The Heart Of Texas

by RJ Scott

  "Riley?"

  Both men stood. Riley's mother. Perfect in dove gray and pearls, her dark hair —bottle brown Jack thought— loose about slim shoulders. Her makeup was perfect, and a cloud of Chanel announced her presence. Riley stood, as did Jack, and Riley dropped a small kiss on her smooth cheek.

  "Mother."

  "And Jack Campbell is here because?" Her voice was friendly in that false way that meant she wasn't at all pleased to have a Campbell at her breakfast table.

  "I have something to tell you," Riley began, holding out his hand blindly. Jack caught it and moved closer to Riley. "Yesterday… I got married. Jack is my… This is my husband, Jack Campbell-Hayes."

  There was silence, sudden and all encompassing. "How perfectly ridiculous, Riley" was all she said, then added, with a good healthy portion of derision. "It's far too early for this nonsense." Riley couldn't find the words, and Jack just stared. He had expected a reaction from the matriarch of the Hayes family, but dismissal hadn't been on his list of first options, having already settled on southern belle fainting or icy anger.

  "Ma'am," Jack started. "No nonsense. We got married yesterday, in Vancouver."

  "I don't know what is going on here." She blinked at Jack, her lips thin and pressed hard together, a small twitch in her eye the only evidence that she felt anything. "This joke is not funny, Riley." Turning on her heel, she left the room, the Chanel moving with her. All the oxygen rushed back into the space she had occupied, and both Jack and Riley breathed deeply.

  "That went well," Jack said wryly.

  "It's okay. She'll speak to Dad, or maybe Jeff, then she'll come back and rail at me at a later time that suits her." Riley sounded unconcerned, like the icy calm that surrounded his mother was perfectly okay. Jack thought of his mom, of the passion in her, the grace that still remained even when she smacked Jack upside his head with a spoon. She would never have just left the room. They would have argued, shouted, screamed, hugged, made up, perhaps all of that in the space of five minutes. It was what defined Jack's life and the life of his siblings, that passionate discussion that was the beginning and end of arguments, nothing lingering or festering for days.

  "Riley?" Another voice. "I can't believe you took the jet! I needed it!" This must be Eden. "Annabelle and I wanted to go and shop in New York and— Well, hello, gorgeous." Her voice changed as she pulled Riley in for a hug and noticed Jack standing beside him. "Where did you come from, handsome?" Jack winced. He was being hit on by a girl only a year or two older than his sister.

  "Eden, meet Jack, Jack meet Eden, my annoying brat of a sister."

  "Helloooo, Jack," she drawled, sliding her hand to touch his arm, only dropping it when Jack backed up quickly, knocking into a chair. She was tall, not as tall as her brother, but at least five ten, and had hair that was long and straight about her shoulders and the color of sunshine. She was gorgeous. Even Jack could appreciate that. Gorgeous and confident and very, very young.

  Riley snorted a laugh. "Eden, seriously, back off. That is my husband you're coming on to."

  If Eden was surprised, she didn't let on, her eyes carefully and coolly assessing her brother and then Jack. "That's some statement there, big brother. Wanna expand for me?"

  "Coffee?" Jack asked, crossing to pour fresh coffee and folding into the chair he had just left. He wanted to hear exactly how Riley was going to explain this to his younger sibling.

  * * * *

  Two men read identical reports that morning. One read it on-line, his usual habit, along with his morning coffee. Said coffee splattered across the screen at the headline Texas Oil Heir Weds in Gay Marriage. The other read it in a newspaper, traditionally, laid out across his expanse of desk.

  Jim Bailey got the first phone call from Jeff at 8:56, the second from Gerald at 9:02.

  The shit had well and truly hit the fan.

  By 9:20 Gerald Hayes had left for home.

  By 9:40 Jeff Hayes was well on his way to his fourth shot of whisky and cursing the day his little brother had been born.

  * * * *

  The limo turned in a graceful arc around the fountain, and Gerald Hayes climbed out of the back, his back rigid, his face set. Riley stood at the window of his room and turned to Jack with a shrug.

  "Now it starts," he said.

  "Riley Nathaniel Hayes!" his dad bellowed from the hall.

  "Show time," Jack said so quietly Riley had to strain to hear.

  Chapter 14

  Side by side, hand in hand, the two men descended the stairs. Gerald looked up as they moved closer, the breath catching in his chest, seeing a Campbell taking the steps one at a time, a male version of the only woman he'd ever really loved. Then finally they stopped in front of him.

  "What the hell is going on here, Riley? I won't have a Campbell in my house!"

  "Campbell-Hayes," the upstart dared respond.

  Gerald ignored him. "What is this nonsense in the papers about marriage, boy?" He moved close, and despite being a good few inches shorter than his middle child, he loomed over them both.

  "No nonsense, Dad. Jack and I are married."

  "Same-sex marriage isn't legal in Texas! This is ridiculous! For this, you drag the Hayes name through the mud?"

  "It is legal, Dad. I'm married as per every single proviso you added to the employment contract for shared vice president."

  "Enough is enough, boy! Is this some kind of joke? That contract quite clearly stated—"

  "That I should marry for at least one year," Riley interrupted. "There was not a single word that specified the sex of the person I had to marry."

  "I will have this thrown out in court! This is a joke! You— married to this—" Gerald's anger reddened his face, his temper muddling his words. "This homosexual," he finally spat out. "That is not what the contract was about, and you know it!"

  "I married—"

  "I will have this lie, this abomination, thrown out!"

  "You can't, Dad." To Gerald's horror and disgust, Riley tightened his hold on Campbell's hand, leaning into him for silent support. "See, I married for love."

  Gerald's hands clenched into fists at his sides. He wanted to wrap his hands around his middle son's neck, the stupid, fucked up child.

  "When a court sees you're not even gay—"

  "Dad," Riley said patiently, "I'm bi, always have been. I met Jack, and I fell in love, end of story."

  "This is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord!"

  "So is shellfish," Campbell muttered under his breath, and Gerald saw him squeezing Riley's hand in support.

  Gerald took a step closer. His fists rose at his sides, and spittle formed on his lips. "I won't have this under my roof, boy, you hear?"

  "Sir—" Jack began as Riley hesitated, clearly blindsided by the near violence in Gerald's voice.

  "Don't even think to talk to me, Campbell," Gerald spat out, not looking at him. He stared into Riley's eyes, the betrayal cutting deep inside. How could this boy do this to him? Hadn't Gerald given him everything?

  The door opened and closed behind them. Gerald turned on his heel to look at the new arrival. Jeff, his son and heir, stood with his back to the door, just listening. His plans for his eldest son, for Hayes Oil, started to crumble around him and sudden grief —a feeling he thought he'd buried a long time ago— clutched his insides. Turning back, he found himself looking directly into the sea blue of Donna Campbell’s eyes reflected in her son. At once he was assailed by memories of summers so long ago, and it sent steel to his spine.

  "I will get this thrown out. You hear me, boy? You think you're clever? You don't know the half of it. I will not have a bastard Campbell under my roof, infecting my family with their sexual deviancy and their working class filth. End of story," he finished, deliberately echoing Riley.

  "Don't talk about my husband that way, Dad," he said quietly, markedly calm against the fury and temper thrown at him. "I love Jack, we married, and we are living together in my apartment."

 
"Know this, Riley," Gerald said. "I will get this stopped. This changes nothing."

  "Do your worst, Dad. I wouldn't expect anything less."

  Gerald spun on his heel, walking with purpose down the hall to his home office, the door slamming hard behind him.

  Chapter 15

  Jeff started to clap his hands, slowly, rhythmically. "Well played, little brother. Well played."

  Jack let out the breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding. Only certain words stayed in his head, not the abuse or the hate that dripped from Gerald's mouth, but the words Riley had used. One sentence that kind of summed up exactly why Riley was doing what he was doing, or what he believed he was doing it for.

  Jack dropped the hold he had on Riley's hand and turned to climb the stairs. "We need to talk," he said softly, waiting for Riley to snap out of his staring match with Jeff and get him back up to the apartment. Riley blinked up at him, and then cast one last look at Jeff before climbing the stairs at a slower pace, finally closing the apartment door behind them. Riley leaned back against it, worrying his lower lip with his teeth, showing more in that single action than he'd done since they had made this bargain.

  "You wanna tell me what you meant about the vice president thing?" Jack asked, crossing to the leather sofa and sitting on the edge, hands twined together on his knees. He wasn't going to move until he had the story, the entire background of how they'd ended up here in this room. "Are there reasons for this charade other than just pissing off your father?"

  * * * *

  Riley sighed and shrugged, knocking his head back against the wood and closing his eyes, he didn't want to show Jack this disillusioned side, this knocked down by the family side. He wanted to be confident, in control of himself. It just wasn't happening, and he couldn't for the life of him understand why. He still had so much to process: the high of confrontation, the success of what he'd done edged with the complete disappointment in his family. Well, his family apart from Eden, who despite trying to hit on the gay married guy, at least seemed to accept the marriage. His mother had yet to give her considered opinion, which he knew would be delivered wrapped in the same ice that ran through her veins. His father had almost popped a vein in temper, no acceptance of what Riley had done, just anger and vitriolic hate. And as for his brother, those few words, the sarcasm, the sardonic, mocking, scornful words… Well, it was no different from what he was used to.

  And now Jack wanted to know the details. How could Riley begin to tell this confident man in front of him just how much temper, anger and rage he held inside himself? His only hope was to tell him enough for it to make sense. He needed to start now.

  "So it began with my father saying he was retiring. Maybe not retiring as such, but certainly standing back, and calling Jeff and I in to portion out control of Hayes Oil. I deserve my share. Long story short, I didn't get my share." Riley sat on the other sofa, aware he probably sounded like a spoiled child.

  "You sound like a spoiled child," Jack pointed out.

  Great. "There are reasons why I should, why I want to have some control. I need to stop them from…" There were far too many secrets and needs that Riley had spent so many years hiding. Wording it right was not easy.

  Jack leaned forward, his face carefully blank. "Need to stop them from what?" Riley stared into blue eyes, the light making them translucent, and freckles sprinkled over the far too pretty face of his new husband. Pretty. And he really wanted to unload, to Jack, to anyone. Only Steve knew the real Riley, the Riley that still survived the shit piled on to him, survived the secrets and the knowledge he had. He didn't know Jack from the next man. He had only ever heard the detailed, impassioned stories about how the Campbells tried to cheat the Hayeses out of money and land.

  About how Alan Campbell had dragged the name of Hayes through the courts, accused Gerald of falsifying land records and forging contracts. How could Riley trust the son of the man who tried to destroy his family? Dysfunctional though it may be, it was still his family, his name.

  He stiffened his spine, angry at almost letting his barriers fall at the soft voice and the serious expression on his husband's face. At the questions from his cowboy, he pushed the man who wanted to share back inside and pulled stubborn, willful Riley to the foreground.

  "All you need to know is that you're mine for a year, and we need to try a damn sight harder if we have a hope in hell of convincing my father he has no chance of fighting this marriage. , and as it stands, I have fulfilled his contract stipulations."

  "Okay," Jack said patiently, "tell me about the contract."

  "Simply, my father handed over majority rule to Jeff, being as he is A. married, B. has children, and C. is apparently, therefore, not gay. Which then means he is the best person for Hayes Oil. However, the middle child, apparently, being unmarried, childless, and possibly therefore gay can't be considered as an equal partner in what is a family company." Riley tried to keep any trace of bitterness from his voice, but it wasn't easy to do, and he saw Jack wince in reaction.

  He stopped. Familiar anger was climbing his spine, pushing into muscles that tensed and clenched, the pain in his neck pushing up into his headache. Unconsciously, he massaged the back of his neck and tilted his head, stretching the muscles, wincing at the pain.

  "As a proviso, he added that should I marry for love and stay married for exactly one year, he would reassign the percentages. I would have the same percentage of Hayes Oil as my brother."

  "Married, for a year, for love." Jack repeated. "Can I just point out that, given you have probably worked your way through half the Dallas women under the age of twenty five, finding a suitable wife in amongst them would be fairly easy?"

  Riley stood suddenly, a fire in him that Jack could pick so easily on the same thing that Jim and Steve had.

  "No," he spat out, turning away from Jack to face the window, trying to calm his emotions before he turned back. Jack just sat and stared up at him. "See, that would play straight into his hands. I would be stuck in a marriage based on a lie. Should we have a child, I couldn't leave that child, that woman. He knows that. He wants me tied down, finished."

  "You seem to assign an awful lot of slyness to a man you call your father," Jack pointed out simply. "What makes you think he'd—"

  "You don't know him. He might be my father, but he's used to manipulating me. This time he isn't getting away with it."

  "You need to show me this contract, this agreement that your father pulled together so I know my role. Maybe Josh should have a look?" Riley was instantly horrified. To have an outsider see the proof of his father's disregard of him was too much. No. He couldn't do that. As usual, words failed him, and he fell back onto his usual method of communication. Superiority.

  "All you need to know, Campbell, is that you keep your head down, keep to your side of the bargain, and in turn, I will keep to mine." In a flurry of movement, Riley moved to the door, wrenching it open. "I need to get out of here."

  * * * *

  Jack blinked, watching him leave. Stress and violence surrounded his new husband like a suffocating blanket. "Campbell-Hayes," he said to the empty room, and sighing, he followed Riley down the stairs and out of the front door.

  The Riley he'd seen, a flash of in the man who'd leaned exhausted against the door, had vanished in the blink of an eye. He recognized barriers when he saw them, because he used the same tools to hide his own worries. It was self-preservation that made him not push as hard as he had wanted, sensing Riley was jonesing for a fight.

  Riley wasn't aware of it, but his face showed so many expressions from anger to sadness that Jack had a hard time distinguishing the separate emotions.

  Chapter 16

  The whisky was the oldest, finest, most expensive that Gerald could find, and he had drunk enough to still be on a short fuse when Jeff knocked and entered the office, a smirk on his face.

  "Did you really think he was going to take this lying down?" Jeff pointed out, arms crossed on his chest. He se
emed composed and in control though Gerald couldn't see why.

  In contrast he was furious, almost apoplectic, and he could feel the red in his face. He was pacing the not altogether small space behind his antique desk. "Enough," he spat, finally stopping the pacing. "He is simply being stupid. It will pass."

  "He is far from stupid. In fact, I think you underestimate him."

  "I am quite aware of how I have underestimated your mother's son," Gerald said fast and instantly, anger at the core of the heated words. "And don't think of talking at me, Jeff. You should be thinking of how we can get around this."

  "How we get round this?"

  "If he finds the papers, if he realizes—"

  "It won't happen. We go to source," Jeff said. "Leave Riley alone as the easily maneuvered child that he is and instead focus on Campbell. Turn him against his new…" He hesitated with a look of distaste on his face. "Husband."

  Gerald raised his eyebrows, admiring the cunning that was twisting in his son.

  "His horses," Jeff said. "I hear he's doing more than well with his horses, so we go there first."

  "I want that Campbell away from this family."

  "Consider it done," Jeff said confidently.

  "The day your bastard brother gets any kind of control over my company is the day that hell freezes over," Gerald added, hearing the hate in his own voice.