16
Logan hesitated, then hit the send button on the email. Dylan might be offended that he didn’t keep the Monday-morning appointment, but he had no reason to do so.
Not once during their date did Amy bring up Dylan’s designs on Whisper Lane or her cousin’s property, and it suited Logan to avoid the subject. All part of his grand scheme to win Amy’s trust and, if possible, her heart.
Their first date wasn’t going to be ruined by discussing a topic she obviously found painful. No surprise there. Suing her cousin had to make things awkward at family gatherings.
Despite his best efforts to act natural while they were together, he’d found himself looking over his shoulder a few times to see if anyone was behaving suspiciously. But no one either at the steakhouse or the theater showed any interest in them. If Dylan had them under surveillance, his photographer was slick and clever.
Though Logan hadn’t noticed anyone at the town center paying attention to them either. He’d given it a lot of thought and decided that Dylan must have arranged with the county commissioner to have someone follow Logan after their meeting.
This same commissioner would be surprised to learn he, too, had been photographed in secret. If he refused a bribe, they’d show him the photos. First greed, then fear.
With the email—short, to the point, but courteous—completed, Logan turned to other tasks. But he had a hard time concentrating when his thoughts kept returning to his date with Amy.
He was still dejected that she had refused the invitation to his July 4th party. Her reason sounded sincere, and he could understand why she wanted to spend more time with her family. Obviously she was mending fences there, which was a good thing. But part of him hoped that she would change her mind. Just in case, he wasn’t going to ask anyone else.
He’d already decided they belonged together. Now he just needed to convince Amy of that too.
Gabe applied a thin coat of varnish to the stagecoach’s body while Tess scrubbed at the rusty wheel with a square of steel wool. They had moved it from storage and parked it near the hay wagon underneath a pole barn. Though they weren’t doing the full restoration Rusty had once planned, a lot of sanding and elbow grease had already improved the coach’s look.
For safety reasons, Tess had decided against using it to transport guests to the creek, but Shelby still wanted to have it on display for the Heritage Celebration.
“How are you doing with that wheel?” Gabe asked.
“I’ve got a couple of spots that don’t want to go away. But I haven’t given up yet.” At the sound of tires on gravel, she stepped out of the shade of the pole barn to see who had pulled into the drive.
“Who is that?” Gabe asked as he came to stand next to her. A black Mercedes stopped beside the house as if the driver was unsure where to park.
“No one I know.” Tess stepped farther into the lane and waved. “Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
She didn’t answer, but her body stiffened.
The driver must have seen her because the car revved toward them.
“Does he think this is a speedway?” Gabe grumbled. He took Tess’s arm and they stepped to the side.
The vehicle stopped, but the driver didn’t cut the engine. The door opened, the driver stepped out, then he opened the passenger door.
A large man wearing a dark tailored suit and built like a linebacker emerged from the car. An insincere smile cut across his face, and he balanced a pungent cigar between two thick fingers.
“Mrs. Marshall,” he said in a voice smoother than cream and even more insincere than his smile. “Finally we have the pleasure of meeting.”
“You must be Dylan Tapley.”
“I have that distinction, yes.” He swept a dismissive gaze over Gabe. “Please forgive me for dropping in unannounced.” He gave a strange laugh. “But that’s common among country folks, isn’t it?”
“We are known to be neighborly,” Tess said.
“I won’t take up much of your valuable time,” he said with a tone that Gabe understood to mean he meant his own valuable time. Clearly he didn’t see what they were doing as being at all important. “I expected to hear a yes from you before now. My offer, after all, is a generous one. If there is anything more I can say to persuade you in my favor”—he opened his arms magnanimously—“I am here to say it.”
“What offer?” Gabe asked. “What’s this all about?”
Tess took a deep breath and laid her hand on Gabe’s arm. “Mr. Tapley wants to buy Whisper Lane.”
“He wants to . . . he can’t.” Gabe faced Tapley. “Why would you?”
“I don’t discuss my business affairs with the hired help,” Tapley said.
“Hired help?” Tess said, iron in her voice. “This is my nephew. Gabe has every right to know anything that concerns these stables.”
“Then why didn’t he know about my offer?”
Tess’s cheeks reddened, and Gabe clenched the rag in his hand, wishing it was the man’s silk tie.
“Like I said, it’s a good offer.”
Tess turned to Gabe. “Mr. Tapley wants to raise and train horses for harness racing.”
“Here?” Gabe could hardly believe what he was hearing.
“Mr. Tapley,” Tess said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you sooner. But as you can see, circumstances are different now. Gabe is here, and I’m no longer interested in selling.”
The smile on Tapley’s face momentarily froze, and his eyes turned cold. He recovered so quickly, Gabe almost believed he’d imagined the malice. But he’d seen such flashes before in the eyes of dangerous men, and he knew they meant trouble.
“My dear Mrs. Marshall,” Tapley said. “When we talked on the phone a few weeks ago, you told me the place needed more upkeep than you could provide. Can your nephew make that much difference?”
“He can.” Tess smiled at Gabe with pride. “He will.”
“I think you should go now,” Gabe said as politely as he could but with an edge to his voice that left no mistake he wasn’t asking. “Your business here seems to have ended.”
Tapley took his time scanning the buildings and the pastures. He dropped his cigar to the ground and pressed his foot against the stub.
“Don’t be so sure,” he said. “Negotiations may be stalled, but they have not ended.”
“But they have,” Tess said firmly. “Now please excuse us. As you can see, we have work to do.”
“I offered you a good price, Mrs. Marshall,” Tapley said while staring at Gabe. “Be sure you know what you’re doing before you say no.”
Gabe raised his shoulders a fraction of an inch and returned Tapley’s stare. He had faced more menacing enemies than this overgrown upstart. Without breaking eye contact, he pointed farther up the lane. “Your driver can turn around by the silo.”
Tapley waited another beat, then directed a cold smile to Tess. “Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Marshall.”
Except for the clenching of his jaw, Gabe didn’t move a muscle. Though his stance was relaxed, his body was taut, prepared to handle any threat.
“I think you should go, Mr. Tapley,” Tess said.
Despite his size, he slid easily into the Mercedes’s backseat, a black tarantula encased in an ebony shell.
The tires unnecessarily spun gravel, and Gabe stared after the fender as it curved around the dirt area near the silo. Casually, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, he picked up the crushed cigar stub, then held it lightly between his fingers as he took a stand in the middle of the lane.
“What are you doing?” Tess asked. “There’s no need for any foolishness.”
Gabe ignored her as he waited for the car to return. The driver braked only a couple feet from his legs, but Gabe didn’t flinch. He motioned for the window to be rolled down and walked to the driver’s side.
He leaned against the door, his head partially through the open frame. “Your boss forgot something,” he said congenially.
“What would that be?” Tapley asked from the backseat.
Gabe resisted the temptation to look at him. Ignoring the man was better, a subtle means of saying Tapley wasn’t worth his time. He flipped his hand, revealing the cigar stub he held between his finger and thumb.
“Hospitality isn’t our only custom around here,” he drawled. “We also don’t leave our trash in a neighbor’s yard.”
He dropped the stub in the driver’s lap, then pushed away from the door. “Get on out of here.”
Even as Tapley passed by him, Gabe refused to acknowledge his existence. Men like him expected position and wealth to provide them with respect they hadn’t earned. And didn’t deserve.
Tess joined him and stared after the departing car. “Tell me you didn’t throw that cigar at Mr. Tapley.”
“If I’d done that, he’d have left here thinking that’s what he’d expect from someone like me. So I did the unexpected.”
“You still shouldn’t have.”
“He shouldn’t have spoken to you the way he did.”
“I can handle the likes of him.” She placed the steel wool in the palm of his hand. “You finish the wheel. I’ll go check on supper.”
She’d taken a few steps toward the house when Gabe spoke. “Would you really have done it?” he asked quietly.
She turned and faced him, her expression drawn and sad. “I never wanted to.”
“But you would have?”
“I didn’t think I had a choice. I’m still not sure I do.”
Gabe avoided looking at her, his mind whirling with thoughts he couldn’t seem to untangle. Memories and dreams and regrets and hopes.
Tess returned to stand in front of him. “I’m only sorry I didn’t tell Tapley no before this. Then you wouldn’t have known. And this wouldn’t have happened.”
Gabe removed the beaten Stetson, wiped his brow with his forearm, and rested the hat against his leg. He didn’t want to upset Tess, didn’t want to argue. But it hurt that she’d kept this from him. His eyes flickered, seeing everything around him except for her.
“If you didn’t want me to know,” he said softly, “then why did you tell Tapley what you did? Either I have a right to know or I don’t.”
She was silent for so long he finally looked her way. Her posture was stiff, her chin tilted upward. Tears welled in her eyes, but she’d do everything she could so they wouldn’t fall.
“We bought this place for our family,” she said quietly. “Red-headed boys and raven-haired girls, Rusty used to say. A whole passel of ’em.”
She entered the pole barn and rested on a bale of last year’s hay, as if she was wearied by a weight he couldn’t see. Gabe followed her, then lowered himself to the concrete floor at her feet. He picked at the bale’s thin strands.
A gentle smile curved her lips and creased the corners of her eyes. “But there was only you. We’d count the days till your arrival and dreaded every good-bye. How we missed you when you weren’t here.”
He’d missed them too, but he found it hard to say the words. As much as his family had moved around, Whisper Lane had been a needed constant in his life. He flicked hay across the floor. “I used to pretend this was my home,” he said. “Especially after Mom died.”
“We wanted it to be. Even hoped for a while that it would be. But your dad couldn’t bear to give you up, not after he’d already lost so much.”
“You discussed it with him?”
“We did. I even had you enrolled in school here. Then he called one morning, said he was on his way to pick you up.” She gazed away, lost in memory. “That was a hard time. Letting you go when all we wanted to do was hold you close. Keep you here with us.”
“I didn’t know.” Surprised by the revelation, he chewed on a piece of hay. So Dad had wanted him. At least for one day. “I wish he’d let me stay here.”
“Maybe back then.”
She let the comment pass, not that there was anything for her to say. But the pity in her eyes only stoked his resentment. Dad had come to the jail shortly after his arrest but only to berate him for the mess he’d gotten himself into. Gabe didn’t see him again until the sentencing hearing. As he was led away in handcuffs, he’d spotted his father in the courtroom. Their eyes met for a moment, then Dad pivoted and marched out.
When Gabe was released, he’d been handed an envelope containing the check, which Gabe had deposited in the bank, a few twenties for traveling expenses, and a brief handwritten note admonishing him not to squander his “new lease on life.”
What was that even supposed to mean?
“I think he’d have been happier if I’d died in Afghanistan,” Gabe said. “His son the hero instead of his son the felon.”
“You can’t believe that,” Tess said.
“He’ll never forgive me.”
“There’s nothing for him to forgive.” She squeezed his shoulder. “You did nothing wrong.”
“He obviously thinks I did.”
“But you know better. And so do I.”
He humphed and smiled at her. “Guess that’ll have to do, won’t it?”
“We’ve gotten sidetracked,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories.”
“I know.”
“What I wanted to say was that, if things had turned out differently, the stables would be yours. But now it’s mortgaged to the hilt, I’m behind on the payments, and I simply don’t know what to do. It’s my problem, though, and I don’t want you to be burdened by the mistakes I’ve made.”
“If you sold to Tapley, would you be better off?”
“From a strictly financial standpoint, yes. But it would break my heart to leave this place.”
“You’ll never have to. Not while I’m here.”
“You have your own life to live, Gabe. I don’t expect you to stay here indefinitely. Though I’m thrilled as punch that you’re here.”
“There’s no place I’d rather be,” he said. “And I’ve got no other place to go.”
“You say that now,” she said with a teasing lilt in her voice. “But what happens when a lovely young lady catches your eye? Or am I wrong in thinking that has already happened?”
He slightly reddened. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” She stood and brushed dust from her pants. “I’m headed to the house. Are you coming?”
“In a little bit. I’ll work some more on that wheel first.”
She walked to the edge of the barn, then turned back. “I do have a favor to ask.”
“Anything.”
“I’d rather no one knew about this. Mr. Tapley’s offer, I mean. Rumors can get out of hand real quick around here.”
She didn’t have to warn him against gossip. He’d been the object of more than his fair share of fabricated stories. “Tapley who?” he teased.
She smiled her appreciation, then left him. He leaned against the bale and let his thoughts wander. He wanted his future to be here. He’d dreamed it often enough while in prison. But he didn’t know if it would be possible.
Finding out that Tess considered accepting an offer for the stables had thrown him for a loop, but he had to admit she never would have done so unless she had no other choice. Then he’d shown up, and she had changed her mind. But what could he do to make the horse farm financially viable again? He hadn’t a clue.
Tess needed to be thinking about her own future instead of worrying about his. He couldn’t let her become financially destitute because either of them was emotionally attached to this place.
If selling was her only, her best, option for a secure future, then he couldn’t stand in her way.
Noble of him to say while he was sitting alone here in the barn. But the thought of Tapley owning this place sickened him. Surely there was another solution. Something else they could do instead.