His Southern Temptation (10 page)

“Yeah, I think I am.” He had to, because he either had to get her to stay or give her up for good. “I think he’s right. The time for action has arrived.”

Beck stood by the table, jingling his keys in his hand as he contemplated his next topic. Lucky wondered what he could say or ask that would top the last two minutes.

“You going out to the farm?” Beck asked.

“Yeah. I told Dad I’d help him with the repairs.” The words “if he’ll let me” hung in the air between them, Beck understanding what he didn’t say. The tenuous relationship with his father was one of the things he was here to fix, and repairing it was harder than patching the hole in the old barn.

Beck hesitated for a moment, keys jingling at faster pace, the look on his face transparent—he had dirt, but he was wondering if he should spill.

“You wanna tell me something?” Lucky asked. Beck was like a brother to him, and had actually lived out on the farm with the Landons the last two years of high school when his own father went to prison.

“Yeah.” Beck shifted, his glance flicking over to Jack, the plea for help as clear as day.
What the hell was going on?
“Summerfield Farm Corporation made another offer to your dad for the farm. It’s a good offer and I think he’s considering it.”

Damn it.
He’d found out through his high school buddy who worked at the bank that the farm, Promised Land, was seriously upside-down in debt. Mounting costs for equipment, fuel, feed for the horses, and paying for help to work the land had taken their toll. He had the money to pay the arrears and had arranged a loan for the balance with the bank. His father didn’t know it yet, but it looked like he would have to approach him as soon as possible. His father was a proud man, and it wasn’t going to be an easy conversation.

“When did it come in?” Lucky cleared his throat, unwelcome emotion forcing him to clear his throat and televising to everyone how much this news upset him.

“Yesterday. I saw him picking up your mom last night and he’d just received the offer from Teague.”

“Why Teague?”

“He’s the lawyer for Summerfield, or at least his father was before he took off. I thought you knew that.”

“No. I didn’t know,” Lucky said.

“Did you tell your dad that you know about the debt?” Beck asked.

“No. I didn’t want to upset him when I know I want to buy the farm anyway. It’s specifically why I came back to Elliott. Taking this burden off his shoulders is an added bonus.”

“Well, it looks like you need to move fast. It was a good offer.”

Lucky took another gulp of coffee. When he returned his gaze to Beck, he knew he had to say something to relieve the concern he saw there. This wasn’t Beck’s problem to carry around all day. “Thanks for telling me. I’ll talk to Dad about it later.”

With a “see you later” to the both of them, Beck waved at Dolly from the door and left for his shift at the hospital. Lucky watched him walk down Main Street and get into his car, the upbeat of his steps relaying just how right he was with his world. Not for the first time, Lucky admired his ability to shuck the baggage of past mistakes and live in the here and now.

“Other than corporate America trying to steal your birthright and a case of blue balls, you okay?”

Jack’s comment—the asshole thought he was so funny—banished his musings and brought him back to the cheerful, rumbling bustle of the Southern Comfort. With another flip of the bird, Lucky settled back in the booth, trying his best to push his concern about the farm to the back of his mind for now.

He glanced at his watch, realized he had a few minutes, and decided to bring Jack up to speed on the missing persons case.

“I’m worried about Sarah Morgan. Eddie Wilkes is just big-time enough to be a real problem, and if Sarah was sleeping with him or crossed him, she might be dead.” Jack leaned forward, the spark in his eye demonstrating how much he loved this work. “This isn’t the case I thought it was when I took it on. I should just turn it over to Sheriff Burke and leave it alone.”

“But?” Jack said.

“Mr. Clean, I didn’t like the look he gave Taylor one little bit. My gut tells me Eddie is going to be a problem for her and he has something to do with Sarah being missing.” He looked down at the Formica tabletop, trying to curb the unease burrowing under his skin. When he met Jack’s gaze, he knew he understood exactly what was driving him nuts. “I wanted to get away from this kind of stuff, asshole criminals, always looking over my shoulder, and now it looks like I’m right back in it.”

They both rose from the table, each throwing a few bills on the table to cover their meal, waving at Dolly as they exited the diner and stepped out into the summer sunshine and the bustle of Main Street. Elliott was waking up, and Lucky knew his dad had been up and moving for a couple of hours. He needed to get out to the farm or his father would have done all the work himself.

“So, what are you going to do?” Jack paused in the middle of the sidewalk, ignoring the busy foot traffic.

“I’m going to have to find Sarah Morgan. And until I do I’ll have to keep Taylor from Eddie and Mr. Clean.”

“Sticking close by Taylor shouldn’t be too much of a hardship for you,” Jack said with a grin. “That is if she still doesn’t want to kill you for embarrassing her in front of Teague.”

“I have a feeling she’s going to make me pay for that.”

“Yes, but you’ll find a way to enjoy it,” Jack said with a laugh. “All right, I’m off to see if I can steal a kiss from my wife in between her appointments.” He slapped Lucky on the shoulder before turning toward Michaela’s office with a look of contentment on his face. Jack had been a happy man since finding “his Kayla” and it was the God’s honest truth that Lucky envied him. It hadn’t been an easy road, but Jack had come out on top and found a peace of mind that Lucky hadn’t known since he was a child.

Home was where you went to find the answers, and a few days ago he thought he knew all of them. Now, Lucky wasn’t sure he even knew the question.

Chapter Eleven

“I heard you got arrested last night at the Jolly Gent.”

“Holy shit. Can’t you keep anything secret in this town?” Lucky asked his dad, Owen, as he paused in his caulking job on the barn roof. The sun was hot and oppressive where he stood on top of the roof, but his father’s continued silence really made Lucky sweat. They were finishing up the last of the repairs to the roof in their usual mode—lots of hard work, little conversation, and many things present but remaining ignored. “Who told you?”

“Your mama. She heard it from one her regular customers at the beauty shop.” He turned to throw rotted boards over the side, the crash when they hit ground drifting back up to them in the quiet of the farm. As he swung back around, Owen peered at him from under the brow of his ball cap. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

“Well, for the record, I didn’t get arrested. I was just taken in for questioning.” Obviously, he wasn’t used to being in Elliott again. He knew from a lifetime of prior experience that he should have called his mom and told her what happened before she opened Sissy’s Southern Style and learned of his exploits from her customers.

“I’m not the one you need to explain it to. Your mama was not pleased,” Owen said and returned to his job. “I heard the Elliot girl was arrest—” He paused, looking at Lucky, amusement teasing at his edge of his mouth. “I’m sorry—
questioned
—as well. You have anything to do with that?”

“Why do you assume I did?” Lucky asked, just to be ornery.

His dad humored him, continuing on as if his son wasn’t being a jackass. “Well, there was a time when that girl did nothing but look at you.”

Lucky shrugged, continuing his work and trying to play it cool. He didn’t want to get into a discussion about Taylor or any woman with his father. It was a little too close to the “sex talk” and the memory of that awkward, embarrassing, but blessedly short conversation still gave him the hives.

“And then there was a time when you started looking back,” his father added mildly.

Lucky paused at that one. He didn’t think anyone had noticed, least of all his father. “Ancient history.”

“History often repeats itself. You learn that as you get older,” his father said.

Time to change the subject. Getting pseudo-arrested was a safer topic.

“I was at the Jolly Gent because I’m working a job for Jack. A girl went missing from there and I was chasing down leads.”

“So you decided to take Jack up on his offer? I think that’s a good idea.” His father peered at him from under the brim of his ball cap, a quick nod emphasizing his agreement with the decision he thought his son had made regarding his future.

Lucky had been waiting for the perfect time to bring up his plans, dragging his feet and being a general chickenshit about the whole thing. It looked like now was the time. It wasn’t as though his dad could go anywhere.

“Dad, I want to buy the farm.”

Nothing.

“Did you hear me? I said I wan—”

“I heard you… I just thought I heard you wrong.” His dad, broad and strong, in fantastic shape for his age, looked up from where he was hammering down the replacement boards, his blue eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Why now? Never did interest you before.”

“People change.” Lucky braced himself for the debate.

“I thought you were pretty well-suited for what you were doing.” His dad turned back to the job at hand, the movement making his expression unreadable. His tone was clear, though—it said he wasn’t jumping on board the Lucky train any time soon. “Seemed to be exactly where you belonged. Trouble always seemed to find you.”

“So it only made sense for me to have a job that sent me to look for it?” Lucky finished the thought, not bothering to hide the bitter edge to his comment.

“Now, don’t read too much into my words. I didn’t mean you were a troublemaker, but it sure did follow you around. And you always knew how to fix it. I know you helped a lot of people in the service.”

“Don’t make me out to be a hero,” he said, voice rough as he pushed through the tightness in his chest caused by the pride in his father’s words.

“Lucky. I went to war and I know that every man who puts on a uniform isn’t a hero, but I also know even heroes make mistakes. I just don’t want you to make another one.”

The papers he signed when he’d left the government were so classified that even people who knew where Jimmy Hoffa was buried didn’t know about him. He’d fought on the side of the righteous, but the images of what he’d done still played in a sickening, loud as hell, continuous loop in his head. The noise had driven him home, to the place where the silence on the mountain was the only thing louder than the echoes of gunfire and people dying.

“Lucky.”

With a slight jump, he realized that he’d risen to a standing position on the steeply pitched roof. He squatted down quickly, lowering his center of gravity before he fell off the damn roof and broke his neck. When he looked, pulse pounding and a short of breath, his dad’s face was pale under his farmer’s tan.

“I think we should talk about this on the ground,” Owen said.

The few minutes it took for them to descend with their tools gave him time to compose his thoughts and shake off the bad memories. The gear stowed in the tool room, he followed his father into the 125-year-old farmhouse he’d been raised in and left as soon as the ink was dry on his college diploma. It was cooler inside, the air-conditioning humming, and the promise of cold sweet tea in the fridge rapidly cooled him down. As was custom, they headed to the kitchen where all-important family decisions were made.

“Lucky, this is a good offer.” Barely seated, his father thumped a finger on the envelope containing the bid from Summerfield corporation lying on the tabletop between them as they settled in with their drinks. He wasn’t going to beat around the bush. “What kind of money can you put on the table?”

“I can’t match their bid, but I can put down about thirty percent and the bank will lend me the rest.” He bit back a smile when his dad’s eyebrows shot up at the figure. It wasn’t chump change.

“Can I ask how you got that kind of money?”

He took a sip of the cold, sweet beverage and didn’t meet his dad’s eyes. It made it easier to avoid directly answering the question. “I got a very nice severance package when I left my last employer.”

“I didn’t think the government paid that well.”

“They do if they want something from you.” Everything had a price, including silence.

His father dropped his gaze, tapping the tabletop with blunt, rough fingers as he considered the offer. Lucky did the same thing when he was making a decision.

“Why do you want the farm?”

“What?”

“I think it’s a fair question, since you’re offering to buy the place when I really need to sell it.”

Lucky stared, the mask of control bred by the Marines coming to good use as his dad gave him the hairy eyeball across the table. He didn’t want to lie, but he didn’t want his dad to think that playing the white knight was the only reason he made the offer.

“You know about the debt, right? Isn’t that why you’re offering?” Owen asked.

“It isn’t the only reason, but I’m glad to do it. I’m tired of living with a gun in my hand.” The bottom line was that he was just plain tired—period.

“Okay, that tells me what you don’t want to do. I asked why you wanted to do this.”

“I need it. I need something to get the ugly shit out of here.” He tapped his head on the right temple.

“I see.” His dad got up, the chair legs scraping against the hardwood floors and raking down his nerves like claws. Placing his glass in the sink, his father turned, leaning his big form against the edge of the countertop, arms crossed against his chest like a barrier. “Like I said. I’ve been to war, so I think I understand what you’re going through. You’ve done this before, come home to rest and get your head straight—it’s what home is for. You need a place where you can find your peace.”

Lucky braced himself—literally digging his heels into the floor —waiting for the “but” to follow.

“But that’s no reason to buy a farm and saddle yourself for a lifetime with something you always said you didn’t want.” His dad paused, struggling with his words. “All I ever heard when you were little was that you wanted to be a Marine. You achieved your goal, served admirably, and now you’re just plain worn out. After you rest, this life might not be what you need anymore.”