Revenge

by Lisa Jackson

  She couldn’t read Jenner’s expression, but she felt his hand slide over to grip her thigh.

  Virginia seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Rimrock’s a good place to raise a family,” Mavis interjected. “A nice, quiet little town where everyone knows everyone else by their first name. Not like the city all full of strangers, where you really don’t even know your neighbors. And there’s so much less crime.”

  “Unless you want to talk about murder and arson,” Virginia countered. Her eyes never warmed as she glanced at Beth and Cody. “And sometimes small-town gossip can be cruel.”

  Beth didn’t need to be reminded; she’d grown up knowing about the ravages of gossip and she’d promised herself that she would never put Cody through the same agony she’d experienced as a child. Suddenly her appetite waned, and the home-cooked meal, which had smelled so wonderful, seemed to congeal on her plate.

  “More ’tatoes!” Cody demanded, and though she was a little embarrassed by his outburst, Beth was grateful for an interruption in the conversation.

  “You like them, do you?” Mavis asked the little boy propped on two pillows in his chair.

  “Like ’tatoes!”

  “Well, come on, Virginia, pass them along, will you?”

  Grudgingly Virginia grabbed the bowl of mashed potatoes and handed them to Jenner, who scooped a dollop onto Cody’s plate.

  “My guess is you’ll need this, too,” Skye said, picking up the gravy boat as her eyes lingered wistfully on the boy.

  Somewhere Beth had heard that Skye, though she adored children, could have none of her own. Beth didn’t remember where she’d heard the rumor, and now, as she drizzled gravy over Cody’s potaotes, she chalked the information up to small-town gossips with wagging tongues. No, Rimrock wasn’t the place for a boy whose rich family wouldn’t recognize him, who would be considered a joke, a bastard, Jenner McKee’s mistake, for all the years he attended school.

  Cody deserved better. As for her relationship with Jenner, she had to face the fact that it would always be just what it was—lust. Even now, with his hand resting on her thigh, she felt it—that slow-burning ember that could ignite into a hot flame with just a look, a movement, a touch.

  Somehow she finished the meal, then packed Cody up and said her goodbyes. Jenner walked her onto the porch and she knew by the look in his eye that there was unfinished business between them. There always would be. She’d never been a slave to her passions except where Jenner McKee was involved and whenever he was around, she seemed to lose touch with what was important.

  “You don’t have to go,” he said, his fingers curving possessively over her arm.

  She offered him a sad smile. “What’s the alternative? I spend the night here?”

  “We could go somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “There’re hotels—”

  “With Cody.”

  “Leave him with your mother. She probably wouldn’t mind.”

  “No, Jenner,” she said with honest regret. “I don’t think that would work. I’m not sure any of this is working.”

  He dropped a crutch and it clattered to the porch as he wrapped a strong arm around her and kissed her hard on the lips. Her head began to spin and only Cody’s laugh brought her up short.

  “He kiss you, Mommy!” Cody said, pointing a chubby little finger at Jenner. “He kiss you.”

  “He sure did,” Beth agreed.

  “Soon,” Jenner said softly into her ear. “Remember.”

  A thrill whispered down her spine as she turned toward her car, but she caught a glimpse of the window to the den and a figure parting the blinds. Her insides froze when her gaze touched Virginia McKee’s just before the blinds snapped back into place.

  Dashing across the yard, she heard Jenner’s voice with its erotic promise. “Soon...very soon.” But she couldn’t shake the image of Virginia glaring through the slats, condemning her silently with a gaze as frigid as the bottom of a well.

  Chapter Ten

  “Tell me exactly what Stone’s got.” Jenner couldn’t hide the irritation in his voice as he leaned against the window and stared out at the dark night. Beth had been gone for hours and he still wanted to chase after her. As if he was obsessed or something. As if he needed a woman complicating his life. No, not just any woman. Only Beth.

  He took a long swallow from his glass and felt the whiskey hit the back of his throat, but the liquor didn’t drive away his thoughts. Of the kid. Of Beth. Of making love to her. His brain burned with the image of lying with her in an open field, arms and legs entwined, bodies glistening with sweat, mouths anxious.

  “Stone’s got ideas...leads, he thinks. I’m not so sure.” Max picked up a poker and began jabbing at the fire.

  Virginia and Mavis had retired. Skye had been called to an emergency at the clinic and Casey wasn’t back from Dawson City where she’d gone to a movie with an old high school friend. So Max and Jenner were alone, drinking the old man’s expensive whiskey. And worrying.

  “Stone’s got a list of suspects as long as my arm. Some of ’em make sense, others...” He shook his head as the fire, just a few glowing embers, sparked and caused golden shadows to deepen the lines on his face. “Others are too farfetched to count.”

  “Tell me about the ones that make sense.”

  “All right.” Hanging the poker back on its peg, Max leaned against the stones and folded his arms across his chest. “A couple come to mind right off the bat.”

  “People Dad swindled,” Jenner guessed.

  “Right.” Max reached for his drink on the mantel and took a swallow.

  Though some of the people in Rimrock considered Jonah McKee a god, others thought that he was Satan incarnate. Jenner knew the man was somewhere in between, although, in Jenner’s opinion, Jonah definitely favored the devil.

  “Most of the people Dad dealt with—”

  “You mean cheated,” Jenner corrected.

  “He didn’t cheat them all,” Max said, automatically defending Jonah as he had for years. Then, seeing Jenner’s disbelieving stare, Max lifted a shoulder. “Okay, so we both know that Dad made more than his share of enemies. Some threatened him, some took a swing or two at him when they were drunk, and others sued him.”

  “Fred Donner,” Jenner surmised.

  “Yep. He’s on the top of the list. Dad and Fred exchanged money for water rights, then diverted most of the water from Wildcat Creek to the Rocking M. Donner was left with only a trickle.”

  “Then there was a drought.”

  “Yep.” Max stretched and his back cracked. “Several years of it. The Donner homestead nearly dried up. Things got worse for Fred. His wife nearly divorced him, the bank was on his tail. Dad had to bail him out.”

  “By buying his place and incorporating it into the Rocking M.”

  “Fred never forgave him.”

  “Do you blame him?” Jenner tossed back a swallow of whiskey and felt its warmth work its way down his throat. His fingers clenched hard around the glass as he considered the crook that had been his father. The homestead had been in the Donner family for over a century before Jonah found a way to incorporate the dry acres into part of the ever-growing Rocking M. And why had he wanted the extra land? Why did he need the extra fields? Because of the damned water rights. The way they’d originally been worded, hadn’t proved convenient for the McKee spread, so Jonah had made it his mission to strip the Donners of their family land.

  “I’m trying to help Fred out—offered him the homestead and the water rights back,” Max said, shaking his head. “All he has to do is repay the original note to Dad, which isn’t a whole lot, and I’m willing to let him work it off here at the ranch. Hell, I’d probably forgive most of it.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “I think the quote was something like, ‘You can keep your goddamned charity and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”’

  “So he blames you—or us—for what Dad did.” J
enner rubbed his chin. “I’ve never really liked Donner, but I don’t think he’s a killer. Or an arsonist.”

  “Maybe he’s never been this desperate before.”

  “Okay, Donner’s on the list. Who else?”

  “Randy Calhoun. Dad fired Randy less than a month before he died.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Jenner said. Randy had been a loyal employee of the Rocking M for nearly fifteen years, but, for reasons no one quite understood, Jonah had humiliated Randy and handed him his walking papers. Randy had always had a little trouble with liquor, but Jonah had put up with it in the past because Randy had been so loyal and good with the stock. But suddenly Jonah had ordered the man off the ranch, fired him in front of the rest of the hands. Made him a laughingstock.

  It had been early summer, toward evening, and the sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon. Jenner had been part of a tired group that had spent the day setting fence posts on the line bordering the Bateman place, but Randy hadn’t been part of that crew. He and a couple of other hands had worked in the paddocks surrounding the barn, sorting and castrating calves.

  Jenner remembered being dog tired as he parked his truck by the garage. Some of the ranch hands had clustered near the door to the machine shed. They’d been smoking, talking and getting ready to go home for the day, but had stopped and were watching Jonah give Randy the ax.

  Randy was braced against the wall of the barn, smelling of whiskey and looking as scared as a rabbit staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

  “That’s it, Calhoun, you’re out!” Jonah roared, his face flushed with anger, one hand firmly around the barrel of his rifle.

  “But Mr. McKee, you can’t fire me.”

  “I can and I will.”

  “Wait a minute.” Jenner vaulted over the fence and strode up to his father. “What’s going on?”

  “Butt out!”

  “Give it a rest, Dad. Randy’s one of the best—”

  His father had whirled on him, and his face, mottled with rage, was set in furious determination. “Don’t you ever tell me how to run my business, boy,” he said, his lips curling in disgust.

  “I’m just pointing out that Randy—”

  “Back off!” Jonah lunged at him. Jenner grabbed the gun and ripped it out of his father’s hands.

  “What’re ya gonna do, Dad? Shoot him?”

  Eyes narrowing, Jonah barked, “If I thought it’d do any good.” He whirled on Randy again. “Get out now!”

  “Jonah,” Chester Wilcox, the ranch foreman, said, stepping in, “I think—”

  “Well, don’t, or you’ll be out of job, too! This is still my ranch, last I heard.”

  Jenner didn’t back down. “What happened?” he demanded. But Chester shook his head, obviously not wanting the story to come out in front of the rest of the hands. “Randy’s been with us for—”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass how long he’s been here!” Jonah, snatching his rifle away from his son, spun around, his eyes moving from one ranch hand to the next before landing on Chester. “Make sure he packs up all his gear and gets out.”

  Randy, nearly sixty, straightened to his full five feet six inches. “I want an explanation, Jonah.”

  “You really want it? Here in front of God and the rest of the men?”

  “Yes.” Randy’s skin turned the color of bones that had been bleached in the son.

  “Fine.” Jonah’s voice shook with rage. “Aside from being a useless drunk who can barely throw a lasso, you’ve been cheating me, Calhoun. I know about some of the calves we lost last winter. What really happened to them.”

  Randy’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. “What’s that?”

  “You culled ‘em out. Sold ’em. That’s why we never found any carcasses.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Like hell!” Jonah thundered. “You’re out, Calhoun, and unless you want me to call Hammond Polk and have the sheriff’s deputies poke around, you’d best get in that damned bucket of bolts you call a pickup and leave. You can pick up your check at the office.”

  Randy’s hands shook, but Jonah wasn’t finished with him. He pointed his rifle at Randy, then at each of the hands standing on the far side of the fence. “Let this be a lesson to the rest of you. No one. No one screws around with Jonah McKee!”

  Jenner had nearly quit right then and there. His father had always been a bastard, but he’d never seen him in action before, and though he’d followed Jonah into the den and pleaded Randy’s case, Jonah had turned a deaf ear.

  “Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?” Jenner had demanded.

  “Give it up, Jenner. I know that slimy little drunk’s been cheating me for years. I turned a blind eye, ‘cause he had a way with the stock and the rest of the men seemed to look up to him. But he was stealin’ from me and I won’t have it.”

  As Jonah poured three fingers of whiskey into a crystal tumbler, Jenner had glanced around the room. A man’s domain with Indian prints on the walls, an old flintlock mounted over the fireplace, a globe in a mahogany stand sitting near the desk. Leather couch, old rocker, crystal glasses and polished floors completed the picture. Casual, yes, but obviously the office of a wealthy man. What did he care about a couple of calves? Randy Calhoun was nearly Jonah’s age and had nothing but a broken-down Chevy pickup, a saddle and a room he rented by the week at the Lucky Star Motel.

  Randy hadn’t been able to get decent work since. His drinking had made him a regular at the Black Anvil. Yep, Randy had motive and opportunity.

  “Randy wouldn’t do it,” Jenner said, remembering how beaten the man had appeared as he’d driven away from the ranch where he’d spent so many years. “Who else?”

  “Corey Stills.”

  Jenner didn’t need an explanation for that one. For years, it had been rumored that Jonah had kept Corey’s young wife, Grace, as his mistress. The gossip had been floating around like a bad smell, but somehow Virginia McKee had ignored it, explaining to her children that powerful men were always the target for vicious lies involving their moral character. Why, just look at the politicians in Salem and Washington D.C., always being accused of this liaison or that liaison.

  Jonah had been linked with a lot of women ranging from Wanda Tully, the blond waitress who worked at the Black Anvil, to Carol Larkin, once his secretary and eventually vice president of J.P. Limited, one of the corporations owned by McKee Enterprises.

  “Dad was involved with a lot of women.”

  “But they didn’t all have jealous husbands who adored them.”

  That much was true, and Jenner just recently had learned about jealousy. The thought of another man making love to Beth brought a bitter taste to his mouth and his fingers tightened over his glass. “Okay, I’ll buy it. Corey hated Dad enough to kill him. But once Dad was dead, why the arson?”

  “Who knows? Maybe Stills’s hatred has been building for years and he wanted to get back at everything and everyone associated with his old enemy.”

  “But why not do that while Dad was alive—let him see the destruction, let the old man twist in the wind?”

  “’Cause Dad was too powerful. Corey would’ve been found out and God only knows what might’ve happened if Dad got the sheriffs department and Judge Rayburn and Rex Stone on his side. Think about it.”

  “I don’t know. Anyone else?”

  “Mmm. Ned Jansen’s near the top of the list. Dad did a number on him with the copper mine. I tried to talk to him about it, work out some kind of deal, but he wasn’t interested, said he’d just as soon spit on a McKee as do business with one.”

  “Nice attitude.”

  “Not uncommon around here.”

  “And Ned did have an old axe to grind with Dad,” Jenner thought aloud. “If you can believe the rumors.”

  Max frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. “You mean because he was supposed to have been involved with Mom years ago?”

  “Well, that’s just what they say. None of us
were around.”

  “Come on, Jenner. That’s old news. Over thirty years ago.”

  “Okay, so there are other people who have more recent grudges, right?”

  “Yep. Even Slim Purcell has a reason to hate us.”

  Jenner snorted. “Maybe we should move.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but...” Max hesitated, then shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. The worry lines over his eyes deepened. “You know I’ve started taking precautions, not just around here, but at Colleen’s place, too.”

  “You think someone might actually hurt Hillary?”

  Max’s eyes flared with fury. “I’d kill the bastard who tried,” he said, his face suddenly harsh, his jaw thrust in a challenge. “I don’t think it’ll come to that. Hell, I hope not, but if I were you—”

  “You think Cody might be in danger?”

  “Or Beth.” Jenner’s muscles tightened. “Anyone close to you. I’ve even got someone watching the clinic and apartment house, though Skye doesn’t have a clue. If she did, she’d probably kill me herself.”

  “Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Jenner said, his thoughts already racing ahead. He couldn’t let anything happen to Beth or Cody, and if it meant their going into hiding, well, so be it. Slinging his jacket over his back, he limped over to the desk and opened the top drawer. He sorted through key rings until he found the one he wanted.

  One corner of Max’s mouth lifted in a smile. “This is one helluva time to take a vacation.”

  Jenner pocketed the keys. “It’s not a vacation.”

  “I guess you won’t be showing up for work tomorrow.”

  “I’ll call,” he said, reaching into another drawer for a cellular phone and batteries.

  “Don’t bother.”

  Jenner grabbed his crutches, hitched his way to the door and shouldered it open. Hearing thunder rumble across the hills, he hiked the collar of his jacket up around his neck and considered his next move.

  Beth wouldn’t like it, but that was just too bad. If, as she so adamantly insisted, he was the father of her kid, then he owed that boy a decent, safe life and he was going to start giving it to him right now.