“We won’t have much time to talk once his agent phones in where I am.”
“I know.”
*
Even with puffy, red eyes and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, Christine was beautiful. The guard brought her into the empty visitors’ room and then stood just inside the door to keep watch. They faced off on opposite sides of a scarred wood table, Christine’s hands unnecessarily cuffed in a waist restraint. She clasped her hands together, but they still trembled.
“They treating you okay?”
Christine nodded, tears welling. “If Walker thought putting me in a group holding cell overnight would scare me, he forgot what kind of attorney I am. Cops might not like us, but among inmates, defense attorneys are rock stars.”
“Things will go better—”
“I’m going to tell them everything, August. I asked you here for two reasons. First, to apologize.”
August’s chest and neck flushed hot as her fury boiled up suddenly, scalding away any sympathy she’d felt when Christine first shuffled into the room. Did she want forgiveness? Absolution for ruining their lives?
“Were you fucking him while you were still sleeping with me, Christine? Do I need to get tested for STDs or HIV?” She felt sick. She stood and paced over to the wall where a floor vent blew a cooling stream of air into the room. She breathed it in, then turned back to Christine, who sat with her head bowed, the tears finally overflowing and trailing down her cheeks. “I can’t stop taking showers because I feel so dirty.” As an attorney, however, she knew there were always two sides to every story. Deep down, maybe she wanted Christine to give her a reason to forgive her. August returned to her chair and sat. “Talk. Tell me how you could even do this.”
Christine swallowed hard, then began without raising her head. “I liked the money and the prestige. Luis introduced me to powerful people. I told myself I was helping our practice, and then I told myself I was carrying the practice on my shoulders because I was bringing in the most money. He made me feel important. I don’t know when…it became more intimate. You and I were arguing all the time. Luis was very gallant and attentive. He seemed to want the same things I did.”
“And that was reason enough to set me up for him to blackmail?”
Christine shook her head, finally raising her eyes to meet August’s. “You have to believe me. When I found out that Raphael was listing you as the attorney on those nonprofits that they were using to launder money, I went to Luis and demanded he leave you out of it.”
She shrugged to try to wipe her nose on her sleeve since she couldn’t raise her hands. August reluctantly tugged some tissues from a box on the table next to them and wiped her face for her.
“Thanks. Anyway, he said you were too much of a wild card. So, I told him that I’d break it off with you and dissolve our partnership so he wouldn’t have to worry about you. Then he turned into someone I didn’t know.” Christine shuddered. “He said he already didn’t worry about you because he’d been fucking your girlfriend for months and had evidence you were laundering money. So I told him I was done with him if he didn’t leave you alone.” She nodded to her right sleeve. “Pull my sleeve up.”
August stood and addressed the deputy. “I’m just going to look at her arm, okay?”
He nodded, and she lifted the short sleeve of the jumper to expose a dark bruise clearly indicative of fingers curled around her bicep.
“He grabbed me and threw me to the floor,” Christine said. “I have more bruises where he put his knee in my back. He…he said I was his any time he wanted me and he would kill you if I tried to leave him.” Christine bowed her head and began to sob.
August’s head and gut churned. “Was that the night you came home at three in the morning but wouldn’t talk to me?
Christine nodded, still sobbing.
August swallowed. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She closed her eyes against the image of Christine on her stomach with Luis Reyes pinning her to the floor. She barely got the words past her clenched teeth. “What did he do to you?”
Christine cried harder, tears and mucus dripping into her lap.
August waited.
“He raped me,” she finally said.
August stood, nearly toppling her chair, and swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat. If she ran into Reyes before Pierce Walker could put him in cuffs, she’d kill him. No. She wouldn’t kill him. She’d tie him up and cut his pecker off. Then she’d phone Walker and tell him where to find him. She hated Luis Reyes. And now she wanted to hate Christine for inviting this viper into their lives, for all the things she’d done that led them to this grimy room in the county jail with both their lives in shreds.
Hate, however, was hard for August to embrace. She pitied the woman bowed before her, but she couldn’t remember what it felt like to love her. This wasn’t the smart, engaging Christine who’d once won her heart. This was a woman who had been seduced and broken by her addiction to money and power.
August drew more tissues from the box and cleaned Christine’s face again. She even helped her blow her nose, like she would a child. Even if Christine had been fucking Reyes behind August’s back, Reyes didn’t have the right to force himself on her whenever he wanted. “I’ll call Thurmond Evers and ask him to take your case.”
Christine nodded. He was high profile, one of the best defense lawyers in Dallas. “Thank you.” Her eyes and nose were red when she finally looked up. “Thank you for coming, August. If it was the other way around, I’m not sure I would have. I knew you would, though. You always were a better person than me.”
Christine might have been partly right, but August couldn’t let her shoulder all the blame. Somewhere along the way, she’d become so involved in her career and their practice that she’d quit paying attention to the people around her. She’d checked out of their relationship enough that she didn’t even notice something was wrong until it was too late. She’d never made time to visit Julio and The White Paw wranglers who’d been so important to her as an adolescent. Now, Julio was gone.
She had to do better. Teal was right. This was her ranch, and she needed to start taking on the responsibility for running it. BJ was as old as Julio, and he was shouldering all the management work. Hell, she hadn’t even asked about his health. He could have a bad heart like Pops and she wouldn’t even know it.
She started to shut down her computer session, then stopped. She should begin by keeping an eye on Teal. The last thing they needed was a crazy ex-husband showing up, creating a police report that Reyes could find in public records to locate her. She logged out of her sign-on and in as “guest.” Nope, Teal hadn’t erased her browsing history. She’d send an email to Steve tomorrow, asking him to do a little more digging on Teal.
Ah. Miss Crawley had been doing a little checking herself. August flipped through the websites Teal had viewed. Hmm. That black suit always was one of her favorites. Wonder if Teal liked it? She smiled to herself. She was about to click on the next link to her name when something else caught her eye.
Oh. She had been looking at hats. August pictured Teal with a light-brown Stetson riding low on her brow, her shining black hair tucked behind her ears and flowing across her shoulders. The only hats Teal had worn were ball caps. They shaded her eyes but did nothing to protect her ears and neck from the sun.
August selected the one she liked. BJ had been clowning around one day and put August’s hat on Teal, and it looked to fit her perfectly so they must wear the same size. She checked the box for priority shipping, entered the ranch’s credit-card information, and submitted the order.
Then she sat back in the padded leather chair and smiled. It’s okay for a boss to order equipment for an employee, right? Of course, it is.
Chapter Nine
“Hello? White Paw Ranch.” Teal sandwiched the phone between her shoulder and ear while she packed the crew’s lunch into the Coleman cooler.
“Is this August?”
“Sorry, n
o. She’s out with the crew. I’m Teal Crawley. I’m…her assistant. Can I help you with something?”
“This is John Stutts. Could you ask her to call me? I guess tomorrow would be soon enough, but I need to talk with her. I know BJ will keep them out until past my office hours today.”
“Actually, I was about to take lunch to them. I can give her your message then. I’m sure she’ll have her cell phone in the truck. Does she have your number?”
“Yes. She has one of my cards. Thank you, Ms. Crawley. I’d appreciate it.”
“Just part of my job.”
She rang off and put the last of the sandwiches in the cooler. John Stutts. Why was that name familiar? She went into the office and found the business card lying next to the keyboard. That’s why. She’d read his name on the card. Attorney. It didn’t say what kind of lawyer, but he sounded worried. The article she’d read about August’s law partner being arrested flashed through her thoughts. Hopefully August wasn’t in trouble, too. She grabbed the card, in case August didn’t have Stutts’s number in her phone, and headed out.
*
“He didn’t say what he wanted?” August fingered the card. Gus and Julio had trusted John Stutts—as their attorney and as a friend—so she’d decided she could trust him to keep an eye on a few things for her.
Teal handed August two sandwiches and a small bag of potato chips. “The one with an H on it is deviled ham. The one marked PBB is your dessert sandwich.” She handed Tommy the same combination of sandwiches. “No. He just asked that you call him, but he sounded like he needed to talk to you right away.”
Tommy juggled his sandwiches, trying to get a better look at the contents of the second one. “What’s PBB?”
“Peanut butter and banana. You guys need the protein and potassium working out here in the heat.”
Tommy grinned. “Yummy.” He yelled over at BJ, who was unwrapping his own sandwiches. “You hear that, BJ? Teal makes us eat healthy food. All you ever did was slap mustard and bologna on day-old bread.”
“You better look in the drink cooler before you start strutting,” BJ said.
Tommy gave him a dismissive wave and lifted the cooler’s top. “Hey, who drank all the sodas?”
Teal put her hands on her hips. “You have two choices—water or lemonade. Soda is bad for you. If August will approve the expense, I’ll order some sports drinks, too, to replace the electrolytes you sweat out while working in the sun, but no sodas.”
Hawk, Brick, and Manny whooped. They liked those better than soda.
Tommy looked at August. “How ’bout it, Boss? You wouldn’t want us to get heatstroke, would you?”
August swallowed her mouthful of sandwich. The deviled ham was homemade and really good. “Only for while you’re out working. I’m not stocking the bunkhouse fridge so you guys can drink them all the time.”
“Spoiling them rotten.” BJ frowned at the men when they whooped again and began arguing about which flavor and brand was best. Then he took a big bite of his sandwich and shared a smile with Teal.
August watched the men as she ate. She was still finding her place with them. Tommy was at least ten years her junior, but Brick, Hawk, and Manny were experienced wranglers. It would take her years to learn what they already knew, and they seemed to be weighing her as a boss. Tommy appeared to be waiting to follow their lead as to whether she deserved his respect.
Teal, on the other hand, slid easily into their little group. She joked with the men but skillfully deflected Tommy’s attempts to flirt. She’d been there two or three weeks and already knew enough about each of them to ask about their families or girlfriends, and to fix some of their favorite lunch foods. Pops’s garden had flourished with Teal’s help, and the beds of beautiful flowers Julio had cultivated were full and blooming around the ranch and bunkhouse again. Hell, even the chickens seemed happier and were laying more eggs. Why wouldn’t they? August took in Teal’s slender, athletic body. Her hands were always moving in graceful gestures as she talked. She wanted to catch and entwine Teal’s long fingers with her own.
Teal’s rich-chocolate eyes found hers. “A penny for your thoughts,” she said, her words slipping quietly under the men’s conversation to reach only August’s ears.
Her thoughts didn’t matter. Teal was leaving as soon as her cousin said the coast was clear. The last thing August needed was to add another complication in her life, and if—no, when—Reyes found where she was staying, Teal would be one more person she’d have to worry about keeping safe. August downed the last of her lemonade. “I was wondering if you were ready to start packing up. I’m curious about what John needs to talk about.”
Teal tilted her head and raised an eyebrow, making it clear she suspected avoidance. “Sure. It looks like everybody’s finished.” She unfurled a plastic bag and collected everyone’s trash while August secured the coolers in the truck’s bed.
BJ placed the calving box from his truck next to the coolers. “Since you’re headed that way, swing by the heifer herd. We still have two or three that haven’t dropped a calf yet.”
“Will do. I’ll see what John wants, and then I’ll tackle some paperwork. I need to get the quarterly tax stuff ready for the accountant.”
BJ huffed. “Seems like with all that schooling you did, you ought to be able to fill out tax forms instead of paying somebody else to do it.”
“You telling me how to run my ranch, old man?” August put her hands on her hips and scowled at him in an exaggerated threat.
He squinted back at her. “I sure am. That’s what you pay me for.” He pointed at his chest. “Foreman. Ranch manager.”
Teal laughed at their mock argument, and the sound of it warmed August. She mimicked him, pointing at her own chest. “Criminal-defense attorney. That would be like me saying you should be able to herd sheep just because you know how to wrangle cows.”
BJ squinted at her. “Just ’cause you’re the boss now don’t mean you can get sassy with me, Grasshopper.”
August chuckled, then pressed her hands together as if praying and bowed slightly. “Yes, Sensei.”
“Go on. You gals get out of here.” BJ waved them toward the truck.
August pointed the truck toward the herd BJ had mentioned, and they’d bumped across the pasture for several minutes before Teal spoke.
“Criminal-defense lawyer, huh?”
Shit. She’d said that without thinking. Really, though. What difference did it make if Teal knew what she did before she’d turned rancher? She’d already looked her up on the Internet. Damn, she should have finished checking which websites she’d viewed. How much did she already know? “Uh, yeah. In Dallas, where my parents live.” Might as well answer the next question before she asks it.
Teal nodded and stared out the window of the truck. A long silence stretched between them as they bumped along across the eighty-acre pasture. Did Teal need an attorney? Or did she have a problem with defense lawyers—attorneys who defended a lot of guilty criminals? A lot of people did until they needed the services of one.
“A penny for your thoughts,” she said, echoing Teal’s earlier query.
Teal glanced at her, offering a small smile. “It’s nothing. Just reflex from my old job.”
That was a conversation opening she couldn’t resist. The herd appeared in the distance, black blobs against a copse of shade trees bordering the creek, and August turned the truck that way. “What kind of work did you do?”
Teal looked thoughtful. “I took care of things for my boss. I guess you could say I made things happen.”
“Made things happen?”
“Arranged meetings, travel, kept her up to speed on issues…and on rumors that would affect her work.”
“Sort of a right hand.”
Something August couldn’t decipher flickered across Teal’s face. Hurt? Disgust? “Yeah. That, too.”
“So, what had you thinking about that now?” August stopped the truck near the herd but didn’t move to g
et out.
Teal seemed to hesitate and then turned in her seat to face August. “How about a deal? If you tell me what you were really thinking when I asked earlier, I’ll tell you what was on my mind.”
Teal’s tone was gentle and held no challenge, but her honesty caught August off-guard. What were they doing? They were edging closer and closer to the curtain that separated their personal lives. Something told her Teal Crawley was much more than a ranch cook, and August wanted to snatch the curtain back to see everything about her. But if she did, Teal would be able to see her, too. Maybe a peek?
“I was watching you with the guys. You’ve fit in with them well in only the few weeks you’ve been here.”
Teal didn’t seem surprised. “And?”
August shifted to stare out at the herd. The cows were watching the truck, a few ambling toward them in anticipation of feed. “And, I’m still working out my relationship with them. Hawk was starting out as a young wrangler my last summer here before college, so he knew me as a kid and now I’m his boss. BJ and Pops have known me since I was a little kid. On top of that, I think it’s the first time any of them have worked for a woman.” She squinted. Was that an untagged newborn next to that heifer on the left?
Teal pursed her lips and nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking about.”
August’s brain stutter-stepped. “Thinking about what?”
“Your relationship to the men.”
August frowned. “What about it?”
Teal took a deep breath. “Well, I’m probably overstepping my role here, but I did learn a few things working in my previous job that could be helpful to you.”
Okay. This definitely had her interest. “I’m always willing to listen to advice. But, as my mother once told me, I mostly do what I want.”
Teal cocked her head and flashed a quick, toothy smile that made August’s stomach do a pleasant little roll. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you should speak to BJ about how he talks to you in front of the men.”
Swelter Page 12
