The Barons of Texas: Tess

by Fayrene Preston

  “So will my gold, though of course not for years. But I’m not doing this for the money. Even though my family has proof that we legally own that gold, the State of Texas will still get its slice, the backers will get their slices, and I’ll donate most of the antiquities to the university.” He shrugged. “Then, after the Internal Revenue Service takes its bite, there’ll be something left over for my grandparents, if they’re still alive. If not, it will be divided between Kathie and me. But the money isn’t the point and never has been.”

  He released the swing’s chain and squatted in front of her, his forearms resting on his thighs, his hands clasped, two fingers held together in a point. “Look, Tess, I’m not saying my problems are more important than your problems. I’m just saying that I’ve got a time crunch. And right now will be my only chance.”

  “Why? As you said about my oil, your treasure isn’t going anywhere. What happens at my well may disturb your treasure, but you’ll still know its general area.”

  “Now is when I have to act. After years of trying to make it happen, now is when everything has come together. I have my backers lined up, and believe me, getting backers for such a speculative venture was not easy. I’ve also got the people lined up who will be working with me to harvest the gold, along with the machinery. But if my backers get a whiff of any delay or difficulty, they may very well withdraw their money. Then I’d have to start all over again from the beginning, and that could take years.”

  “Your backers don’t know about my drilling site?”

  He shook his head. “And, if possible, I’ve got to keep it that way. I can’t afford for them to start getting nervous. It took me years to get some of these people to commit, and at that time I knew nothing about your plans. So now what I’m doing is lying to them by omission. And as you pointed out last night, a lie of omission is still a lie. You may not believe it, but I rarely lie. I don’t feel exactly great about keeping my backers in the dark, but that’s how desperate I am to keep them committed to my project. And that’s how immediate my need is. You’ve got to stop drilling now, Tess. Because if you continue drilling, and if something happens to send the Águila over that salt ridge, it will be buried so deeply, it may very well be lost for all time, or at least for my generation.”

  Once again, that now familiar pressure band was beginning to squeeze her head. There was really nothing she could say to Nick. He could never understand what she was up against or how every day was a struggle for her. Nor would he understand how and why her every waking minute was spent trying to fulfill her deceased father’s goals for her, and there was no reason he should. There was also no reason she should try to make him understand. Soon he would be gone from her life.

  The phone rang in the house. Nick took off at a slow jog to answer it. With a sigh, she stood and rubbed her temples, then remembered she’d forgotten to call Ron.

  Nick met her at the back door. “It’s for you. He said to tell you it’s Des.”

  Des? Oh, God. Uncle William. She raced to the phone. “Des? What’s wrong? Is it Uncle William?”

  “No,” he answered, his voice deep and even. “He’s fine. I’m calling about you.”

  “Me?” she asked, astonished. It was a rare day when Des called her. “What about me?”

  “Your disappearance. Tell me right now—are you in trouble? Are you being held against your will?”

  She glanced at Nick, who was listening intently. “No.”

  “Okay, good. What happened was this. Ron didn’t sleep at your house last night, but when he showed up for work this morning, he found your message on the machine. It said you needed help and to please call you back as soon as possible. But you didn’t leave him a number.”

  “I didn’t?” She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. Had she forgotten to give Ron the number because she’d been so agitated? Or was the reason more basic? A Freudian slip? “I can’t believe I did that. But there’s always my cell phone.”

  “Which he found on your bed, when he searched the house.”

  “Right.” She remembered tossing it there right before she walked out the door. Damn.

  “So Ron questioned the staff, and they all said you had left last night on a date and hadn’t returned. Ron became alarmed, and rightly so. So he called me.”

  “I see. But how on earth were you able to track me down?”

  “I had a little luck on my side. First of all, Guadalupe described your date, and from the description, Ron was able to identify him as Nick Trejo. Still, if Trejo had stayed in town, I probably wouldn’t have been able to track you down. Same thing if he’d chosen to drive you to Uvalde. But because he chose to fly, it was a little easier. I called the airport and made inquiries until I found someone who had recognized you getting on a private plane. Then all I had to do was track down the flight plan and call Uvalde information.”

  “You went to a lot of trouble, Des. I’m sorry.”

  “If you had left a number for Ron and he had called you back last night, what help would you have asked him for?”

  “I would have asked him to charter a plane and come and get me.”

  “Did you know when you left the house yesterday evening that you were going to Uvalde and wouldn’t be home last night?”

  She glanced at Nick, who was regarding her solemnly. “No, I didn’t. It was a…surprise.”

  “And obviously not a welcome one, since you wanted to leave so badly.”

  “Right.”

  “In other words, you were kidnapped.”

  “You could say that, yes, but—”

  “I’ll come get you. Give me the address where you are.”

  She hesitated. If she’d tried, she couldn’t have planned a better way to trick Des into spending time with her. He was actually offering to come to her rescue. If she agreed, it would give her at least a couple of hours alone with him, which was exactly what she’d yearned for the night before last. But today… “That won’t be necessary, Des. I’m staying until this afternoon to meet Nick’s grandparents.”

  “Of your own free will?”

  “Yes. And afterward, Nick will fly me home.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come get you now?”

  She closed her eyes, having a hard time believing she was going to turn him down. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “And if he decides to keep you there another night?”

  Her eyes opened and she looked at Nick. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “He won’t, but if he tries, I’ll call you. Wait a minute. Give me the number where you are.” She pantomimed a pencil and paper to Nick, and he quickly produced them. “Okay, Des, what’s the number?” She wrote it down. “Thanks. I promise I’ll call if I need you.”

  “Just to be safe, call me this evening when you get home.”

  She was nearly stunned into speechlessness. He sounded as if he cared about her. Not romantically, but in a way that made it seem as if she mattered to him. “Are you sure? I mean, Ron could contact you again if I don’t get home. And if you don’t hear from him, then you’ll know I’m home. That would be less trouble for you.”

  “I don’t mind this kind of trouble. If you’re in trouble, Tess, never hesitate to call. You’re family.”

  For a moment she thought she’d misunderstood him. He’d never said anything remotely like that before. More often than not, Des seemed to go to great lengths to avoid her and her sisters. “Thank you. I appreciate this more than I can say.”

  “No problem. Talk to you this evening.”

  “Right.” She hung up.

  “Who is this Des, and why does he think you need rescuing?”

  She turned to face Nick. “Oh, I don’t know, Nick. Probably because I did need rescuing.”

  “Did?”

  “Last night. If you’ll remember, I did want to leave.”

  “You were never in danger.”

  No, she reflected. Not the type of physical danger he meant. “There’s no point in argu
ing about it now. I’ll be home by this evening.”

  “You didn’t answer part of my question. Who is Des?”

  “He’s the son of my aunt May from her first marriage. When she and my father’s brother, Uncle William, married, Uncle William adopted Des. Uncle William and Aunt May never had any other children.”

  “So the night of your birthday party, why were your two sisters so anxious for him to be there?”

  “Just a game we play.”

  “A game?”

  She shook her head. “It’s complicated.”

  “And you don’t think I’m smart enough to grasp the complexities?”

  “Let’s just drop it, okay? I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay.” He studied her. “Is Des satisfied now that you’re in no danger?”

  “You heard me tell him that you would fly me home this evening.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “And do you believe that I will?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  “I’ll call Des, and he’ll come get me.”

  “And what if I ask you to stay?”

  She paused for a moment to insure that her tone of voice was as casual as she could manage. She wanted him to believe she saw his question as involving his grandfather or the Águila. She didn’t want him to bring up the personal or know that her mind had gone straight to the image of him holding her against the wall, with her legs wrapped around him, wanting him with every molecule of her being. “Why would you do that? I’ve agreed to stay and meet your grandparents. After that, you will have accomplished what you set out to do by bringing me here.”

  A volatile silence filled the room; she had the feeling that if she lit a match, the whole place would explode into flames.

  Finally he spoke. “So that’s the way you want to play it? As if, last night, nothing at all unusual happened between us?”

  She clasped her suddenly shaking hands together and looked down at them. “I think that’s best. I mean, it happened, but it was a product of the night and the place.”

  “That’s pure bull and you know it.”

  “Then let me put it this way. There’s nothing that could come from it. You want something I can’t give you, Nick. That’s the beginning, middle and end of our relationship. The fact that I can’t agree to what you want will taint anything else.”

  “Damn it, Tess. Last night, right here in this kitchen, I told you I wanted you. And then later—”

  “Later we almost made a terrible mistake. I stopped it because there is no future for you and me.”

  “And there’s no trust, right?”

  She looked at him. “Trust?”

  “Let’s put the cards on the table. If we made love, you would think I was trying to seduce you into doing what I want. And me? Maybe I’d think you were trying to get my focus off the Águila, to make me want you so badly that I’d forget any and everything but you.”

  She felt herself pale. The first part was true. She had thought that. As for the second part—there was no way she could ever believe that, by having sex with him, she could make him forget anything.

  “But,” he said, his voice soft, “knowing all that doesn’t make the wanting go away, does it, Tess?”

  No, damn it, it didn’t. She felt as if she was frantically juggling, trying to keep all her various balls in the air—the tenuous hold she had on her emotions when it came to Nick, her work and its time crunch, not to mention her future, her rivalry with her sisters, Des and, strangely enough, the compassion she felt for Nick’s grandfather. And she was convinced that if she let just one ball drop, they would all drop, and she would lose everything.

  Waiting for her in Corpus was a long list of things that only she could make decisions on. The well being drilled in the Gulf of Mexico, while vitally important to her, was by no means her only concern. The rest of her business continued. Her piece of the Baron pie, while being only one-sixth, was enormous, which, in turn, brought enormous responsibilities.

  More immediate was the upcoming visit with Nick’s grandparents. She didn’t think for a minute that it would be easy.

  And Des. He had called her out of the blue, worried about her, offering to rescue her like a knight on a white horse. It would have been a perfect opportunity for her to blindside her sisters and attempt to get him to look at her not just as family but as a desirable woman. But she’d let it pass. Even more bizarre was the fact that she didn’t even want to think about why she’d turned him down. Not now, at any rate.

  She was much too busy trying to keep some sort of emotional balance with Nick. But later, she told herself, she would think about her reason. Later, when she got home and felt on safer ground, she would think about it. Later…

  And last, but certainly not least, she had Nick telling her he wanted her, then laying out the reasons they both knew should keep them from making love. But as he’d said, the reasons didn’t make the wanting go away.

  At the moment, it was just one ball too many for her. “I need to get back to Corpus Christi this evening, Nick. And if you won’t take me, I’ll find another way.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll take you.”

  Six

  Frail arms warmly enfolded Tess in a hug; then Nick’s grandmother stepped back and beamed at her. “How lovely to meet you, my dear.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Trejo. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

  “Oh, please, call me Alma. We don’t stand on formalities around here.”

  “Alma, then.”

  Alma was a tiny lady, wearing navy polyester pants with a neatly ironed pink flowered blouse. Her gray hair was cut short in a soft, flattering style, and her skin had its share of wrinkles, both from age and, Tess guessed, the Texas sun. Alma’s wedding picture flashed into Tess’s head. It had shown a pretty but shy young woman, shining with happiness and hope. Today Alma no longer seemed shy, but the happiness was still with her, along with the hope.

  Amazing, she reflected. Alma had suffered a hard life and had known the pain of losing a son. Now she had to cope with the knowledge that her husband might not be with her much longer. In addition, she had health problems herself. Yet she hadn’t lost the capability of feeling happiness and hope.

  Remarkable.

  Alma’s brown eyes sparkled with pleasure. “Now come over here and meet Ben. He’s been waiting all day for this.”

  “Damn right,” a breathy voice said. “Come over here, Tess, and let me get a look at you.”

  She followed the voice to a hospital bed set up in an alcove where a big bay window offered a view of flowers, trees and a sky so blue it looked as if it had been painted. On the window ledge there was a picture. In the center of it, Nick’s grandfather was sitting in a chair. Nick and Alma stood on one side of him, Kathie and her husband on the other, and two little girls sat on the grass at their great-grandfather’s feet. Another important picture to add to the legacy of their family.

  “Mr. Trejo?” She held out her hand to the wizened old man, who was breathing with the aid of oxygen.

  He shook her hand with surprising strength. “Ben. Name’s Ben. Nick, pull her up a chair so I can talk to this pretty young lady.”

  Without a word, Nick did as his grandfather asked and motioned to Tess to sit down.

  “I’ll be right back with some iced tea for all of us,” Alma said, still beaming.

  Tess started to say she didn’t want anything, but Alma had already disappeared. She returned her attention to Ben. “How are you feeling? I understand you had something of a bad spell this morning.”

  Ben waved a dismissive hand. “It was nothin’. No matter what the doc says, I’m not ready to go yet.”

  “That’s good to hear.” She’d started off with pleasantries, but from here on out, she decided, it would be best to let him lead the conversation.

  “Nick, come rearrange my pillows so I can sit up straighter.”

  “You’re at the angle your do
ctor wants you to be, Grandpa.”

  “Damn it, Nick.” Ben looked at Tess. “You know you’re old when your pup of a grandson won’t do what you say.”

  Nick grinned. “Your pup of a grandson is only trying to keep you alive for as long as possible.”

  Ben made a disgruntled sound. “Go off someplace and leave us alone. Tess, you and I need to have a nice long visit.”

  She smiled. It was easy to envision this old man whose life was drawing to an end as a virile, vital young man. She only had to look at Nick to see the likeness. “I’d like that.”

  For the very first time she was happy she’d given in to Nick and stayed long enough to meet Alma and Ben. She saw now that Nick hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said they wanted to meet her. There was no doubt they would have been very disappointed if she hadn’t come. But she also had the odd feeling that somehow her life would have been diminished if she’d missed meeting them. Funny thing to feel, but true.

  Despite his grandfather’s order to leave, Nick, she noticed, had drawn up a chair at the other side of the bed and settled into it.

  Ben’s fingers absently moved on the sheet. His hands and arms were dry and wrinkled. At the bend of his elbow were purple and yellow bruises, probably from myriad needle pricks. “Nick’s told you about his find, hasn’t he?”

  “If you mean that he’s found your father’s gold, yes, he has.”

  Tears moistened Ben’s milky eyes. “I never thought it would happen. In fact, I didn’t think it was possible.” Silently Nick rose and handed his grandfather his handkerchief, but the old man didn’t bother to use it. “I can’t tell you how much I wish Papa was alive today. It would mean the world to him.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it would.” She tried to keep her response as neutral as possible and avoided looking at Nick. Nevertheless, she could feel his gaze trained on her, and she sensed he was ready to pounce if she said anything to upset Ben.