Chapter 16
Jed turned off the engine and just sat there; staring out over the place he’d called home his entire life.
He was torn between feeling guilty over abandoning his brothers to deal with things the last two weeks and relief at having finally gained some information.
He’d spent two weeks calling in markers and favors and it had paid off. On the seat beside him was a thick folder with information that just might help him and his family get through the mess they were in and bring the guilty parties to justice.
That, however, did nothing to ease the ache in his heart. He’d stomped the emotional shit out of Mik, accused her of terrible things. He had no idea where she was right now, but chances were good that wherever that was, she was carrying a whole lot of hurt and hate for him.
He’d screwed up in the worst possible way. And he had no excuse. None at all. He’d let jealousy over the idea of another man’s hands on her turn to something dark and ugly. And he’d turned that darkness against her, wanting to hurt her for his own jealously and fear.
Jed wasn’t going to try and find her. What would be the point? To ask for her forgiveness? He didn’t deserve that. And maybe it was best this way. The curse had reared its ugly head, screwing up the one chance he’d had at happiness and reminding him that Nash men weren’t meant for certain things.
Trying to shove those thoughts to the back of his mind, he climbed out of the truck. The house was dark except for the light of the television in the small sitting area off the kitchen.
Ellen was in her rocker, a throw blanket draped over her legs, watching a sit-com.
“Jake home?” he asked as he stopped in the doorway.
“Jed! You scared the life out of me!” Ellen’s hand went to her chest. “No. I mean yes, he’s here on the ranch. He and Jesse are down at the lake house.”
“Everything okay, Ellen?”
“We’re holding it together. Glad your home.”
“Same here. I’ll head on down and see what the boys are up to.”
Jed took his time on the walk. It was good to stretch his legs after the long drive. Jake must have moved back into the lake house when Mik left. Mik. Thinking about her brought a stab of regret that damn near choked him.
He shoved it back. He had to learn to get over it. Move on.
Lights were on in the lake house. Jed let himself in the back door and crossed through the kitchen.
“Didn’t take you long to move back—“
His words caught in his throat. There in the den were his brothers. Jake sat on the couch with Teddy and Jesse and Alex were sitting on the floor, all four head bent over the coffee table, looking at a pile of papers.
And there standing at the window, staring out into the darkness, was Mik.
She turned at the sound of his voice, took one look then raced across the room, throwing her arms around him. Jed had never been a religious man, but at that moment, he thought there surely had to be a higher power because the feel of her tight little body pressed up against his and her arms locked around his neck was nothing short of a miracle.
He didn’t hesitate to return the embrace, fisting one hand in her hair to guide her into his kiss.
That’s when he saw it. Saw inside her. She had no barriers erected to keep him out. He saw how wrong he’d been and how much he’d hurt her.
And knew that she saw his regret and shame. And loved him in spite of it. It carried enough of a punch to make him weak in the knees. And more grateful than he’d even been in his life.
Mik drew back from the kiss, extracted herself from his arms then slugged him in the gut. Jed woofed out a breath and lowered his eyebrows as she threw her hands on her hips.
“You ever pull a disappearing act like that again and I’ll kick your sorry ass, Jed Nash!”
“I’m glad to be home too, honey.” He said with a grin.
She tossed her head then laughed and hugged him. Jed looked over her head at the eyes that watched. “What y’all in a huddle about?”
“We’ve been busy,” Jake announced with a grin. “Pull up a sit-down and we’ll fill you in.”
Jed and Mik crowded in beside Alex on the floor, Mik between Jed’s legs and one of his arms securely around her. “Okay, what you got?” He’d tell them what he’d discovered later. They all seemed excited to reveal their news.
“First,” Jesse said. “Alex made an interesting discovery.”
Alex turned slightly to face Jed and Mik. “It was actually an accident. I was going over a listing for one of the corporate clients and saw the address of Teddy’s store. The client is Manning Real Estate and Development. So, I dug a little deeper and discovered that not only do they own the shop, but the house she rents.
“And,” she paused. “The company, I work for, RDM? It’s owned by Manning, too.”
“Which means Manning had a hand in everything that happened to us,” Teddy added. “Alex getting the offer out of the blue to join the accounting firm, me finding a shop and a house to rent at prices too good to be true and Manning buying the farm.”
“Too much to be a coincidence,” Jed agreed. “But what’s their game?”
“Revenge,” Jesse said. “Mik went to see Manning and carved him a new one over the stunt he pulled coming here and trying to stir up trouble.”
“Carved him a new one?”
Mik looked back over her shoulder at him. “Figuratively speaking. He swears he wasn’t involved and tried to make me believe that it’s his stepmother who is and that he’s afraid of her. He said to check the public records and we’d find out why she had it in for your family.”
“Interesting. And?”
“And Jesse did some digging.”
Jesse took up the tale. “I didn’t think about it until Mik told me, and then I remembered. It was a ways back. You were away. The sheriff showed up and they took the old man into custody.”
“I never heard anything about that,” Jed remarked.
“Cause nothing ever came of it,” Jesse replied. “At least not as far as we knew. He was home in two days and told us to forget about it. Anyway, I did some digging and as it turns out, a Mrs. Deidre Manning filed charges against him for rape.”
“Rape?”
“Yeah, like the old man ever had to resort to that,” Jake quipped then grimaced at the hard look Jed tossed him. “Sorry.”
Jed turned his attention back to Jesse. “And?”
“And the charges were dropped. As it turns out, the old man had a short but apparently hot affair with Mrs. Manning and when he ended it she decided to stick it to him.”
“That was a long time ago. It’s hard to believe that she’d still be carrying a grudge”
“It’s all connected somehow,” Jake said. “There’s an awful lot to just chalk it up to coincidence.”
“More than you might imagine.”
“Say what?”
“I called in a few favors and came up with some interesting information on my own. Seems that the Mannings are pretty powerful people. And not ones to screw with. More than one company has taken a nose-dive, burned or suffered legal entanglements after being made an offer by Manning Enterprises.”
“You mean they’re crooks?” Jake asked.
“Could be. And the coincidences don’t stop with what you’ve told me. There’s another piece of the puzzle. I’d discounted it until now. Seems that Teddy’s husband wasn’t just in debt for gambling to just anyone. The loan shark who threatened to kill him worked for Manning.”
“What?” Teddy looked stunned. “You mean they purposely broke up my marriage?”
“I think your husband did that, honey. But they made it possible for him gamble you into bankruptcy.”
“And set the stage for Teddy and me to end up back on the farm.” Alex said. “Then the offer to me out of the blue? Oh, damn! This is starting to paint kind of a creepy picture. What the hell do these people want and why have they been manipulating our lives?”
“I wish I knew,” Jed said. “And there’s one other thing. When Manning Sr., died there was speculation that it wasn’t by natural causes. The official cause of death was listed as a heart attack, but the tox screens showed an unusually high level of nitroglycerine in his body.”
“Isn’t that what people use to try and stop a heart attack?” Jake asked.
“Yeah, but according to the widow, they were making love and he didn’t take any nitro, just croaked. They found the drug in a bottle of wine by the bed, but she claims she didn’t know anything about it and had enough money and influence to hush it up.”
“You mean she killed him?” Alex asked.
“Possibly.”
“You think her step-son knows?”
“Hard to believe he’d be in cahoots with her if he did,” Teddy suggested.
“Unless he was in on it, too,” Jake added.
Jed shook his head. “I don’t know so much about that. Recently Manning Enterprises did some corporate restructuring. Manning, Jr., the man Mik knows as Rob—and honey his real name is Robert Dalton Manning, Jr. and he goes by his middle name. Anyway, he was pretty much booted off the board and given control of a new division. A division that doesn’t include banking, pharmaceuticals or manufacturing, their biggest money-makers.”
“So things are not so swell on the old homestead?” Jesse asked.
“Looks that way, but it could be a smokescreen. Who knows? All I do know is that these are people who have enough money to get what they want, and nothing stands in their way.”
“Which brings us back to square one,” Mik said. “What the hell do they want?”
She reached out, scrambled through the papers on the coffee table, and dug out a newspaper clipping showing a photo of Deidre and Dalton Manning.
Jed’s mouth fell open when he saw the photo. “That’s Deidre Manning?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I’ve met that woman.”
Everyone looked at him in surprise.
“It was right after I left the service. I met with Marvin, our attorney, to talk about having a will written. I wanted to make sure that if something happened to me, Jesse and Jake would be taken care of.
“After the meeting, Marvin and I went out for a beer. Marvin got a call and had to leave, and I stayed to finish my beer. This woman came up to me. Blond, attractive but older. Asked to join me.”
“You had drinks with Deidre Manning?”
“Apparently.”
“You have anything else with her?” Mik asked.
“No. She offered but I wasn’t interested so I made up some excuse and left. But she did show up at the ranch a week later claiming to want to board a horse. I was showing her the ranch and she made a play. This time not so subtle. Offered to get it on in the stable. I turned her down and she wasn’t happy. Told me I’d be sorry and left.”
“Giving her another reason to hate your family,” Teddy commented.
“But a damn lame excuse for revenge,” Jesse remarked. “Especially after this long.”
“I agree,” Mik said. “And there’s another piece of the puzzle we need to consider.”
“Another?” Jed asked.
Mik quickly told him about the coin and what had happened with her, Teddy, Alex, and Jake. “I know it sounds crazy, but I think that coin is connected. First, it makes no sense at all that my parents—my adoptive parents wouldn’t have given it to me sooner if it really was something from my biological parents.”
“Unless it was like the note said,” Teddy pointed out.
“No. Come on, Teddy. You know they weren’t insecure about me or afraid of losing me to someone who gave me up. And…” She cut a look at Jesse. “I asked Jesse to have the letter and the envelope examined.”
“For what?” Alex asked.
“Dating,” Jesse, answered. “The ink and the paper show that the letter had to have been written recently, probably within the last year.”
“But it was mom’s handwriting!” Teddy insisted.
“Handwriting can be forged,” Mik, pointed out. “And with what the tests showed on the ink and paper, it points to the coin being part of all this…shit.”
“But what?” Alex asked.
No one had an answer. Jed thought about what he’d learned and what he’d just heard. Sure as shit, the Mannings were gunning for them all. That much was clear even without proof. But the why of it was a mystery.
And even more of a mystery was why they’d dragged Mik and her sisters into it. Did they want to destroy them as well?
“Okay, I think I’ve had enough for one day,” he said. “At this point we have suspicions but that’s about it. Unless we can get proof, there’s nothing we can do about the Mannings. And we’ve got bigger problems. If we can’t come up with the money to pay off the owners who lost horses, cover our losses from the cattle that had to be put down and get back some of the business we lost, we’re going to go down. So anyone with an idea speak up because I don’t know about the rest of you, but losing this place is something I don’t want to face.”
His little speech met with silence. Finally Mik stood. “Jed’s right. First thing we have to do is come up with money. I could maybe get a couple of thousand for my truck and trailer and I have maybe two thousand in the bank. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”
Jesse and Jake quickly listed how much cash they could lay their hands on, and Jed added in what the ranch accounts were. When all was said and done, they had a total of about eighteen thousand.
“How much more do you need?” Mik asked.
“About three times that much.”
She gnawed her lip for a moment. “Hey! I have an idea. This might sound nuts, but what if Jesse and I entered the nationals? The purse isn’t anything to sneeze at if we win.”
Jesse’s eyes lit along with his smile. “I’ve got enough points to qualify. How ‘bout you?”
Mik shrugged. “Haven’t competed much this year but I might be able to swing it.”
“But when is the national?” Teddy asked.
“Three months.”
“We’ll be toes up before then,” Jed commented.
“But there’s at least five events before then,” Mik said. “And if we use what we have for travel and entry fees, we could clean house.”
“Providing you win,” Alex pointed out.
“Well duh!” Jesse scoffed. “I think it’s a good idea. No one’s touched Mik’s best all year and I’ve got a good shot at the buckle this year.”
“And if we can bring in a purse for the five qualifiers, we’re a shoe in for the nationals in Vegas.”
“And that’s big money,” Jesse pointed out.
“If it pays so big then why are you are so broke?” Alex asked.
Jesse flushed a deep red and started gathering up papers from the coffee table. Jed knew that Jesse didn’t like to talk about what he’d been doing with his money the last few years and it was a secret Jed had sworn to keep.
“What’s the big mystery?” Alex pressed. “Are you a gambling addict or something?”
“Hey, Jesse’s not an addict!” Jake jumped in to defend his brother.
Mik surprised Jed by speaking up. “I know.”
Jesse’s eyes cut to her, and she reached over and put her hand on his arm. “Jesse donated eighty percent of his winnings the last three years to charity. Children’s homes. Kids who have alcoholic or drug addict parents and end up on the street. Thanks to him, a lot of children are out of bad situations and in homes where they’re getting regular meals, an education and are safe and loved.”
Alex’s head whipped around toward Jesse. “Eighty percent?”
He nodded and looked away. “Seemed like the thing to do. Kids don’t deserve to grow up that way.”
Jed felt his chest swell with pride. Jesse came across as a good-time guy, a rodeo gypsy without a care in the world or a serious thought in his head. But the truth was he was a man with a heart as big as the state and memories of what it was like to grow up with a parent who abused alcohol.
He’d used his success to help other kids in that kind of situation and had put a lot of his winnings into the ranch to help his family. Jed hoped that Mik’s sisters now saw that there was a whole lot more to Jesse than met the eye.
“Well…I’m impressed,” Alex said.
“You should be,” Mik gave a slight tug on Alex’s hair.
Jesse looked around the table at everyone. “Anyone up for a road trip?”
“Hell, yeah!” Jake was the first to agree.
Jed considered it for a moment. Give me ‘till morning and I’ll let you know.”
“What’s to think about?” Jake asked. “It’s a good plan and you know Jesse and Mik will kick ass.”
“It’s not that,” Jed replied. “I just need to do something before I decide.”
Jake opened his mouth as if to argue then shut it and shrugged. “Fine. Not like we need to hit the road now anyway.”
“Right.” Jed said. “Now we need to hit the sack. I’m tired and want some time with Mik so…”
“So get the hell out,” Jesse finished the sentence and stood. “You gals need a ride home or you want to crash at the main house?”
Alex and Teddy looked at one another. Alex shrugged and Teddy smiled. “Thanks. I think we’ll take you up on it. Come on, let’s give Jed and Mik some privacy.”
Once they’d left, Jed sank onto the couch where Mik had curled up. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you, Mik.”
“We’ve already walked that path, Jed. You don’t have to apologize or explain.”
“I needed to say it. Just like I need to say this. I appreciate you offering to compete and donate the winnings to save the ranch, but I can’t let you do that.”
“Yes you can!”
“No, honey, I can’t. Not unless your names on the deed alongside mine and my brothers.”
“You want to give me part of the ranch?”
“No, darlin’, I want to give you me. Marry me, Mik.”
*****
At that moment, Mik felt like a character from a romance novel. Her heart leapt in her chest and something tingly and electric took hold of her body. She’d never dreamed she’d hear those words come from Jed’s lips.
“Are you serious? Jed, you don’t have to marry me for me to want to help. I don’t care about the winnings, but I do care about this ranch and the people on it.”
“I know, darlin’, I know. And this has nothing to do with that. This is for me, Mik. I want you to be my wife, to share my name, my home, and my life. I love you.”
“Oh, Jed.” She fought tears and the sudden lump in her throat. “You’re gonna make me cry.”
“I kinda hoped it would make you happy, honey.”
“It does. More than I can say.”
“So? Will you marry me?”
“You just try and stop me,” she said with a grin and launched herself into his arms. “I’m staking a claim.”
“I love you, Mikayla Morgan.”
“And I love you, Jed Nash.”
“I’m gonna try and be a good husband, honey.”
“I know. I’ll try and be a good wife. But…”
“But what?”
“Well, there is that off chance that I’ll act up now and again, do something stupid that’ll rile you up.”
“Hmmm, you got a point. Well, if that happens I guess I’ll just have to resort to a good old-fashioned spanking.”
“You do keep promising that, Jed.”
He grinned as he stood and pulled her to her feet. “I guess it’s time I started making good on those promises. You been bad lately, Mik?”
“Not lately, but I’m about to be.”
Jed laughed and lowered his lips to hers. Mik met his kiss eagerly. They might be in a world of hurt, in danger of losing the ranch and with a mystery that could threaten them all, but that didn’t seem to matter right now. What did matter was that they had each other.
And for her that was the biggest win of all.