Titans (36 page)

“All right, cupcake,” he said. “If you can manage the frowns and growls of your brother, it's okay with me. Now let me help you with those ties.”

T
hree days later, September seventh, Leon Holloway collected Nathan's letter from his post office box in Gainesville. He slipped a fingernail under the envelope's flap, thrilled to see two full pages enclosed—
two!
—and began to read even before he got outside the building. There was one from Randolph, too, mailed from New York City, but he would wait until he got home to give it to Millicent to read aloud to both of them. His house was within walking distance, and he enjoyed the daily trek to and from the post office, especially on sunny, brisk days like today.

By the time he reached the park, Leon had finished the letter and was forced to sit down on the bench he often occupied when the house became too confining. Dropping his head back, he stared horror-stricken up into the canopy of the turning maple tree that afforded shade in summer, two items in the script dancing before his stark gaze:
Samantha Gordon
and
Las Tres Lomas de la
Trinidad
. Lord have mercy! Nathan had met his twin sister! The shock of it had knocked his pins right out from under him, but as his heart rate slowed and his legs steadied, Leon wondered why he should feel so blown off his feet. There had been times when he had worried that the hand that had made the universe would somehow, some way, throw the twins together. Dallas and Fort Worth were not that far apart. He'd known of such strange, far-fetched things happening. He'd heard of a soldier in the war who, when rifling through a dead Yankee's pockets for a souvenir of his kill, had pulled out a photograph of his own parents. The Yankee had killed the man's brother.

Another time, a member of Millicent's sewing circle was visiting a sick neighbor and noticed a birthmark on the back of the woman's leg in the same spot and identical in appearance as that of her baby sister, who had been adopted. Comparing notes, the two women discovered they were siblings. They had lived two blocks apart in Gainesville for over twenty years.

So why should Leon Holloway doubt that a divine wind had not blown the twins together? Already there had been warnings that the chickens were coming home to roost when Neal Gordon and Trevor Waverling had unexpectedly turned up on his doorstep. Leon had been concerned that should Nathan and Samantha ever meet, there might be a romantic spark between them, and his blood would go cold at what could come of that. But no, thank goodness, Samantha Gordon was married, and it sounded like Nathan was smitten with Charlotte Weatherspoon, somebody who sounded right up Millicent's alley.

So what should he do now, if anything? He must think. He alone held the box lid showing the full picture of the puzzle of which each player held a piece. Neal Gordon had learned of Samantha's parentage and believed Leon to be her father, a secret the rancher had apparently kept to himself. Somehow Trevor Waverling had come to suspect that Samantha was his daughter and twin sister to his son, but he had said nothing to Nathan or declared himself to Samantha, or the boy most certainly would have written of it in his letter. Nathan knew nothing about his birth other than he'd been begotten by another man than the one he'd thought was his father. Millicent, of course, knew she had a daughter born a twin but had no idea of who or where she was. Samantha had no knowledge of the father and twin brother living right under her nose, at least not yet.

What a jumble!

Leon would keep his counsel, allow the powers that be their sway with no interference from him. He slipped the letter in its envelope into his overalls' pocket, mentally hearing Millicent chirp when he arrived with the mail:
I see you've read Nathan's letter, so let's open Randolph's.
It was always the way. Nathan was forever last with his mother. Ah, Millie girl, Leon thought, heaven help you if you ever have to answer for what you did to your firstborns, but maybe the eye that had kept Nathan and Samantha in its sight was behind that, too. The twins were better off abandoned to the folks who'd taken them in, sure enough. Leon wished only that he could share in the lives they had made.

Stretching to his full height, Sloan carefully pushed the skull in its burlap wrapping far back behind a box of painted wooden balls that annually adorned the Christmas tree. It was early Friday afternoon and hay-baling season. His foreman would be wondering where in blazes he was. His boss was needed to inspect and decide which areas of his hay fields to bale. A blight had wiped out at least half of his fodder crop, and it was essential that the rest be collected and baled before it became too dry or inclement weather set in and ruined the first cutting. Rain was expected on the coast and could move inland, but Sloan had had to hang around after lunch until Samantha left for Las Tres Lomas and Millie May had gone to exercise her mare. His older sister had come in from Houston for the weekend but would extend her stay now that Billie June was moving back—“for as long as Daniel's services are needed at the drill site,” she'd informed them by telephone. Samantha had taken the message.

The news that Billie June would be bringing Daniel Lane home with her on Sunday to occupy the best guest room had been as hard to swallow as a patch of cockleburs. The shock had been delivered at lunch, the women surprised that Sloan had not risen from the table like an enraged stallion to declare that he would absolutely forbid it, but he was in no position to protest the impudence of the man to push the proposal on Billie June. Daniel Lane's threat—
I want you to remember that I can destroy you with Miss Gordon, her father, and your sisters—
still buzzed in his head like a swarm of gnats. Sloan had yet to figure out how to handle the threat and turn the table on the upstart.

“And before you accuse Daniel of the idea,” Samantha had said at lunch as if reading his thoughts, “the notion was all Billie June's.”

“According to the dictates of Dad's will, I'm afraid you can't refuse her, Sloan,” Millie May had reminded him.

“Dad's dictates never included his daughter using a guest room for sexual trysts with a smithy's helper!” he'd snapped.

Samantha had inserted quietly, “A prince would be more suitable?”

It was the first marital dispute between them. Sloan had felt a flush of shame. He was no snob. He respected all men who worked hard at their jobs. None stood more exalted in his estimation, and Daniel Lane had been known around Fort Worth as a hard and conscientious worker. Also, the solid fact was that Daniel no longer earned his living over a fire and anvil. To hear Billie June tell it, he had become indispensable to Waverling Tools. But what Samantha and his sisters did not know was that Daniel Lane was out to get him, and Billie June was his tool to do it.

Makes my pursuit a whole lot easier with no regrets
,
the man had said.

What pursuit?

What I've determined is now my life's mission.

The memory of that cryptic exchange still raised his flesh a little, whatever it meant, but Sloan forced himself to close his mind to it. He had too much to do to worry about Daniel Lane's “life's mission.” He had thrown his napkin on the table and pushed back his chair. “You're twisting my words, Samantha. Snobbery has nothing to do with it. Intentions do. Daniel Lane is up to no good with my younger sister.”

“By now, don't you think Billie June would have determined that for herself?” Millie May had asked.

“She's so besotted she can't see she's setting herself up for a waterfall of heartbreak,” Sloan had said. “I can't prevent it in Dallas, but I can in my own house.”

“It's her heart, Sloan,” Samantha had said, again in that quiet, unflinching tone of reason.

The long and short of it was that Daniel Lane was to plunk his bedroll in the main house of the Triple S Sunday, and that had forced Sloan to find another place to store the skull. With the women about, Sloan would have had a hard time explaining his reason for rummaging through the upstairs closet when he had supposedly stayed behind to write checks to pay the monthly bills. Their absence from the house was the first opportunity he'd had to sneak into the guest room where he'd hidden the relic. After his marriage, he'd moved it there from the master suite he'd taken over when his father died. Tomorrow, the maids would be cleaning the guest room Daniel was to occupy, airing out drawers and wardrobes, and Sloan had had little time to think of a place where the skull would be kept dry, safe from damage, and unlikely to be discovered. There had never been a need for locks inside the house at the Triple S, not even in the study. No building outside would do. Try as he might, despite the space available in his home, Sloan could think of no other place to hide the albatross around his neck but in a storage cabinet of Christmas items never opened until the holidays. It was across from the guest room, but even considering that liability, Sloan thought it the best hiding place temporarily available. A warped jamb made the door difficult to open, and when pried loose it grated like the lid of an ancient crypt. If Daniel went on the prowl to ferret out the skull—supposing he thought the owner of the Triple S dumb enough to keep it—Sloan could depend on the noise alone to alert the whole upper floor, but he must make sure not to sleep too soundly or ever to leave Daniel alone in the house.

If only he could get rid of the damn thing, but his conscience shook a finger at him. The relic belonged to Sam. It could be an archeological treasure. If destroyed, the likes of it might never surface again.

His wife and sister had pleaded with him to behave to Daniel. Samantha was already disturbed by her father's refusal to allow Nathan Holloway and Todd Baker, pariah that he was, to stay in the house at Las Tres Lomas while they mapped out the drill site. The men would have to set up a tent and cook over a campfire. They would be arriving Monday by train, and at least Neal had agreed to send a wagon to pick them up at the station.

“I don't understand how Daddy can be so unreasonable and inhospitable,” Samantha had complained. “With me gone from the house, you'd think he'd welcome those men's company and be eager to hear all about the preliminary work they're doing at Windy Bluff.” Sloan didn't understand Neal's stand, either. The Gordon house could accommodate any number of guests, and Daniel could have been shuffled off over there.

Samantha had said, “If things get too tense, we can always move over to Las Tres Lomas for the week. Daddy would love it.”

And leave Daniel Lane with the run of the house, Sloan had thought. Never! “I'm not about to allow a man I suspect of dishonorable intentions toward my sister to drive me out of my house, Samantha, so we're staying put,” he'd said, closing the discussion.

As he put a shoulder to the cabinet door to push it closed when his task was completed, Sloan realized an advantage of having his sister's lover under his roof. Daniel Lane's presence would give him the opportunity to size up the man who claimed him to be his life's mission.

“Nobody better light a match,” Jeanne announced as she took her designated place with notepad and pencil in hand at the conference table of Waverling Tools. “The excitement in here is ignitable.”

“That's one way of putting it,” Todd said, grinning widely. “I'd describe it as electric.” He gave the table a smack. “By God, we're moving into the oil business, folks! Next to the day I married, this is the happiest day of my life.” He winked at Nathan. “Right, buddy?”

“How would I know?” Nathan said, once again evading Todd's attempt to give the impression they were as close as riders on a tandem bike.

“I hope we're not getting excited for nothing,” Jamie Foster said, shaking his head. An extremely competent and loyal carryover from the days of the company's founding, the plant foreman was a taciturn fellow noted for resisting change. “Digging for oil is a whole lot riskier than digging for salt and water.”

“We can always count on you to provide drag, can't we?” his assistant said, good-humoredly clapping the foreman's shoulder. He grinned around the table. “What would we do without our doubting Thomas?”

“You'd be doin' a whole hell of a lotta leapin' without lookin', that's what, son,” Jamie said.

“I like
ignitable
better,” Jeanne said, the defense of her choice of diction cast irritably at the company geologist.

“I'd call it gaseous,” Daniel said, teasingly poking the ribs of the accountant next to him. “Did you eat beans for supper last night, Norman?”

The accountant observed Daniel as if he were a roach found in his teacup. Spidery thin, his flesh as papery as the pages upon which he meticulously recorded the company's expenses and manner as starched as his prim white shirts, the entrenched bachelor was often the secret butt of office jokes. “I
never
eat beans at any time, Mr. Lane. Whatever
gas
is floating around must surely be emitted from your own mouth. And may I remind you a lady is present.”

“Yes, indeed,” Jeanne said huffily, feigning offense. “Thank you, Norman, for reminding that fact to the man sitting next to you who most certainly is
not
a gentleman.”

Daniel grinned and blew her a kiss.

At the head of the table, Trevor rapped a pen against his water glass to gain their attention. He'd been studying sheets of estimated drilling expenses and had barely listened to his employees' banter. He was used to what an outsider might observe as squabbling among his department chiefs. It was nothing new to him that Todd Baker had become persona non grata to Nathan and an irritant to Jeanne. His accountant's prissy fussiness about financial reports invited ribbing, Daniel Lane's coarse humor grated, and even Trevor found his faithful foreman's incorrigible naysaying beyond endurance at times. But despite their differences, they all worked exceptionally well together, even fondly, and were eager to head into the company's new direction regardless of the risk to the employee profit-sharing plan Trevor had instated last year. Trevor had learned early in his business career that a company's solvency went a long way to guaranteeing an employee's output and loyalty, and to that end he made no secret of the robust financial health of Waverling Tools. Now he was about to reduce some of the fat from its bottom line.