Signed and Sealed

by Stretke, B. A.

  He changed into his pajamas and reluctantly crawled into bed, tension gripping him as he lay there, thinking. Usually once a decision was made, life got easier and clearer; it was indecision that caused all the havoc, but that wasn’t happening. He had made the decision to leave and yet he still ached with confusion. He was finally on the verge of dozing off when someone started to knock urgently at his door. It wasn’t Elijah’s usual one hard knock followed by him entering. This person was persistent in their knocking, but was not bold enough to enter without permission. Will got out of bed and put on a cotton robe before going to the door and slowly opening it.

  “May I speak with you, William?” It was Martin, and he looked very serious. His mouth, which was usually full with laughter, was compressed into a hard line. His eyes, usually bright and snapping, were clouded and dark. Will stepped back and allowed him to enter. He closed the door behind him. “I just saw Elijah,” he began. Will took a seat at the small desk, and Martin sat down on the edge of the bed. They were facing each other, but were several feet apart. “He’s very upset.”

  “What does that have to do with me?” he asked, confused by Martin’s behavior and his comments. Why does he feel the need to discuss Elijah’s moods with me? And why at this hour of the night?

  Martin laughed harshly and stood up crossing to the window and staring out. “My God, open your eyes!” Martin fired at him. “It has everything to do with you.” Will, too, stood up and met Martin eye to eye. He was sick of people questioning his intelligence. He wasn’t afraid, even though it looked as if Martin had more of his brother’s temperament than people realized.

  “When I say he is upset, that is putting it mildly,” Martin continued. He turned around and sat down on the window seat. “It’s one in the morning, and Elijah’s in the garage rebuilding the engine on the old Oliver tractor. Does that sound like a sane man to you?”

  “I don’t know?” Will was cautious in his response.

  “I’ve known my brother all of my life, and believe me when I say that his behavior over the past few days is something I’ve never experienced. I’ve never seen him so helpless and frustrated.”

  “What is this game you’re playing, Martin?” Will cut in rudely.

  “This isn’t a game, William. I admit, as far as Katrina was concerned, it was a game. He was torturing her for a purpose. He wanted her to suffer, and financial pain was the only pain that girl could feel. She is impervious to everything but money,” Martin spat out, but Will did not take offense. Martin’s observations of Katrina were correct—she valued nothing but money and the status it could buy. Will had no doubt that one day Katrina would find and marry the rich man of her dreams. She would settle for nothing less than millions, and she would probably get it someday, because she was willing to do anything for it.

  “But for you, William,” Martin persisted, “it really has never been a game. Elijah brought you here because you infuriated him on the phone. He couldn’t believe your audacity, and yet he respected you for it. He hasn’t been leading you on or pretending to be interested. Everything he said that he is feeling for you is the truth.” Martin was intent on making him understand. “Even the marriage proposal. He said it was a test, but I know for a fact that if you’d said yes he was prepared to marry you. His feelings for you are such that he doesn’t care anymore whether you were part of the blackmail or not. He wants you, William. He loves you.”

  “You’re almost as good an actor as he is,” Will stated without emotion. “If you guys are intent on espousing trust in people, you have a funny way of showing it. I’m done with the games, and I’m done with this ranch. I would appreciate it if you left now.” Will walked over to his door and opened it, waiting for him to walk through it.

  “You’re not John Gerard,” Martin said suddenly. “John is very much like Katrina. Elijah dealt with him. It was harsh, but that’s the way he is. John knew what he was getting into, and he was willing to take the risk. Elijah did what he did in order to protect what’s his.” Martin stopped at the door and looked Will hard in the eyes. “Be honest with yourself: you love him too.”

  Will did not respond. Martin quickly left the room and shut the door behind him. Will could hear his boots reverberating on the hardwood flooring in the hall. His assertions are preposterous. Elijah does not love me. He might be fooling Martin and everyone else here, but he isn’t fooling me.

  Will paced the room over and over. If he left, Eli would take his home and his property. If he stayed, Eli would probably take his home and his property. This game he is playing, he thought, is just an aside to his real intent. He wants to take my home and humiliate me. The truth boils down to simple revenge. He needed to keep his focus on that one fact, because everything else was just a smoke screen.

  Will was asleep at the small desk when the rising sun shone through his window and touched his face. His neck was stiff, and his back was sore as he stretched and stood up. Last night, leaving seemed like the only thing to do, but this morning, it looked like less of a good idea. If he stayed until tomorrow, then he would have fulfilled his part of the agreement. There was a very slim chance that Eli would release him, but a slim chance was better than none.

  His attention was drawn to the sounds in the bedroom next to him. Elijah was getting up. Will wondered what time he’d gone to bed. According to Martin he was hard at work in the garage for most of the night. He probably needs to avoid me for a while. That thought brought a new consideration and a smile to Will’s features. If Eli could avoid him, then he could avoid Eli. He could get through this entire day and not have to see or speak to him. His hopefulness was escalating; if he could manage to dodge Eli for the entire day, he could be out of here without incident by tomorrow. It wasn’t going to be easy; Eli had shown that he was willing and able to find Will whenever he wished. He’d found him at the mall, he found him when he fell asleep by the stream, and he found him when he was visiting Kathy. Eli had no difficulty locating him, but he realized that all of those times he hadn’t been trying to hide. And who knows, maybe he is just as willing to avoid me today as I am him. The game might already be over. Will was jerked from his considerations by a knock at the door. So much for him wanting to avoid me, he thought. Will hurried into the bathroom and turned on the shower before Eli had a chance to enter.

  Elijah heard the shower once he entered the room, and walking over to the bathroom door, he knocked and stated, “I’d like to speak with you when you have the time.” His words were short and blunt. Will wasn’t in the shower, so he covered his mouth with a towel in order to sound muffled and replied, “Yes, sir.”

  He listened as Eli walked away. When he heard the bedroom door close, he ventured out and looked around nervously. Will gathered his clothes, took a very quick shower, and dressed casually in jeans and a long-sleeve shirt with a T-shirt over it. He pulled his Converse shoes out of his suitcase and put them on. He would need comfortable footwear if he was going to keep ahead of Eli today. Before leaving his room, he took the little cell phone from his shirt pocket, and instead of taking it with him, he tossed it in the dresser drawer. Step one, he said to himself, no phone contact. Now step two was to get out of the house without anyone seeing him. He took his book and camera, just in case he needed to make up a story about what he was doing. Will remembered Mrs. Coleman telling him that there was an exit off the back of the house that was almost never used. He could leave that way and no one should be the wiser.

  Will decided, after several hours of reading in one of the lesser used outbuildings, to go and see Kathy and maybe get some coffee and conversation to help pass the time.

  “Where have you been?” Kathy asked, surprised to see him.

  “Why? What do you mean?” Will sat down at her kitchen table and eagerly accepted the hot cup of coffee she offered.

  “Elijah was here about a half an hour ago looking for you,” Kathy informed him.

  “Was he?” Will said as innocently as he could.

&n
bsp; “Are you hiding from him?” Kathy asked with an incredulous smile as she sat down with him at the table.

  “Well…,” Will began and then took another sip of coffee. “Yes, I guess I am.”

  “Why?” Kathy wanted to hear it all.

  “I thought that if I could just avoid him for the rest of today, I could leave here tomorrow without any regrets or humiliations to live down.” Kathy’s expression indicated that she did not understand. Will explained his growing feelings for Elijah and that he didn’t trust himself around him. “He’s a very compelling man. I enter with resolve and exit with wounds, I never win with him.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “Yes, I do.” Will gulped down his coffee, and Kathy gave him an instant refill. “It doesn’t matter, though,” he continued. “He can’t ever know it.”

  “You think that if you can avoid him today, then he will never find out how you really feel?”

  “Yes, that is exactly what I think.” Will was not going to back down. Kathy did not know what was really going on here. “I heard Elijah and Martin discussing me yesterday. Elijah said he was going to make the announcement regardless of how I feel. He knows I’m not falling for the act, so he’s going to try and humiliate me any way that he can. He has told numerous people that we’re getting married. His only purpose in doing that is when he calls it all off, I will look like the poor wretch who was left stranded at the altar. Embarrassment, humiliation, and revenge—that is all he is interested in.”

  “I heard about the wedding,” Kathy asserted. “I also heard about the date, the dinner, the suit, the bracelet, the piano, the picnic lunch, and the way he defended you to the Gerards. He wouldn’t be doing all of those things for you if his only intent was to break you.” Kathy still believed that Elijah’s interest in him was sincere.

  Will tried to make her understand, but it was impossible. He finally gave up. He finished the last of his coffee and stood up, placing his cup in the sink.

  “Talk to him, Will. Ask him for the truth. He will give it to you,” Kathy urged as Will was leaving. Poor Will is so fearful of doing the wrong thing, of making a mistake, that he is willing to do nothing and throw it all away. Kathy wished she could shake some sense into that boy, but perhaps Elijah would do it for her. He was not a patient man by nature, and this man had pushed him about as far as any man could be pushed. Kathy was quite certain that Will would not remain hidden, and he would not escape as unscathed as he had hoped.

  Chapter Ten

  Shortly after Will left, Jim Graham came home for lunch.

  “How was your morning?” Kathy asked, as she did every day.

  “Miserable,” Jim shot back. “I can only hope that Elijah finds William soon.” He sat down and began eating. Kathy joined him.

  “Is Elijah really that upset?” she asked.

  “Upset?” He laughed. “He’s furious, and he’s taking it out on everyone.” He paused to butter his bread and sip his tea. “It all started this morning,” he began. “Elijah had adjusted his schedule so that he was back in the main house by seven o’clock. He does this so that he can have breakfast with William. Well, he wasn’t there this morning. Mrs. Coleman hasn’t seen him, no one has seen him, and he’s not answering his phone.” Jim set his teacup down, exasperated. “Elijah has been everywhere looking for him. The more he looks, the darker his mood becomes. I hope he finds him soon.”

  “Will was here, Jim,” Kathy confessed. “Just after Elijah had come and gone. He left about twenty minutes ago.”

  “Does he have any idea what he is doing to that man?” Jim demanded.

  “Not a clue.”

  Will managed to dodge lunch and snuck back to his room through the back door without anyone seeing him. He sat down at the small desk and decided to give Katrina a call, just to see what her plans were and to inform her that he, too, would be on his way home tomorrow. Will glanced out the window and saw Elijah, and his heart skipped a beat. He stood and stared at him, wishing that things had been different, wishing that things had been real. Eli was yelling at a group of men. He was obviously taking his anger out on them. I’m not around to pick on, so he has to have a release somewhere. But then, as he thought about it, he slowly realized Eli never really picked on him and really didn’t treat him all that badly. He wondered for a moment if he was making the right decision or the biggest mistake of his life. Suddenly, he heard the faint ringing of his phone from the drawer. He looked back at Eli from the window, and Eli looked furious. He held the small phone to his ear and ran an agitated hand through his hair. Will took the phone from the drawer and answered it.

  “Hello,” he said timidly.

  “My God, William!” he roared. “Where the hell are you?” The silence went on too long. “Tell me where you are, and I will come get you,” he demanded. Still silence.

  Will didn’t know what to say.

  “Are you okay?” Eli asked, concern washing over him in a wave. “Are you injured?”

  “I’m fine,” Will said at last. “I’m not injured. I just need some time to think. I need to be alone for a while.” A tightness formed in his throat as now he listened to the silence. “I’ll talk to you later,” he added.

  “Are you on the ranch?” Eli asked.

  “Yes, I haven’t left.” Will thought he heard a sigh of relief from Eli’s end. “I need to think,” he reiterated.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Promise that you’ll remember one thing,” he began.

  “What?” He asked expecting Eli to say something about his agreement and the fact that he had a huge financial hold over him, but he didn’t.

  “I love you.” That was all Eli said, and he didn’t wait for Will to respond. Will heard the phone click and the line went dead. He was still holding it to his ear and looking out the window at Elijah as he walked away toward the stable. He looked calmer, but sad, or was Will just seeing things?

  Will tried Katrina at the old family home in East Lansing, but she wasn’t there. The housekeeper told him that Katrina had left on a long weekend with a friend. She didn’t know who the friend was, and she didn’t know where Katrina was headed, but she did know that Katrina wasn’t expected back until Tuesday of next week. Will thanked the woman and hung up. Katrina was no longer a part of this equation, it was between him and Elijah now, and no one else. He needed to talk to someone who knew the truth, someone who would be willing to share what they knew. The name Adam Gerard came to him at that moment. He didn’t trust John and his interpretation of events, but maybe John’s father could shed some light on the facts surrounding John’s run-in with Elijah Hunter.

  Will found the business card that John had given him that first day; there was a phone number on it, and he hoped it would get him in touch with Adam and not John. He listened as the phone rang and waited apprehensively for someone to answer.

  “Gerard Ranch, how can I help you?” It was a woman’s voice. He hadn’t considered there might be a Mrs. Gerard, but apparently there was.

  “This is William Drake,” he began and sensed the sudden tension and reserve from the woman. “I was hoping that I might be allowed to speak with Adam Gerard, please?” He waited as the woman sorted out the request.

  “He’s out at the moment; he should be back in about an hour.” She lightened a little. “If you give me your number, I will ask him to call you.”

  “Thank you.” Will gave her the number. After she hung up, Will wondered if Adam would take it seriously enough to call or would he fear making matters worse and simply call Elijah instead? Will sat, reading his book, waiting and hoping for Adam’s call. When the phone finally rang, he jumped at it as if it were on fire.

  “Adam Gerard here, what can I do for you?” He sounded guarded.

  “I was wondering if we could talk?” Will began.

  “What about, William?” Adam was still very distant and careful. Will needed to speak with him in person. He needed to look him in the eye and ask his questions, but first he neede
d for Adam to relax.

  “I don’t mean you any trouble, sir. I just need to ask you some questions. It’s personal,” he finished.

  Something in Will’s tone struck a chord with him, and he let down his guard. He was a decent guy. Adam knew that.

  “I can meet with you right now,” he said. “Come over and we’ll talk.” He sensed Will’s hesitation so he added, “John isn’t here. He won’t be back ’til tomorrow.”

  “I’ll see you shortly, then,” Will agreed. Now all that remained was to leave the ranch undetected. As he was speaking with Adam, he watched Elijah and four other men ride out on horseback. He would probably be gone for a while, so that took care of that problem, but he still had to escape Mrs. Coleman’s watchful eye. He would have to take his rental car this time. The Gerard ranch was a fair distance away, so walking was not an option. How do I drive away without being noticed? He thought on this for several minutes before simply deciding to go for it. Just leave and deal with anyone who would try and stop me. Make it one fluid motion, he coached himself. Out the front door, to the car, and out the front gate; it turned out to be easier than expected. If anyone saw him, they didn’t try to stop or talk. He was exiting the outer gate when apprehension struck him. What if talking to Adam causes more questions than answers? What if he deepens my fear instead of appeasing it? And the big question was, just what did Will want him to say? Did he want his theories proven to be right, or did he want something else? His head was warning him to be careful, while his heart was insisting that he risk it all.