Chapter 13
Raleigh walked into the kitchen by herself to find everyone where she’d left them. The smell of bacon filled the air now. She walked over to a plate and asked if she could have a piece.
“Applewood smoked bacon,” Buck said proudly. “Grab some scrambled eggs while you’re at it.”
“This is amazing,” she said. “I’ll definitely be back for more.”
Buck practically beamed. He’d never had a kitchen this size to work with before, and the man could cook.
She walked over to Randy. “Hey, can I have a word with you?”
Randy nodded.
“Okay if we take a walk?” she asked. She’d be damned if he didn’t glance at Tim.
Brax was right. Something was going on.
“Sure thing.” Randy tried to come off as casual but the crack in his voice told a different story.
She walked outside and he followed. Once they were far enough away from the house and any potential listening ears, she turned around.
“I need you to level with me about Wade.” She came right out with it. This wasn’t an investigation where approach was everything. “Do you trust him?”
Randy cracked a smile.
“You always do come at a problem head on,” he said.
“There’s no point in dancing around the subject.” Holding back wasn’t her style. Except when it came to men, an annoying little voice in the back of her mind pointed out. She shoved the thought aside, but it resonated.
“Have you noticed the way he’s been acting lately?” Randy asked.
“Stranger than normal?” The guy had always marched to his own drummer.
“Nervous,” he said. “He’s not usually nervous. At first, I chalked it up to the pressure of the tour. Booking bigger venues. Our music and name have been picking up speed here lately.”
“You don’t think that now?” She’d believed the same thing. The music scene had a real buzz about their recent material. There was a lot of anticipation, and pressure, on these next few releases.
“Not since I overheard him talking on his cell phone. It sounded personal and like he was in some kind of trouble,” he said.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” she asked.
“Your name carries this band. What if I was wrong and got you worked up over nothing?” Randy’s question was sincere. It was obvious from the tension lines on his forehead he’d given this a lot of thought.
“So, you talked to Tim instead,” she said quietly.
“All I wanted to do was verify that I wasn’t going crazy before we brought it to your attention,” he admitted. “See if there was fire underneath all that smoke. Besides, I don’t make a habit of nosing around in other people’s business.”
“You didn’t mention anything after the bomb threat. Why did you keep this to yourself?” she asked.
“The man is cracking under pressure, possibly in a personal bind, but strapping a bomb underneath the stage?” He shook his head. “There was no way he would do anything to hurt us. Anything happens to the band and he’s out of a job.”
His logic was solid but she still didn’t like keeping secrets from each other.
“I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Randy, I really do. It means a lot that you would want to protect me,” she started.
He nodded and she knew he came from a place of caring. No question there.
“Maybe the pressure has been getting to all of us,” she admitted.
“You won’t get any arguments from me there.” He cracked another smile meant to ease the tension of the situation.
“This career feels like a runaway train sometimes, doesn’t it?” she asked, realizing she wasn’t the only one who felt this way despite her efforts to protect everyone else.
“I don’t feel right complaining. Most folks would kill to be in our shoes,” he admitted.
“True.” She never lost sight of how hard they’d worked to get where they were or how far they’d come since those early days. “I know how grateful we are.”
Randy nodded.
“We’re also human and haven’t taken a break in a very long time,” she pointed out.
“Doesn’t feel like we should, feels like we’re letting people down,” he said on a sharp sigh.
She pinched her arm. “Flesh and blood, just like everybody else.”
“Superman.” He flexed his arm and wiggled his eyebrows.
They both laughed.
“Your wife and kids don’t see nearly enough of you,” Raleigh said.
“It’s been easy for them to meet up with me since we’ve mostly played Texas venues. Now that the kids are getting older, they’ll start school and I’ll see a whole lot less of them.” Randy frowned.
“Seems like we should figure out a way to change that. And we should probably talk to the others to see if anyone else has been holding back on information about Wade,” she said.
“I’d like that a lot,” Randy said. “Tim knows what I do. He has picked up on the change in Wade’s general disposition.”
“At least we’ll be able to talk to Wade in person.
Before he gets here, though, I want to get a sense of what the others are thinking.
Especially now that we know he didn’t handle payroll.
” She’d believed her grandmother’s property had been the main ball dropped.
“I’m concerned about the money. We should be making more, not less.
Do you think there’s a chance we’re in financial trouble? ”
He shrugged. “I sure hope not.”
She walked back to the house with Randy, thinking she needed to do more than open the financial document. She needed to call the bank.
“Let me make a few phone calls before we meet with the others. Do you mind telling them we should get together in an hour?” she asked, her hand on the knob of the backdoor.
“I’ll handle it,” Randy said. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Be careful with Kenny.”
“He’s a grown man. He can handle rej—”
“No, I mean be careful around him,” he said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something has changed in him lately. He doesn’t seem the same to me and he’s riding Jake a little too hard. The kid is gonna blow one of these days and I’d hate to see the two of them get into it.”
“Kenny has definitely had a hard time hearing the word, no. I can personally vouch for him crossing the line one too many times.” She took note of the assessment.
Randy was right. Something was off about Kenny this time.
She figured the divorce was weighing heavy on him.
In the time they’d been together forever ago, he always talked about marriage as being sacred. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“We take care of each other, right?” he asked.
“That’s what family does,” she agreed.
And part of that meant she made sure the business ran smoothly. She opened the door and walked into the kitchen.
Brax sat at the Marshall’s desk. He needed a scratch sheet so he could run some numbers and was better with a pen and pad than an electronic device any day of the week. There were a couple of folders on top of the oversized, hand-carved oak desk. Nothing that seemed too important.
He pulled out a drawer and a file folder with his name on it caught his eye.
Only him? Why wasn’t there a file on any of his brothers or cousins for that matter?
This was the Marshall’s personal space so it felt wrong to invade it but the question started eating away at Brax…why did he have a folder in his grandfather’s desk?
Curiosity had him drawn toward the file. He drummed his fingers on the desk, debating whether or not he’d be breaking any confidence by taking a peek. The contents of the file were clearly about him. Didn’t he have a right to know?
Normally, he wouldn’t go rooting around in someone else’s belongings, alive or dead. There was no honor there. But then wouldn’t the file be under lock and key if it held information the Marshall didn’t want people to find?
Anyone could stumble across it here.
Now that the Marshall was gone, it seemed like Brax had a right to the contents.
What if there was a medical condition he needed to know about?
The Marshall would never leave a piece of the ranch to him and not divide it up among his brothers and cousins, so no threat of a surprise component in his will.
Was there a loophole he needed to know about?
And then he thought about how antsy his mother had been lately. Did her actions have anything to do with the file?
“Hey.” Raleigh’s voice cut into his mental debate. She stood at the doorway.
“Before you come inside, let me ask a question.” He put a hand up, palm out.
“Okay.” She cocked her head to one side.
“If you saw a file with your name on it in someone else’s desk, would you take it out and look at it?” he asked.
“Absolutely. I’d want to know if I was in some kind of trouble or had something wrong with me that no one was telling me about.
There are half a dozen reasons to look and the biggest one is that it has my name on it.
Even in grade school they taught us to label everything that belongs to us.
” She bit down on her lip and shifted her weight to one side.
“Of course, you could just go to the person directly and ask.”
“No, I can’t.” He dropped his gaze to the opened drawer.
She must’ve gotten the hint because she mouthed, ‘Oh.’ “Well, then, since you’re asking me, I think you have a right to know what’s in there,” she said.
“Rifling through the Marshall’s personal files goes against my beliefs,” he stated.
“It doesn’t go against mine.” She walked over and crouched down next to the drawer. She pinched it between her finger and thumb as she skimmed the others. “You do realize there’s no oth—”
“Yes, I do,” he cut in.
“Do you want me to take a look?” She caught his gaze and held it. Those sparkly emerald eyes of hers seemed to see right through him.
He covered her hand with his, ignoring the familiar pulse that came with contact.
“My mom has been acting different lately. She said something was going to come to light and that she needed to talk to me about it first,” he said. “My mind has been spinning about possibilities ever since.”
“It doesn’t sound like her to keep secrets.” She caught his gaze and held onto it.
“My thought exactly.” And was half the reason he couldn’t seem to let it go. “She’s been conflicted over it. Whatever ‘it’ is.”
“Look at that file and you might save her the trouble of telling you,” she said.