King's Ransom (Oil Kings Book 2)

by Marie Johnston

  “I guess she’s not a gold digger then.”

  “Even if she were, he’s a better human when she’s around.” He sat on the plush chair across from me. “He’ll be on blood pressure medicine and a low-fat diet. Kendall will make sure he goes on long walks.”

  “He’ll hate that.” Dad was like a little boy jumping from toy to toy. Running and ranching helped focus his energy.

  “He won’t with her. She’s slowing his life down and bearing some of the burden. How’d you meet Eva?” Idle curiosity wasn’t why he’d asked. I was going to get interrogated.

  “She was outside the office. I thought Dad had sent her, but we got to talking and I offered her more than her current employer to work for me.”

  Aiden’s brow ticked up. “If you carry through with the marriage, you’d better prenup the hell out of it.”

  “Is that what you did with Kate?”

  Annoyance crossed his face. “None of your business.”

  “Then how is Eva any of yours?”

  He stared at me, but he eased further into the chair, his interest more focused. “Kate signed a prenup.”

  “She doesn’t know that she can leave you for a cool fifty million?” I shouldn’t have said it, but Aiden had a way of making me feel challenged.

  “No one’s forcing her to stay with me.” That would be a no. It made me wonder why he’d never divulged the fact. Did he want Kate to stay with him? I looked at him with new eyes. Tired, worn out, and probably burned out. Maybe Kate was the eye of his storm and no matter how much he told himself he’d married her for the money, he might be wrong. Would he ever admit it?

  It wasn’t my problem to solve. Someday, he and Kate would have to work those answers out themselves. “Are you finally getting some sleep?”

  He nodded, but didn’t get out of the chair.

  “Xander’s home.”

  He didn’t look surprised, but he leveled another stare at me. “Then Dad’s going to want to throw the party he’s been planning since you told him you were engaged.”

  I sat up, no longer concerned about morning wood. “What? What kind of party?”

  “An engagement and welcome-to-the-family and no-you-heard-wrong-I-wasn’t-sick party.” Aiden sighed. “I hope this Eva knows what she’s signing up for. Dad’s going to welcome her with open arms and Grams is going to sink her claws in her until you turn thirty.”

  “You think the Cartwrights know about the trust?”

  “Talk gets around and if it’d be a stick in the side, Grams would make sure they heard rumors.”

  “True.” I rubbed my face. What a mess. I didn’t want Eva to be escorted around town like a prize pony. She was more than a ruse. “When does he want this to happen?”

  “He’s getting released this afternoon, so I’d guess tomorrow.”

  “Already?”

  Aiden shrugged, as if I should know the answer. “People might hear he was in the hospital and wonder. He has to make a good show of it before investors start to worry.”

  “And he can use the excuse that we’re working cattle soon so we’d better have the party.” I shoved the blanket off and stood. Aiden looked like he could sink into the chair and become one with it. How long had he been awake?

  Self-recrimination passed through me. A foreign emotion. I should’ve seen how hard it’d been for him. He’d picked up Dad’s slack and just when he was finally getting some help, Dad dropped. Since his help was Kendall, she was going to be preoccupied at Dad’s side.

  “Go get some sleep. You look like hell.”

  “You always say the sweetest things, Beck.”

  Another glimpse of my brother beneath the marble. It was almost worth an engagement party looming over my head. “I’d better go warn Eva.”

  “Warn me about what?”

  I looked up and couldn’t look away. She was running her hand along the railing toward the stairs. As she descended, I thought seriously about changing my dress code to casual. Those jeans hugged her legs, she wore her Toms, and her pink hoodie was a little less frayed than her pale blue sweater but appeared no less comfy.

  I caught Aiden’s reaction out of the corner of my eye. His brows ticked up as he assessed her. Like everyone else who knew me, he would comment about how she wasn’t my type. Her hair wasn’t styled, but it wasn’t messy. She looked like a garden fairy had decided to land on Earth and work for me. Her entire outfit probably cost less than any of my exes’ pairs of shoes.

  He rose and stood beside me because being a refined businessman had been bred into him. For some reason, I wanted to know what he thought. I’d never cared before what my brothers thought about my dates.

  “Dad’s throwing us an engagement party.”

  She paused halfway down, looking like she’d sprint back up and disappear. “How big of a party?”

  “The whole town and possibly much of the county,” Aiden replied and I elbowed him. The asshole snickered.

  Color drained from her face but she descended the rest of the way. “I guess it’s on, huh?”

  When she approached, I introduced her. “Here’s the brother you haven’t met yet. Aiden.”

  He extended his hand. “Eva.”

  She gave him a perfunctory shake and part of me eased. I never worried about my brothers as competition. If I had to worry about them, then my date wasn’t worth it. But Aiden was the oldest, the one we all looked up to even if none of us would ever admit it. He was also the one the girls our age would ask about. His demeanor had screamed untouchable since he could walk.

  “Nice to meet you. How’s your dad?” She looked between us, her gaze dipping to my bare chest.

  “Hounding the doctors to finish the paperwork to release him.” Aiden straightened his suit as if it wasn’t wrinkled and unbuttoned. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to catch some sleep in a real bed before my wife arrives.”

  “You’ll like Kate,” I said. “She’s nothing like Aiden.”

  Aiden shot me a glare, but his lips twitched. “It’s one of her best qualities.” He disappeared up the stairs.

  Eva looked at me as I watched him go. “You’re worried about him.”

  “I am.” It surprised me to admit it. Aiden would be in Dad’s shoes by the time he was fifty and if he ran Kate off before then, who’d be around to save him? Maybe I should come home more. “I’ll go get cleaned up. Mind making two of whatever you’re having for breakfast?”

  “Dawson sent me—you—a text on your work phone. There’s a blueberry french toast bake in the oven. I just have to start it. It should be done by the time you’re finished.”

  Dawson and his food. “He used to slide a chair up to the counter and help Mama whether she wanted him to or not.”

  Eva smiled. “I doubt she minded.”

  “Oh, sometimes it was tough for her. But by the time he got over breaking eggs all over the floor and counter and quit starting the mixer at maximum speed when it was full of flour, she looked less frazzled.”

  Her laugh was exactly what I wanted to wake up to every day, though I hadn’t known it until now. “Better get the bathroom. It’s getting full in this house.”

  It was. I liked seeing all of us coming and going. Two weddings in the ten years since I’d left home weren’t enough.

  I trudged up the stairs and was about to turn into the bathroom when Aiden popped out. He had stripped down, wearing nothing but black satin pajama bottoms.

  He saw my doubtful gaze on them. “Shut up.” His expression sobered and he glanced toward Dawson’s old room. “Dad and Kendall are going to stay here. Dawson offered to give up the master suite, but I think the thought of Kendall and Dad messing around on his bed freaks all of them out.”

  My mood darkened. “So we’ll need to clean up Dawson’s old room.”

  Aiden’s jaw tightened. “I thought we should do it before they get back.”

  Keep Dad’s stress level down. And throw Kendall a bone. She wouldn’t want to sift through Mama’s stuff
. I hated admitting how considerate she was, but if she was as genuine as she seemed, then it’d be hard for her to shove Mama’s things aside and move in.

  “Fine. I’ll start after I eat.”

  Aiden nodded and went into his room. I stared at the closed door of the room I’d be tackling in an hour. I’d survived entering Mama’s old office. Eva may have had something to do with that. But cleaning out a room full of Mama’s treasured possessions would be torture. Then I’d remember what it was like before. What I was like before. I’d start to do something stupid like wonder if Mama would like Eva.

  And I wouldn’t have to think about the answer.

  Yes, she would’ve.

  I cut into my french toast bake. Dawson might need to give me some chores to do to work this off.

  Eva was sitting next to me at the giant rectangular table I used to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at. She moaned and the sound went right to my gut, curling in on itself until I pictured her moaning under me like that. “This stuff is just naughty.”

  “Just like Dawson.” I shoved a bite in my mouth, but even the explosion of creamy sweetness couldn’t lighten my mood. “Are you going to work after this?”

  She nodded and fiddled with the ring on her hand. I liked it there way too much. “Unless you have something for me to do.”

  I just liked that she was going to be under the same roof. “I have to clean out Dawson’s old bedroom for Dad and Kendall.”

  She put her fork down. I should tell her to pick it up. To take another bite. Give me another moan. But I couldn’t. “Do you want help?”

  “No, it’s fine. Xander might wake up and jump in with me.”

  She nodded and we finished our meal. No more sexy sounds came from her, but when she got up from the table, she came to me. She laid the softest kiss on my lips. “Let me know if you need help after all.”

  I watched her hips sway as she turned down the hallway that’d take her to the office. Why was she different?

  Because she saw me as a person and not as a King, or Aidan’s little brother, or the owner of a big, fat bank account. Eva was the real deal and I hadn’t realized that was the trait I’d been looking for.

  I cleaned up my area and covered the food. The heavenly smell would draw my brothers down soon.

  Trekking upstairs went way too fast. Should I have brought anything with me? Would I need boxes or trash bags? I didn’t remember what Dawson had shoved in there. The house had stayed Mama’s until we’d all moved out and it had become his.

  Had he cleared Mama out of the house by himself? I should’ve been around to help, but I’d found a college so far away that it gave me a good excuse not to return home.

  Opening the door, I peered inside like I was looking at an oil spill and I only had a mop. That was a no to boxes. He’d already packed items away but had stashed the boxes and plastic bins haphazardly around the room.

  Entering, I flipped on the light. My eyelids drifted shut and I inhaled. Mama. Vanilla and lilacs. When was the last time I’d seen the lilac bushes that lined the main yard bloom?

  Everything was packed, but I could haul the boxes to my room so Kendall and Dad wouldn’t be sleeping with Mama’s ghost.

  Since when did I care? Apparently Dad’s heart attack was a wake-up call for more than just him.

  I crossed to bins of various sizes that had been dumped on the bed and stared at them. Just pick them up and move them to my room.

  But I opened one instead.

  Pictures. I let out a soft laugh. The top picture was of me and Aiden when I was about three and he was four. We each wore tiny chaps and nothing else. Our expressions looked like we’d won the lottery. Our own chaps.

  Sitting on the bed, I sifted through the pictures, lingering on some before flipping to others. Mama had been a scrapbooker, and most of the boxes were probably filled with her creations.

  A soft knock at the door caught my attention. Eva lingered in the opening. “I couldn’t quit thinking about you.”

  “Come in.” I scooted over and handed her the first photo I had seen.

  She let out a delighted gasp and covered her mouth. “Is that you?”

  Pointing to the one that was me, I nodded. “The other is Aiden, and I need to make sure Kate gets a copy.” I fell quiet as she went through the same photos I had just looked at. “She used to scrapbook.”

  Eva stopped and looked around. “You think that’s what most of these are?”

  I nodded. “If I start opening them, I’m going to lose entire chunks of time, and then I’ll never get done. But I can’t bring myself to just move them.” I sighed. “It smells like her in here.”

  She put her arm around me and rested her head on my shoulder. “I can help you move them. When you’re ready.”

  “Thanks.”

  Neither of us moved, but then she lifted her head. “What happened? No, never mind. Today is already hard enough—”

  “Eva.” I twined my hand through hers. Sharing the story meant she was more than an assistant, and that mattered to me. “Dad took us out to a movie so Mama could get some work done. I don’t even remember what we saw.” I stared at the wall as that night came flooding back to me. “I was the first to run inside and she didn’t answer. So I went searching, calling for her.” My throat grew thick but with Eva’s arm around me, I could continue. “She was in her office, on the floor. She’d been beaten.”

  Her soft gasp cut through my memories. “By who?”

  Anger seeped into those memories. The rage I’d been living with since then was staggering. “Some meth head out on probation. Fucking Old Man Cartwright hired anybody that’d work for shit money. Sex offenders. Hitchhikers thumbing rides off the interstate. People with major problems who had no business being near children. We’d warned him after some of his hires had stolen from us and vandalized our vehicles and barns. We’d told him that someone was going to get hurt, that it’d be serious, that it could even be his own daughter. But he didn’t listen. He went and hired some guy who got high and broke through the back door of our house, looking for cash to get more drugs. Mama got in his way. She died at the hospital. Her head trauma was too severe.”

  A warm drop landed on my shoulder. She was crying. I twisted to face her.

  “Eva, baby. Don’t cry.” She’d lost both parents and she was crying for me. I wiped her cheeks.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’m fine. It’s just… You were only twelve.”

  I’d ask how she knew, but Mama’s obituary had been in the paper. Simple math would deduce my age. The story hadn’t been in the paper. Grams and DB hadn’t wanted our business leaked all over the state, not if they couldn’t leverage it over the Cartwrights. Dad still felt the same. If we’d hated them before, it was nothing compared to how we felt about them now.

  “Yeah.” I was ready to put this room-cleaning thing behind me. “And now I have a stepmother who’s thirty. Funny how life changes. I’d better get the boxes out.”

  Between the two of us, we made quick work of the job. When I came back from the last round, she was stripping the bed.

  “Those should be clean,” I said.

  She looked over her shoulder, but I had the most delectable view of her ass. “I thought they weren’t any fresher than your high school jockstrap.”

  “I took good care of that jockstrap.” Picking up all the bedding and grabbing the sheets she’d just pulled free, I went down to the laundry room.

  She trailed behind me to the main floor laundry across from the office she worked in. “Am I getting to see Beckett King do laundry?”

  “Ha ha. I can even run the machine.”

  “Now, this I have to see.”

  I made a big show of stuffing the sheets into the washing machine and adding detergent.

  She crossed her arms. “I’m impressed, Mr. King.”

  Either it was the release of pressure that had built from being here, or I’d been wanting more and more of her with each day that went
by. I grabbed her around the waist and swung her up and around to pin her between me and the washing machine.

  She let out a yelp that I swallowed with my mouth. She melted, wrapping her arms and legs around me. She was all things warm and soft and so responsive that it wasn’t long before my jeans were uncomfortable, my cock pushing at the seam.

  When she gave me a little wiggle and one of those moans I’d wanted more of this morning, I shifted my hips. I rubbed into her center, and there was too much fucking denim between us.

  “Beckett,” she murmured against my mouth. “God, Beckett.”

  “I like how you call me Beckett.” It was special. She was special. “I like how you moan when you eat my brother’s cooking. I like how you look with no pants.” I ground harder against her.

  “Beckett, yes.” She was straining against me. “I need more.”

  “Me too.” Could I come like this? It felt like it. The machine was filling with water, but soon it’d be rocking and it might be enough to push me over the edge, but what about her?

  Our position made it hard to reach anything, but I was able to roll her sweater up past her plain beige bra. Her bras were so simple and understated and so her. I liked it. I liked everything about her.

  But that damn bra was hiding creamy breasts from me. I pushed it down and the loveliest tits I’d ever seen spilled out. They were a perfect handful and would be an even better mouthful.

  I went to work, hitching her higher so I could lick across her nipples and draw one into my mouth without losing contact with her core. She hugged my head to her and arched against me.

  I nipped one tight bud and got the moan I was looking for. Going to the next breast, I knew this wouldn’t be enough. Gently unwinding her legs, I knelt in front of her. Her sweater was still bunched up around her armpits and her rosy nipples still glistened from my attentions.

  I was hard to the point of hating my jeans, but her pleasure was paramount. Unbuttoning her pants, I rolled them down while holding her gaze. Her lips were parted and her cheeks flushed.