Liam smiled. “Just this morning, Sterling told me that if I found a woman who could make me complete, I should never let her go.”
“Sterling Perry?” she said on a laugh of surprise.
“Yeah, shocked me, too.” He came around the corner of the desk, but stopped just short of touching her. His gaze moved over her face, then back up to her eyes. “He was right. I don’t want to go through my life wondering what might have happened if I’d taken the chance. If I’d trusted my gut.”
“Your gut?” she repeated.
“Yeah.” Liam finally touched her, lifting one hand to her cheek, and Chloe closed her eyes briefly to let that tender caress seep into her bones.
“From that first day with you, Chloe, I knew you were different than any woman I’ve ever known.” He sighed and shook his head. “I didn’t want to believe it because then I’d have to risk everything again.”
He dropped both hands onto her shoulders and pulled her in closer. “But the bigger risk is living without you. Don’t think I could do it. And I know I don’t want to try.” He slid his hands up from her shoulders to cup her face and tilt it up to him. “So instead, I’m here, apologizing for being a damn fool—”
“You actually haven’t apologized yet,” she interrupted, because she was feeling so happy, so relieved, she wanted to laugh.
Wryly, he said, “Well, I don’t do it often, so I’m not very good at it.”
Chloe actually did laugh then and felt good for the first time in days. “We’ll come back to it then.”
“Woman,” Liam said impatiently, “if you’d just let me get this done with...”
“Right.” She nodded, smiling. “Go ahead.”
“I want you to marry me, Chloe. Today. Tomorrow. I can wait a week, but not much longer.”
Stunned, she stared at him. “Marry you?”
He looked insulted. “Well, what the hell else am I here for?”
Chloe laughed again. This was so Liam. Irritated, impatient and completely perfect for her. “Well, if you came to propose, did you bring a ring?”
“Of course I brought a ring,” he said and dug into his jeans pocket. “I didn’t go shopping or anything yet, so I’ll take you to the best jewelry store in Houston and you can pick whatever you want.”
He held out a gold ring with three small diamonds set in a heart pattern. “This was my mom’s,” he said softly. “I brought it with me to seal the deal—if you said yes. But like I said, we can go shopping and you can pick out something you like.”
Chloe lifted her right hand to her mouth and looked from the simple, elegant ring to the man offering it to her. The man who couldn’t trust was offering her his mother’s ring. He had faith in her to be with him. Stay with him. And he was proving it by offering her something that was very important to him.
“You couldn’t have done anything more meaningful to me,” she said.
“Yeah?” Both eyebrows went up and one corner of his mouth quirked. “So is that a yes?”
She held out her left hand and he slid the ring onto her finger. “Of course it’s a yes, Liam. For you it’ll always be yes.”
“Thank God,” he whispered and pulled her in to kiss her.
She felt everything shattered inside her come together, and all those ragged edges smoothed over as if they’d never been there at all. When she pulled back, she looked up at him and said, “I don’t want another ring. I want this one.”
His eyes flashed, with heat and love, warming her through. “Deal. I’ll make sure the wedding band is splashy, though. How’s that?”
“Just not as splashy as Ellen’s,” she said, laughing.
His smile faded, he looked deeply into her eyes and said softly, “You’re nothing like Ellen. Nothing like anyone else I’ve ever met.”
Now her heart was melting right along with her body. He saw her. He saw who she was, who she’d made herself and who she wanted to be. And he loved her. There was no greater gift.
“I love you, Liam,” she whispered, and felt a sweet rush of warmth that settled around her heart and glowed so brightly she was almost surprised that light wasn’t spilling from her fingertips.
“I’m never going to get tired of hearing that,” he warned.
“Boy, I hope not.” Chloe went up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck.
She couldn’t believe how quickly life could turn around. How she could go from bereft to happy in a blink of time. Suddenly, she felt that anything was possible. Everything was possible.
He held her close, buried his face in the curve of her neck and whispered, “God, you smell good.” His arms tightened around her. “I missed you, Chloe. I couldn’t even be at the new ranch without you.” Lifting his head, he looked down at her. “Today was moving day. Couldn’t do it without you.”
“You’re not going to make me cry,” she said with a choked laugh.
“Wanna bet?” He kissed her, then looked into her eyes and said, “Here’s your wedding present. Shadow and his mother are yours.”
“What?” This she couldn’t believe. That he would do this for her. That he would know just how much it meant to her. She’d been there for Shadow’s birth, and leaving him had been harder than she’d wanted to admit. The tears she had refused to cry spilled over and rained down her cheeks. “Really?”
“Really. I didn’t tell you that first because I didn’t want you marrying me just to get that horse of yours.”
She laughed, delighted with him and with the life they would be building together.
“The horses should be at the ranch by now. Tim was going to load them up and bring them to their new home.” He kissed her again, then looked into her eyes. “I’m here to do the same with you.”
“Yes, Liam. Oh, yes, Liam.” She laid her head on his chest and whispered, “Let’s go home.”
He grabbed up his hat and her computer. She got her purse, and they headed out to his truck. The sun was out, the dirty, still under repair streets suddenly looked beautiful and Chloe could have danced all the way to the ranch.
“Hey, Liam!”
They stopped at the shout and saw one of the construction guys at the Texas Cattleman’s Club waving them over. As they walked across the street, Liam kept one arm around Chloe’s shoulders as if half-afraid she’d get away from him. That so worked for her.
“Hey, Bill, how’s it going?”
“It’s a damn mess is what it is,” the man said, then nodded at Chloe. “Sorry, ma’am.”
Bill was burly, with a scruffy red beard, stained white overalls, and wiry red hair sticking out from under his painter’s cap. “This the lady you got stranded with here?”
“Yeah.” Liam dropped a kiss on top of her head. “This is my fiancée, Chloe Hemsworth.”
“Ma’am.”
“We tried not to wreck anything while we were upstairs,” Chloe said.
“Oh no, ma’am, it wasn’t the two of you.” Bill shook his head and threw a scowl over his shoulder at the open front door of the building. “This used to be a hotel sort of, you know?”
Liam nodded.
Chloe looked past Bill into the interior of the TCC and noticed a crowd gathering.
“Well, the basement of this place has been under water since the flood,” Bill complained. “We finally got a big enough sump pump out here, but it’s hard going getting the water out. We’ve got to drain it into the street, but not so fast that it’ll get the storm drains blocked again.”
“Sounds bad,” Liam agreed.
“And the smell down there?” Bill shook his head again. “Had to come up here for some fresh air.”
Inside the building, more men were gathering in a circle and Chloe tried to see what was going on. She tugged on Liam’s hand. “Something’s happening in there.”
“What?” Bill turned around. “Gues
s we’d better go see.”
Liam shrugged and murmured, “Yeah, I should check. Let Sterling know if something’s wrong.”
Just then, someone shouted, “Holy God, that’s a dead body!”
Bill scurried inside and Liam was right behind him. Chloe held on to him, and they stepped carefully across tarps and supplies strewn across the damaged floor. The whole place smelled of paint and lacquer and sawdust.
“Maybe you should wait—” Liam broke off at Chloe’s narrow-eyed stare. “Never mind.”
Chloe was with him when the crowd of men parted, allowing them to see what they’d found. At the bottom of the stairs, floating in the muddy water, was a badly decomposed body. Chloe closed her eyes instantly and turned away. But the damage was done. She’d never forget.
“You’d better call the police, Bill,” Liam said, and steered Chloe to the other side of the room.
“Was it here since the storm?” she whispered. “Were we here in the building with a dead person?”
“Looks that way.” Liam’s mouth flattened into a grim line. “I’ve got to call Sterling about this, Chloe. He’ll want to know.”
* * *
Sterling Perry was feeling satisfied. He’d done his good deed for the year in talking to Liam. “Hopefully, he won’t mess things up with the Hemsworth girl,” he murmured with a laugh. Hell, everyone on the ranch had seen Liam taking that long slide into love. It was only Liam himself who’d been blind to it.
Shaking his head, Sterling got down to business. Sunlight poured in through the office windows, and he glanced out, admiring as always, his view of the ranch he loved. Things were going well.
His construction company was back on track at the TCC building. Work on the place had been slow because half of Houston needed the equipment required to clear the place of floodwaters. Soon though, they’d have that storm behind them and they’d be ready to open up the Houston branch of the club.
Sterling intended to be the first president. Blast Ryder Currin to hell if he thought he was going to step in and take over.
When the phone rang, Sterling snatched up the receiver and said, “Perry.”
“Sterling, it’s me.” Liam Morrow’s voice sounded low, worried.
“If this is about that girl of yours,” Sterling said, “I’m busy right now and—”
“It’s not about Chloe.”
In the background, Sterling heard voices, some muffled shouting. His eyebrows drew together. “What’s going on?”
“I’m with Chloe now. We’re at the TCC and something’s happened.”
Well hell. That didn’t sound good. “What exactly’s going on, Liam?”
“There’s a body,” Liam said. “A dead guy. In the basement.”
“What?” His still sharp mind went momentarily blank.
“Yeah, listen, Sterling,” Liam continued. “Apparently, he’d been there this whole time. Maybe since before the storm. The crew’s been pumping out the water, and that’s when they found him.”
Sterling stood up slowly, his mind back in gear and currently racing. “Well, who the hell is he?”
“Don’t know. We closed up the room and Bill Baker called the police.”
“Damn it!” In his mind, Sterling could see the headlines already. Dead Man Found at New Texas Cattleman’s Club. Murder?
This was a disaster waiting to happen. Sterling did some fast thinking. He had to contain this somehow. Keep it quiet at least until they had an ID on the victim and a cause of death. If this got out now and the media made it a salacious story—which they happily would—it could kill the new club charter.
“All right, Liam, listen,” Sterling said, rushed now, “you tell my construction crew to keep their damn mouths shut about what they found.”
“All right,” Liam said, “but that’s not going to change anything, Sterling. The police are still on the way.”
“I’ll handle the police,” Sterling told him. “You let the crew know that it’ll mean their jobs if I hear about any of them talking to the press. Or anyone else for that matter.”
Was the man dead before the storm or during it? Before, he’d have needed a key to get in. During, with the windows blown in, he could have walked in with no problem. But Liam and Chloe had been right upstairs. Too many questions, not enough answers.
Still frowning, he ordered, “We don’t know anything so there’s no point speculating with the media.”
“Fine. I’ll tell them. But, Sterling, like I said, the police are coming. Hell, I can hear the sirens now. You can’t keep this quiet.”
“Watch me.” Sterling heard the sirens through the phone and rubbed the back of his neck. “Liam, when the police arrive, get the one in charge to call me once he’s examined the scene. I’m going to pull in some favors with the chief and the mayor.”
“Seriously, Sterling? A man’s dead.”
He scowled at the phone. Liam was a good man, but he couldn’t see as far as Sterling could. And Sterling wasn’t about to watch his plans disintegrate because some damn fool got himself killed.
“And he won’t get any deader if we do this my way. Now you take care of this, Liam. We need to keep this quiet, you understand?” Sterling was gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached. “With all the damage and injuries from this storm still being reported on, we should be able to bury this news at least for a few days. With a little time, we can spin this story the right way. I need this quiet, Liam. Handle it.”
* * *
Angela Perry rushed into her father’s office just in time to hear the end of the phone conversation. She’d gone to see her father, to ask him for the truth about Ryder Currin. The rumors she had heard about Ryder simply didn’t add up to the man she’d spent time with during the storm.
But now, the need for that truth suddenly took a back seat. “Dad? What do you need to spin? What’s happened? What are you trying to hide?”
Sterling slammed the phone receiver down, looked at his daughter and demanded, “Angela, what are you doing here?”
“This is still my home,” she snapped, and thought he looked worried. Her father was never worried. Or if he was, no one could tell. He had a stone face when he needed one, which was most of the time.
“What’s happened? What’s going on?” She walked across the room and stopped at the edge of his desk. “Talk to me, Dad.”
Grumbling under his breath, he blurted, “The construction crew found a dead body at the TCC.”
“What?” Appalled, Angela could only stare at her father. “Someone’s dead? Who?”
“We don’t know,” he admitted, clearly disgusted. “Apparently, they found the body in the basement when the crew finally started pumping the storm water out. Damn it. This is going to be a huge mess.”
“A mess?” she repeated, stunned at her father’s reaction to this news. “Someone’s dead, Dad.”
And her mind asked, Who? Why? And what had he been doing at the TCC?
Sterling shot her a hot look, but Angela wasn’t cowed. She’d grown up seeing her father’s temper, and she knew it was more bluster than substance.
“I don’t even know what he was doing there. Maybe he took shelter at the club like Liam and Chloe did. Maybe he broke in trying to loot the place. Maybe he fell down the basement stairs and broke his fool neck.” Sterling shoved both hands in his pants pockets and idly jingled the change there. “This is a disaster. If word of this gets out, it could stall the plans for the club indefinitely.”
“Really?” she demanded. “That’s what you’re worried about? The club? Someone’s dead, Dad.”
“Now you sound like Liam.” He frowned again. “The man’s already dead. Nothing I say now will change it. All I can do is contain the situation. Stop being so soft, Angela. That’s your main problem, you know. You feel too much and don’t think objectively enough. No one gets ahead
in this life by being softhearted.”
Growing up, she’d heard that piece of advice more than once. “Better that than cold.”
“Not cold,” he corrected. “Pragmatic. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
He shook his head and when the phone rang, he grabbed it, waving at her to get her to leave.
“Detective Hansen,” Sterling was saying as she left the office. “I hear we have a problem at my company’s job site...”
Angela walked out of the office, and closed the door behind her. She hadn’t gotten any answers about Ryder. And now, she had many more questions about this dead body.
Who was it?
What had he been doing there?
I waited for days now and no one talked about the body at the club. Just a quick mention on the news and then...nothing. Why?
I rubbed my gritty eyes and found no relief. I was so tired. Fear was exhausting.
I was constantly waiting for an ax to fall. For the other shoe to drop. For someone, somewhere to suddenly remember having seen me at the TCC. Then what? No wonder I couldn’t sleep. I bet Sterling slept like a baby, the old bastard.
Had he used his influence to shut everything down? Were reporters not interested in actually doing their jobs anymore? As long as no one was talking about the murder, Sterling was safe. If word got out about the body, it would have to stall the TCC’s plans for the building, if nothing else. But more, it would ruin Sterling Perry, because it was his construction company that’d discovered the dead man. The police would investigate him, looking for a connection. People would wonder if Sterling was trying to hush up a crime. People would talk. I had to do something. Get people interested. Talking. I couldn’t take much more of this waiting. I had to find a way to pin this body on Sterling himself.
And yet I had doubts.
Trying to ruin the man was one thing, but framing him for murder was another. Though even if he were arrested, he’d never be convicted. How could he be? He didn’t do it.
No, his reputation would be shot and his supposed good name ruined but he wouldn’t go to jail.
Wild Ride Rancher Page 15
