Chapter Twenty – Running On Empty
Chapter Twenty
Rafe
RUNNING ON EMPTY
Performed by Max McNown
Sadie’s body was practically vibrating with unease. A hint of fear. I’d loathed walking in on them together, but it hadn’t been jealousy that had tripped through my veins. It was a renewed concern for her safety. Every moment she was here, every moment she interacted with the people who might be coming for me, who might have killed my brother, brought her closer to the danger.
“Did he hurt you? Threaten you?” I demanded as I followed her out into the hall.
She shook her head and then glanced back at the office before taking my hand and dragging me out the front door. With worry pouring from her, she told me what Adam said about his dad and his grandfather, and how he and Lauren had promised each other to leave the ranch.
Confusion and doubt bled through me. Lauren loved the ranch almost as much as she loved Spence—certainly more than she’d loved me. How could Adam have ever imagined she would leave? Even when she’d gone to the local junior college, she’d enrolled in agricultural management classes. She’d always envisioned a life that involved the ranch.
Had she lied to Adam? Or was Adam lying now?
“Spencer would never have given him any part of the ranch or the trust,” I said with a certainty I didn’t quite feel. What did I know of my brother or the relationship he and Adam had built in my absence. Had I left my brother to be taken in by the wolves? Were he and Lauren somehow involved in all of this together?
My chest squeezed tight before I shook the thought away. Lauren loved Spence wholeheartedly. I told Fallon it was like losing a limb when she’d lost my brother, and that was the truth. They were one soul that I’d tried stupidly to divide.
But what role had Adam’s bitterness and resentment played in both the ranch’s demise and my brother’s?
“I need to look through the ranch accounts and see what’s been going on. He gave me Spence’s logins and passwords, but I haven’t had a chance to use them yet.” I’d been kept busy since he’d given them to me—first with tasks on the ranch, and then with Sadie and a rattlesnake, and finally an attack on Lauren that may or may not have been real.
Had it all been one big distraction to keep me from looking at the books?
When I’d talked with Steele last night, the only new information he’d had on Puzo was that the man had definitely embedded himself into the finances of the town’s businesses. He still couldn’t find Nero Lancaster, and he’d tried both legal and not-so-legal methods of locating him.
“I can look at them with you tonight,” Sadie offered.
The way she looked at me, the openness and caring in those blue eyes, almost undid me. Almost made me forget sending her away for her own good was the right and selfless thing to do, because I wanted that goodness and light to be mine. I wanted to drown myself in it. To give up the power and control I usually required and let the time with her wash away every sin, every failure, every last ounce of grief.
But taking those moments, keeping Sadie close, would mean putting her in the middle of all the ugly that still existed in my life. And what I’d told her last night was still true. I would be the reason that light was dimmed and blew out.
“I don’t think—” I started just as she said, “Rafe, there’s something else—” when we were both interrupted by Fallon.
“Waiting for us?” my daughter asked as she and Maisey came out of the house. I glanced from Sadie to my daughter and then back.
“Later,” I said, and Sadie nodded.
“Is he whining about how much he hates the next chore on the list?” Fallon asked, looking at me with a smirk. “Or admitting he’s afraid of the chickens?”
“I’m not afraid of those scrawny-assed creatures,” I huffed. “And how would you even know any of that?”
“Spence told me. He said they used to chase you around the pen, and you’d squeal like a baby and run away.”
Sadie laughed, Maisey hid her snort behind her hand, and the tension that had stiffened my shoulders eased ever so slightly.
“I bet he didn’t tell you it was all his fault, did he?” I taunted, but my lips were twitching upward at the memory. “When I was little, he used to put grain in my pockets without me knowing, so when I walked into the coop, they all came at me like I was a delectable treat. Chickens are mean when they’re hunting for food.” I pulled my arm sideways, finding a set of scars on the back above my elbow. “I have the war wounds to prove it.”
Sadie leaned in and looked, then she twisted around and pulled up her shirt to show us her lower back. “That’s nothing, you big baby. See this?” There was a jagged white scar about two inches just above her waistband. “Chicken grabbed on and wouldn’t let go. Ryder had to basically strangle it in order to get it off me.”
I had to press my nails into my palms to prevent myself from reaching out and touching her, running a finger along the faded mark.
She put her shirt down and punched me gently in the shoulder. “And I’m still not afraid of them.”
Fallon was smiling, large and wide and happy, and I had Sadie to thank for it. Even after what had passed between her and Adam in the office and the panic in her voice, she was able to bring an easiness to others. She wanted people to be happy. She wanted good things for me and mine, and that had me falling even harder for the blue-eyed imp.
? ? ?
After another long afternoon of chores, I ached in places I’d forgotten I had muscles, and my hands, once callused and rough, bore the marks of skin gone soft. I’d never considered myself out of shape, but two days of manual labor proved otherwise. I could only imagine the disgust my dad would have sent my way if he could see me now. Weak in body as he’d once thought I was weak in spirit.
Fallon and Maisey hadn’t complained once all day, and it made me determined to do something extra nice for them. Maybe give them a vacation before school started. Wherever they wanted to go, I’d take them. Money may not be able to solve all the world’s problems, not even all of mine or the ranch’s, but it could give my daughter and her friend some happy memories after months of sadness.
And what about Sadie? the little devil in my head asked. We both knew I wanted to give her memories of me inside her, driving her up and over the edge multiple times. I wanted to embed myself into every molecule of her being until she’d never forget that I’d been there. That I’d taken what she gave and given back more.
That was where my mind was at—on Sadie and actually finishing what we’d started twice now—as we made our way back to the house with the tasks on our list finally done for the day. A dark Mercedes pulled into the gravel lot and parked next to my Jaguar.
My gaze narrowed, taking a step toward it, but Fallon halted me with a hand to my arm. “It’s just part of the wedding party, but we need to make sure Mom has everyone’s keys ready.”
Maisey’s shy voice saying, “Oh, hey, Mr. Puzo,” caused my head to jerk up from Fallon to the man who’d emerged from the car.
All the tension, all the anger and frustration I’d been feeling for days now, dropped back into my stomach like a lead balloon as I watched the one person I truly despised step toward us.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I growled, pushing Fallon behind me.
He was dressed in jeans and a polo shirt with dress shoes on his feet. He looked as completely out of place here as I had when I’d shown up on Tuesday.
“Dad, Mr. Puzo keeps some of his horses here, and he has his boat parked at the dock.” Fallon tried to step around me, but I held her back.
She hadn’t told me it was Puzo’s name on those contracts. I would never have allowed it. Never. I stalked forward, eliminating the distance between me and my enemy. “Hell no. Get off my land.”
Puzo raised a brow, lips quirking. “Last I checked, it wasn’t yours.” His eyes landed on Fallon in a way that made me want to shove him headfirst into a watering trough. “And I’m paid up through the end of the summer.”
He tried to step around me, but I blocked him, keeping us toe to toe.
He smirked, and it took everything I had not to wipe it off his face. I didn’t want this nasty excuse of a human on the ranch. Near my family. Near me. The old scar embedded in my chest seemed to throb at his nearness. A telltale sign that something was wrong.
“Fallon, go inside with Maisey and Sadie,” I bit out. When I felt her hesitate, I risked taking my gaze off Puzo to glare at her. Daring her to defy me on this. Daring her to choose the wrong answer. She met my glare with one of her own for a long moment before stomping off toward the main doors with her friend following.
It didn’t surprise me Sadie didn’t go with them. Instead, she came to stand next to me with tension all but radiating through her body. Puzo didn’t seem shocked to see her there, and it reminded me that I still hadn’t told her about the thug he’d had following her. My lungs burned from all the decisions I’d made in the last week that had ended up being the wrong ones.
“It’s good to see you again, cousin.” He watched me carefully as he stated their relationship, as if expecting her to have kept it from me. “Had I known you were looking to take in the mountains of California, I would have let you stay at my place.”
“You have a house here?” Astonishment drew her brows together.
“A little vacation cabin up the road,” he told her with a small smile before glancing at me with a sly cunning that sent savage hate spinning through me. “I visited Rivers a few years ago—a little trip to squelch my curiosity—and found I had a lot to offer the community. Lots of possibilities I couldn’t resist. Bets with just the right odds.”
His gaze journeyed in the direction my daughter had gone. Goddamn it, he knew my daughter. Had looked at her before. Been on the ranch and turned those slimy eyes upon her. I was going to kill Adam. Lauren. How dare they let him near her.
I leaned into his space more, muscles tense and ready for a fight, just as guilt hit me like a sledgehammer. None of them had known any better. They didn’t know the knife wound in my chest had been because of him. I’d kept my life as separate from my family’s as possible, and this was the consequence. While I’d been facing the other way, a monster had slunk onto the land.
“Bets are closed,” I snarled. “Everything here is now off-limits.”
He didn’t back down. If anything, he pressed himself into my space as much as I’d entered his, daring me to take the first punch. I would win in a physical fight. It wouldn’t be easy. It’d be ugly, and I’d come away with my fair share of bruises and breaks, but I would win.
“No one tells me what is and isn’t off-limits.” His voice was as cold as mine.
“Then let me be the first. My family, this land, and even the goddamn town is off-limits. I’ll refund your money for any lease you’ve signed, and tomorrow, I’ll haul your boat out of the water and your horse out of my barn and drop them off wherever you want. You will not step foot on Harrington land again. Am I clear?”
His shoulders relaxed instead of tightened at my words, the tension in his body being replaced by a patronizing smile, as if he was watching a toddler throw a tantrum. I had to clench my fists in order to hold myself back while I fought wildly to regain control of my anger.
“I rather like my things here, so even though we could break the contract giving me rights to the dock and the barn, I have no desire to do so.” He spoke casually, as if it meant nothing to him, but there was a steely resolve underneath it. “Plus, my cousin Marielle is getting married here this weekend. You might remember she’s like a sister to me. With her parents gone, I paid for the wedding. My money is lining those empty Harrington Ranch coffers. I believe you should be thanking me for helping hold it up a bit longer.”
He took advantage of my stunned silence to step around me and head for the house.
If I’d had any doubts before about what was happening here, they were gone. Puzo was involved. I didn’t know how or when he’d gotten his claws in here, and I had absolutely no proof he’d been responsible for the ranch’s failure or my brother’s death, but every fiber of my being told me he was. And it was my fault. I hadn’t even thought to warn them to watch their backs. I wouldn’t have dreamed of interfering in Spence’s business and would have been nauseated at the idea of telling him even a piece of mine.
My pride and arrogance had allowed Puzo to weasel his way in with Adam and Spence by doling out advice and appearing to help, but the truth was, he wanted to make the ranch his. He wanted to take my heritage, my roots, and destroy them as he hadn’t been able to destroy me. He’d spent time in the community, cozied up to the people in charge, and lined their pockets, probably so when he took over the land, no one would stop him from cutting it apart and parceling it out to developers who’d build on it—ruin it.
No wonder the mayor had looked worried earlier.
He said he’d a signed contract giving him the right to be there, and the law would be on his side, but I’d tear it apart. He may have a contract, but I’d find any and every loophole I could to free my family of the hooks he’d stuck into us. He'd completely lost his mind if he thought I’d stand by and let him destroy the ranch, destroy Lauren and Fallon, just to get to me.
I’d started to wonder what it would take to make the ranch a success again for my daughter, but as I strode into the house, the mission became clearer. Stronger. I wouldn’t do it just for her. I’d make this ranch an icon of success simply to shove it in Puzo’s face. The Harrington-Marquess name would be the benchmark every other resort of its kind hoped to replicate. I’d loosen his claws from my family, from this town and this community, and once they were all free, I’d use those vicious nails of his to slice through the heart of him. I’d end him.