Ladd Springs

by Dianne Venetta

  Chapter Eight

  After slipping her gun into the loop inside her boot, Delaney pulled her pant leg down and stood. Felicity had already left for the day, getting an early start on her history exam in first period. It was a study ethic to be envied and one that earned her the partial scholarship to UT. But the scholarship didn’t cover living expenses. It didn’t cover car insurance, gas or clothes, all of which were expensive. Felicity offered to work, bless her heart, but Delaney was against it. She’d have the rest of her life to work. Right now, she needed to focus on her studies and her flute practice, and as her mother it was her job to see that it happened. That it all happened.

  Skipping breakfast, Delaney headed for the stables. Most of today would be spent working, but this afternoon she was going to learn once and for all what was going on with Clem and his men—right after she retrieved Ashley’s signed affidavit and delivered a copy of it to Ernie. If that didn’t put a bug in his bottom, nothing would. And if her attorney was right, time was running out. The property would go up for auction to settle the taxes, but she didn’t have the cash to bid, though she knew someone who did.

  There was no doubt in her mind that Nick Harris had the money and would gladly step in and scoop this property up for pennies on the acre, but he’d have to step over her dead body before he could sign on the dotted line, and even then he’d better be afraid she’d drag him down by the boot strap. This property belonged to Felicity, not some stranger who solely wanted to profit from its riches.

  When Delaney finally made it home after her rounds, she turned into the driveway and her heart sank. Nick’s car was parked in front of Ernie’s. Did the man ever quit?

  She had business with Ernie and she could do without the complication of him. As she rolled the truck alongside Felicity’s red compact, anger detonated in her chest, as over by the wishing well, she saw Nick and Felicity were sitting alone together. Alone.

  Delaney jammed the brakes, flung the gearshift into park and leaped out of the truck, catching her knee hard against the door frame. Damn! That was going to leave a mark. But despite the throb she stormed over to them, her pulse rampaging through her veins. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Felicity jumped to her feet, her eyes clouding with apprehension. “What?” She glanced nervously between Nick and her mother.

  Nick rose slowly, his broad chest outlined by a tailored red button-down, his legs long and solid in fitted blue jeans.

  Delaney pointed a finger in his face. Heat rose beneath her tank top, the air warm, the sun passing in and out of clouds overhead. “You stay away from my daughter, do you hear me?”

  “Whoa,” he said, holding palms up between them. His dark eyes took on a cautionary alertness. “We’re just talking. I’m not causing any trouble here.” He glanced at Felicity. “A friendly conversation, right?”

  “Taking advantage of a teenager? Really?” She looked to Felicity. “What’s he trying to do—convince you to sell him the property?”

  “No, Mom—honest.” She chanced a timid glance up at him and said, “We were just talking about the University of Tennessee.”

  “You have nothing more to say to him.”

  “Why don’t you let her decide that? She is eighteen, which makes her an adult in my book.”

  Delaney grunted. “I want you off my property. Now.”

  Nick looked to Felicity, as if seeking her opinion, but she would not look at him. “Okay, I’m going. Like I said, I’m not here to cause trouble.”

  When he didn’t budge, Delaney pressed, “Well? What are you waiting for?”

  He peered down at her with a quizzical expression. “Do you know the taxes haven’t been paid on this property for the last three years?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “And that the clerk is scheduling this land to go up for sale at auction?”

  She knew it and didn’t need his reminders.

  “Are you willing to allow that to happen?” Nick glanced down at Felicity, currently mired in a look of complete and total agony. The poor thing was caught square in the middle and not of her own accord. Delaney knew full well that Felicity would rather walk away from the land than allow it to cause a rift in the family. Nick’s voice drew her back to him. Soft, sensible, it pulled at her. “You’re willing to jeopardize her rights to ownership, the same ones you claim to be fighting so hard for?”

  Hot sun splashed on her head and shoulders, setting fire to her ponytail and flushed skin. Of course not! The last thing she wanted was for anyone to jeopardize her rights, but as it stood, she had none. Knowing he could swoop in and take everything didn’t help matters. “I said, ‘Get off my property,’” Delaney repeated.

  He shook his head. “I think you two need to do some serious talking. I’m offering you a way to keep this land and enough money to secure her education and your future. Why are you so dead set against it?”

  She bristled. “Keep this land?” She flung an arm toward the forest. “A measly hundred acres? That’s what you’re so proud to be offering?”

  “Can you afford the over thousand you have?”

  Darn right she could, but she wasn’t about to let him in on how. Delaney settled hands to her hips and said directly, “I know men like you, Mr. Harris, and you’re interested in one thing and one thing only—money. Yours.” She whipped a finger toward Felicity. “You don’t care about us, and I don’t appreciate you pretending otherwise.”

  Nick eased away from her and drew the sunglasses down from his head. “You must know something I don’t know then, because you’re not making a whole lot of sense.”

  “I know about family and tradition and I know about loyalty. Values I imagine may be foreign concepts to you, but around these parts they’re worth their weight in gold.”

  For the first time, he smiled. Arrogant, comfortable with himself. “You don’t know the first thing about me, Ms. Wilkins.”

  “I know enough.”

  “You don’t, but I’ll be happy to fill you in any time you’d like. Just say the word and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  The supple, intimate tone rattled her. Under any other circumstance, it was an invitation she might accept, he a man she might like to entertain. But not when he was trying to get her land. She couldn’t. “Let’s go, Felicity.” Delaney reached out and took her daughter by the arm. “If you’ll excuse us.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Delaney steered Felicity’s slender figure straight over to Ernie’s cabin, her temper clanging between Nick’s audacity at approaching her daughter and the extent of his knowledge about the property auction. If she had any reservations about what was at stake, she didn’t anymore. Nick Harris had his eye on the tax deed and Ernie was going to hear about it.

  “Mom, I’m sorry,” Felicity whined at her side. “I didn’t know you’d be mad if I talked to him.”

  “I don’t blame you, honey, I blame him.” She loosened her grip on Felicity’s arm, a sudden stream of guilt washing through her.

  “But he seems like a nice guy.”

  Delaney heard the question unspoken. Why did you have to be so rude to him?

  Felicity was an innocent. She didn’t understand the way people manipulated and twisted. She saw what she wanted to see, what she understood. Her daughter couldn’t fathom deceit. She couldn’t fathom greed and underhanded dealing. It wasn’t in her nature. It wasn’t who she was, and Delaney wasn’t about to taint her heart with it now. “Mr. Harris wants to buy the property and turn it into a hotel.”

  “I know. He told me. He wants to make it a hotel and spa, called Serenity Springs, like all the others he owns.”

  She turned to Felicity, her spine jarred as she stepped on a large rock and stopped. “How long have you two been sitting there?”

  “Not long. But he told me most of this yesterday at Fran’s.”

  Panic stabbed her side. “He followed you to Fran’s?”

  Felicity rolled her eyes. “He didn�
�t follow me. I was there eating lunch and so was he. He introduced himself and told me about his plans.”

  Thank God they were in public, was all Delaney could think. She’d go see Fran tomorrow and get the real deal on what transpired between the two. Fran Jones was more than diner owner. She was the town’s source for information and there was no doubt in Delaney’s mind that Fran had noticed the tall, dark stranger speaking to Felicity. Nothing got past the woman and she would spill the goods—willingly. “What else did he tell you?”

  “That he wants to give us land to live on, and enough money for my college.” She hesitated. “That’s good, right? Then we wouldn’t have to cut all those trees down?”

  Delaney’s heart split. Felicity was focused on the trees instead of the forest. She was irrationally bound by the image of tree stumps instead of taking in the big picture. Delaney brushed the loose curls from Felicity’s eyes and said, “Sweetheart, if we sell to him, we’ll have sealed the fate of this land, a fate far worse than a few trees. We’ll have lost control of our legacy, our future.”

  “But we don’t need a thousand acres to live on. A hundred is enough, isn’t it? You could have your horses, we could still back up to the forest.”

  Ladd Springs was so much more to Delaney than a place to live. It was home, yes, but it was history. It was her childhood, her mother’s childhood and her mother before her. This was Ladd land, her family birthright. But staring into delicate, trusting eyes, she feared her child would not understand. “This property belongs to us, to you. I’m giving Uncle Ernie a chance to do the right thing.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “He will.” Ernie Ladd was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them. He wouldn’t lose this property to a tax sale. In the end, Delaney believed he’d do what was right by his sister and pass it down the line.

  “Delaney!”

  She and Felicity turned at the sound of his voice bellowing from the porch.

  “Get over here!” he hollered, and like a man expecting to be minded, he sought out the nearest rocker and dropped to a seat.

  “Time to pay our respects,” she said, a sweep of anticipation zipping through her.

  Delaney retrieved Ashley’s affidavit from the front seat of her truck and met Felicity on the porch. She intentionally refused to make eye contact with Nick as he passed her en route to his car. She didn’t want him to mistake her attention as second thought.

  She couldn’t afford second thoughts.

  Envelope in hand, she hustled up the steps and briefly wondered where Albert was. Usually he was molded into a chair beside his brother. He sure as heck didn’t have anything else to do.

  “I have the paper from Ashley,” Delaney said and handed it over.

  “Keep your paper. I’ve got one for you, instead.”

  Her surprise was swift. “A paper for me?”

  “Here.” He shoved it her way with one hand, the other clutching his pipe between bony fingers.

  Handing her envelope to Felicity, Delaney reached for his manila file folder and opened it. Scanning the document in short order, she looked at him. “No deal.” She slid the piece of paper into the folder and gave it back.

  But Ernie wouldn’t take it. “You’re a fool if you don’t.”

  “I’m no fool, Ernie and neither are you.”

  He muttered under his breath, but nothing audible. Delaney took her document from Felicity and handed it to Ernie. “Ashley has signed a sworn affidavit that says she saw you write down your promise to my mother about giving this property to Felicity.”

  Ernie glared at her, bitterness dripping from his gaze. If he’d been an ax murderer, her head would be rolling on the ground.

  “Mom wanted this land for me and Felicity and you told her you’d do it. You should be happy that I’m relieving you of the pain of giving anything to me.” Delaney gestured toward Felicity, hating that she had to hear any of this ugly business. But to deprive her? It was unthinkable.

  “There ain’t no such paper,” he said to her, sidestepping Felicity’s gaze as best he could.

  “There was until you destroyed it.”

  Ernie grew very quiet. He flicked a glinty eye toward Felicity then settled his wrath on Delaney. “You’re nothin’ but a greedy gold-digger. Ever since you took up with Jack Foster, you showed your true colors.”

  “Felicity, go on up to the cabin,” Delaney directed. “I’ll catch up with you.”

  Felicity didn’t hesitate. With a curt nod, she scrambled off the porch and up to their cabin. Her mother’s cabin. Susannah’s cabin.

  Delaney quieted the chaos of emotion churning in her heart. “This isn’t about me, Ernie. This is about Felicity.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second.” Ernie leaned on the arm of his chair. “You’d steal that sweet girl blind, the minute I signed it over to her. Just like you tried to do to Jack.”

  Delaney ignored the insult. “You’re a miserable old man, hell bent on making everyone around you just as miserable. It makes no sense, Ernie.”

  A glimmer of satisfaction trickled into his expression. “You ain’t denyin’ it, are you?”

  Jack Foster came from a wealthy family, that much was true. But Delaney had never been interested in him for his money. She had loved him. First love, only love, she had believed in ‘til death do you part. Problem was, it was likely to be her death that parted them. But Ernie didn’t care about the truth. He only cared about being hurtful. “Do you know this property is scheduled to go up for auction?”

  Awareness registered in his gray eyes.

  “Are you willing to let a stranger have this property over Felicity?”

  “No stranger will take this property.” He jabbed a thumb to his chest. “I decide what happens to it.”

  “I can assume, then, that you’ll pay the taxes you’ve neglected to pay, putting this land at risk in the first place?”

  “My financial business ain’t none of your affair.”

  It was mind-boggling. He was incendiary, spiteful, dead set against her getting anywhere near ownership for years, then turns around and offers her ten acres to live on if she released her legal claim to the title. As though she were that stupid. As though she were that easy to placate. “Why are you doing it? Why make Felicity suffer? She spends night after night playing her flute for you, yet you’re unwilling to give her a dime towards college. It doesn’t make sense.”

  He lowered his gaze. “I don’t answer to you.”

  “But what about Felicity? Your sister? Do you answer to them?”

  Ernie shut down. Jamming the pipe back into his mouth, he sat back in his rocker and closed his eyes, a grim expression carved into his face. He was a bitter man, an unhappy man, and Delaney wondered if he wouldn’t fight her to the end just to prove it.

  Ernie had lost his will to care about those closest to him. A foreboding settled upon her shoulders. Would he take that despair to the grave and leave them out in the cold?

  Delaney returned to her cabin to find Felicity pacing the living room. At her mother’s entrance, she blurted, “What happened?”

  “Ernie tried to bribe me with ten acres for my release on the rest, plus fifty thousand cash.” Delaney closed the door with a smooth thud.

  “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t sign,” she said, and pulled the hairband from her ponytail.

  “What?” Felicity asked, shocked.

  “I didn’t sign. I won’t.”

  “But you have to, don’t you?”

  Delaney glowered and ran her fingers through her hair clear down to the ends. The cool interior of the cabin was a soothing relief. “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “Can’t Mr. Harris help us?”

  “No.” She walked past her daughter and into the kitchen.

  “But why not? He said he’d give us a lot of money for this property—and we’d get to keep some!”

  Delaney understood her concern, but until the title was in th
eir hands, Mr. Harris’ offer was meaningless. Ernie was the only one who stood to gain from that deal, and while the fifty thousand dollars he offered her would go a long way toward paying Felicity’s college expenses, accepting it and a lousy ten acres in lieu of complete ownership amounted to defeat. She pulled a mason jar from the cabinet and filled it from the tap.

  They needed money, yes. Without it, Felicity would struggle through work and class and not have enough time to practice her flute. If the girl had any chance to make the cut for a professional orchestra, she would need hours upon hours of practice—time she couldn’t spare, if forced to hold down a job. If her grades dropped, the scholarship would disappear.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Delaney downed a healthy swallow of water and corrected defiantly, “You mean what is he going to do?” They may be in a bind, but she was not willing to concede. Not yet.

  “Mom.”

  Delaney hated the swells of doubt in Felicity’s eyes. Her daughter shouldn’t be stressing over money and property rights. She should be carefree and excited over the prospect of attending UT next year. She was being pulled into the mix of a family feud and it was inexcusable. But then Ernie always did go for the jugular.

  Delaney set her water down and closed the distance between her and Felicity. She pulled her baby into a strong-armed hug and promised, “It’ll work out, you’ll see.”