Page 12 of The Last Dance You Saved
As far as I knew, nothing overly valuable had been kept in the safe for years. It had originally been built to house the diamonds as they were mined from the kimberlite pipes on the property before they could be shipped off. Now, it stored an antique weapons collection that might be worth a few thousand dollars and piles of old files dating back to the ranch’s inception. Nothing worth killing over.
And as the manager of the ranch, there might be several reasons why Adam would need to look up an old legal document. But it was clear Fallon thought something underhanded was happening, and if I could ease her mind, if I could get her off this fixation of Spence’s death having been murder rather than an accident, I could at least ask Adam about it.
I needed to go back to Rivers anyway. I needed to finalize some things with the realtor and ensure Lauren was actually prepared to pack the mansion and sell off the horses and cattle. What Lauren did from there, whether she chose to go live on the acre of Hurly land with Adam or come live with me, was still up in the air.
I’d prefer them near me, and I’d offered to buy them a house here. I’d like to be able to visit my daughter whenever I wanted—every day if possible. I’d given up fourteen years. She’d had the best childhood I could offer her up until now, but I wouldn’t let her sink with the failing ranch. So if she couldn’t be in Rivers, she might as well be with me.
Dread filled me at the idea of going back to the ranch, even for a day, to see to all the things that had to be done. It was why I’d put it off for weeks. I was a coward, afraid to face the hurt that had sliced through me when I’d attended Spencer’s funeral. Simply stepping on the property had torn open all those scabs and scars I’d thought permanently healed, proving they weren’t. Proving some scars never healed.
Not like the pale ones that had been carved into Sadie’s thigh and hip.
She was only twenty-three. How old had she been when she’d been shot? How had it happened? It made me want to hunt down whoever had done it and end him. To destroy him financially, if not physically, for trying to squash her bright light.
It wasn’t my place. Sadie certainly wasn’t mine to protect. In fact, she might, this very moment, be with another man who was tracing his fingers over those scars and asking her about them. I didn’t know why that thought made me so furious. Made me feel achy and out of control in a way no woman had made me feel in a very long time.
But control was what had made me the man I was.
So, I pushed aside every thought I had of the blue-eyed vixen.
One thing was sure, if I was thinking about hunting down and destroying people for some woman I didn’t really know, then I could do more than that for the daughter I loved. I could help heal the wound my brother’s death had left in her. And maybe, in doing this for Fallon, I could find a new place in her life. Maybe I could start a fledgling relationship we could grow into something more. Something that would leave me with one less regret when my life was over.
Maybe, if I worked hard enough at it, someday my daughter would forgive me for taking everything she knew and loved and replacing it with only a father she despised.
Chapter Five
Sadie
LAST NAME
Performed by Carrie Underwood
After getting back to my roomlast night, I’d tossed and turned, and it wasn’t the bed’s fault. No, my restlessness could be planted completely at Rafe’s feet. My needy body hadn’t been able to forget him, even after I’d attempted to finish what he’d started myself. It wasn’t the same. It was as empty as my win earlier had been.
By the time I’d given up on getting any sleep and rose to get ready for my day, my eyes were bruised and my cheeks pale. I looked vaguely like I had in those first weeks after I’d been shot.
I packed my luggage and stowed it by the door, ready to leave Vegas behind after my breakfast meeting. Then, I double-checked I had the documentation and pictures I wanted in my bag and headed down to the café on the main floor of the hotel.
The glossy door of the elevator reflected back at me a completely different person than the one in the sparkly cocktail dress from the night before. I didn’t even look like the uniformed dart-thrower I’d momentarily been for the competition. This image was the Sadie I knew best, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt with beat-up cowboy boots. My hat rested on my luggage upstairs, but even without it, I still screamed farm girl. I certainly wasn’t any of the elegant supermodels and actresses who were normally seen at The Fortress.
The two in the opposite corner of the elevator fit into this place a thousand times better than I did. Just as they would have been a better match for Rafe Marquess last night than a twenty-three-year-old farm girl. But maybe that had been the kick for him. As if a hayseed from Tennessee could round out his portfolio of women.
I shook my head. He wasn’t my concern. It didn’t matter why he’d agreed to my dare or that he’d tossed me out. I wouldn’t let it mess with my confidence. I was far from a hayseed. I was a business owner. A ranked dart champion. I threw back my shoulders as the doors opened, lifted my chin, and walked with purpose to the French café on the opposite end of the casino from the piano bar.
When I gave my name to the hostess, she informed me the other member of my party had already arrived, and for the first time since arranging this meeting, a hint of nerves ran through me. Gia would despise that I was meeting with Lorenzo Puzo by myself, but I was determined to follow through on our research while I was here. I was meeting with him in a public place. Nothing bad was going to happen.
Still, my palms turned sweaty as the hostess led me through the white wrought-iron tables and overstuffed benches to a table out on the veranda. The heat of the day smacked me in the face. Las Vegas in July was dry and hot, and the misters were already going in full force, causing a hazy rainbow to shimmer along the edges of the paisley-patterned umbrellas lining the patio.
A man in his forties was waiting at the table as we arrived, and he stood to greet me. He wore a custom-made suit that reminded me of Rafe and had a high forehead, strong Italian nose, and eyes almost the same color as his black hair. He was an inch or two below six feet and had an air about him that demanded attention. He wore a thick gold signet ring on his pinkie and a Patek Philippe watch on his wrist, screaming wealth and privilege.
He looked exactly like every television stereotype I could come up with for a mob boss, and I barely controlled a smirk at that thought.
“Ms. Hatley, it’s a pleasure to finally put a face to the name,” he said, sticking out a hand.
When I put mine in his, he turned it, kissing the knuckles suavely before releasing them. Not once did I feel even a hint of a spark, let alone the thundering blaze I’d felt with Rafe, and I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Lorenzo and I might be related in some fourth-cousin kind of way. It was simply because the jerk last night had singed my nerve endings, and I hadn’t been able to heal them yet.
“I feel the same way, Mr. Puzo. And please, call me Sadie.”
“And you must call me Lorenzo,” he said, holding my chair and tucking me in before returning to his seat.
