Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
“ J enny Summerlin just called,” Veronica said. “She wants a meeting with you.”
Wyatt rocked back in his office chair, abandoning the statistical reports as his administrative assistant peered at him through her spectacles.
It had been two months since he’d seen Jenny that bittersweet day when they declared a truce in her barren, freshly plowed field of dirt. On that day he was certain they had no possible future together, even though he hadn’t been able to stop wishing it were otherwise. Even now, just hearing her name stirred a longing.
“Did she say what she wanted?”
“Nope,” Veronica replied. “She said it’s a private matter.”
A spark of hope flared. If Jenny regretted the way they’d ended their last conversation as much as he, maybe it wasn’t too late to reconsider things. His mother was getting better. Even if she wasn’t, he couldn’t live the rest of his life to please his mother. Maybe Jenny could forgive him for the way he turned his back on her. Maybe they could find a way forward after all . . .
“I can see her during the lunch hour,” he suggested, and Veronica nodded before pulling the door closed behind her.
How was he supposed to go back to compiling statistics on beef exports now that his concentration had been shot to pieces? His office was spotless because he’d already been preparing to resign. If he didn’t win the election next month, he still intended to leave town. He’d given his parents two years. It was time to break out of the shackles of rural Florida and strike out for the horizon like he’d always planned.
He stared out the window at Route 17. He could hop on that road and start driving, taking it all the way up to Washington D.C., where he could work for the military or any one of a million agencies that needed a lawyer who understood ag or the environment. Even now he could taste the freedom….
Jenny’s cactus garden soaked up the sunlight coming through the window.
Okay, that cactus garden had to go before she got here. It might make her think he’d been obsessing over her by keeping it all this time. He opened the cupboard in his credenza and found a space to hide it. A few swipes with a paper towel got rid of the water stain where the bowl had been.
It was hard to regain his concentration while toying with fantasies about Jenny. Was she here to start things up again? Could he risk it?
At five minutes after the noon hour, he heard her arrive in Veronica’s office and his heartbeat surged. When his desk phone rang, he reached a single finger out to touch the speaker button.
“Yeah?” He ought to get a medal for how calm he sounded.
“Jenny and Hemingway are here to see you.”
Hope crashed back to earth like a pricked helium balloon. Jenny wouldn’t have brought Hemingway if she was here to rekindle their relationship. No wonder Veronica sounded cheerful. The entire female population of Pierce County perked up whenever Hemingway strolled into view.
“Show them in.” It had been idiotic to get his hopes up. He grabbed a can of soda from the mini-fridge and opened it to have something to do with his hands.
Jenny wore a pair of nice khaki slacks with a black blazer. For Jenny, it was as close to business attire as she came. Hemingway was still a slob in a ratty old T-shirt.
Wyatt ignored him as he sent Jenny a polite nod. “Jenny. Have a seat.”
She thanked him and set a file on his desk. “You remember that Fabergé egg we found on the grove?”
As if he could forget. “I do. How’s the ninety-day clock coming?”
“Not so good,” she said. “Someone with a strong claim has come forward.”
Ah, Jenny . If only he could draw her into a hug and soothe that tragic look on her face. Hemingway’s annoying presence made that impossible, and maybe it was for the best. He listened as she filled in the details of the other claimant, laying some documents on the table.
“The police think ‘Svetlana Jones’ might be a fake name,” Jenny said. “If it is, would that invalidate this sales agreement?”
Her cautiously optimistic expression hurt to see. The Texas guy’s claim was strong and pretending otherwise would only give her false hope. Svetlana Jones could call herself whatever she liked so long as she had legal right to the egg. “The deal was agreed on and money changed hands. It’s going to be hard to overturn this.”
If Jenny was disappointed, it didn’t show. “I think she’s probably the lady in the tree.”
“Possibly,” he said. He wasn’t used to seeing Jenny in business attire, and she looked terrific. She could have been anything she wanted to be, but she remained dedicated to that grove and never lifted her eyes to consider the possibility of something more for her life. Something with him .
He cleared his throat. “What do you want from me?”
“I know it seems foolish,” she began. “I shouldn’t have put so much stock in that egg, but we were so close. We were fifteen days away. Fifteen days! I want a lawyer to tell me that this person from Texas isn’t going to snatch it all away.”
He’d do anything if he could give her a slim bit of hope. He sighed and picked up a photocopy of the handwritten sales agreement. He scanned the handwriting, the date, the emblem at the top of the page.
Then he saw it. His eyes widened and a hint of a smile tugged. “This was written on a World Famine Commission notepad.”
“What?” Jenny gasped. She snatched the page, and he pointed to the logo at the top. The capital letters WFC were so elegantly written it was hard to even read them, but it was the logo used by the charitable organization in the mid-twentieth century. Their logo was far more streamlined today, so perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Jenny overlooked it.
“My guess is that your mystery woman was affiliated with the World Famine Commission,” Wyatt said. “She used one of their notepads to write this agreement.”
“Why was she in Texas?” Hemingway asked, and Jenny supplied the answer.
“Because Bryan, Texas is home to Texas A&M, one of the best ag schools in the nation. The WFC did a lot of consulting work with ag schools in the 1950s.”
Wyatt rubbed his hands together, warming to the topic as his theory took shape. “The World Famine Commission has always been under the umbrella of United Phosphate & Fertilizer,” he continued. “It would be the logical place to start tracking this woman down, but their archives are closed to the public. They’re always fearing that reporters or environmentalists are poking around to cause trouble.”
Jenny’s smile was radiant. “Lucky for me I happen to have a lunch appointment with Kent McAllister, the CEO of United Phosphate, this weekend.”
Jenny now had lunch with the McAllisters every other Saturday so she could visit with Sam. Two years ago, her relationship with the McAllisters was filled with threats of lawsuits and restraining orders. Now it had evolved into a cautious friendship as they came together to help raise Sam.
Their lunches took place at the McAllister ranch so Jenny could visit Sam in his own home, which was much more relaxed than the public park where they initially met. Now she played with Sam for a while in their backyard, tending the “magic tree” that had finally been transplanted to a sunny spot where Sam was looking after it.
After visiting with Sam for an hour, she relaxed on the flagstone patio with her nephew and the McAllisters for lunch.
“I wonder if it might be possible for me to gain access to the archives over at United Phosphate,” she tentatively began.
Mr. McAllister steepled his hands as he settled into his slingback chair. “What for? Most of it is just business and legal reports.”
There was no reason to lie or dissemble. “I’d like to see records from the World Famine Commission back during the 1950s. I think there might be a connection to the woman found on my property.”
“We generally don’t open the archives to the public,” Mr. McAllister began before his wife interceded.
“Kent, why don’t you pull some strings to let Jenny inside?” Mrs. McAllister prompted. “It seems harmless.”
Mr. McAllister shifted uneasily. “Our archives are closed to the public for good reason. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had undercover journalists or ecoterrorists doing anything they can to undermine the company. If farmers don’t have phosphate, the world’s food supply will plummet, and millions of people all over the world would be in danger of starvation, but at least the environmentalists can be happy they don’t have to look at a strip mine.”
Jenny kept her tone polite. “You know I’m not like that.”
Mr. McAllister shook his head. “If we make exceptions for you, we have to do it for everyone.”
“I’m not ‘everyone.’ I’m Sam’s aunt and someone who is keenly interested in protecting our family and American agriculture. You can trust me.”
Mr. McAllister pierced her with a hard stare, the unfriendly sort of scrutinizing laser she hadn’t seen in months. What was he protecting? And didn’t he realize that by digging in so fiercely it made her a little suspicious?
Maybe he sensed her train of thought, because he finally sent her a conciliatory smile. “Okay, you convinced me. I’ll make an appointment for you to meet with our archivist on Monday.”