous he didn’t believe it himself. “I didn’t think anything about it until I’d heard about Leon firing three of his lawyers and his secretary when he discovered you beat him to the bid on this place. Then it slipped out he’d been trying for years to buy the ranch from Jock. Then Jock destroyed his will. The consensus at the time was he was just being a son-of-a-bitch by not giving it to his sons and letting it go to probate. Everyone chalked it up to his craziness. I’d say it’s because the last person Jock Blackwell wanted to have this place was Leon and that’s who would have bought it from the Blackwell boys.” He kneeled before her. “Suddenly those childish declarations didn’t seem so silly. Don’t trust him, Peaches.” He skimmed his fingers over her pale, damp, cheek. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I don’t want to be hurt if you turn to him.

* * * *

Four days later, Dylan invited Tracy out to the ranch. After they’d eaten the burgers she’d picked up from Ella’s on the way over, he’d suggested they go riding. Bobby was content to stay and torment Jesse as he finished up for the day in the barn. He saddled the black and the sorrel Charli had named Ceres. The bay, Athena, seemed healthy enough, but he didn’t want to take the chance by saddling her.

Tracy reached over the stall door and rubbed Aurora’s long white-splotched face. “She’s a beautiful horse.”

He tightened the cinch on Artemis. He hated her name, and had a tendency to refer to her as Artie when Charli wasn’t around. Who named horses after Greek and Roman goddesses anyway? The answer made him smile as he patted Artie’s graceful neck. Only Charli. Over his shoulder, he looked at Tracy. “She’s had a rough couple of weeks.”

“Is she the one that was sick and aborted?” Tracy took the reins of Ceres, who waited in the breezeway, saddled and anxious to go.

“Yeah, but she’s doing better. Let’s go. I need to talk to you.” He swung up into the saddle and led the way out of the stable.

As they headed toward the southeastern side of the property, he gathered his thoughts on the way. Once they came to an unused pasture full of wildflowers, he stopped.

Tracy pulled up beside him. “Okay, big brother, what’s going on?”

He leaned over the saddle horn and pushed his hat back over his forehead. “What do you know about Kyle McPherson?”

“What do you want to know?”

He straightened and turned to peer at her. “Remember I haven’t lived in Colton for thirteen years, sis. What was he like as a kid? Jesse told me he was a troublemaker. Tell me what you know. You know almost everything that goes on in this town before it even happens because women like to talk when they get their hair done.”

Tracy furrowed her brows and looked away. “I know Kyle had a few run-ins with the law when he was a teenager, but his father always got him off the hook. He worked for his grandfather on his ranch until Uncle Jim sold it to the developer. He always has a flashy car and likes to buy his girlfriends expensive jewelry. Just the other day, Jenny Garret showed me the impressive emerald bauble he’d given to her.”

“Do you wonder where he gets the money? Charli isn’t paying him that much. Her wages are fair, but they aren’t gonna make a man rich.”

She shrugged. “Maybe it’s not real or his credit cards are maxed.”

“Maybe.” He frowned. “Was he ever in trouble for drugs?”

“I don’t know.” Tracy looked at him. “Wait. I think he was. Got himself in trouble over in Waco about a year and a half ago, but his daddy pulled strings with Sheriff Madison, right before the old man retired, and they got the charges dropped or lessened. Shouldn’t you already know this? He is
your
employee.”

He took a deep breath. “He legally doesn’t have to tell an employer anything if the charges didn’t stick. Damn, if I’d known that, though, he wouldn’t be working here. I knew I should’ve called Wyatt before I hired him.” Wyatt McPherson was Kyle’s older brother and a Texas Ranger. Maybe he should still call his old friend.

“Did he steal something? What this is all about?”

“I think he’s responsible for the poisoning.”

“
What?”
She shook her head. “Kyle’s a spoiled brat, but I don’t believe for a minute he’d poison horses and cattle.”

He glanced away and dismounted. After moving away, he waited for Tracy to follow him to the ground. “I know McPherson did the feeding the morning the stock got sick. According to Jesse, Kyle acted jittery for a few days before the animals got sick. The morning before I found the calves, Kyle started the feeding before five-thirty. I don’t think the boy has ever been here that early. I also know jimsonweed is easy to buy on the street.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Why would Kyle poison Charli’s animals?”

“On the orders of someone willing to pay him enough to afford fancy emeralds for his lady love.” He raised a brow, and as soon as Tracy added two plus two, she widened her eyes. But in case she still had trouble coming up with four, he added, “And who in this county has more money than morals?”

“You don’t really think Leon is behind it, do you?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past that snake. Including murder.”

His sister shrieked, “You think he’s behind the shooting, too!”

“Tracy, Leon wants this land. And he wants me out of the way.”

“But
why?
” She shoved her fists to her hips and squared her shoulders. “Your insistence on this is going beyond crazy. Accusing anyone of such crimes is serious business, but our uncle–who just happens to be one of the richest men in Central Texas–is downright ludicrous.”

Although he’d lived in Colton as a teenager and for the past year, Leon hadn’t been around much during his high school days. He’d been off at Harvard, and after Leon graduated, he’d gone to work for his grandfather in Houston. Tracy, on the other hand, had never left Colton since moving here. She’d gotten pregnant her first year at Colton College and dropped out to marry Jock Blackwell’s nephew, Jake Parker. Possibly, she knew a great deal more about Leon and Maddie Ferguson than he did.