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“Hell, I never said you lied!”
She swallowed. Loud voices and curses made her nervous. She gripped the edge of the desk.
“Now what’s wrong?” he asked angrily.
She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said quickly.
He took a sudden, quick step toward her. She backed up, knocked over the desk chair and almost fell again getting it between him and herself. She was white in the face.
He stopped in his tracks. His lips fell open. In all his life, he’d never seen a woman react that way.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked, but not in a loud or menacing tone.
She swallowed. “Nothing. Thanks for coming over.”
He scowled. She looked scared to death.
Great-Aunt Sadie had heard a crash in the room. She opened the door gingerly and looked in. She glanced from Maddie’s white face to Cort’s drawn one. “Maddie, you okay?” she asked hesitantly, her eyes flicking back and forth to Cort’s as if she, too, was uneasy.
“I’m fine. I just…knocked the chair over.” She laughed, but it was a nervous, quick laugh. “Cort was just leaving. He gave me lots of information.”
“Nice of him,” Sadie agreed. She moved closer to Maddie, as if prepared to act as a human shield if Cort took another step toward the younger woman. “Good night, Cort.”
He wanted to know what was wrong. It was true he’d said some mean things, but the fear in Maddie’s eyes, and the looks he was getting, really disturbed him. He moved to the door, hesitated. “If you need any more help…” he began.
“I’ll call. Sure. Thanks for offering.” Maddie’s voice sounded tight. She was standing very still. He was reminded forcibly of deer’s eyes in headlights.
“Well, I’ll get on home. Good night.”
“Night,” Maddie choked out.
He glanced from one woman to the other, turned and pulled the door closed behind him.
Maddie almost collapsed into the chair. Tears were running down her cheeks. Great-Aunt Sadie knelt beside the chair and pulled her close, rocking her. “There, there, it’s all right. He’s gone. What happened?”
“I mentioned about Odalie not inviting me to the party and he said I was just jealous of her. I said something, I don’t…remember what, and he started toward me, all mad and impatient…” She closed her eyes, shivering. “I can’t forget. All those years ago, and I still can’t forget!”
“Nobody ever told Cort just what Odalie did to you, did they?”
“Apparently not,” Maddie said heavily. She wiped her eyes. “Her dad made her apologize, but I know she never regretted it.” She drew in a breath. “I told her that one day somebody was going to pay her back for all the mean things she did.” She looked up. “Cort thinks she’s a saint. If he only knew what she’s really like…”
“It wouldn’t matter,” the older woman said sadly. “Men get hooked on a pretty face and they’d believe white was black if the woman told them it was. He’s infatuated, baby. No cure for that but time.”
“I thought he was so sexy.” Maddie laughed. She brushed at her eyes again. “Then he lost his temper like that. He scared me,” she said on a nervous smile.
“It’s all right. Nobody’s going to hurt you here. I promise.”
She hugged the older woman tight. “Thanks.”
“At the time, that boy did apologize, and he meant it,” Sadie reminded her. “He was as much a victim as you were.”
“Yes, but he got in trouble and he should have. No man, even an angry young one with justification, should ever do what he did to a girl. He didn’t have nightmares for a month, either, did he, or carry emotional scars that never go away? Sad thing about him,” she added quietly, “he died overseas when a roadside bomb blew up when he was serving in the Middle East. With a temper like that, I often wondered what he might do to a woman if he got even more upset than he was at me that time.”
“No telling. And just as well we don’t have to find out.” Her face hardened. “But you’re right about that Odalie girl. Got a bad attitude and no compassion for anybody. One of these days, life is going to pay her out in her own coin. She’ll be sorry for the things she’s done, but it will be too late. God forgives,” she added. “But there’s a price.”
“What’s that old saying, ‘God’s mill grinds slowly, but relentlessly’?”
“Something like that. Come on. I’ll make you a nice cup of hot coffee.”
“Make that a nice cup of hot chocolate instead,” Maddie said. “I’ve had a rough day and I want to go to bed.”
“I don’t blame you. Not one bit.”
Cort was thoughtful at breakfast the next morning. He was usually animated with his parents while he ate. But now he was quiet and retrospective.
“Something wrong?” his dad asked.
Cort glanced at him. He managed a smile. “Yeah. Something.” He sipped coffee. “I went over her dad’s journal with Maddie. We had sort of an argument and I started toward her while I was mad.” He hesitated. “She knocked over a chair getting away from me. White in the face, shaking all over. It was an extreme reaction. We’ve argued before, but that’s the first time she’s been afraid of me.”
“And you don’t understand why.” His father’s expression was troubled.
“I don’t.” Cort’s eyes narrowed. “But you do, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“King, should you tell him?” Shelby asked worriedly.
“I think I should, honey,” he said gently, and his dark eyes smiled with affection. “Somebody needs to.”
“Okay then.” She got up with her coffee. “You men talk. I’m going to phone Morie and see how she’s doing.”
“Give her my love,” King called after her.
“Mine, too,” Cort added.
She waved a hand and closed the door behind her. “Tell me,” Cort asked his dad.
King put down his coffee cup. “In her senior year, Maddie was Odalie’s worst enemy. There was a boy, seemingly a nice boy, who liked Maddie. But Odalie liked him, and she was angry that Maddie, a younger girl who wasn’t pretty or rich or talented, seemed to be winning in the affection sweepstakes.”
“I told Maddie, Odalie’s not like that,” Cort began angrily.
King held up a hand. “Just hear me out. Don’t interrupt.”
Cort made a face, but he shut up.
“So Odalie and a girlfriend got on one of the social websites and started posting things that she said Maddie told her about the boy. She said Maddie thought he was a hick, that his mother was stupid, that both his parents couldn’t even pass a basic IQ test.”
“What? That’s a lie…!”
“Sit down!” King’s voice was soft, but the look in his eyes wasn’t. Cort sat.
“The boy’s mother was dying of cancer. He was outraged and furious at what Maddie had allegedly said about his family. His mother had just been taken to the hospital, not expected to live. She died that same day. He went to school just to find Maddie. She was in the library.” He picked up his cup and sipped coffee. “He jerked her out of her chair, slapped her over a table and pulled her by her hair to the window. He was in the act of throwing her out—and it was on the second floor—when the librarian screamed for help and two big, stronger boys restrained him, in the nick of time.”
Cort’s face froze. “Maddie told you that?”
“Her father’s lawyer told Cole Everett that,” came the terse reply. “There were at least five witnesses. The boy was arrested for assault. It was hushed up, because that’s what’s done in small communities to protect the families. Odalie was implicated, because the attorney hired a private investigator to find the source of the allegations. They traced the posts to her computer.”
Cort felt uneasy. He was certain Odalie couldn’t have done such a thing. “Maybe somebody used her computer,” he began.
“She confessed,” King said curtly.
Cort was even more uneasy now.
“Cole Everett had his own attorney speak to the one Maddie’s father had hired. They worked out a compromise that wouldn’t involve a trial. But Odalie had to toe the line from that time forward. They put her on probation, you see. She had first-offender status, so her record was wiped when she stayed out of trouble for the next two years. She had a girlfriend who’d egged her on. The girlfriend left town shortly thereafter.”
“Yes,” Cort replied, relaxing. “I see now. The girlfriend forced her to do it.”
King made a curt sound deep in his throat. “Son, nobody forced her to do a damned thing. She was jealous of Maddie. She was lucky the boy didn’t kill Maddie, or she’d have been an accessory to murder.” He watched Cort’s face pale. “That’s right. And I don’t think even Cole Everett could have kept her out of jail if that had happened.”
Cort leaned back in his chair. “Poor Odalie.”
“Funny,” King said. “I would have said, ‘Poor Maddie.’”
Cort flushed. “It must have been terrible for both of them, I suppose.”
King just shook his head. He got up. “Blind as a bat,” he mused. “Just like me, when I was giving your mother hell twice a day for being engaged to my little brother. God, I hated him. Hated them both. Never would admit why.”
“Uncle Danny?” Cort exclaimed. “He was engaged to Mom?”
“He was. It was a fake engagement, however.” He chuckled. “He was just trying to show me what my feelings for Shelby really were. I forgave him every minute’s agony. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn’t realize how deeply a man could love a woman. All these years,” he added in a soft tone, “and those feelings haven’t lessened a bit. I hope you find that sort of happiness in your life. I wish it for you.”
“Thanks,” Cort said. He smiled. “If I can get Odalie to marry me, I promise you, I’ll have it.”
King started to speak, but thought better of it. “I’ve got some book work to do.”
“I’ve got a new video game I’m dying to try.” Cort chuckled. “It’s been a long day.”
“I appreciate you going over to talk to Maddie.”
“No problem. She just needed a few pointers.”
“She’s no cattlewoman,” King said worriedly. “She’s swimming upstream. She doesn’t even like cattle. She likes chickens.”
“Don’t say chickens,” Cort pleaded with a groan.
“Your problem isn’t with chickens, it’s with a rooster.”
“I’d dearly love to help him have a fatal heart attack,” Cort said irritably.
“He’ll die of old age one day.” His dad laughed.
“Maddie said that developer had been putting pressure on her to sell,” King added solemnly. “I’ve put on some extra help to keep an eye over that way, just to make sure her breeding stock doesn’t start dying mysteriously.”
“What?” Cort asked, shocked. “She didn’t say anything about that.”
“Probably wouldn’t, to you. It smacks of weakness to mention such things to the enemy.”
“I’m not the enemy.”
King smiled. “Aren’t you?”
He left his son sitting at the table, deep in thought.
Maddie was working in the yard when the developer drove up a week later. She leaned on the pitchfork she was using to put hay into a trough, and waited, miserable, for him to get out of his car and talk to her.
“I won’t sell,” she said when he came up to her. “And in case you feel like high pressure tactics, my neighbor has mounted cameras all over the ranch.” She flushed at his fury.
“Well, how about that?” he drawled, and his eyes were blazing with anger. He forced a smile. “You did know that cameras can be disabled?” he asked.
“The cameras also have listening devices that can pick up a whisper.”
He actually seemed to go pale. He looked at the poles that contained the outside lighting and mumbled a curse under his breath. There was some sort of electronic device up there.
“I’ll come back again one day and ask you the same question,” he promised, but he smiled and his voice was pleasant. “Maybe you’ll change your mind.”
“We also have cowboys in the line cabins on the borders of this ranch. Mr. Brannt is very protective of me since my father died. He buys many of our young breeding bulls,” she added for good measure.
He was very still. “King Brannt?”
“Yes. You’ve heard of him, I gather.”
He didn’t reply. He turned on his heel and marched back to his car. But this time he didn’t spin his wheels.
Maddie almost fell over with relief.
Just as the developer left, another car drove up, a sleek Jaguar, black with silver trim. Maddie didn’t recognize it. Oh, dear, didn’t some hit men drive fancy cars…?
The door opened and big John Everett climbed out of the low-slung luxury car, holding on to his white Stetson so that it wouldn’t be dislodged from his thick head of blond hair. Maddie almost laughed with relief.
John grinned as he approached her. He had pale blue eyes, almost silver-colored, like his dad’s, and he was a real dish. He and Odalie both had their mother’s blond fairness, instead of Cole Everett’s dark hair and olive complexion.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he drawled. “Black cars make you twitchy or something?”
“I think hit men drive them, is all.”
He burst out laughing. “I’ve never shot one single person. A deer or two, maybe, in season.” He moved toward her and stopped, towering over her. His pale eyes were dancing on her flushed face. “I ran into King Brannt at a cattlemen’s association meeting last night. He said you were having some problems trying to work out your father’s breeding program. He said Cort explained it to you.”
“Uh, well, yes, sort of.” It was hard to admit that even taking notes, she hadn’t understood much of what Cort had told her.
