Chapter 14 #2
A letter. The impact of that simple statement rocked her so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. Fighting to remain completely neutral, she vowed to herself to get that letter back. First? She was going to deal with this SOB.
Leaning toward him, her bared teeth were more threat than smile. “You’re going to produce that letter immediately, or I’ll be filing a professional complaint with the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management before lunch.”
“You can’t file against your own employee,” he sputtered. “You’ll implicate the firm.”
Despite her frantic desperation to get her hands on that letter, she watched Michael fight to remain in his seat. She found herself suddenly ashamed to have bought into the corporate mantra that he’d brought with him.
He’d professed loud and long that any business was better than no business, that a person did what he had to do to secure an account and keep the business growing.
But that philosophy had completely undermined her dreams for what the company should have been.
She’d wanted a company clients chose because they knew what they’d get when they came to her door: ethics, honesty, skilled marketing and personal service.
None of the big business, assign-an-impersonal-team approach, but rather an account manager and two or three team members that the client could contact directly in the event their account manager was out.
The truth hit her broadside. That’s the very same thing Cade wanted for the dude ranch—to keep it personal, not let it become a corporate giant that ate up the foundation of his beliefs.
It was when he believed she’d understood, when he was certain he’d seen in her that same philosophy that he’d opened up. And she knew with certainty that whatever was in that letter would change everything.
“I’ve been such a fool,” she murmured.
Michael stood, shoulders square, and moved out of her reach.
Emma stood herself and faced him. “I’m not done with you.”
Michael snorted. “Right. Well, I have more pressing things to do than listen to your empty threats. You file against me, I’ll reveal exactly what happened between you and the middle Covington brother.”
Emma’s stomach went into free fall. “Pardon me?”
“I know you slept with him. What was his name? Carl?”
“Cade. His name is Cade.” And Michael was lying.
No one in Manhattan knew anything about what had happened on the ranch.
Besides, Cade would never have mentioned their liaison in a letter.
Any letter. “Like so many things about you, your allegations are false, Michael. I’ve been home for months, and not a single word has passed through these hallways about my behavior—good, bad or otherwise. ”
“Not yet,” Michael said softly. She leaned against the desk, and considered her next move. That he believed he knew what had passed between Cade and her made her sick, but she wouldn’t give him the upper hand in this. Not now, and not ever. It might have been history at this point, but...
Her heart constricted as if someone had tightened an invisible fist around it. No matter that Cade hadn’t contacted her. No matter that what had developed between them was clearly done in his mind. Emma still loved Cade. It seemed nothing would change that.
Michael crossed his arms and smiled. “I know for a fact you haven’t seen the letter, so you have no idea what’s in it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You feel so superior? Enlighten me.”
“It was addressed to you but not opened.” Michael smiled. “I took the liberty of opening it. Quite touching, really.”
She knew she paled, but couldn’t help it.
“You’re going to return those files to me in their entirety, Michael, or I will contact the authorities with what our accountant uncovered.
” He started to object and she leaned in close enough to tell he’d had some kind of spicy sausage for breakfast. “Are you so sure that you covered your tracks?”
“I can make it seem that you and I were skimming that money off the company’s revenue together,” he whispered harshly.
“And like I said before, you take me down, you’re going down with me.
You can’t file allegations of impropriety against me without implicating yourself as the sole owner of the company.
You sign off on all our reporting,” he said on a sneer.
“Seems your little power play has backfired, Emma.”
An acerbic grin spread across her face. “Possibly. But you’re operating on the assumption you’re an active employee with plausible credibility.
What, in all of this, have I said that leads you to believe you’re still employed?
” She picked up her phone and rang security, asking for an escort out of the building for a potentially hostile former employee.
Then she got her assistant on the line and told her to lock Michael’s door.
If he approached, Sabra was to call 9-1-1.
His eyes widened. “You can’t—”
“I just did. You’re fired, Michael.”
CADE SAT ATOP his horse and gazed out over the herd.
The cows they’d kept looked good. Those that had survived the Shipping Fever infection had regained the majority of the body mass they’d lost, and most of them were coming in pregnant.
Funny what a year of decent grass, on-site medical care and gentle handling would generate in the way of returns.
Cowboys called to one another and their charges as they moved the herd toward a pasture nearer the house.
Each ranch hand was paired with four guests—two males, two females.
Guests showed up Saturday morning and stayed to help move cattle around before they left.
Then the ranch’s cowboys, directed by Reagan, would preg-check the cows that had been brought into the working field by running them through portable pens and chutes.
Then, next week’s guests would help push the pregnant cows to a nearby pasture and the open—or nonpregnant—cows to a far pasture for ease of management through the coming winter and birthing season.
He grinned. Turned out that having “help” that paid him for the privilege of working the Bar C wasn’t such a ridiculous idea after all. Hell would freeze before he admitted his feelings to Eli, but he could admit to himself that the whole thing had worked out far better than he’d expected.
As of the end of August, Lassos & Latigos had already exceeded projected first-year revenues by 17 percent.
Net. If they could keep this up, financial security would be within reach.
He’d be able to sleep at night, to operate with the knowledge that money was actually available when he went to an ATM, to be sure he could make his annual bank note payment without having to consider selling off sections of the ranch. The whole idea made him light-headed.
But there was one missing facet, the biggest piece of all. Emma.
What he wouldn’t give to have been able to share this particular success with her, even through a simple email. The ever-familiar, unfailingly present tightness spread through the muscles in his shoulders and neck.
It had been four months, one week and two days since she left, but Cade hadn’t even begun to recover.
Her choice had carved his heart from his chest. He breathed because his brain was too stupid to stop the autonomous action.
He ate because his stomach wouldn’t stop bitching at him when neglected.
He worked long hours because it kept his mind on the tasks at hand.
And he slept, every chance he got he slept, because that’s where he could coax his memories out to play privately, where he could see her and avoid the hurt, remember the feel of her skin beneath his hands, recall the taste of her on his lips, sweet and rich.
But she’d made her choice, and he had to respect that.
Cade’s radio beeped. He wheeled Ziggy around, trotting well away from the activity before cuing the mic. “This is Cade.”
“It’s Eli. Look, there’s something I have to own, and it’s...this isn’t going to be easy, man,” Eli said gruffly. “Will you come up to the main house, soon as you can?”
Cade glanced at his watch and then at the cluster of twentysomethings trying to judge how long it would take for them to move the herd into the next field. “Probably less than two hours to get done here, get to the barn, put Ziggy away and make it to the house. That work?”
“Not really.”
Cade gripped the radio receiver hard enough the plastic creaked. “What’s happened? Everyone okay?”
“Yeah. We’re all good. I just hoped to talk to you before everyone was back.”
When translated, Cade knew his brother actually meant, “You’re going to rage out and I wanted to give your temper a chance to flare, and then cool down before there were witnesses.
” Forcing himself to relax his grip on the receiver took the majority of his attention.
Still, the mental Rolodex he kept of the wrongs done him flipped from one entry to the next, curiosity assessing each one for the urgency Eli deemed this worth.
Then he struck The Card, and everything in him chilled before his marrow went molten and his vision narrowed. “Is this about Emma?”
Eli didn’t answer, instead letting the silence between them solidify until it was nearly a tangible, immovable wall between them. Cade’s curse rang out low and harsh. “I need to get my group reassigned to another wrangler before I can come in, but rest assured I’ll be at the house within the hour.”
He handed his group of guests off to his ranch manager, Ross, before pointing Ziggy toward the barn and settling him into a comfortable lope.
They crossed fields gone dormant with the season’s change, the grass no longer gray-green but more a neutral beige hue that colored the entire landscape as the hardwoods lost their leaves.