Heiress (31 page)

It wasn't like her. But MacCrea could appreciate her dilemma. She'd never faced anything like this before. Other people's problems rarely had any effect on him, but this time was different. He couldn't be impervious to her situation. He took the glass from her hand and gathered her into his arms, struggling inwardly with the protective instinct she'd aroused. She leaned against him and rested her head on his chest, absently rubbing her cheek against him.

"There's so much to do I don't know where to start," she said miserably. "Somewhere I've got to find a job and a place to live, but doing what and where?"

"The last part's easy. You can move in with me." The idea of having her here all the time appealed to him.

"What about Momma and Ben? I don't think this trailer could accommodate four people. And there's Jackson. He was going to retire as soon as he received the bequest Daddy left him."

"I wasn't thinking about them."

"But I have to. At his age, Ben isn't going to find another job. And Momma has never worked a day in her life." Her arms tightened around him as she pressed herself closer. "Hold me, MacCrea. Just hold me."

That was all she asked. He cradled her to his body and swayed gently, rocking her ever so slightly. MacCrea didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say.

Chapter 17

As Abbie skimmed the list of horses that had been compiled from the records by Lane Canfield's assistant, the name of her filly River Breeze stood out sharply among the Arabic names her father had given the rest. She stared at it first in surprise, then puzzlement. Obviously it was a mistake—one that needed to be corrected immediately.

With the list in hand, she left Ben's office in the stable annex to look for Lane or his assistant, Chet Forbes. Both were somewhere on the premises along with three other members of his staff, taking a complete inventory of everything on the place. The current plan called for two separate estate auctions to take place, the first to be a dispersal sale of all the horses, their tack, and related equipment, and the second, the sale of River Bend itself and its individual items.

Hearing voices coming from the tack room, Abbie crossed to its doorway and paused to glance inside. A portly man in shirt sleeves lifted four show halters off their wall hook, Ben identified them, and another man marked them down on his clipboard sheet—a tedious, time-consuming project.

"Four show halters," the man repeated as he wrote it down.

"One of those is silver," Ben corrected. "It is most expensive."

As the heavy-set man examined the halters again, Abbie explained, "It's tarnished. We'll have to polish it before the auction." She made a mental note of yet another thing that had to be done. The list was getting long. "Have you see Lane or Chet Forbes?"

"Yeah, they're in the other office." A chubby hand motioned in the direction of her father's private office.

"Thanks," Abbie said, already walking away, striding quickly to the office door. She knocked sharply twice, then reached for the doorknob as a muffled voice invited her inside. Lane stood behind the desk going over some papers, with the man in wire-rimmed glasses, Chet Forbes, seated in the chair. Both looked up when she walked in. "Excuse me, but I was just going over the list of horses you gave me. You have River Breeze included. That's the filly I own. Daddy gave her to me last year."

"I wonder how that happened." The pale young man took the list from her and glanced at it briefly, then began going through the folders on the desktop. "I used the owner registration papers and the foaling records to compile the list."

"You probably saw my registration papers on Breeze in with the others, caught the name Lawson, and added it to the list without looking at it any closer."

"That's possible." Chet Forbes opened the folder and deftly leafed through the clipped papers, scanning the names as he went. "Here it is. River Breeze." After carefully examining both the front and back of the certificate, he looked up triumphantly. "I was right. The horse is registered to Dean Lawson and nothing has been filled out transferring the ownership to any other party.”

"That can't be." Abbie took the folder from him and looked at the back of the certificate, but her name didn't appear on the line reserved for the buyer of the horse. "He gave River Breeze to me.”

"Did he say he was signing the registration over to you?" Lane walked around the desk to look at it.

"That was last year. I don't remember exactly what he said. But you don't give somebody something and keep the title in your own name," Abbie insisted.

"Did you ever ask about the owner registration?

"No. I assumed he sent it in. I never gave it another thought. I mean, it would have come here and. . . Daddy would have put it away for me. If I had wondered about it at all, that's what I would probably have thought happened." She looked at Lane, suddenly made wary by his questions. "She is mine."

"I don't know what to say, Abbie," Lane said, stalling. "You don't appear to have anything in writing to back up your claim to the horse—nothing with Dean's signature. The registration papers are still in his name. Legally, it would appear that the horse belongs to his estate."

"No." She choked on the angry denial.

"I'm sure Dean got busy and overlooked it. I'll see what I can do, if anything," Lane promised. "But you must understand this horse is a valuable animal—a valuable asset, if you will, not that much different from a building. You wouldn't expect a claim to a building to be regarded as valid if you had no title or documentation to back it up. I'm afraid the law will look at this in the same way."

"And Rachel: I suppose Daddy signed over the papers on the filly he gave her." Abbie couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice.

"I couldn't say." Lane took the folder from her and handed it back to Chet.

"We matched up all the horses on the farm to the registration papers in the file. There were two baby horses—" Chet began.

"Foals." Abbie snapped out the correct term.

"Yes. . . two foals that needed some forms filled out for registration, but other than that, we found no discrepancies between the papers we had and the horses on the place," he finished.

"I believe you," she replied tightly, her voice shaking with the anger and resentment boiling inside her. "But she still belongs to me."

Lane met her challenging stare. "I'll do everything I can to make sure you keep your horse, Abbie."

"Please do." As she started toward the door, Lane accompanied her.

"Chet and I were just talking about hiring some extra help to get the horses ready for the sale."

"We'll need it," Abbie stated, walking out of the office and heading for the outer door to the breezeway. "Ben and I can't get all the horses trimmed and groomed by ourselves. As it is, we won't be able to get them in top show condition in a little over a month."

"I'll see that you have the help you need," Lane promised as they emerged from the annex.

"Thanks." But Abbie was distracted by the sight of MacCrea's black pickup parked next to Lane's car. She hadn't expected to see him until later that night, their late-evening rendezvous becoming almost routine. When she saw him coming from the house, she quickened her step, breaking into a welcoming smile. "MacCrea, what are you doing here? You didn't say anything about stopping by today."

"I thought I'd surprise you." Pausing in front of her, he regarded her in that lazy way he had that made Abbie feel warm all over.

"You did."

"Good." Possessively, MacCrea curved an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side with an apparent disregard for Lane's presence. Then he bent his head, as if to nuzzle her hair, and whispered, "I missed you." He straightened to smile crookedly at her, knowing she couldn't say the same without being overheard. Abbie made a face at him, secretly smiling, and MacCrea chuckled.

As Lane joined them, Abbie turned. "Lane, I'd like you to meet MacCrea Wilder. MacCrea, Lane Canfield."

MacCrea removed his arm from around her shoulders to shake hands with Lane. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Canfield."

"Mr. Wilder."

"I don't know if I've told you anything about MacCrea or not, Lane, but I meant to." Many times, Abbie realized, but each time she'd seen Lane, too many other things had cropped up. "He's a drilling contractor as well as a wildcatter. And he's come up with a new invention—some sort of a testing process. MacCrea can explain it better than I can."

"I doubt that Mr. Canfield is interested in hearing about it, Abbie," MacCrea inserted as he calmly sized up the older man. "It isn't exactly in his line."

"Daddy was going to put him in touch with some people he knew who could help MacCrea develop and market it. You know a lot of people in the oil business, Lane," Abbie reminded him. "Maybe you could arrange some meetings for him."

"I might be able to," he conceded. "It certainly never hurts to look at something. Maybe we could get together sometime and you can explain it all to me."

"Why don't I give you a call at your office the first of next week and set up a meeting?"

Abbie didn't hear Lane's response as the battered pickup owned by Dobie Hix came rattling into the yard. She frowned, wondering what he was doing there at this time of day. It was too early to feed the horses. But she was even more bewildered when she saw her mother sitting in the cab of the truck with Dobie.

"Excuse me." She turned away from Lane and MacCrea with only an absent glance in MacCrea's direction and headed for the pickup.

"Abbie, the most wonderful thing just happened." Her mother clambered out of the cab, all astir with excitement. "I've found a place for us to live."

"You did?" Abbie glanced sharply at Dobie Hix as he walked around the hood of the rusted truck. Hurriedly, he pulled off his hat. As the sunlight flashed on his hair, bringing out the red in its strawberry-blond color, Abbie wondered what he had to do with all this.

"Yes, and it's perfect," Babs Lawson declared. "Dobie just showed it to me. It's small. We'll have to get rid of some of our furniture, but we really don't need anything bigger. There's even a room for Ben."

"Where is this house?" Abbie didn't mean to sound skeptical, but she wasn't sure her mother understood all the things that had to be considered in selecting a place to live.

"It's over at my place," Dobie answered. "Some of my hired hands live on the farm with their families. I furnish them living quarters as part of their salaries. But this particular house is vacant now, and I thought if you wanted, you could live there. It ain't much—not like what you been used to, but—"

"Dobie, I don't know what to say." Abbie shrugged helplessly.

"I'll have to charge you rent for it. But it'll be fair. I need something to cover the costs of the utilities."

"If you didn't let us pay, we wouldn't even consider staying there." She wasn't about to accept charity from anyone, even a close neighbor.

"I know that, Abbie. But I think you'll like the house." Dobie gazed at her earnestly, anxious to convince her of the fact. "And I don't keep much livestock anymore, so the barn's practically empty. You can keep your horse there at no charge. It's just standing empty anyway."

"Do you see what I mean, Abbie? It's perfect for us," her mother declared happily.

"It sounds like it," Abbie was forced to agree. But she didn't understand why she didn't feel more relieved that a solution may have been found for the problem of where they would live. After all, it meant one less thing she had to do. She should have been happy that her mother had taken it upon herself to look into it. Instead she found herself wanting to find fault with the choice.

"If you want, I can run you over so you can look at it," Dobie offered.

"Maybe later. I'm busy now."

"Sure." Dobie glanced in the direction of Lane and MacCrea and reluctantly nodded. "Anytime you want to see it, you just come over."

"Thanks, Dobie. I will."

"Well." He smiled and played with his hat. "Guess I'd better get going."

"Dobie, thank you for taking me over to see the house." Babs reached out to shake his hand. "Don't worry, I know Abbie is going to like it as much as I do."

"I hope so." He pushed his hat onto his head and headed around the truck to the driver's side, saying over his shoulder, "See y'all later."

The truck's engine sputtered uncertainly, backfired, then chugged to life. Still struggling with the mixed feelings she had about the house, Abbie watched while he reversed away from the fence and aimed the truck down the farm lane.

"Wait until you see it, Abbie." Babs was still excited about the house and obviously proud that she had found it. "I know it's smaller than we're used to, but we don't need all the room we have now."

"I know. Maybe tomorrow morning we'll have time to go look at the house together." She started to turn away and rejoin MacCrea and Lane.

"This is certainly our day for company, isn't it? Who do you suppose that is?" Babs wondered.

As Abbie glanced down the long driveway to the road, Dobie's pickup took the shoulder of the narrow lane to let the other car pass. Abbie stopped abruptly, all her muscles and nerves growing tense.

"Probably somebody to look at the horses." Like last time, Abbie thought as she worked to keep her voice calm and evenly pitched. "Why don't you go up to the house and fix us some iced tea, Momma? And ice that cake you baked this morning. Lane would like that."

"That's a good idea."

With her mother successfully sidetracked, Abbie walked quickly toward the car slowing to a stop in the yard. She felt almost rigid with tension when Rachel Farr stepped out, a picture of freshness untouched by the hot afternoon sun. Resentment simmered near the surface as Abbie looked into the face that was so like her own.

"What are you doing here, Miss Farr? I thought you understood that you weren't welcome here." She blocked Rachel's path, realizing MacCrea and Lane were standing a few feet away only after Rachel darted a quick glance in their direction.

"I know, but I had to talk to you."