Chapter Ten – Damn
Chapter Ten
Rafe
DAMN
Performed by Jake Owen
Irrational fury burned inside me. Some of it was directed at my body’s reaction to Sadie Hatley and that damn lopsided grin she’d been giving Adam as I walked in, but the majority of the rage was directed at her, for weaseling her way into my family and their troubles. I couldn’t imagine what Puzo would want with the ranch, but I knew it had something to do with me. And Sadie likely knew what it was. It was nearly impossible for it to be a simple coincidence that she’d been dining with him and then come here.
But then again, would she really have met with him at The Fortress if they were trying to pull a con here? It made no sense. I couldn’t put the puzzle pieces together, no matter how hard I tried. And that had the anger and betrayal I felt slowly dissolving into a sea of doubts that was just as frustrating.
Was the guy Steele had caught following Sadie out of the hotel her muscle? Her backup? Was he tucked away somewhere nearby and would come running if she called? Or was Puzo trailing her for some other nefarious reason?
Was she in danger?
That thought made my lungs squeeze until I almost couldn’t breathe.
Regardless of what was true, I still had the overwhelming urge to pick Sadie up, shove her in that piece-of-shit car she’d driven here, and send her on her way before she could do more damage. The guilt I’d seen slash through her eyes when I’d called her a thief meant she had something to hide. If she stayed, there was every likelihood my family, or her, would be harmed. The Puzo family used and abused and left a trail of dead in their wake.
I needed Sadie to leave so she couldn’t wound us when that happened. So she wouldn’t be another body Puzo left behind.
But the plea Lauren had issued had landed home with Sadie. I could see it in the way her face softened while her shoulders drew back, ready for a fight. She was going to stay, and I might dislike it with an intensity that was all-consuming, but Lauren was right in that I didn’t have any say in who came and went from the ranch.
I had washed my hands of it. Or at least I thought I had until Spence had made the mistake of leaving me in charge of Fallon’s trust. According to the lawyers, he’d made the change at the time she’d been born and never updated it since. Typical Spence. He’d detested dealing with legalese as much as he’d despised dealing with numbers and money. Still, I would never be sure if it had been an oversight on his part, or if he’d done it on purpose as a way of drawing me back to my roots. One last outstretched hand offering reconciliation or simply one last dare he’d issued from the grave.
Lauren glared at me before turning back to Sadie once again. “Please, stay. I promise in the morning things will have settled down.”
Lauren couldn’t promise that. I’d never settle if Sadie was nearby. My entire being was constantly in a state of alert, fighting the attraction and hunger I felt, while my brain was screaming danger .
Sadie tucked a strand of silky hair behind her ear before nodding. She cleared her throat and said, “I’ll see you in the morning.” Then, she whirled around on bare feet, walking out of the room with her scarred leg dragging slightly. All the crackling fire zipping through the air left with her, leaving awkwardness in her wake.
I stalked to the drink cabinet, poured myself a shot of bourbon, and downed it.
When I turned back, both Adam and Lauren were warily watching me, as if waiting for my next explosion. And that, more than anything, cooled me off because I loathed giving anyone my emotions, but especially not Lauren. She’d had enough of mine to last a lifetime.
“How do you even know Sadie?” Lauren asked.
“Funny, that’s what I was going to ask you,” I countered.
“Like Adam said, she’s part of the Eastern Dude Ranchers’ Association—or her family is,” Lauren said. “Adam’s been working on a plan to convert the ranch into a resort. Spence and I weren’t sure about it because it felt like more work, requiring an outpouring of money we didn’t have, but we already have the core facilities, and after the initial renovations, it wouldn’t take much more than what we spend now to maintain them. We’d be able to keep the place full year-round with the snow junkies coming during the winter and the hiking and lake crowd in the summer. Even Fallon has been excited about the idea, offering to put on trick riding shows for the guests.”
My teeth mashed together so tightly I thought the bone might crack. No wonder Fallon was so dead set on keeping the ranch. She lived to perform with her horses, and she was damn good at it. If Adam and Lauren had tied her love of trick riding to the success of the ranch, she’d do anything to make it happen.
“If you want me to be the bad guy, that’s fine. I’ll be the bad guy,” I said. “You’d need a miracle to turn this place around at the rate it’s losing money.”
Lauren shot a look at Adam and then back to me. “Spence and I didn’t understand how fast we were depleting our reserves. Adam tried to tell us, but…” Her throat bobbed, and she pushed the heels of her hands against her eyes again.
My nails bit into my palms. I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t want to feel bad for her and the choices she’d made. She’d loved Spence and the ranch more than she’d loved me. Stupidly, at twenty, I’d thought I could change that. I’d thought I could come first, until Spence had shown back up and proved me wrong.
“Even if you could find a way to turn this around, Lauren, I wouldn’t trust anything Sadie said. She’s tangled with Lorenzo Puzo somehow. I saw them together in Vegas.”
Adam smirked. “Ah. The truth comes out. You wanted her, and she ditched you in favor of him? Jealousy was always your downfall.”
I fought my immediate reaction to wipe the smirk off his face with my fists, instead demanding, “How the hell do you know Puzo?”
“He owns property in town and has been participating in the Better Business Bureau meetings.”
The realization that he’d likely been in town for months, and I hadn’t known, ate at me. “If he’s taken an interest here, it’s only as a way of getting to me. Trust me, a town as dinky as Rivers holds no long-term appeal for him.”
Sarcasm littered Adam’s response. “There’s that Rafe ego we’ve all come to expect. Of course everything is about you. Well, I’ll be damned if this is. He’s stepped up and helped this community in a way the great Harringtons haven’t been able to do since your dad died and you crippled the ranch. Lorenzo has saved several of the local bars and restaurants from going out of business. He’s given them successful strategies to stay afloat during the challenges of the last few years.”
At what cost? I wondered. An interest rate they couldn’t afford, so they ended up defaulting, and he owned the property? I was under no misconception that what had drawn him to this town to begin with was my connection to it. He must have thought I cared more about where I’d grown up than I did. He’d be sorely disappointed when I rid myself of everything having to do with the ranch and Rivers, except my daughter.
But Fallon’s concerns about Adam suddenly landed home with a force that almost sent me to my knees. Maybe he had been involved in what had happened to Spence. Or maybe it wasn’t Adam but Puzo. Maybe I’d turned my back on my family and then drawn evil to it with my own actions. I’d sent his cousin to jail for life. Had he retaliated by sending my brother to the grave?
Acid burned its way up my esophagus.
Suddenly, I realized sending Sadie away was the wrong play. I could use the attraction that sizzled between us to find out the truth about what Puzo wanted with Rivers and the ranch. It would cost me layers of skin. I wouldn’t be able to walk away unsinged, but I’d do anything to protect Fallon. And as much as I hated it, hated knowing he could still affect me, Spence would want me to make sure Lauren was okay as well.
My brother had contacted me the night he’d died. He’d left a message saying he needed to talk, that he’d discovered things about the ranch that had disturbed him. He needed a dispassionate observer to talk it over with. And just like every other time I’d heard my brother’s voice over the last fourteen years, it had nipped at me. A bee sting that lasted for days and couldn’t be ignored, even though I’d done my best to do just that. Whenever he called about Fallon, to make arrangements for dropping her off and picking her up, I returned the message instantly. But every other attempt of his over the years to narrow the gap between us, I’d ignored, since he and Lauren had eloped just days before our wedding. His last call had been no different. A message I’d deleted and tried to forget.
Would I find, in staying and investigating Fallon’s worries, that I’d left my brother to die?
As much as I’d wanted nothing to do with him or Lauren or the ranch, I’d never wished death on either of them. I’d just wanted to prove to them that I didn’t need them, didn’t need anything from this family besides the cash that rightfully belonged to me. I may not have started my business with nothing. I may have used my inheritance to invest in my first club, but everything that had come after was due to my hard work. It was my time and energy and skill that had made Marquess Enterprises a global success story.
But had it cost my brother his life?
It would require more fortitude than either Adam or Lauren would ever know, but I’d stay. I’d stay and listen to everything Sadie and my family had to say so I could get to the bottom of all of it. But if it didn’t pan out, or worse, if Puzo was trying to use them to get to me, then I had no qualms about putting an end to it.
“I’ve rearranged my schedule to be here this week. It was clear Fallon needed someone looking after her.” Lauren visibly flinched at my words, but I wasn’t going to sugarcoat things for her. “If, at the end of the week, I decide this long shot of a plan isn’t going to work, I’ll proceed with selling the ranch as intended.”
Adam said nothing, quietly watching us. Lauren gave a curt nod. “Fine.”
Then, she spun around and left.
I focused my attention on Adam, assessing him as I hadn’t when I’d come back for Spencer’s funeral. He’d been away at college the last few years I’d lived on the ranch and then gone to work for some high-flying financial firm in San Francisco. I’d barely seen him until he’d come home for a weekend trip after Lauren had told him she was pregnant, and we were engaged.
He’d been tall and lean in that way Lauren’s entire family had been, and I’d been astonished by the strength he’d had when he’d planted a fist in my face and broken my nose. He’d always seemed soft as a kid, especially when compared to the steely muscle and weathered skin his dad and grandfather had carried from working the ranch. Maybe it had simply been the shock of witnessing the power he’d hidden that had allowed him to get the jump on me, had allowed him to back the single punch up with several others before I’d reacted. It wasn’t until he’d gotten a rope around my neck that I’d ended the fight.
And just like when we’d battled at anything as kids—games, races, or arguments—he’d despised I’d come out ahead in that fight too. Most of the time growing up, Adam had kept his jealousy hidden, but the truth of it had always risen to the surface whenever Spence or I had beaten him at anything or any time we’d gotten something he’d wanted and didn’t have because his family couldn’t afford it. When that happened, he’d stomp and pout and go into hiding for days.
I wasn’t exactly sure what had brought him back to the ranch after my father died, when he’d sworn he never would, but it was clear from the expensive suit he’d worn to Spence’s funeral and the Cartier dangling from his wrist that he had money. It had to be from investments he’d made working for the financial company up north, because it certainly wasn’t from the salary he was receiving as the ranch’s business manager.
I hadn’t cared. Hadn’t given much thought to any of it—the reasons for him coming home or how he was getting his money—until now. Until the fact he knew Puzo had doubts coiling through me. Was he laundering Puzo’s money? Was that what Spence had found out and called me about?
I narrowed my gaze on Adam. “Why are you even here, Adam? What exactly do you get out of any of this?”
His hand shook ever so slightly as he took a sip of the bourbon in my family’s heirloom, crystal glass, but his voice was dry and calm when he responded. “Other than wanting to help my sister through the loss of Spencer? How about the satisfaction of seeing the ranch successful again after you stole from it and Spence ruined it? I like the idea of knowing it will be a Hurly who rights the ship after the great Harringtons ran it aground.”
I bristled at his disparagement of my brother and the Harrington name. Maybe I hadn’t chosen to keep it. Maybe, when I’d had the choice, I’d separated myself from it to spite my father and to honor my mother, but neither Dad nor Spence would ever have done anything to destroy this place. They lived and breathed it. It was as much a part of them as their skin and bones. To ruin it would have ruined them.
And maybe that, more than anything, was what had killed Spence. The failure. The loan he couldn’t pay back. What I’d taken was far less than my half had actually been worth—a handful of old stocks that had been in the family kitty for decades and a couple of million when the ranch was worth nearly twenty, even failing as it was.
“I see. You were hoping to get a piece of the pie.” It wasn’t a question when I said it. “You wanted the Hurly name back on this land. How much were you hoping to get? A quarter? Half? All of it?”
He studied me, trying to read my emotions once again, but I’d finally tucked them all away after giving them away too freely. Finally, he said, “I hadn’t really thought ahead that far.”
Liar. Chess had always been Adam’s game. He’d spent as much time studying it as I had training horses, so it had always made him angry when I’d won our matches anyway. Back then, I’d shot from the hip instead of playing by the rule books and still beaten him. It was the opposite of what I did now, carefully considering all my moves.
I didn’t know which idea left me more disgusted. That I’d become him or that he might have come looking for a way to take back what he thought should have been his. He wanted to be the prince of the kingdom instead of the serf, and my father had definitely had a way of making everyone feel like servants. Even me. Spence had been the only real prince, whereas I’d been the spare who he’d seen as just another pair of hands.
As I watched Adam sip at the whiskey my brother had favored, the same brand my father had, my instincts screamed a warning I needed to heed. It was the same instinct that had saved my life in a dark alley. The same voice that taunted me when my demons struck.
Maybe Fallon was right. Maybe she had her own voice screaming at her. Perhaps Adam really had put something into play that had turned ugly. Whether that was with Puzo’s help or on his own, I couldn’t be certain, but I promised myself I’d find out. As much as I loathed the idea of owing my brother anything, I owed him this, and I owed Fallon answers so she could put the ranch behind her once and for all if we sold it.
Did I think Adam really killed Spence? It was hard to imagine, because if there was one person on this Earth Adam did love, it was his sister, and I couldn’t see him putting Lauren through that sort of agonizing grief. But I could see Adam trying to win back the land in a way that would prove once and for all that poker was for idiots and chess was for winners.
So why had Spence trusted him? My brother didn’t like numbers or legalese, but he’d never been stupid. He had good intuition and natural common sense that should have seen through any sleight of hand Adam was trying to pull. But then again, maybe he’d been so entrenched in keeping the ranch afloat he hadn’t had time to see the bigger picture.
“I want a full accounting of every dollar that’s been earned and spent since I left,” I told him. “Access to every account, every invoice, and every bill.”
Something flickered through his expression I couldn’t catch, but his shrug was casual. “I’ll send you all of Spencer’s logins and passwords.”
The idea of following in my brother’s footsteps caused my collar to grow tight, and I had a feeling Adam had done it on purpose to rattle me. And it had worked because suddenly the vaulted room with its floor-to-ceiling shelves felt too small, as if they were closing in. I needed air. I needed out. I needed to find some peace before I became so tight and brittle I broke in half at a mere touch.
Before I gave them more of my emotions than they’d ever earned.
I turned on a heel and headed for the back door.
The heat had faded with the sun, but it hadn’t cooled enough to be chilly yet. The crickets were loud, frogs croaked down by the river, and an owl hooted somewhere in the dark. The path my feet found was worn smooth from years of shoes traveling along it rather than any formal attempt to carve one out. It wound through the fields dotted with bluebells and yarrow that waved in a small breeze, shifting the grass like a ghost running through it. The moon was bright and full, shining down and turning the meadow into waves of silver.
I wasn’t dressed for hiking through the hills, and the dress shoes that had been perfect for my meetings in Vegas slid on the hard-packed dirt before I caught myself with a grunt of displeasure. This was a lawsuit waiting to happen if Lauren had her clients using this same path to travel back and forth from the falls in dress shoes and heels.
As I walked, I imagined Dad’s reaction to the idea of inviting people onto his land for weddings and even more if they turned the place into a resort. He would have cut off an arm rather than have allowed it. He’d kept the world at bay as much as he could, concentrating on the cattle and the hay the farm was known for once the granite and diamonds had turned to dust.
This close to the house, none of the sequoias grew. They were gathered at the back of the property, higher up where the hills turned into mountains, but brush and oaks and small firs took over as the ground began to slope upward. The air smelled of coniferous trees, the heady scent of sap and wood that smelled like the freedom I’d once found here.
Memories slammed into me that were almost as painful as the knife that had once sliced my chest open. This was why I’d never allowed myself to come back. To remember. To regret.
No. Not regret. Never that. I’d made the right choice for me and for my family.
The sound of the waterfall reached my ears, but it took several more minutes of walking before it came into view. In the moonlight, it glimmered like the diamonds that had once been found nearby. The river crashed from above onto large boulders, roaring into deep eddies. Mist rose from the dark pools before rushing downstream toward the lake just out of view.
My breath caught at the sight of the thundering display. My soul took flight, winging over the white foam, dancing in the moonlight, and soaring into a sky littered with so many stars it was as if a glitter bomb had gone off. It had been too long since I’d been here. Too long since I’d been reminded of the importance of keeping the property whole and free from developers who’d cut it up into pieces and stick tract homes along the shores of the lake and rivers.
The memory of the last time I’d been at the waterfall haunted me, flickering as if I was watching an old film reel in black and white. Lauren and I had argued. She’d said getting married just because she was pregnant wasn’t the right thing to do, and it had torn through me with the ease of a scythe through hay.
We’re getting married because we love each other and the baby , I’d said.
She’d looked down at her feet, and I’d known the truth. I’d finally let myself really understand it. She’d loved me…but not as much as she’d loved Spence. I liked to believe she hadn’t realized it, that she hadn’t used me as a placeholder, until he’d shown up at the ranch after hearing about the engagement and the baby. The hurt and confusion in his eyes had stabbed at me more than the punch he’d planted in my gut.
I hadn’t swung back with my fists, but my words had been vicious. I’d reminded him he’d been the one to break up with Lauren, the one to shove his college girlfriend in her face by bringing her here the previous Christmas, and he’d blanched. I’d simply stepped up to fix what he’d broken.
You knew it was wrong , he’d told me, sounding very much like the devil who enjoyed laughing at me these days.
The worst of it was, I had known it was wrong.
But I’d also been raised to want what Spencer had. I’d been raised to compete with him for everything, and I’d swung in to take what I’d thought I deserved.
Movement down by the base of the falls drew my gaze, and a tiny hint of apprehension scattered over me. Bears and mountain lions were common here, especially at night. But as my eyesight adjusted, landing on a huge boulder near the water’s edge, I realized it wasn’t a predator—or at least not the wild-animal kind.
Sadie sat in the mist and the moonlight, looking every bit the siren I’d thought her from the beginning. An imp. A waif. A spellbinding witch. Her skin glowed in the moon rays the same color as the foam from the falls, and her black hair blended in with the shadows. Light and dark. Sweet and sin.
I’d seen many women here over the years. I’d been popular with the girls in high school, as much due to my family’s name as to the confidence I’d exuded, and this had been a favorite nighttime spot when bringing them to the ranch. Add a blanket and a six-pack, and the setting was the perfect spot for romance. For hookups. For losing yourself in the scent of a woman.
But in all the years I’d brought other people here, I’d never seen someone who looked like they belonged the way Sadie did. She looked as if she’d sprouted from the water, taking form only to lure unsuspecting humans.
And she did just that. She lured me.
My feet, sliding along the slope in my inappropriate dress shoes, found their way through the boulders and the damp grass to where she sat. She’d seen me before I’d seen her, so her eyes were turned toward mine as I approached.
Wary and nervous, but somehow defiant all at the same time, her pointed chin was lifted, shoulders back, ready for a fight.
I wasn’t sure what I’d do to her once I reached her. Would I kiss her until she forgot Puzo existed? Or strangle her until she gave up her secrets? Either way, I needed to keep her here on the ranch until I discovered the truth. Until I could ensure my family was safe.
I took a seat on the boulder next to hers, all the while convincing myself I wouldn’t touch her. Wouldn’t pull her to me just to see if she still tasted like honey and bourbon. She wasn’t mine to taste. She was likely the enemy. But something inside me screamed in objection at that idea.
“Find what you wanted?” I demanded, careful to keep my emotions reined in.
“The night was peaceful until you showed up,” she said, and I knew she didn’t just mean right now on the rocks by the waterfall.
“What does he want with me?” I asked. I felt exhausted by all of it, but I didn’t show it any more than my disappointment that she’d fallen in with my nemesis.
When I risked looking at her, the moonlight showed every expression on her face. Confusion had her brows drawn together, yet she still vibrated with life, glowing from within like a bioluminescent pixie.
She was magnificent. Stunningly beautiful. A dazzling display of pure energy. If I had even one ounce of artistry in me, I’d paint a picture of her here, just like this, and hang it over the mantel in the library. And even though she wasn’t wearing a ball gown or diamonds, she’d easily outshine Great-grandma Beatrice, entrapping whoever saw her.