I came hard and silent, rolling away from her when it was over. I was careful with the condom, sliding it off and taking it into the bathroom, flushing it down the commode. When I walked back into the bedroom, she was on her side, pillows tucked under her body. She smiled sleepily at me.
“Stay the night.”
I shook my head. “I’ve got to be at work in a couple of hours. Wouldn’t want to wake you.”
It was a lie. My case had ended last night with the cops finally doing their job and running off the protestors at the abortion doc’s office, thank goodness. I wasn’t sure I could take more of that woman’s condescending attitude. She’d actually instructed me to pick up her dry cleaning like I was some sort of hired hand instead of the security operative she was paying a pretty penny to keep her safe.
I pulled on my jeans and slipped into my shoes, leaning over her to kiss her temple. She didn’t seem too put off by my refusal to stay. But, again, she seemed like the kind of girl who was used to this.
I snagged my t-shirt on the way out the door. As I was climbing into the SUV my cell rang again.
“Yeah?” I barked into it.
“Mr. Porter? Ingram Porter?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“My name is William Korman. I’m Laurence Greer’s lawyer.”
“It’s a little late in the day for business, isn’t it, Mr. Korman?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Porter, but you’ve proven to be a difficult man to get ahold of.”
“What’s this about?”
There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry to have to inform you that Mr. Greer passed away several days ago.”
I paused, my hand on the ignition of the SUV.
“But I just saw him on Monday.”
“He passed on Tuesday.”
I shook my head, as if the guy could see me. “That’s not possible.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Porter. I understand this is difficult news.” Another slight pause. “Mr. Greer left a letter addressed to you along with several bequeathals in his will. There will be a reading of the will on Monday.”
“When’s the funeral?”
“Tomorrow morning. But it’s a private ceremony.”
I pulled out of the driveway, ending the call as I did. I couldn’t believe Laurence was dead. It just didn’t seem possible.
The first time I met him, Bailey and I had been seeing each other for about four months. We were in port on leave. We had forty-eight hours. I’d wanted to get a hotel room and stay put, but she made arrangements to fly to Houston so that I could meet her father. She kept telling me on the flight how important it was to her that we get along, how important it was that I liked him. It made me a little nervous about the whole thing.
I was in the den—alone because Bailey had gone off with her mother for some girl talk—a drink in my hand. I was indulging my curiosity, looking at the array of framed photos all around the room, when he walked up behind me.
“So, you’re the ensign who stole my daughter’s heart.”
I turned, my heart in my throat. He was slightly taller than I was and younger looking than I’d expected. But I could see Bailey in the color of his eyes and the shape of his face. She was there in his smile, too.
“I knew it was a big deal when she said she was bringing you home to meet us.”
“Is that unusual?”
“She’s never brought a man home to meet us. So, yeah, that’s unusual.”
“Then I’m honored.”
“You should be.” He shook my hand, that smile widening. “Tell me about you. Where are you from?”
I never liked talking about myself, but there was something about this tone that made it slightly less intimidating.
“I was born and raised in Los Angeles.”
“Your family still there?”
“No family. Just a group home and a couple of foster homes where they were probably happy to see me move on.”
Instead of looking at me with pity like most people would do, or growing uncomfortable because of the subject matter, Laurence only seemed slightly curious.
“No family at all?”
“No. They handed me two hundred dollars and sent me off on my own on my eighteenth birthday.”
“So you joined the Navy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sounds like a reasonable choice to me.”
That was the moment when I knew that Laurence would accept me as part of his family should things progress with Bailey. I didn’t have to wait until he started talking about the hunting business he wanted me to go into with him or the house he’d be happy to buy for Bailey and me when we married. It was as if he accepted me as part of the family the moment he walked into that room.
I should have been grateful. Instead, I sort of panicked. I pulled away from Bailey when we went back to the ship. There wasn’t a lot she could do about it on ship because she was my superior therefore our relationship was against regulations. But the first time we were off ship and in civilian clothes, she tore me a new asshole for acting like a fool.
“Just because you had a shitty childhood doesn’t mean that you have a right to treat me like shit. I love you and I won’t sit back and let you destroy this thing just because you’re scared.”
It was the first time she’d said she loved me.
The second time she took me home was when Laurence started talking about bringing me in on the hunting business. Just like that, I was a part of the family.
Now he was gone and all I could think about was the hole he was leaving behind.
Chapter 3
Bailey
I held fast to my mother’s hand, listening as the non-denominational minister finished a quick prayer over the casket that held my father’s body. It was all surreal. My father was a healthy man—healthier than most men his age. He should have lived another twenty years. He should have walked me down the aisle and been there when each of my children were born. But he was gone now. Dead before his time.
I hadn’t cried yet. It didn’t seem normal, but I hadn’t been able to think of anything but the stuff that had to be done. The funeral had to be planned and the suit he’d wear chosen. I had to cancel the tourists who were scheduled to come out this weekend and decide what to do about the ones due out next week. There was a hurricane headed this direction, so Dad had already begun rearranging parties for the next few weeks, anyway. It was kind of convenient, actually. But now…I wasn’t even sure I wanted to continue on with the business.
Mom would need money to survive for the rest of her life. I knew my father had several life insurance policies, so I assumed he’d taken care of her. But the business would supplement that. But was that really a good enough reason to go on with it? Could I handle it on my own? Did I want to handle it on my own?
Why was I worrying about it now?
My mind kept going to all these odd places. I was with the funeral director and I couldn’t stop thinking about a stain he had in the center of his tie. It just seemed wrong for him to be planning my father’s funeral with me and to have a stain in the middle of his tie.
And now, we were sitting here in the middle of the cemetery, these people I’d known all my life crying and sobbing over my dad’s death, and I couldn’t cry. Even my mom was standing here, sobbing. But I couldn’t cry because my head was so filled with all these odd thoughts.
The ceremony slowly came to an end. We should have had the funeral in a proper church, but my dad was never religious and he wouldn’t have wanted that. I had to fight my mother on that point despite the fact that I agreed with her. But he wouldn’t have. He would have wanted me to stick up for him.
It was time to drop roses on the casket. I got up and turned to help my mom. I saw him then, standing off to one side, a pair of dark glasses hiding his eyes. I would have known him anywhere—dark hair, longer now than it’d been when we first met, and curly in a way it hadn’t been before. But the curve of his jaw was the s
ame, and there was the way his cheekbones made his jaw look narrower than it was. And his broad shoulders. He was bigger. I’d heard that he’d discovered weight lifting in the brig, but my source was one I didn’t completely trust, so I wasn’t sure. But it was obvious now. And it looked good on him. Really good.
Ingram Porter.
I haven’t seen him since his court martial more than five years ago.
He took off the sunglasses as people began approaching the casket. His eyes were blue and fringed with long, dark lashes. I’d always loved staring into those eyes. They seemed like open books when I first met him, but the more I got to know him, the more I realized that they hid a lot of secrets. One of those secrets was a violent temper.
I turned back to my mother, holding her arm as she made her way to the casket. We lay our roses on the casket and stopped to speak to the funeral director. By the time I turned around again, Ingram was gone.
Had he ever really been there?
“Why can’t I have the accident report now?”
I was standing in the middle of the small Galveston Police Department’s headquarters, looking at the cop who had come to the house to let us know my father was dead. I would never forget him. He was tall and skinny, awkward in a cute sort of way. But he also seemed much too young to be the one to take my world and blow it into a million little pieces.
“We’re still processing the evidence.”
“What evidence? I thought it was all clear cut? My father was helping a tourist learn to shoot his rifle and the guy accidentally shot my dad. Right?”
“We’re having the rifle examined. The man in question, the shooter, claimed that there was something wrong with the gun…that it didn’t fire properly.”
“You think someone messed with the gun?”
The cop shrugged. “Could be that it simply wasn’t properly maintained.”
That made me pull myself to my full five foot four. “How dare you suggest that my father would be so negligent as to cause his own death!”
“I’m not saying that, Ms. Greer. I’m saying that we need to finish the investigation before we can release the accident report, if that’s what we end up releasing.”
“What else would it be?”
He shrugged. “Your insurance company will get a copy as soon as it’s available. I’m afraid that’s all I can say right now.”
I shook my head, looking down my nose at him even though he stood a full foot taller than me.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself, forcing a widow to wait to move on from the biggest tragedy of her life.”
I spun on my heel and walked off, hoping that he felt properly chastised. The only problem was that I knew most men found me comical because of my diminutive size. That was, of course, except when I had my lieutenant insignia on my chest. Then they obeyed me and called me Lieutenant Pee Wee behind my back.
I walked out to my car, my head held high, until I was behind the wheel. Then I lay my head against the steering wheel and slammed my hands against my thighs, anger and frustration and a dozen other things threatening to drive me mad.
You never really appreciate the hole someone leaves in your life until the moment they’re gone and there’s no way to fill it. I always just sort of thought my dad would be there forever. It never occurred to me to sit down and talk to him about what might happen should he die. They taught me in the Navy to prepare my loved ones for my death. They never said anything about their deaths.
My hands shook as I started the car, pulling out faster than I probably should have, driving the forty miles into Houston to make my appointment with Mr. Korman, my dad’s attorney. Maybe he would have some advice on how to push the cops into releasing the accident report to the insurance companies.
I pulled up to the lawyer’s office, a sigh slipping from between my lips as I climbed out of the car. I had a million things I still had to do today. The local weathermen were saying that the tropical storm swirling out in the Atlantic was supposed to become a hurricane the closer it got to the Gulf of Mexico. It was on track to hit Galveston in a day or two. They’d just announced voluntary evacuations in Houston. Galveston was evacuated yesterday.
I needed to go out to the cabins and make sure the caretaker had put the plywood over the windows and done all the other prep work I’d asked him to do. And then I needed to go to my mom’s house and make sure it was prepared for the bad weather. She, thank goodness, was up in Dallas with her sister, my aunt Martha. Then I needed to go home and tackle the paperwork that Daddy had left behind for the business.
This stop was the least of my chores today.
The secretary looked up, a bright smile on her face.
“Ms. Greer,” she said, “go right in. He’s expecting you.”
I tapped on the door as I stepped inside. Mr. Korman—he was always telling me to call him Willie, but I couldn’t stop thinking of him as Mr. Korman—stepped around his desk and took both my hands in his.
“Bailey,” he said. “It’s so good to see you. I’m sorry it had to be under these circumstances. And on this day. I’m sure you’re anxious to get your family out of the city.”
“It has been a while, Mr. Korman.” I smiled politely. “I don’t imagine this will take long.”
He looked me over with a smile. “I can remember when you were just a babe in your mother’s arms, you know?” He sniffed a little as if he was pushing tears away. “Your father was my client for more than twenty-five years.”
“I know. He wouldn’t trust anyone else with important matters.”
“He was a good man.”
He let go of my hands and walked around his desk again, waiting as I settled in one of the chairs in front of his desk. He made a diamond with his fingertips, studying me over them.
“Your father has a fairly straightforward will. He left the house, all its contents, and the cars to your mother. There were several savings bonds that he left to her as well. He had some real estate not connected to the business that he left to you. And, of course, the business he left to you.”
I inclined my head. “Can you help me with whatever paperwork there will be to put that into effect?”
“Of course.”
I started to get up, assuming that was the end of the meeting. But he held up his hand.
“There is also the matter of the land on which the business sits.”
“The land? The business owns that.”
“No. The business is leasing that land. The land itself belonged personally to your father. And he’s left that to someone else.”
I frowned, trying to figure out why my father wouldn’t sell the land to the business. I knew he’d owned the property long before he decided to retire and start the business. We used to go out there and spend spring break on the beach. But I assumed that when he started the business and had the extra cabins constructed, that he’d sold the land to the company.
“Who did he leave the land to?”
Before Mr. Korman could answer, there was a tap on the door.
“He’s here,” his secretary said as she stuck her head through the crack she’d opened.
“He?”
The secretary disappeared and a second later the door opened wide, allowing Ingram into the office. I jumped to my feet, staring at him as he calmly crossed to the desk and accepted Mr. Korman’s outstretched hand.
“Mr. Porter. Thank you for joining us. How was your trip from Austin?”
“Uneventful.”
The sound of his voice seemed to reverberate through me, starting in my toes and working its way up to my scalp. I crossed my arms over my chest, watching him pretend to ignore me. He was wearing the same dark jacket he’d had on yesterday at the funeral, the same dark jeans that had made him stand out among the small group dressed in more formal attire.
“No problems with the weather?”
Ingram shrugged. “It was easier than normal to get a hotel reservation, if that’s what you mean.”
I stood t
here, listening to this conversation as if I were watching some surreal event take place right in front of me. Too surreal.
And then it hit me.
“You. He left the land to you.”
Ingram glanced at me, his eyes moving slowly over the length of me. I felt exposed even though I was fully dressed. Ingram had always had this way of making me feel naked, even when I was his superior officer, given the power to make him do just about anything I wanted him to do. That was part of what had drawn me to him. That and those haunting blue eyes.
Ingram tilted his head slightly, clearly not sure what I was talking about.
“If you’ll both take a seat, I’ll explain what your father, Ms. Greer, said in his will.”
Ingram pulled one of the chairs out so that I could get into it easily. I ignored him and moved around his impressive bulk to the chair behind him. He didn’t seem fazed. He settled in the chair he’d intended for me and crossed his ankle over his knee, his eyes patiently on Mr. Korman’s face.
“Laurence made his intentions quite clear in the will. He wanted Ms. Greer to have the business, but he left the land on which it physically exists to Mr. Porter. He said that he wanted the two of you to work together in deciding how to proceed. He said that in order for you to sell the business, Bailey, you’d have to deal with Mr. Porter. And vice versa.”
“This is the land on Galveston where the cabin is?” Ingram asked.
“You know that’s what he means.”
He wouldn’t look at me. “That’s a good fifteen acres, correct?”
“Twenty-one,” Mr. Korman helpfully informed him.
“Perfect for a water fowl hunting business,” I said, the sarcasm dripping from my voice.
“Prime real estate on an island like Galveston.”
“I thought you’d appreciate this,” Mr. Korman said, handing Ingram a piece of paper.
“What is it?” I demanded.
Neither would look at me now. Ingram studied the paper, nodding his head slowly as he finished perusing it.
“Thank you,” he said, handing it back to Mr. Korman.
GRAY WOLF SECURITY, Texas: The Complete 6-Books Series Page 17
