Chapter Nineteen
Goldie had held back her tears until after her car ride with Donovan and she was safely inside the house she and Clancy shared.
Fortunately, Clancy had gone to Billings, so Goldie had the place to herself.
She walked in, closed the door behind her and let herself go, sobbing so hard she couldn’t breathe.
Max had finally said the words she’d longed to hear. All this time, she’d dreamed of the day Max would admit he’d made a mistake and wanted her back. Never had she imagined it would happen on the main street of Dry Gulch at the worst possible time.
She’d been smarting from the embarrassing experience she’d had with Donovan, saddened by the realization that she’d dragged local townspeople she cared about into her mess and only then hit with the realization that her life in this town was over when Max had dropped his bombshell.
Goldie wanted to scream as the sobs began to ebb. She was still standing in the middle of her cousin’s living room when there was a knock at the door. She didn’t want to see anyone. Donovan had just dropped her off and Max wouldn’t come to the front door.
She cleared her throat and wiped hastily at her tears. “Who is it?”
“It’s me, sweetie.”
Goldie opened the door to Josie and threw herself into her best friend’s arms as she began to cry again. Josie crab walked the two of them into the apartment and closed the door, lowering Goldie into a chair.
“I’m going to get you something to drink,” Josie said as she went into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water. “That’s all I could find,” she said apologetically. “I should have brought wine.”
“How did you know?” Goldie asked after taking a few sips of the water and again stopping the flood of tears to pull herself together.
“I saw you coming out of the hotel. The look on your face…” Josie gave her a reassuring smile. “Then I saw you talking to Max. Are you all right?”
She wagged her head. Right now, she doubted she would ever be all right again.
“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to,” Josie said, sitting down next to her.
Goldie laughed at that. She’d told her best friend everything since they were girls. She let it all out, from the disastrous attempt to move on from Max with Donovan to Penny and her friends and their plot against the café. Finally, to Max.
“He actually admitted he’d made a mistake and wants to get back together?” Josie asked. “Why aren’t you jumping up and down for joy? Isn’t this what you wanted?”
She nodded. “It was.”
“Was? Are you telling me you don’t want to be with Max after all?”
Goldie hesitated a little too long.
“Wait! You haven’t fallen for Donovan, have you?”
She shook her head. “Turns out I have terrible luck with men, even the fake boyfriend ones. I found this in Donovan’s room.” She pulled the note from her pocket and watched while Josie read it and frowned. “I think his girlfriend, Lolly Mandeville, might have brought it to him from her father.”
“It appears they are up to something here in Dry Gulch,” Josie said. “But what?”
Goldie shook her head. “Max told me that he suspected Donovan was involved with Arnie Adams over at the café and Malcolm Mandeville. I thought he was just jealous, but he’s right.
” She wiped a fresh tear. “I didn’t want to believe it.
I’m the one who brought Donovan to town.
I was so busy trying to make Max jealous that I didn’t pay any attention to what was going on.
Then when everything gets worse, Max finally admits he still loves me and should never have ended it.
But he said he wanted things back like they were. ”
Josie sighed. “You got what you thought you wanted, but it fell short.”
“I don’t want to punish him, if that’s what you’re thinking. I just don’t know what I want right now. I don’t want things to go back like they were. I hate the way I feel and what I’ve done.”
“You aren’t responsible for this,” Josie said. “Max needs to take some responsibility for this. Also, it’s clear that there were other forces behind this that you were unaware of. You can’t blame yourself for what Donovan and Mandeville are up to.”
Goldie smiled at the lawyer coming out in her friend. “You’re right, your honor.”
Josie laughed. “I’m not putting up an argument just because you’re my best friend. I’m angry and disappointed in Max too.”
“He acted as if he actually thought I would fall into his arms,” she said with an oath.
“After everything he’d put me through?” Goldie shook her head.
“Now I’m asking myself why I went through all of this to get these results and why I didn’t throw myself into his arms—the only place I want to be.
” The tears began again. She brushed them away angrily.
“It’s going to take more than him saying he’s sorry,” her friend said. “He’s lost your trust. I would imagine you both need to rebuild trust between you.”
“He thinks I slept with Donovan,” Goldie said with a sigh. “I couldn’t even get that right.”
Josie shook her head. “He told Cordell that he couldn’t hold any of it against you. He took all the blame for this.”
“That’s something, I suppose,” she said, making a guilty face. “I blame myself for moving in with Max in the beginning. I wanted more and yet I didn’t ask for it. I sold myself short, telling myself that we didn’t have to get married, that just being with Max was enough.”
“It wasn’t,” her friend said.
Goldie nodded. “I’m not going to let myself do that again. It’s way past time that I spoke up. Too bad all this realization came after I sold my café and brought a band of criminals to town.”
Josie hugged her and rose to leave. “I like this new Goldie.”
She laughed. “I’m still the old Goldie, just battle worn.”
“I see stronger and wiser, and it looks good on you,” her friend said. “You’re standing up for yourself. You’ve proven that you’re willing to fight for what you want. Now you just have to decide what it is that will make you happy.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, don’t you think?”
Josie shook her head. “You’ve always known who you wanted. Now you must decide what it will take to forgive him and yourself.”
Goldie knew her friend was right. The problem was that she wasn’t sure what it would take to forgive herself, let alone Max. “In the meantime, Donovan is involved in whatever is going to happen here in Dry Gulch,” she said. “I need to find out what they have planned so Max can stop them.”
“That sounds dangerous,” Josie said. “The fact that you trust Max to handle whatever it is, that must tell you something.”
Goldie shook her head. “I know I asked for this by bringing Donovan to town, but I can’t sit back and let them use me to whatever end they have planned. Donovan doesn’t suspect anything.” At least she hoped not. “I need to find out what’s going down and when.”
“Goldie, no offense, but you’re a lousy poker player because you can’t bluff. Are you sure about this? How are you going to handle being that close to the man knowing he’s working for a known crime boss?”
“Very carefully,” Goldie said. Until this was over, she couldn’t even think about what Max was offering—or what he wasn’t.
LOLLY KNEW THAT both her father and Donovan—not to mention Luca—wanted her out of Dry Gulch.
That only made her dig in her heels, determined to stay.
It still concerned her that after all these years of staying out of her father’s business, he’d dragged her in just a little.
Why had he insisted she deliver the note?
Luca being here made her suspicious. Her father’s second-in-command never did anything until it went through his boss. Apparently, her father knew they were both here. She feared it was a test.
From her hotel room window, she’d seen Luca talking to one of the construction crew members working on clearing out rocks and dirt for the large swimming pools they were putting in.
Shortly after, she’d seen Luca pull up behind the hotel next to one of the storage sheds to load boxes of clearly marked explosives into the back of his SUV.
She’d quickly stepped away from the window as he’d turned in her direction. She hadn’t wanted to get involved in whatever he had going on. But her father had involved her and now she wanted to know what he had planned. Not just know what he was up to but maybe throw a wrench in it.
She was afraid he had seen her watching him from the window.
Minutes later, she got her answer when Luca texted her.
I know you’re up there
Nice to hear from you too
Meet me. Abandoned farm with silo two miles out of town. 15 minutes. I’ll be waiting
Lolly stared at the text for a long moment, her anger and resentment with her father bubbling up at her lover’s demands.
She considered not going, making him ask nicer.
But after what she’d seen him load into his SUV there was no doubt that something was up.
Was her father in on it? Or was Luca going rogue like he’d been threatening to do before the two of them could be together?
She left the hotel, got in her SUV and drove out of town two miles before she saw the abandoned house and silo a little off the road back into the hillside. Spotting his vehicle parked in the shade, she pulled in next to the house as a tumbleweed blew past.
Lolly sat for a moment out of the wind as she tried to rein in her temper. She was so sick of being bossed around by men. They often underestimated her, even the ones who should have noticed how much she was like her father. But she didn’t want Luca seeing how angry she was. Not yet anyway.
When she finally did climb out of her SUV, she wondered where Luca was since it appeared his vehicle was empty.
“Took you long enough,” Luca said as he came up behind her.
She spun around, startled by his sudden appearance but more so by his tone. “I came as soon as I got your text,” she said, bristling.
“You need to go home to the ranch.”
“That’s all you have to say? Is this order from you or my father?”
“Does it matter?” he asked, stepping threateningly closer.
“So, you’re delivering the order from my father.”
She saw his jaw tighten. Sometimes she questioned what had attracted her to Luca other than that he was forbidden. There was also the danger of her father finding out. But her father wasn’t the man who was trying to scare her right now.
“Why are you still here?” He breathed the words into her face.
Lolly was almost tempted to tell him what he could do with his threats, but common sense stopped her.
Whatever her father was up to, Luca was involved, maybe more involved than her father even knew.
Which meant he was planning to benefit from it—just as her father was.
Neither would want her messing up their plans.
Until she knew more, she had to tread carefully.
Unfortunately, she was already walking a very fine, dangerous line with her father—and Luca, it seemed.
“You’re going home,” he said, biting off each word as he backed her into the side of her SUV. “You don’t want to test your father right now. I really doubt you know how ruthless he can be—even with you,” Luca said as if reading her mind. “Don’t test me either.”
She shoved herself off the side of the SUV and got in his face, knowing now why she hadn’t shared the news about the baby with him.
“You forget,” she said, refusing to back down.
“My father’s blood runs through my veins, and we share at least some of the same genes.
Which is why no one tells me what to do.
I suggest you talk nicer to me and never test me. ”
Luca smiled and looked away. She saw it coming even before he grabbed her neck with one large hand, tilting her head back so their eyes met as he increased pressure on her throat, before slamming her into the side of the vehicle.
“That goes two ways, sweetheart. Go home. You seem to have forgotten who I am. You do whatever I tell you to.” He let go, turned and walked toward his rig.
Lolly coughed, her throat aching, her back sore.
As she watched him reach for his door handle, her hand dipped inside the purse hanging from her shoulder.
She closed her shaking fingers around the gun as she tried to catch her breath.
Her throat ached. She could still feel the bite of his fingers cutting off her breath.
You always pick the worst man you can find, she heard her father say in her ear, as if he too were here watching as Luca opened the door and climbed into his vehicle.
“Good thing you taught me what to do when it’s time to cut my losses, isn’t it, Daddy?” she said to the sound of Luca Havers’s SUV roaring away.