Slow Ride Home (The Grady Legacy) (4 page)

Wow, that was almost exactly what her father had said about George Grady as they’d driven out of Bull’s Hollow for the last time. Right before he’d called her a whore.

* * *

Thank God Logan had taken over control of the meeting—something neither of them had planned. It left Ben free to watch Allie—and if he hadn’t been, he might not have noticed a pained expression flicker across her face.

Way to go
,
Grady.
She probably thinks you feel the same way about her and her father considering Pete Daniels had been kicked off the ranch for theft too.

Logan stood, signalling the end of the meeting and held up Kathy’s card between two fingers. “If we have anything further, I can contact you at this number?”

“Yes. If I can’t get to you myself, my assistant will be able to help you.” Kathy shoved her tablet into her bag.

“I’ll be staying around for a few days.” Allie handed Logan her card too. “I’m going to talk with Tank in hopes we can come to some mutually agreeable settlement.”

Which meant they’d try to buy him off just like Logan had predicted. Personally Ben hoped they’d threaten Panola’s ass with a lawsuit for defamation of character of Gramp’s name. There was one court case he’d be happy to attend.

“But if he doesn’t release the rights,” she continued, “I’ll need to speak with your client’s previous attorneys.”

Ben started. “Why do you need to talk to Randy?”

Logan held up a hand with a frown. “To ensure your father didn’t make a deal with Tank he didn’t tell you about. It’s what I’d do too, Ben.”

“Ackerman and Freeman will require Ben’s release before they’ll talk with me,” Allie said. “Can I ask you to forward it to them right away?”

“Of course.” Logan held out his hand to the older woman. “Thanks for coming down so quickly, Ms. Berner.”

Damn, Logan was smooth. When had his friend acquired such a polished patina? Law school no doubt, or the senior partners at Carter, Murphy and Scott drilled it into him.

Logan turned to Allie. “Are you headed over to Tank’s immediately or are you staying in town overnight?”

“I’ve booked a room at the Carter Valley Motel while I get the face-to-face meetings out of the way.”

Ben shuddered at the mention of the fleabag motel. This was stupid. Why should she stay at that dive...? “Lo? What do you think about Allie staying at your old place? You can stay in Jake’s old room if you need to stay overnight.”

Logan’s face went even more blank. “It’s your call considering you own it.”

Shit. Was Logan pissed that he’d volunteered his old family home to Allie without asking privately, or because he’d been reminded how his father had walked away from the family home and let Gramps scoop it up for a song?

“The place isn’t much,” Ben explained, “but we’ve moved a reasonably good queen-sized bed in there for when Lo comes out to visit. You’ll have a kitchen and a living room with a decent television. You’ll have room to spread your stuff out if you want.”

Allie lifted her chin. “I can stay at the motel. There’s no need to put Logan out.”

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Allie, it’s fine. You should stay at my family’s old place. Unless you want to be infested with bedbugs.”

“Bedbugs?” The color bleached out of Allie’s face and she rubbed her arm, probably at the same creepy-crawly feeling Ben had at the thought of the critters biting an unaware sleeper. “Okay. It’ll only be a for a couple of days.”

Logan pulled out his key ring, separated one key and held it out. “You remember where the place is, right?”

“Yes.” She took the key as if it might burn her and quickly stepped back, shoving the key in her jacket pocket. “It’s down the road from Ben’s parents’ place.”

His place now, but Ben didn’t correct her.

“There’s some canned food there, but no perishables,” Logan warned, “so you’ll need to stop off for groceries.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, looks like we’re all set here.” The other woman juggled her purse with her briefcase. “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Vance.”

While Logan escorted the visitors to their cars, Ben reclaimed the desk chair and leaned back so he could see the yard. It wasn’t to surreptitiously watch Allie, he told himself, yet his eyes were drawn to her like a bee to a bright flower. Even on the rough gravelled surface, she strode confidently toward her car. The way the light linen of her skirt clung to the curves of her ass taunted him more than any of the tight denim jeans she used to wear did. Damn if he didn’t get hard.

He lifted his great-grandfather’s compass from the stand on his desk and toyed with it. Holding the worn brass case, knowing his ancestors had carried it for generations had always helped him keep his head clear.

“You’re over her. She’s trouble,” he told himself. The words echoed around the ancient trailer’s walls, but his head wouldn’t accept them. Before she sat in the car, Allie glanced at the window as if she knew he was watching her. Again an expression of hurt and anger flitted across her face. An expression that made him want to dash outside and comfort her.

Get a grip
,
Grady.
Focus on something different.
Like that fucking lying ass Panola.

His blood boiled in his veins at the thought of his ranch hand’s betrayal.

Yup, that did it.

“I can’t fucking believe Panola’s behind this whole fucking thing.” Maybe if he’d called the sheriff the moment he saw Tank loading those calves on the trailer all this could be avoided.

“You’re going to break it if you keep squeezing it.” Logan plucked the compass from him and placed it back on its stand. “As for Panola, that’s probably the best news we could have had. I bet SSTG will be able to get him to sign a quit claim with a few carefully placed words.”

“Like fraud?” Ben asked hopefully.

“That would be a start.” He perched a hip on Ben’s desk and set the compass swinging. “You need to be careful around Allie.”

“I’m not in high school anymore. I can handle myself.” Yeah, right. His flagging hard-on was proof he’d tumble for her again, and probably tumble fast.

“Maybe.” Doubt filled Logan’s voice. “But I saw the way you looked at her. You still find her attractive.”

“I’ve got a heartbeat, don’t I? Shit, Logan, of course I found her attractive. Any red-blooded man would.”
Keep telling yourself that
. “Or are you tryin’ to tell me you didn’t think she’s even hotter than she was?”

“There.” Logan stabbed a finger at him. “That type of thinking will get you into trouble and you could end up losing the ranch if you don’t play your cards right. You’re thinking with your dick, not your brains again, dipshit. Now listen to me. Play it smart and stay away from her. And if you do have to meet with her, for fuck’s sake, keep your hands by your side and your dick in your pants.”

“You sound like Gramps. Which bugs the shit out of me, by the way.” Taking a cue from Logan, he lifted one foot and set it on the desk, then rested his other ankle on top of the other. Logan wasn’t the only one who had a degree hanging on his wall. Okay, maybe having your feet on the desk made more of a statement if your shoes were shiny leather like Logan’s instead of his dirt-and-hay-encrusted boots. “Allie didn’t dump me. She left because her father was fired. What happened wasn’t her fault.”

“If she didn’t know what her dad was doing, if she hadn’t been hiding it from you, then why didn’t she get in touch with you? Even an email saying good-bye or blasting your grandfather. You gotta face it, buddy. She was playing you. And when their house of cards collapsed, she didn’t even think about you when they scuttled away with their tails between their legs.”

It had taken him months—years—to accept that she might have deliberately been with him as a distraction. But the hurt and mistrust in her eyes made him wonder whether Logan might be wrong. Because if he wasn’t, it meant Allie was a really good actress and was playing him again.

Irritated that he couldn’t decide, he folded his arms across his chest and glared. “Yeah, well, you were nice enough to her.”

“I was being civil. Which is different. And I’m not the one whose claim she’s investigating. Now listen, I know what I said about staying away from her, but don’t forget her company might be looking for any reason to deny your claim outright rather than pay it out. So don’t tick her off either.”

“Panola’s deed is fake. The whole case is blackmail.” Ben focused on the anger of the betrayal over focusing on his feelings for Allie, because boy howdy had they surged back—attraction, lust, and...yeah, a heaping help of hurt welled up in his chest too. Why the hell hadn’t she at least emailed him or phoned him and said goodbye, or told him where she was? Yeah, being pissed off at Tank was much easier to deal with. “And you heard her boss. They figure it’s an open-and-shut case.”

“For all you know, open-and-shut cases to them may last several months.” Logan checked his watch. “I have to get back. I have a meeting with the partners this evening.”

Ben followed Logan out to his car and noticed three of his ranch hands lingering at the doors to the barn, watching them. “You guys got a problem?”

They exchanged glances and then the eldest of them nudged the man at his side, who uttered a curse even Ben could understand without hearing, and ambled across the yard. “We were wondering if they were from the bank. Word is the bank’s frozen the ranch accounts and none of us is gettin’ paid this week.”

Fan-fucking-tastic. That’s all he needed. The damned grapevine was growing deep roots and far too many heads, far faster than usual. Spurred by one of Tank’s buddies no doubt. “The bank hasn’t frozen the accounts. You’re gonna get paid same as normal. You spread the word for me, will ya, Danny?”

“So who were they? Because from those women’s getups they sure aren’t ranchers.” Danny followed him, obviously unconvinced. Or maybe he was just fishing for more juicy details to feed the gossips. Ben swore the hands were like a bunch of chickens clucking in the henhouse some days.

“They’re with the company that insured the ranch’s title. They’ll get to the bottom of this, prove that we’re the rightful owners and the sack of shit who says elsewise is a fucking liar. Now if you want to get a full week’s pay this week, get back to work.”

Damn it, they needed this case closed and fast if he was to get these rumors shut down. Which meant helping Allie prove Tank’s claim a lie. Which meant he had to play nice.

While she might hold a grudge about her father being fired, that particular incident could be laid at George Grady and Pete Daniel’s feet, not his. Or hers. He could play nice. Maybe the time to make sure she knew that was now. But how?

For some odd reason, he remembered a lot of Allie’s favorite foods. The list forming in his head, Ben diverted to the ranch’s cookhouse.

Chapter Two

In a halfhearted effort to pretend she wasn’t listening to Kathy’s conversation with one of the other senior partners, Allie opened the cabinet door over the microwave. As singlewides went, the old Vance place was clean though small and would give her more space and freedom than the motel ever would.

Serenaded by a rattling air conditioner, Allie opened the single drawer in the kitchen. In addition to the four knives, six spoons and three forks—not counting the one with bent tines, there was a hand-cranked can opener, a 1997 North Texas State Fair bottle opener, a couple of wooden spoons that looked brand new and a rust-coated spatula. Add them to the half dozen glasses and plates in the cupboards.

The linoleum might be scuffed and marred, but given the lack of dust that habitually found its way through the nooks and crannies of the windows and doors, it was clean. A comfortable and expensive-looking black leather couch looked out of place in the nearly bare living room. The master bedroom at the far end was barely larger than the walk-in closet Lewis had built in their home in New York, but the bed occupied nearly the entire room. She lifted the mattress cover and discovered the set was also nearly brand new. The bathroom was decent and clean—something she’d worried about, considering it had been inhabited by a bachelor. It would do her for the few days she’d be staying.

She went through her mental checklist. First thing she needed to do was to run into town for some groceries. She needed to interview Tank—that would be the task for tomorrow morning. Though Kathy had said they wouldn’t need to talk to Ackerman and Freeman, the original Bull’s Hollow lawyers, unless Tank didn’t cooperate, Allie didn’t agree. Rumors about one of the Grady men having an affair had floated around the ranch. Rumors she’d been told to ignore so she had, especially when Ben had scoffed at them. But stranger things had happened. Not that she expected Randy to reveal family secrets either, but his reaction to her questions might give her a direction to search.

Then she could go back to Houston with its triple-digit temperatures and oppressive humidity. While the temperature was only a few degrees cooler up here in Bull’s Hollow, the humidity was much lower, which made the heat bearable. How quickly she’d acclimated to the east coast’s seasons.

“I’m heading home.” Kathy shoved her cellphone into her pocket. “You comfortable interviewing this Panola fellow?”

“Tank and I got along fine. I can find out what the issue is. Don’t worry.” Allie leaned on the counter. “Are you sure you shouldn’t assign someone else? Logan’s argument that I’m a liability is valid.”

“AJ, this case should be fairly open and shut. You’ve handled others like this before.”

“It’s different with people I know.” With Ben.

“Which is exactly why you’re perfect for this case. You knowing Panola could be our ace in the hole. He’s more likely to be honest with you than he will be with me. Think of the old honey instead of vinegar saying. See if you can sweet talk him into signing back the land but if he doesn’t agree to sign off, don’t be afraid to pull out the vinegar. Once you’ve got the word from the family’s old lawyer that they didn’t handle any sales to Panola, go after this fellow with guns blazing. Because sure as shooting he’s trying to cloud the title as payback for your Ben firing him. Threaten to sue him if you have to, ask him how much it’ll take to get him to sign away his rights, then remind him we can sue his ass. Are you okay with that?”

“I’m fine with it.” She’d have to be if she wanted to keep her job. Not that she particularly enjoyed working for SSTG, but she’d grown fond of living with a roof over her head and food in her cupboards until she found somewhere else to work.

“Same with the Gradys. If they’re trying to hide anything, if the Gradys fudged their Title Insurance application, you’ve got a better shot at reading them because you know ’em.”

“I couldn’t read them when I lived here. I would never have—” She swallowed the rest of the sentence, not willing to get into a discussion of her past with her boss. “I wouldn’t have trusted them the way I did.”

“Which puts you more on guard. You’ll be watching them closer. Besides, I got a load of how Ben looks at you. You can deny it all you want, but he’s still got a thing for you, and I’m not ashamed to admit I’m willing to ask you to exploit his attraction all you can.”

He was probably remembering what she used to do for him. Wondering if he could seduce her again. “You’re seeing things.”

“Nope. I’m not. By the way, I want deets on this history they referred to. It’s more than what you told me earlier, isn’t it?”

“You know all you need to. The rest doesn’t matter.”

Kathy lifted her eyebrows. “Uh-huh. You realize I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

“You’ll try, I’m sure.” But she didn’t share everything in her life, especially with her boss.

They walked out to Kathy’s car, parked beside Allie’s trim Honda.

“You can do this. I’m counting on you to be thorough. Shake whatever tree you have to. Rattle their cages. Dig up their dirt. Eighteen million is too much to lose if this claim is real. And if there is another heir hidden somewhere, we might be facing losing the whole thirty-three million. Do your job the way I taught you. If you do, you’ll have evidence they won’t be able to dispute.” Kathy got in her car and rolled down the window. “I’m counting on you here. Don’t let me down.”

As Kathy pulled out, Ben’s white dual-wheeled truck slowed in front of the trailer. He waited for Kathy to pass him before pulling into the driveway.

He climbed from the truck and reached into the back, pulling out a black plastic basket. “I figured I’d save you a trip into town.”

“Thanks.” She eyed the basket as he drew nearer—the damned thing was filled with an assortment of fresh apples and pears, potatoes, carrots. Her mouth watered at the scent of the two loaves of freshly baked bread. “Tell me Butch made those.”

Butch was one of the ranch hands who had taken on the cookhouse long before Allie and her father had arrived. Every hand on the ranch had declared Butch the best cook west of the Mississippi, and Allie had to agree. Though she’d longed to get his recipes or even to learn to cook, Allie never dared test the old man’s threat that any hand foolish enough to venture anywhere near his kitchen would go hungry for a week.

Ben crunched up the gravel path with the same big goofy grin she’d fallen so hard for in high school. Damn it, he had to stop looking so cute. She laid a hand flat on his chest and pushed. Except he didn’t move an inch. “What?”

“You should see yourself—you’re practically drooling, aren’t you?”

Annoyed at his perception, she hunched her shoulders and concentrated on digging through the produce. “Just tell me Butch is still your cook.”

“Yeah, Butch is still here, though his daughter’s taken over most of the cooking. Bitsey’s cooking is as great as his.”

Anticipation bubbling, she poked through the basket. “What else did they send over? Tell me there are some of his cookies.”

“I’m not sure. Why don’t we go inside and unpack it so you can find out.” Without waiting for an answer, he strode to the front door and into the trailer. Holy crap Butch’s cooking wasn’t the only thing she wanted to sink her teeth into—Ben’s ass, so wonderfully outlined by his chaps, just begged to be to be bitten.

“You comin’ or what?”

Damn, her mind spun his question off in a way she knew he hadn’t intended. Before she answered “why, are you gettin’ naked?” she pinched the soft tissue on the inner part of her arm and muttered, “You can’t trust Gradys, remember? You’re just here to do a job not fall for Ben’s charms.”

Her resolve settling into her spine, she stomped into the trailer and found him unpacking the box.

In addition to the fresh vegetables and bread, Butch had sent over containers of chili, homemade granola, a dozen fresh eggs and...Allie pounced on a plastic container and hugged it to her chest. “Banana bread muffins! Oh my God, I can’t believe he remembered that I love these.”

Ben opened his mouth then closed it again. “I’ve got more stuff too. I’ll be back in a sec.”

By the time he’d finished unloading the truck, his
more stuff
loaded the table until it was filled, along with half the cupboards and the entire refrigerator. Peanut butter cookies, fresh biscuits and a double helping of Butch’s county-fair-winning peach cobbler held their place of honor on the counter.

While Butch might have remembered that she liked peach cobbler, there was no way the old cook could have remember all her other preferences. Which meant Ben had gone to Butch with a shopping list of all her favorite foods. Even after all these years, all that had happened, he still cared for her enough to look after her. The warm fuzzy feelings fed the long-slumbering love she’d once had for him.

Damn it. She couldn’t let herself be attracted to him again. Couldn’t let her guard down.
The best defense is a strong offense
. “Are you trying to bribe me to make sure I clear the title in your favor? Or did you do this because you feel guilty about what your family did to my father?”

The amusement on his face faded. “I was just trying to be neighborly.”

All this food, proof that he hadn’t forgotten her, that he’d thought about her, was more than just neighborly. It was pure Ben. She curled her fingers into her palm to stop herself from touching him, using the bite of pain as her nails dug into her skin to remind her of the pain his family had caused.

“Thank you, but an apology would have gone farther.”

* * *

Apology
? For his grandfather firing her father for stealing? After he’d gone to all the trouble of making sure she was comfortable here?

His jaw clenched as he bit back a harsh retort.
Don’t tick her off.
Logan’s warning ringing in his ears, he stuffed down his yearning to stalk out the door, letting it slam behind him. Instead he took a deep, calming breath. “I’d say apologies are owed from both sides.”

Oh, crap. From the way her jaw dropped and her fists clenched, his response was not enough to cool her temper.

“Unlike you and the rest of your family, I don’t owe you or anyone an apology.”

Yup, definitely not enough. Yet his gut told him there was something else going on. It took a lot of control but he kept his voice level. “How about for not responding to my emails or the messages I left on your phone asking if you were okay.” After a moment, he added, “I cared about you, Allie. I didn’t stop caring just because you didn’t live here anymore. But you never responded. I didn’t know if you were okay or what had happened to you.”

“Frankly, I didn’t want to see you or any one from Bull’s Hollow ever again.” Her expression closed up, the way Logan’s did whenever they played poker. “I hated you for a long time. And even if Dad hadn’t been monitoring my emails, I would have deleted yours unread.”

Her courtroom persona was almost enough to make him believe she hadn’t cared, but then her voice hitched betraying her hard-won control. That tiny waver sliced open his own control and wiggled inside. Made him soften his voice. “Why? What did I do?”

“What did you do?” She gave him a
well
,
duh
look and thumped him on the chest. “I trusted you, Ben, but you betrayed me. Both of you.”

Oh sweet baby Jesus, had she told her father about them at the pond and what the three of them had done? How they’d ditched work and gone skinny-dipping down at The Hollow? How things had gone further, and the three of them had...shit, it still blew him away that she’d allowed them both to touch her. To make love to her. And what stunned him more was that he’d let Logan even touch her.

The gut-sick feeling he’d had after she’d left returned with a vengeance, twisting and bouncing as if he were on an out-of-control bronco. Their threesome had been hot as hell but afterwards, when his emails went unanswered, he’d started worrying. Wondering. “It wasn’t planned, and we never thought any less of you because of it.”

“After I saw the video, I knew you’d set me up.”

Every muscle tightened. Fuck. He stared hard, trying to find some proof in her expression that she was lying, but found none. “What video?”

“The video you guys made of us.” The words snapped out, and her body vibrated with anger. He got the impression she was having a hard time stopping from stamping her feet. Or slapping his face. “Of me. With you both.”

What the fuck?
Someone had filmed them?
He swallowed down the bile burning the back of his throat. No wonder she’d not contacted him or wanted anything to do with him. It was a surprise she hadn’t set the police on them. Not that they’d broken any laws.

“I don’t know how you did it,” she continued, “or who you arranged to be at the canyon waiting to film us, because you made it sound like the whole day was spontaneous.”

His righteous indignation died as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on him. He sat on the chair a little too hard and held up a hand. “Hold on. There was nothing planned about that day. And I damned well had nothing to do with anyone filming us.”

Who the fuck would have filmed them? Logan had led them out there—had he known someone else would be there too? Was he part of whatever she claimed his grandfather had done? He dismissed the idea as soon as he thought it. There was no way Logan would have betrayed him any more than he would have betrayed Logan.

“Swear to God, Allie, this is the first I’ve heard of it. I wouldn’t have had any part of it.”

“Well, someone was there with a camera and they taped us in full, glorious color.” She rubbed her forehead as if she were fighting a headache. “They taped all of it, Ben. Every single minute. From us arriving to us skinny-dipping, and then you kissing me and...me kissing you, and then Logan...” She ground the heel of her hand into her eyes and groaned. “I don’t know if your grandfather took it or who did, but he showed it to my father and told him he didn’t want his ‘whore of a daughter’ on Bull’s Hollow to corrupt his grandson anymore.”

Oh shit, Gramps had called her a whore? Allie was a lot of things—brilliant, fearless, proud—but never a whore. “I’ve never heard jack shit about a video. Honest.”