Chapter Seven
GRAY
MASON AND Dad are already in the office when I go back downstairs.
I asked them to wait for me when I carried our unexpected visitor up to my bedroom.
I wasn’t sure what to say when Marley suggested we let her lie down, but it was only seconds later that Sloane barely caught the mug of cocoa as it slipped from the woman’s hands, and her head slid forward.
At first, I wondered if she passed out, but when Marley rushed to her side to check for a pulse, she startled and held her head up again, but only for a few seconds.
She was just exhausted from walking in the freezing wind and ice.
And probably hypothermic. After I laid her on my bed, I left Marley and Sloane to do the rest.
I thought about putting her in my younger sister, Kinley’s, room since she mainly stays in the old foreman’s cabin to have space and privacy for her art, but in the off chance she might need her room, I know she would have a piss fit if a stranger were using it.
“What the fuck? I told her not to come back.” Mason says in his low voice as I shut the door. He’s standing close to the window behind Dad’s desk with his hands on his hips. He must have filled Dad in on the visit she paid us yesterday and our exchange before she left.
We started getting letters of offers to buy our land about a year ago, Dad didn’t tell us about them until after he had his heart attack a few months ago.
Well, he didn’t come out and tell us; I found the letters in his desk drawer in the stables.
We suspect they may have contributed to his heart attack.
Thinking they would lose interest if we show none, we have been ignoring them, but the offers just keep increasing.
“I don’t fucking know.” I set one hand on my hip and scrub the other down my face. “She said her car slid off the road a couple of miles away.”
“Miles?” Mason’s eyes go wide and then he turns and looks out at the landscape that’s slowly turning more gray and white from the sleet and ice. “It’s fucking ten degrees outside with a strong north wind, how the fuck did she walk that far? In the fucking ice?”
“I wondered the same thing, but she’s stuck here for now.” I slump in the chair on the other side of Dad’s desk and let my body relax, my knees falling apart. My shoulder blade hurts from landing on my back in the driveway when I caught her, but I know I would do it again.
“Who would drive in this? Why would they send her out in this?” Mason’s face is twisted in disbelief and frustration.
Dad has been sitting in his chair quietly listening. He may be in his sixties, but he works as hard as the rest of us. The deep lines in the tan skin around his eyes and the strands of gray in his thinning brown hair are the two things that give a clear indication of his age.
“Now hold on, son,” he holds his hand up, his gravelly voice is deep, “it’s possible she may just be a pushy agent, and she thought she could drive out here to try and persuade us but underestimated the weather. Don’t forget, she’s probably not be from around here.”
I cock my head to the side and pull a face. “It doesn’t make sense, Dad. The weather alerts have been running on every channel since yesterday, everyone with sense knows they’re gonna be stuck home for a few days.”
“Everyone with sense,” Mason mumbles on a huff as he stares out the window, his fingers scratching at the hair on his chin, his other hand tucked under his arm.
Dad links his fingers and leans on his desk, “Maybe she doesn’t watch TV.”
I narrow my eyes at him, “Why are you defending her?”
“Just playing Devil’s advocate before the two of you turn her into Satan himself and treat her as such while she’s here. I don’t want her here any more than you do, but she’s still a guest, and an injured one at that. We’ll not forget our manners, but we’ll be cautious at the same time.”
Dad’s heart attack a few months ago scared the hell out of all of us, but I’ve noticed some of his sharp edges have dulled a bit, especially toward family. It doesn’t surprise me that his reaction toward the woman is more protective than suspicious.
Shifting my gaze to Mason as he turns from the window to face me, I say, “She was damn near frozen, that fall would’ve been her last if she hadn’t been here.
I don’t think she would’ve got up. I think Dad’s right, she probably underestimated the weather.
” I rub my thumb and fingers over my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose.
“We just need to be careful while she’s here. ”
Thinking about her lying on the road in the cold as her life slowly freezes out of her makes my heart squeeze and a pang of sadness grips my throat. It also makes me angry at her lack of forethought. I push the thought away and give my brother my full attention.
“In the meantime, let’s just be careful what we say around her and remember why she’s here,” Dad says and leans back in his chair looking between me and Mason.
We both nod and I take a deep breath, rotating my shoulder to ease some of the ache. “Did you ever hear back from Indian Affairs?”
Dad taps his fingers on his desk. “I heard from the Muskogee bureau, but the records are so old that some of them are in some kind of storage in the Miami location near Tahlequah. It could take months to get a response, but if I need to, I’ll put some pressure on them and ask if they can speed up the process. ”
“What kind of records?” I’m genuinely confused, I thought we had copies of everything here.
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure, the person I spoke with said there was some kind of arrangement between the original landowners. Plural. When I asked if they had any more specific information, she said what was on the computer was vague.”
“There were two landowners?” Mason and I ask at the same time.
“Sounds that way.” He looks between us again. “Things seem a little muddy, so we just have to keep these people at arm’s length and wait for more information.”
We both nod and Mason cups the back of his neck and squints his eyes sheepishly. “There’s something else.”
What else could possibly happen today?
Dad and I look at him, and he rests his hand on his hip. “I got a text from Callum this morning. They need me for a job and I’m flying out the day after tomorrow.”
“How will you get out of here?” Dad asks.
“Callum said he’s sending a helo in after the storm passes. I could be gone a week.”
A soft knock on the door has all our heads turning in that direction as it opens just enough for Marley to stick her head in. Her blue eyes look to each of us and she raises her eyebrows in question.
“Come in, sweetheart,” Dad’s deep, gravelly voice calls out, the softness he always uses when talking to Marley is laced into the usual gruffness.
After she was brutally attacked in high school, she was never the same, and Dad's interactions with her changed. She lost her easy-going, fun-loving nature and retreated into herself for over a year. Now she’s quiet and reserved, and she avoids all strangers like wild boars.
“Did she say anything?” Mason asks, turning to face her, irritation in his voice.
Marley shakes her head as she walks into the room, folded papers are clutched in her hands like a shield in front of her. “No, she barely woke up while we were getting her out of her wet clothes. Her phone was in her coat pocket, I left it on the nightstand next to the bed.”
“Her head?” When I was checking the generator on the side of the house and I looked up to see a bloody woman walk out from between our trucks, I thought I was imagining things for a second.
A lot of blood had dripped down her face and coat, so the sight in front of me was shocking, to say the least.
“Sloane is cleaning it up, it’s not bad enough to need stitches, just ugly.” She looks at Dad, hurt and anger in her eyes, and grips the papers in her hand so hard that her knuckles are bleaching white.
“Marley?” Dad leans forward in his chair again, lines of concern forming on his forehead, and rests his forearms on his desk.
Anger deepens the little line between her eyebrows as she looks between the three of us.
The paper crinkles in her fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me?
” She pauses and looks between us again.
We dubiously look back at her. “This is my home, too, I have every right to know that negotiations are being made to sell our home.”
All three of us move in unison, like someone dropped a bomb in the room.
I stand to move closer as Dad stands behind his desk, but Mason beats me to her in two long steps and grips her arms, squatting down to meet her at eye level. Mason’s large military physique dwarfs her slight frame. “We are not selling our home.” His voice is firm.
She doesn’t say anything, only lifts the papers between them as proof, they are trembling in her hand.
“Give me those.” Dad demands, the sharp edge I’m used to is back.
Mason pulls them from Marley’s fingers and hands them to me so I can hand them to Dad.
Tears are in Marley’s narrowed eyes, but she never breaks her angry eye contact with him.
He grips her cheeks in his palms and meets her scowl with a firm countenance.
“We're not selling our home. A company's interested in our land, and we've let them know, in no uncertain terms, we're not interested. We didn’t want to bother you with it because it would just stress you out.”
She sniffs, her nose has turned red, and takes a deep breath of relief as a tear breaks free and Mason catches it with his thumb to wipe it away.
She throws her fists down at her sides and glares at him.
“I am not made of glass, Mason Wade. I’m part of this family, too.
” If tone could cut, she would have shredded him just then.
He nods his head deeply in agreement as he says, “You’re right, you are just as much a part of this family as we are, and I was wrong.
I asked Dad and Gray not to say anything because you were dealing with Dad’s heart attack.
” His head tilts to the side a little, the regret plain on his face, “I was just trying to help, I won’t ask anyone to keep things from you again. ”
The anger lines around her eyes and across her forehead disappear after a few seconds and she nods her head.
We all hear Dad opening the folded papers and we turn to watch as he reads. Mason wraps his arm across Marley’s shoulders and pulls her into his side. She threads her fingers together in front of her as Dad flips the first page over and then scans the second page.
“Where did you get this?” Dad asks without looking up from the letter.
“From her bag, there was a folder with our name on it and I looked.” Marley says as she lifts her chin and squares her shoulders, obviously conveying she doesn't care if she was snooping.
“Well?” I ask, getting impatient.
He hands the papers to me as he says, “They’ve doubled the offer, and based on the language, they have already bought some property around us.” He takes a deep breath, “We might need to bring someone in to translate all the business jargon in the letter.”
This must be a copy of the letter that sat untouched in the stables yesterday after she left.
I look over the figures, and some of the lingo in the letter is Greek to me; things like zoning and reclassifying.
For the first time, fear skitters up my spine.
I lift my eyes to meet Mason’s, “He’s right, some of the language in this letter sounds a little less than cordial. ”
Mason’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, “Doesn’t fucking matter, they can’t make us sell our land.”
“They may not be able to make us sell it all, but this sounds like some type of eminent domain technical bullshit that can force us to cede some of our land.”
Dad and I exchange a look before he says, “Let’s just be safe and call someone to make sure there isn’t anything underhanded happening here.”
The beating of helicopter blades has us all looking at the ceiling in confusion, like turkeys watching the rain.
“What the fuck?” Mason mumbles and turns to the door.
We all hurry through the kitchen to the side porch that overlooks Marley’s stables and see a helicopter lowering close to the open area between the house and the paddock.
It takes a minute to realize who it is, but we watch Mason’s best friend and teammate, Jax, lower himself down a rope and drop to the ground.
He doesn’t slip and I glance at his military boots to see ice grips bigger than the ones we use strapped around his shoes.
He’s tall like Mason, but he used to be a SEAL before their boss, Callum, plucked him from DEVGRU when he formed his off the books black-op team, so he’s lean and much more graceful than any of us.
The helicopter hovers for a bit until he stands and gives them the thumbs up. Covered in head to toe thermal gear, he’s walking toward the porch like he drops out of a helicopter at our house every day.
He’s only been here twice, once a few months ago when Sloane was kidnapped and nearly killed by traffickers. They hunted them down and took care of every one of the fuckers when they got her back.
Then he dropped in for a couple of days after New Year’s Eve.
Marley steps half-way behind me as Mason steps forward and Jax jogs up the steps like some kind of graceful ice skater to shake his hand.
He pulls the goggles and mask off his head with a smile on his face.
His hair was shoulder length the last time I saw him, but is short now and sticking up every which way.
“Thought I would drop in and hitch a ride when Callum comes to get you.”
Mason lifts an eyebrow and points at the retreating helicopter, “How the fuck did you get anyone to fly you here in this?”
A shit-eating grin moves across Jax’s face and he briefly glances at Marley and back to Mason. “You doubt my powers of persuasion?” He nods his head in greeting to each of us but stops on Marley. “Hi, Marley.”
Mason’s eyes narrow as he looks at Jax and Marley takes a step back, keeping her gaze on his chest. “Hi.” She turns and goes into the house without another word, the smile on Jax’s face falters.
Dad turns to follow her and says, “Well, let’s get out of the damn cold before we all freeze to death.”