by Geri Krotow
“It’s incredible how your family owns land the size of a county in the States.” They were traversing her favorite band of woods that had a variety of trees whose leaves had mostly dropped, the fauna well into the start of its winter dormancy. “I do miss the trees back home but these are okay, I guess.”
“You guess, eh?” He gave her a lingering kiss and Halle pulled back.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I mean, this time together has been good—don’t get me wrong—but aren’t you worried about us getting too close, emotionally? We have to keep the endgame in mind.” She was so afraid that giving in to the sexual nature of their relationship was leading her to heartbreak.
“Geez, Halle, you sound like a secondary school sweetheart ready to break up with the boy at boarding school.”
She laughed. “What I’m trying to say, because it’s important, is that this is all pretend. Except for the part about giving our baby a secure future and unquestionable identity as your child.”
He started walking again, not meeting her eyes. “We’re two adults. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying our time together. It doesn’t always have to be weighed against the inevitable end.”
“This has to be the exception.” Her heart couldn’t take getting so used to Alastair’s incredible body, his hands, the way he made her feel, only to have it ripped away in a year, if not sooner. “It’s going to end—we agreed on a year. You’re the one who insisted it be in the contracts.”
A fleeting shadow of guilt crossed his face. What was he hiding?
“Let’s take it day by day, shall we? We’re here for a few more nights before we have to return to the States. Although with the recent criminal mischief at Bluewood I do believe it’d be smart to cancel your holiday tour groups.”
She shook her head. “No way, no how. The Thanksgiving-through-Christmas family excursions are some of my most lucrative. Charlie, my ranch hand, can’t do it all on his own like he is now. Even if I hired extra hands, no one has his experience, or mine.” And she loved cooking the big meals for the guests. Instead of overnights on the trail, they did daylong rides and returned at night to enjoy fully prepared home cooked feasts. She had a housekeeper and cook who helped her through that part, making family recipes that Halle had grown up with. Her aunt came, too.
“What are you going to do if another trip wire throws you off a horse this time? If Elvis or Buttercup bolts, leaving you to ride with a client the rest of the way home? Or if a guest gets injured?”
“I don’t deal in what-ifs except for the safety of my clients or the ranch. And while I need to be prepared for any kind of incident, I’m hoping that having the security cameras installed while we’re gone will make a difference. They’ll serve as a deterrent.” She was lying to him, because her gut didn’t buy it. Whoever had been sick enough to slaughter Ernie in cold blood, leaving his head on her doorstep, wouldn’t stop at any security measures. And if it had been the same person who’d tried to get her thrown and possibly maim Elvis, they were dealing with a monster. Someone who relished evil and bringing it upon innocents. Wickedly so.
“We’ll get through it. The question I have is, what would you like me to do on the rides? I don’t want to be just another rider for you to worry about.”
“You’re not going on my trail rides, not as a guide or my protector. You’ve got your own gazillion-dollar industry to run, remember?”
He ignored her reply. “I am not allowing you to go out on the trail alone. Period.”
“I won’t be alone. I’ll have my guests, and I can take a ranch hand along to help with the heavy lifting, literally and figuratively. With the investment you’ve generously offered, I can afford it. It’ll make for a much nicer experience not only for the paying guests but for me, too. I’ll be free to focus on keeping the guests entertained.”
“How so? Besides the fact that you won’t be tired?” They were nearing the end of their walk. She had to be careful or she’d start thinking of Alastair’s modernized farmhouse as home. There was only one home for her: Bluewood Ranch. At least, it had been, until Alastair came into her life. She wondered if she’d ever again feel settled if he weren’t around.
“With another rider I can carry more food, more supplies. We can offer hot beverages, because he can bring either a small propane burner for a pot of water, or even a portable hot water urn we can use. And if I have that extra pair of hands to do the menial tasks, I’ll spend more time giving the guests history and nature classes.” She sighed, pushing her hair out of her face. The Scottish winds in November were brutal compared to the milder climate of central Texas. “There’s so much equipment that I can consider purchasing now. Bluewood has a decent chance to reach its full potential. I can’t thank you enough for helping me make this dream come true, Alastair.”
“It’s mutual, Halle. You’ve made the dreams I didn’t even know I had come true by agreeing to have our child.”
“A little after-the-fact, though.” She laughed.
“You said yes.”
Alastair held the back door open for her and as she entered the warm house and prepared for her shower, she wondered how she was going to be able to tell her heart no when it came to Alastair. She had a mere year to figure it out. A year that it was easy to believe was going to be as relaxed and joyful as this brief respite from the danger shadowing her life in Shadow Creek.
Someone was after Bluewood, and in her gut she knew that wasn’t all. They were after her. The baby.
The protection of Alastair’s family estate wasn’t enough to keep cold chills from racing over her spine like the Scottish gales scouring the countryside.
* * *
Halle ran a wide-toothed tortoise comb through her wet hair and relished the warmth of the thick terry robe she’d put on after a long, steamy shower. It was hard not to imagine Alastair joining her under the falling water, but since they’d just made love an hour earlier he’d gone to work in his home office. They were staying in what she now realized was actually the fourth property on the estate—this house was much smaller than his parents’ but fully modernized and incredibly comfortable. Luxurious, even. He’d also given her plenty of space. Since they’d made love in that urgent, desperate way he’d continued to stay with her at night, and mornings had become their choice time for intimacy. Their lovemaking was slow and earth-shattering. He’d told her he didn’t want to disrupt her sleep, that the baby needed rest, too. She suspected he’d been up working at night, staying ahead of the markets as they opened around the world across global time zones.
Ready to face the day, she left the bedroom and walked in stockinged feet down the long hall toward the living room and small home office where Alastair spent most of his time.
She sensed he was near but she found no one in the living room. The lights were on in his office along with three huge computer screens but he was nowhere in sight. The mug of tea on his desk blotter was still steaming, so he’d be back soon. Halle poured herself a cup of hot water from the kettle he kept on the sideboard and dropped in a bag of decaf English breakfast blend. Jean Buchanan would chide her for not making a pot of loose leaf, no doubt. Alastair’s grandmother was a tea purist and Halle had noted she didn’t have tea bags in her house. She held the warm mug as the tea steeped and began to make sense of the endless spreadsheets and stock tickers that crept across the systems displays. The first screen was easy—an overview of all open markets, beginning with Hong Kong, where it was actually the following morning already. The stock numbers didn’t interest her overall but one square in the display did, the IPO part of Alastair’s business.
Her stomach sank at the arrow that indicated the stock’s value was dropping. Worse was the comparison to last week’s and last month’s values, also in the same standout box. She’d worked with financial figures long enough to be able to accurately interpret the figu
res on Alastair’s display.
Something was horribly wrong with Clyde Whiskey.
She forced her gaze off the first screen to the middle, which she surmised was Alastair’s digital to-do list. The man was incredible—did he really accomplish this much in one day? Task after task, many of which included video conferences and livestreaming with employees on the other side of the globe. No wonder he was tired. How did Alastair ever get ahead if all he did was have a list as long as her arm?
She preferred to write out her monthly plans, and of course kept Bluewood’s business calendar online. But usually she wrote her daily goals on a sticky note and put it on the refrigerator. When she got back from a trail ride or taking care of the animals, she’d evaluate what she’d accomplished.
She shook her head. Even in the face of his business being in trouble, all she could think about was Alastair’s well-being. What she needed to be focused on was her baby’s future.
Moving her attention to the third screen, she noted that it listed the buyers of his company’s stock. Most of the amounts appeared negligible bought by other companies she didn’t recognize.
Until she got to the middle of the spreadsheet’s first column, and the letters SullaXS were highlighted in red, standing out like ugly warning signs. As she inspected the spreadsheet further, it was clear that SullaXS had purchased nearly all of the stock publicly available for Clyde Whiskey.
How could this be? Alastair was too smart to allow another entity to buy out all of his public holdings, wasn’t he?
“Ah. How was your shower?” His voice sounded like he was pleased to find her. Halle put her cup of tea down on his desk.
“Who the hell is SullaXS, Alastair?”
* * *
Alastair hated the look of complete betrayal on Halle’s face. He’d wanted to keep her from any more pain after the ordeal in Texas, and yet she appeared more vulnerable standing in his home office outside of Glasgow than she had after falling from Elvis and lying so still on the Texas soil.
“Halle, I can explain.” At least, he thought he could. Up until the part where a dead woman was buying up his company.
“How many relationships have ended with those words?” She ran her fingers through her damp hair. “Please tell me this is a nightmare I’m about to wake from. You never mentioned this. But I knew better—this is what you’ve been avoiding telling me.”
Her anger was justified but didn’t hurt any less. “I saw no need to upset you until I knew more facts.”
“Why? Why would your business upset me, Alastair? You know I don’t care about your worth. I do care about being misled and treated like a child who can’t handle the truth.” The tears that shone in her chocolate eyes were from her wrath, he suspected.
He took in one deep breath, let it out in an explosion of frustration. “Someone’s been after my stocks since I went to Texas. It’s become an all-out war since we married. Apparently the website Everything’s Blogger in Texas isn’t the only one interested in our personal merger.”
Halle paled and he reached for her but she shrugged away. He felt like the lowest of reptiles.
“I’m sorry, Halle. I should have told you right away. I have to let you know I think this could be connected to the nasty events at Bluewood. Someone has it in for us.”
Her eyes blazed. “I know it has to be my hormones, our sudden marriage, the almost-fall, Ernie, but if I didn’t know Livia Colton was dead I’d swear she was behind this.” She shook her head. “I’m crazy, aren’t I?”
“No, just the target of some very sick person or group. And we’re in this together, Halle.”
“God, Alastair. The last time I checked, Livia Colton was presumed dead. Killed when her car went into a raging river. Her body was washed away. She’s dead.” Terror punctuated every syllable of Halle’s rage. “Oh my God. Please, tell me that there’s no freaking way that evil woman could still be alive!”
“I wish I could tell you that for certain.” He went to her and tried to touch her, hug her, embrace her—anything to comfort her. Halle backed away, holding up her arms to ward him off.
“No, don’t touch me.” She paced the office hardwood floor, her bare feet small and pale against the century-old planks. “I need to think about this, Alastair. I’ve comforted myself with the fact that the murderer of my father, the one person on the planet who took him away from me, is dead. That there’s no chance she could ever come back to hurt me or anyone I love.” Halle crouched on the edge of the office sofa and looked out over the small pond where his swans were making circles in the otherwise still water. Her profile was so achingly beautiful with the romantic backdrop, in direct opposition to the tortured heart she was wrestling with. Alastair was helpless to do anything but wait for her to open up. And pray she didn’t decide to fly back to Texas that minute.
“Losing a father is hard for anyone, at any time. My dad was the only parent I had. I’d looked forward to sharing so much more of my life with him. To make him proud. The big stuff like career success, maybe marriage and bringing him his first grandchild. But just as important, the little things that can’t be quantified. The Sunday dinners. Friday pizza nights at my condo in Austin or back at Bluewood. Long rides to check out the state of the land, to talk to each other without any distractions. To just be.” She turned her amber gaze on him. Tears glistened but his Halle didn’t allow one to fall. She still didn’t trust him enough to let go totally with him. And now he wondered if she ever would. “Livia Colton took all of that away from me, Alastair.”
“Halle, I’ve been monitoring this situation since before we met. It’s not like a hostile takeover attempt doesn’t ever happen—I’ve survived three. But this one is different, more calculated. First they tried to buy stocks on the sly, under various assumed names, at times when no one would pay much attention. My data experts were able to trace the names back to a single account. In Texas.”
“I find it hard to believe there’s any time you aren’t paying attention. You follow every bit of your business and I’m sure you pay people to do so when you can’t. Your phone is part of the reason you ended up in the darn river!”
“True. But I have a special interest in this because it feels more personal. They’re not coming after my company, or the whiskey part of the business. They’re coming after me. The stock name you see here, on the spreadsheet?” He walked over to the monitor and pointed at SullaXS. “It’s the name for a front organization. I believe the same person is behind up to eleven different false names, or business fronts, who have attempted a takeover in the past four months. And when I had my operations team and security officer run the stats, there is only one common thread to all of the pseudo corporations, SullaXS, and it’s directly linked to Livia Colton. I won’t bore you with all the technical details, but trust me, her name is on this.”
“But she’s dead, Alastair. Please, please tell me she didn’t survive that plunge into the river.”
They stared at one another and his heart was in shreds from the anguish in her eyes. Pain he’d put there by leaving his damned display up and running while she was in the house. He hadn’t wanted to share anything with her until he’d figured out what she was already coming around to.
“I wish I could tell you she didn’t live, Halle. The slivers of pain you’ve shared with me about how tough losing your father was make me want to lie to you to make you feel better. But I can’t.”
“Cut the crap, Alastair. You’ve lied by omission.”
“I couldn’t say anything until I knew for sure.” He took a step closer to the sofa where she sat. “Stranger things have happened. People devise ways to disappear, fake their deaths all the time. It’s a moneymaker for anyone with a large insurance policy or inheritance, depending upon who the funds are set up to go to.”
Halle narrowed her eyes. “Her kids had divorced themselves from L
ivia and her evil ways years ago. They wanted nothing to do with her or her money.”
“That matches what I and my security team dug up. She wasn’t a nice person, to say the least.” And if she were still alive, he’d be the first one to want her in jail for life. He risked sitting next to Halle and to his relief she didn’t move over. “I didn’t want to tell you about this because it’s so troubling, and you don’t need it right now.”
Her eyes were clear, flecked with sunlight. “We may not be a real married couple, Alastair, but we’re partners. If your business or reputation is on the line, so is my baby’s future. You’re absolutely certain that this person is trying to buy you out?”
He nodded. “Yes. While I—we can’t rule out that Livia Colton is still alive, I highly doubt it. All of the police reports indicate no one could have survived being washed away by the river. By the time the early responders arrived her car was upturned and the two surviving agents with her had escaped it. Whoever is behind this isn’t an amateur, and it’s someone with substantial resources.”
“Then you can find this person? It’s a man, right?”
“That’s what’s so hard about all of this. I haven’t been able to narrow it down to one person yet, due to the privacy laws in the States.”
“It says a lot if even you can’t find out who’s causing all of this trouble.” Her color was returning, the reassuring soft peach hue on her high cheekbones. “It would almost be worth it to see her alive and watch her go to a federal penitentiary for good this time. To one she’d never be able to escape from. You know she was a prison escapee, right?”
“Yes. The internet is full of reports not only on Livia Colton’s rap sheet, but how she got herself out of prison. No one likes to see a criminal who’s supposed to be doing time escape.”
