Kentucky Rich

by Fern Michaels

  “No, Ma, she isn’t okay. What the hell happened upstairs? She came flying down to the kitchen shaking so bad she stumbled on the last three steps and fell. She jumped up, ran out the door, doubled over, and threw up. We need to get her out of here.”

  “I think she might remember the house, the second floor. She was the one who wanted to go upstairs, but I sent her back down. She didn’t go into Pa’s room. She didn’t even look inside the room. It’s probably just nerves.”

  “Let’s talk about this tomorrow, Ma,” Nick said as he reached for his mother’s arm to lead her back into the house to collect Emmie. “It’s late, and none of us had anything but coffee this morning.”

  “My God, that’s true. Let’s stop at a fast-food place and get some hot dogs and hamburgers and some of those greasy French fries that I like so much. We can eat them in the limo on the way back to the hotel. I don’t want to think about this place any more tonight. Something’s wrong here, and I’m not sure what it is. It’s just one of those feelings if you know what I mean.”

  “I know, Ma. I can feel it, too.”

  Out of habit Nealy awoke at three-forty-five. She stared at the red digital numbers on the hotel clock and groaned. She rolled over but knew she wouldn’t be able to reclaim sleep. She couldn’t even call down for room service because the kitchen didn’t open until six. If she really wanted coffee, she could shower, dress, and head out to an all-night diner. She’d sent the limo driver back and arranged for a rental car. It would be in the hotel parking lot, but did she want it? Would a cup of coffee really make her feel any better? Yes.

  Nealy swung her legs over the side of the bed and headed for the shower. The others wouldn’t be up until at least six. That would give her some time to drive around town to check on things. Obviously she was going to need some kind of game plan. She’d come here on the fly, literally at the last second, with no concrete plan in mind. Now that there was a whole family to consider, she had to get her ducks in a row and decide how she was going to proceed.

  Thirty minutes later, Nealy picked up the key to the rental car from the night clerk. She drove carefully, searching for landmarks, but either her memory was faulty or the area had changed drastically since she’d left. The diner she remembered was gone, in its place a 7-Eleven store with a drive-through window. She ordered a pack of cigarettes and a large coffee, then pulled off into a parking space. After fiddling with the lid, she burned her tongue on the first sip. She cursed ripely.

  While waiting for the coffee to cool, Nealy fired up a cigarette, her first in more than a year, and blew a perfect smoke ring. She’d quit smoking nine times and nine times she’d taken up the disgusting habit again. “I guess I’m weak, no willpower,” she muttered. She made a mental note to quit again when she returned to Kentucky. For the moment, with everything going on, she needed the crutch.

  How garish everything looked. All the bright neon on the highway was blinding. She wondered if what she was seeing was anything like the lights in Las Vegas. She thought about her new family, wondered at the bewildered looks on their faces. Maybe when Fanny, the matriarch of the Thornton clan, arrived she would be able to make sense out of what was going on. Maggie seemed to be the matriarch of the Colemans. That has to make me the matriarch of this branch of the family, she thought grimly.

  Nealy positioned the huge cup of coffee between her knees as she slipped the car into gear and headed out to SunStar Farms. She realized now this had been her intention all along.

  Twenty minutes later she turned onto the long dirt road leading to the house and immediately flipped off the car’s headlights, stopped, and got out. Her throat constricted as she stared at her old home in the moonlight.

  She’d called Blue Diamond Farms home, but now she knew that no matter how much she loved it, SunStar Farms would always be her home. Hot tears burned her eyes as she trudged down the long road to the house. She stopped to stare at the moss dripping from the ancient oak trees. The year she’d left a storm had destroyed all the moss. She remembered that the trees had looked naked without it. It was back now, hanging in long, thick gray strands. In the last of the predawn light it looked silvery.

  Nealy sat down in the middle of the road and crossed her legs. She stared up at the old trees. Neither she nor her brothers had ever climbed them. With their father’s threat of breaking their legs if they even thought about it, they’d kept their distance. Everything her father had said back then had been a threat. She now realized that she and her brothers had lived in absolute fear.

  It had been Smitty’s idea that she come back to SunStar. She’d thought that it would do her good, that it would give her a chance to make peace with her father and thereby with herself. Nealy had bought in to that, and had come with the hope of finding answers and understanding; but she knew now that was never going to happen. Sometimes you couldn’t go back and heal the wounds. They were too deep.

  She saw Pyne come out onto the porch and stretch. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could salvage a relationship with her brothers.

  “Nealy! What the hell are you doing out here in the dark in the middle of the road?” he called out to her.

  “I’m just sitting here, Pyne. What does it look like I’m doing?” she called back. As he came closer, she said, “All these years, whenever I thought about this place, this is the picture that came to mind. The oaks, the white pillars, the fencing, the barns. I always wanted to plant flowers in the spring, but there was never time to do that. There was never time to do anything pleasurable.” Pyne leaned against the fence, gazing down at her. “I’ve already told you that the check for those two colts Pa bought from Blue Diamond Farms some years back bounced. So I put a lien on this farm. I’m thinking he did recognize me that day at Churchill Downs, or else Ricky Vee told him it was me.” She cocked her head and looked up at him. “What did he want from us, Pyne? Do you know?”

  “I don’t know, Nealy. I honest to God don’t know.”

  “This new family. He knew about them, yet he didn’t tell you or Rhy until a month ago. Aren’t you wondering why?”

  “There’s a long story about how Pa and his brother Seth lit out from their home and never went back. They left six other siblings behind—Sallie, Peggy, and I don’t know the rest of their names. Sallie was the oldest girl, and after she left home and made her fortune, she went back, buried their mother, and bailed out the rest of her brothers and sisters. Then she set about searching for her older brothers. She found Seth first, then Pa. I guess it made her plenty mad to find out that both of them were rich men, yet neither had gone back to help the family.”

  “If that’s true, it’s sad, Pyne. What makes a man so stingy and selfish that he would do something like that? When all is said and done, at the end of the day the only thing you can really count on is family. Maybe not in our family, but for most people that’s the way it works.” She took a deep breath and got up. “While I’m at it, I might as well tell you that Dillon Roland is Emmie’s father. I lied to Pa when I said a vagrant attacked me. I had to. Dillon said he’d blow my head off if I told anyone.” She got up and brushed herself off. “You know what’s funny? The bastard wants one of Flyby’s colts so bad he drools just thinking about it. My day is coming where he’s concerned.”

  Pyne turned to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “For God’s sake, Nealy, leave it alone. I wish to God you had never come back here.”

  Nealy pushed his hands away. “Right now I do, too. But I’m here. Tell me, what is it this new family of ours wants? Do you have any idea? They didn’t know Pa all that well, so it can’t be love.”

  “I don’t know yet. I haven’t bothered to ask. I guess we should just wait and see. It can’t hurt.”

  Nealy shrugged. “How is Pa this morning?”

  “Just like yesterday. The nurse is with him.”

  Nealy consulted her watch. “When is the lawyer coming?”

  “Nine.”

  “Good. That should give us plenty of time b
efore the Colemans and Thorntons come back.” She turned to head for her car, then remembered something she’d wanted to say, something Nick had told her last night after they’d gotten back to the hotel. “Birch told my son Nick that when his mother and Billie Coleman visited here they thought there was something out of whack with the pictures in the family album. Now that I think about it, we don’t bear any resemblance to this new family of ours. We don’t look like Pa either. I don’t know if we look like Ma because I’ve never seen a picture of her. Have you?” When he shook his head, she asked, “Don’t you find that strange?”

  “I never thought about it.”

  “Well, I’m thinking about it, and I’m thinking I might have stumbled across the reason Pa hates us.”

  Pyne looked at her as if she had a screw loose. “Which is?”

  “That maybe we aren’t his children. Where are the family records? I want to see them along with the books.”

  Pyne threw his hands in the air. “God, Nealy, why are you doing this?”

  She answered quickly. “Because I need to understand. Only then can I get rid of this baggage I’ve been carrying around all these years. Last night I told Pa I would make it all go away if he would just tell me why he hated me. He wouldn’t say a word. I find that very suspicious. Don’t you want to know where all this hatred came from? More to the point, don’t you care?”

  Pyne’s shoulders slumped. “Don’t, Nealy. Leave it alone.”

  “Damn you, I can’t. Why don’t you understand that? Do you know what I think, Pyne? I think the moment that old man was taken upstairs after his stroke, you went through all his stuff, and you know the truth.”

  18

  Nealy closed the brown accordion-pleated envelope. She had called Nick at the hotel and told him to rent a second car. They were on their way. Her fingers worked the dark string to tie it into a perfect little bow. When she finished, she started to shake as panic coursed through her body. She reached out to the corner of the desk to hold on to it when her head started to spin. Focus, her mind shrieked. Focus on the calendar. Focus on the numbers. Take deep breaths. Long, deep breaths. It’s not the end of the world. Yet. Focus. Don’t look at the folder. Deep breaths, Nealy, long, deep breaths. Twice she struggled to get out of her father’s chair. Twice she fell back into the worn padding. She wished she could go to sleep and never wake up.

  “What are you going to do, Nealy?” Pyne whispered.

  “I honest to God don’t know. Would you have ever told me? Were you going to tell Rhy? If you had destroyed this folder, no one would ever have known. I guess you thought Pa might get better and come down here again. Say something to me, Pyne. I need to hear you say something to me.”

  “What do you want me to say? I wouldn’t have told either of you. What’s the point at this juncture? More wounds? We can start clean when he passes on. You wanted answers. They’re all there. And, yes, you’re right, I didn’t destroy the folder for the reason you stated. Pa asked me at least fifty times to bring that folder upstairs. I kept saying I couldn’t find it. He did hide it pretty good, but I was determined. Before you can ask, I’ve only known for a few weeks. Now you know why I invited his family here. What are you going to do, Nealy?”

  “I’m going to take my kids and go back to Kentucky. I can’t think right now. Maybe not knowing was better than knowing. Go get Rhy. Now, Pyne. We’ll give him the short version and go on from there. Are you going to tell them?”

  “Are you crazy, Nealy? Of course not.” He opened the door and bellowed to his brother in the kitchen.

  “What now?” Rhy asked as he burst into the office.

  Nealy gave him the short version of the contents of the brown folder. She waited for his reaction. “Well that certainly explains a lot of things,” was his only comment.

  Nealy picked up the folder with both hands just as Emmie, who had just arrived, poked her head into the room. “We’ll be leaving as soon as I . . . tell Pa good-bye. Do you want to wait here for me?”

  I’ll say good-bye, too, Emmie signed.

  “Where’s the lawyer, Pyne?”

  “In the dining room. He’s waiting for us.”

  Nealy made an unladylike sound as she turned her back on her brothers. “Where’s Nick?”

  He’s coming. He wanted to walk around a bit first, Emmie signed.

  Nealy looked at her watch. Ten minutes past nine. She marched up the back staircase, her back ramrod stiff, the brown folder clutched tightly in both her hands. Emmie followed her.

  In her father’s room, Nealy looked at the nurse. “Go downstairs and have some coffee. I’ll call you if you’re needed.” She raised her index finger at her father to show him he wasn’t to object. He was propped up in bed with a mound of pillows behind him. As she advanced into the room, he noticed the brown folder. Nealy swore later that he shriveled to nothing right in front of her eyes.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Emmie’s agitation, saw her face contort in horror as her hands flew up to her face the moment she had a clear view of her grandfather. “Go with Nick, Emmie,” she said. “It’s okay for me to be here by myself. I appreciate you wanting to be with me, but it isn’t necessary. Tell Nick I’ll be down shortly, and then we’ll be leaving for Kentucky.” Her daughter was frozen in place, her mouth half-open, her hands clawlike as she reached out. “My God, Emmie, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Maaaamaaaa.”

  Nealy caught her daughter as she swayed backward. Emmie’s first word in thirty-two years! “Pyne!” she shrilled. “Rhy! Come up here! Help me. Something’s wrong with Emmie. Call the nurse. She took one look at Pa and let out a bloodcurdling sound. She called me Mama. God, Emmie, what’s wrong? Use your fingers, tell me what’s wrong.”

  Emmie used her hands and feet to scramble backward and out the door, where she collapsed again in the hallway. “What is it, Emmie? My God, tell me, what’s wrong?”

  Nealy watched her daughter’s fingers move as her face turned ashen. Strangled sounds came from her lips. “No, no, don’t tell me that! Emmie, you were so little. How can you remember? Yes, yes. God, no. Please God, no.”

  “Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on here?” Pyne shouted.

  Nealy gritted her teeth as the nurse checked her daughter. “She’s had a fright of some sort. She’s fine, ma’am. I’ll take her downstairs and outside.”

  “Ma, what’s wrong? What happened to Emmie?”

  “Emmie said her first word. Go with the nurse, Nick. Stay with her but keep her outside. She spoke. My God, she finally spoke. I’ll be down in a minute. My God, I can’t think. This can’t be happening.” Nealy clapped both hands to the sides of her head. “This is a bad dream. I’m going to wake up any minute. Oh God, oh God!”

  “Nealy, for God’s sake, what happened?” Pyne continued to shout, oblivious to the old man propped up in the bed in front of him.

  “I’ll tell you what happened,” Nealy said the moment the door closed behind the nurse. “Emmie said Pa tried to choke her when she was little. She said she was crying, and he grabbed her around the throat and told her if she ever made another sound, he’d kill us both. That’s what happened just now. She saw him, and she remembered. She called my name. She said it out loud. Out loud, Pyne. It’s the first word I’ve ever heard her say. She called my name.”

  “Stop being so damn melodramatic, Nealy. Pa would never do anything like that,” Rhy said, but he sounded as if he didn’t believe his own words. He stared at her, his mouth slack, his body shaking like his sister’s.

  “I took Emmie to every specialist I could find. They told me there was no medical reason why she didn’t speak. Every single specialist said she had undergone some kind of trauma. For years I blamed myself. God Almighty, I never, ever thought of anything like this. It explains everything. Yesterday she wanted to know if I was certain Pa was going to die. She kept pressing me for confirmation. All those years of fear, and I didn’t know. What does that say for me?”
>
  “I’ll never believe that of Pa,” Pyne said feebly. “Emmie wasn’t prepared to see Pa looking like that. Don’t forget he was a lot younger when you left here.”

  “Why don’t we ask him? Point-blank, Pyne,” Nealy said. “Don’t let that nurse up here unless you want the whole world to know about this.”

  The moment the nurse’s feet hit the last step of the stairway, Nealy opened the door to her father’s room. Her brothers followed her into the room. The man she’d thought of as her father all these years looked even more shriveled than he had minutes ago. “I guess you heard, Pa. These two fine upstanding brothers of mine find it hard to believe you would try to strangle my daughter. I imagine you thought you were safe because Emmie was too young to talk. On top of all that you had the gall to turn around and call my daughter a half-wit and these two fine upstanding brothers of mine agreed with you. If you weren’t already dying, I’d choke the life out of you with my bare hands for what you put that child through. I’m not done with you yet either, you miserable excuse for a human being. We know everything. It’s all here in this folder. Every stinking, lousy detail. You aren’t our father. Seth Coleman was our father. You met up with him way back when and made a pact with that damn devil. He made a bargain with you. You took us off his hands for money. He gave you a handsome stake, and in return you took his woman and us three kids so his upright, sanctimonious family never found out he’d been having an affair for years with another woman. And all you had to do in return was feed us, put a roof over our heads, and work us to death. Then when you died, all you had worked for all your life, excuse me, what my brothers and I worked for, would revert to the Texas Colemans, your brother’s real family. You agreed to all that and promised to keep your mouth shut and never tell anyone. We were trailer-park trash according to your brother. Not fit to mingle with his legitimate family. We were good enough for you, though, weren’t we? Did you work our mother to the bone the way you worked us?”