When he finished talking Chaney chewed on her lip a bit before saying anything. If ever there was a time that required her to choose her words carefully, it was now.
“I understand how you came to your conclusions,” she said. Jed’s posture tensed but Chaney continued. “You’re only seeing things from one angle, though.”
“What other angle is there, Chaney? Someone attacked my wife and tried to steal her property, what else am I supposed to see?”
Patience, Chaney. She tried to ignore the warmth his use of the words, my wife, caused inside her. They were discussing business. She had to start separating the two.
“You weren’t there the night I saw them.” Whoops, stupid argument Chaney, she thought when fire lit his eyes. “I know I was stupid to ride out on my own at night, but who could have imagined what happened?”
Jed didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Chaney could easily read his opinion of her reasoning. This wasn’t going well. If she didn’t get her act together, Jed would stop listening and storm out.
“Try to forget about the accident for a moment,” she told him. “Let me explain what I saw.”
He still stood straight and tense, but he hadn’t left and he hadn’t argued, so Chaney took that to mean he would listen.
“You say the new tracks you found were on my side of the fence.” He nodded. “The truck was on Dale’s side last time.”
“When the sheriff and I looked over the area the tracks were on both sides. There were tracks like the truck was parked on Dale’s side, but the truck entered and exited from your side.”
“You didn’t tell me that before,” she said defensively.
“I didn’t want to upset you,” he said. “I heard you had a tough recovery last time you were thrown and I didn’t want that to happen this time.”
His eyes wouldn’t meet her gaze. Chaney had the feeling that he knew more about her accident twelve years ago than he was letting on. “Who have you been talking to?”
“No one. Don’t worry, you might have a low-down, thieving, rustler working for you, but you don’t have any loose tongues.”
Damn, I did it again. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath Chaney tried to calm herself. When her eyes opened, Jed’s hand rested on the doorknob. Think fast. He’s going to leave.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just a time I don’t like to think about. Being reminded of how stupid you are, isn’t exactly fun,” she added with the best smile she could muster.
“What does being thrown from a horse have to do with being stupid? It was an accident, they happen.”
Chaney shook her head trying to keep the memories of that time in the dark spot she’d assigned them. “Dad and I had been arguing. I called him a liar and stormed out of his office. I was bound and determined to make him pay for lying and for telling me I was too soft-hearted.”
She chanced a glance toward the door, unsure if Jed was still there the room was so quiet. He was there. His muscles were taught and his eyes hard as crystals.
Probably not a time he cares to remember either. Well, tough, it’s about time he knew how much he’d hurt her.
“I know better than to get on an unbroken horse when my attention is somewhere else, but my brain was on vacation that day I guess. Instead of proving to my father how tough I was, I broke my leg in two places, a couple of ribs and . . . got one helluva concussion,” she said staring at her hands clasped in her lap.
“But that wasn’t the worst of it,” she continued. “The worst part was admitting my father was right. You were gone and you weren’t coming back.” She said the last words in a hushed voice because it still hurt to remember. Then she remembered the strength that hurt had given her. It had put steel in her spine and determination in her heart and mind; she was never going to be hurt like that again.
“Sorry, I got us off track,” Chaney said. “Now, about the tracks and the rustlers, you were saying?” She saw the tensing of his jaw. For a moment, she thought he was going to try to defend himself, but the next he was in control again. Another piece of her heart died with that control. Oh, part of her had wanted to let him know how deeply he’d hurt her, but another part had hoped if they talked about it and faced it they would both be able to leave the past behind. And possibly have a future?
“The rise is lower on your side, easier for a truck to maneuver. My guess is they got greedy that night and decided to take some of Dale’s cattle that happened to be close by.”
It was obvious business was all Jed was willing to deal with. Chaney stood and walked to the window to give herself time and close the steel mesh around her heart again. Time to return to the no-nonsense, untouchable, clear thinking businesswoman she’d become over the years.
There would be no more chinks in her armor. No more taking orders and letting someone else run the show. She’d allowed her heart control for a time while her brain took a vacation, but Chaney McBride was back, and business was her middle name.
“I still don’t accept the idea that it is anyone on my payroll,” she told him as she turned and faced him from across the room. “There is someone else that comes to mind.”
“Your foreman.”
“That would be the man. I found discrepancies in the records he kept before I fired him. Of course, he had explanations for everything when I confronted him.”
“Such as?”
Chaney ground her teeth together to keep from telling him it was none of his business. He was trying to help she reminded herself. “Such as, forgetting to put in an entry or not correcting one when the feed and grain shorted an order. All plausible explanations.”
“Not if it kept happening.”
“No, but it stopped after I talked to him. Until . . .” she let the sentence trail off. She did not want to say it.
“Until what, Chaney?”
Chaney refocused on the present and found Jed inches from her. “Until we got married.”
***
“What are you doing here?” Dale asked.
“Working,” Jed answered, his gaze never left the computer screen.
“I can see that,” his uncle replied. “I meant what are you doing here at this hour?”
“It’s a ranch. We start early, remember?” Jed continued to stare at the computer. Not that what was in front of him held his interest; he wasn’t even sure what he was looking at. He’d turned it on two hours earlier and clicked on the first file name.
“We usually change clothes from one day to another, also,” Dale said.
Jed cursed his stupidity. He heard the leather crunch as his uncle sat down in the chair across from him.
“Talk,” Dale ordered.
Instead of acknowledging the demand, Jed closed the file on the computer and stood. “I need to go check on things out at the--”
“Sit down,” Dale said.
For a minute, Jed thought about ignoring him and walking out of the room. He already had enough guilt on his shoulders. He didn’t need causing his uncle another heart attack heaped on as well.
“Let’s just say I made a mistake and let it go at that,” he said trying, but unable to meet his uncle’s gaze.
“Let’s not.”
Jed stood again this time he stepped to the window. This part of his uncle’s house faced Chaney’s property. He leaned against the windowsill, pulled the curtain back, and stared in that direction. He decided it was time to come clean with his uncle. He should know that his worthless nephew had screwed up again.
“She can’t let go of the past.”
“If that’s true, she wouldn’t have married you.”
Jed almost laughed at the irony of that statement. He turned enough to cast a quick glance at his uncle. “She married me because of the past.”
“You’re not making sense, boy.”
Letting the curtain fall back into place, Jed turned and walked back to the desk. “Travis put some conditions on Chaney’s inheritance. She had to marry before her thirtieth birt
hday and get pregnant before her first anniversary or lose the ranch.”
Dale was silent. Jed understood. He hadn’t been able to fathom McBride’s reasoning either.
“That still doesn’t explain you saying she married you because of the past.”
Jed didn’t really want to have this conversation, but his uncle could be stubborn when he set his mind to something. He expelled a long breath then met his uncle’s gaze.
“By marrying me Chaney gets back at both her father and me. See, she chose the one person Travis would never have agreed to let her marry while he was alive.”
“I guess, but what does that have to do with getting back at you?”
Jed couldn’t continue to hold his uncle’s gaze while he answered that question. He looked toward the window and Chaney’s house instead. “Revenge pure and simple. She wanted to make me pay for having abandoned her twelve years ago.”
“You didn’t abandon anyone. The both of you were young and needed to do some growing up. I’m not saying what McBride did was right, but--”
“She was pregnant,” Jed interrupted.
Dale sat in silence. Jed finally worked up the courage to look at him across the desk.
“If you had told me I would have helped you.”
Jed shook his head. “I didn’t know. If I had Travis would have had to kill me to keep me away.” He took a deep breath before telling his uncle the rest. “She lost the baby.”
Pain pierced his heart every time he said it or thought about it. A branding iron couldn’t hurt as much.
“I’m sorry, son.”
Jed hadn’t noticed that his uncle stood and walked around the desk until he felt Dale’s hand on his shoulder. The pressure was enough to push Jed over the edge. His shoulders shook with the grief he had been holding back since learning of Chaney’s first pregnancy.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, probably his parents’ funeral. After that, Jed had learned to keep all his emotions locked away so no one else could see them. The closest he’d come to crying was getting drunk each year on the anniversary of the night he’d left Colorado. By the time he finished he felt like he’d shed a lifetime’s worth of tears. Dale stood with his strong hand on Jed’s shoulder the entire time.
“Sorry,” Jed said as he wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for, son. Losing a child is a terrible thing.”
“It seems a little late to grieve now.”
Dale sat back down. “How could you have grieved before if you didn’t know?”
Jed had to grin. His uncle was trying so hard to be supportive. “Anyway, that’s why Chaney can’t get beyond the past. In her mind, I abandoned her and our child. I guess she figured I wouldn’t have a hard time walking away again, so I would be the perfect man to temporarily marry.”
“And you agreed to this?”
“Not all of it,” Jed said, shaking his head. “I agreed to the temporary marriage in hopes it would help me win custody of Ash. I know, I know,” he said holding up his hand when Dale started to interrupt. “Something else I haven’t told you about, but that can wait until later.
“Chaney didn’t tell me about the pregnancy part of Travis’ will. Actually, she still hasn’t. She just didn’t deny it when I confronted her earlier.” He slammed his hand on the blotter in frustration. “It’s killing me that she believes I would walk away from a child without a thought. How can she believe that knowing I lost my parents? She must think I’m a monster.”
Dale was silent again. Jed figured he was waiting for his crazy nephew to get his temper under control. When he felt calm enough to chance it, Jed glanced up. His uncle was considering him intently.
“She’s pregnant again?”
Jed nodded.
“Have you two talked about what happened before?”
This time Jed shook his head.
“What the hell are you waiting for?”
“She wouldn’t believe me. It doesn’t matter anymore,” Jed answered as he straightened some papers and prepared to leave. “Now she thinks . . . never mind.”
“Thinks what?”
His uncle wasn’t going to make this easy. Then again, Jed couldn’t remember a single time in his life where things had been easy. “There have been some problems on the ranches.”
“Both ranches? The same problems?”
While he hadn’t wanted to tell Dale about the rustlers, it didn’t look like he had a choice in the matter.
“Some,” Jed answered, stalling for a moment longer. He folded his hands on the desktop and prepared to explain what he’d found to Dale. “For one thing we seem to have rustlers taking from both ranches.”
“Rustlers?” Dale shouted as he jumped out of his seat. “Why didn’t you tell me? How long have you known? Damn it, boy this is my ranch!”
Jed stood as well. His hands planted firmly on the desk, he leaned toward his uncle. “This is why I didn’t tell you,” he said in a firm voice holding his uncle’s angry gaze. “I knew you would blow up and your blood pressure would skyrocket. Now sit down and listen or this conversation is over.” He didn’t relax a single muscle until Dale did as he asked.
“I knew something was wrong when I started entering figures into the computer programs I’ve loaded for you. The physical counts I had the men do, and what you had on paper didn’t jive. I learned the reason two weeks ago when Chaney ended up in the hospital.”
“What does her accident have to do with this?” Dale demanded.
“It wasn’t an accident. Chaney rode up on their operation before she knew what was going on. Being the act first think later woman she is, she didn’t hang back and gather information to give the authorities. She rode on in and tried to run them off. When they started shooting at her, she turned back.”
“You mean somebody tried to kill her?”
“I don’t know if they were trying to kill her or just scare her away. One of the shots grazed her horse and that’s how she got thrown.” Jed didn’t like the pallor that covered Dale’s face. Damn, he knew he shouldn’t have told him. He had to find a way to calm Dale down. He walked around the desk so he could be closer if something happened.
“Don’t worry,” he said, as he leaned nonchalantly against the front of the desk. “I contacted the sheriff as soon as I left Chaney that night. They’ve been checking things out but when nothing new happened they eased up. So, I rode out yesterday to check on things myself. I found fresh tracks and some clues that led me to the belief that someone on Chaney’s payroll is to blame.” He was thankful some of the color was coming back to Dale’s face as he talked. Maybe information was all his uncle needed. Jed could understand that. Not knowing what was going on could be damned upsetting.
His uncle rubbed his chin for a moment before commenting on Jed’s information. “You told Chaney what you found.”
“Yep.”
“And she told you that you were wrong.”
“She told me that and more.” Jed said reliving every word of their discussion the night before. The realization that Chaney believed it possible he had something to do with the problems still caused him pain.
“I’m listening.”
Jed really didn’t want to go into it, but it seemed talking was calming Dale some, so he took a deep breath and dug in. “The problems at McBride’s Pride range from simple order discrepancies to payroll,” he said. “Between that and the rustling, we thought of one person that could be causing all this trouble.”
“That stupid foreman she had?”
Startled, Jed considered his uncle before replying. “You didn’t like her foreman?”
“I told McBride he was a fool for hiring the man, which of course only made him more determined to prove me wrong. I’m not surprised he was dipping into the till.”
“Yeah, that’s what I suggested, but Chaney said she talked to him and he had explanations for all her questions. She also said there were no more problems until . . .�
�� Could he honestly tell his uncle that Chaney thought it was all Jed’s fault?
“Until?”
He reached back and rubbed his neck then forced himself to meet Dale’s gaze and answer him. “Until we got married.”
“Damn.”
“She thinks I’m to blame.”
“That’s foolishness.”
Jed felt somewhat mollified by Dale’s support. Still, what mattered was what Chaney thought, and she didn’t trust him. “So, like I said it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ll do what I can to make sure she’s safe but otherwise it’s a lost cause.”
Dale stood before Jed did. “I guess I was wrong,” he said as he turned and started walking to the door.
“Wrong about what?”
“I thought you loved that girl.”
“I do,” he said. The admission surprised Jed. Not that he hadn’t known it. He’d known since before Ash visited that his heart belonged to Chaney. What surprised him was admitting it out loud.
“Then do something about it.”
It was Jed’s blood pressure that rose now. “What? She won’t let go of the past. She doesn’t trust me.”
Jed pushed away from the desk and walked back to the window.
“She doesn’t know the truth about the past, how can you expect her to trust you?”
“If she loved me she would know without me telling her.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
The disbelief in his uncle’s voice turned Jed around. “What?”
“I never would have believed you and Travis McBride were cut from the same mold.”
The thought had Jed’s hands fisting. There was no way he was anything like Travis McBride. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
His uncle shook his head. “Pride. It’s blinding you the same way it did him,” Dale said as he turned and walked to the door.
Jed stared at the closed door. His uncle didn’t understand. It wasn’t the same at all. McBride had insisted Chaney do things his way no matter what. All Jed wanted was her trust.
Even though as far as she knows you dumped her twelve years ago and only married her now because you need something. Why shouldn’t she trust you?
A Daring Proposal Page 16
