Page 28 of The Last Dance You Saved
The realization that he’d likely been in town for months, and I hadn’t known, ate at me. “If he’s taken an interest here, it’s only as a way of getting to me. Trust me, a town as dinky as Rivers holds no long-term appeal for him.”
Sarcasm littered Adam’s response. “There’s that Rafe ego we’ve all come to expect. Of course everything is about you. Well, I’ll be damned if this is. He’s stepped up and helped this community in a way the great Harringtons haven’t been able to do since your dad died and you crippled the ranch. Lorenzo has saved several of the local bars and restaurants from going out of business. He’s given them successful strategies to stay afloat during the challenges of the last few years.”
At what cost?I wondered. An interest rate they couldn’t afford, so they ended up defaulting, and he owned the property? I was under no misconception that what had drawn him to this town to begin with was my connection to it. He must have thought I cared more about where I’d grown up than I did. He’d be sorely disappointed when I rid myself of everything having to do with the ranch and Rivers, except my daughter.
But Fallon’s concerns about Adam suddenly landed home with a force that almost sent me to my knees. Maybe he had been involved in what had happened to Spence. Or maybe it wasn’t Adam but Puzo. Maybe I’d turned my back on my family and then drawn evil to it with my own actions. I’d sent his cousin to jail for life. Had he retaliated by sending my brother to the grave?
Acid burned its way up my esophagus.
Suddenly, I realized sending Sadie away was the wrong play. I could use the attraction that sizzled between us to find out the truth about what Puzo wanted with Rivers and the ranch. It would cost me layers of skin. I wouldn’t be able to walk away unsinged, but I’d do anything to protect Fallon. And as much as I hated it, hated knowing he could still affect me, Spence would want me to make sure Lauren was okay as well.
My brother had contacted me the night he’d died. He’d left a message saying he needed to talk, that he’d discovered things about the ranch that had disturbed him. He needed a dispassionate observer to talk it over with. And just like every other time I’d heard my brother’s voice over the last fourteen years, it had nipped at me. A bee sting that lasted for days and couldn’t be ignored, even though I’d done my best to do just that. Whenever he called about Fallon, to make arrangements for dropping her off and picking her up, I returned the message instantly. But every other attempt of his over the years to narrow the gap between us, I’d ignored, since he and Lauren had eloped just days before our wedding. His last call had been no different. A message I’d deleted and tried to forget.
Would I find, in staying and investigating Fallon’s worries, that I’d left my brother to die?
As much as I’d wanted nothing to do with him or Lauren or the ranch, I’d never wished death on either of them. I’d just wanted to prove to them that I didn’t need them, didn’t need anything from this family besides the cash that rightfully belonged to me. I may not have started my business with nothing. I may have used my inheritance to invest in my first club, but everything that had come after was due to my hard work. It was my time and energy and skill that had made Marquess Enterprises a global success story.
But had it cost my brother his life?
It would require more fortitude than either Adam or Lauren would ever know, but I’d stay. I’d stay and listen to everything Sadie and my family had to say so I could get to the bottom of all of it. But if it didn’t pan out, or worse, if Puzo was trying to use them to get to me, then I had no qualms about putting an end to it.
“I’ve rearranged my schedule to be here this week. It was clear Fallon needed someone looking after her.” Lauren visibly flinched at my words, but I wasn’t going to sugarcoat things for her. “If, at the end of the week, I decide this long shot of a plan isn’t going to work, I’ll proceed with selling the ranch as intended.”
Adam said nothing, quietly watching us. Lauren gave a curt nod. “Fine.”
Then, she spun around and left.
I focused my attention on Adam, assessing him as I hadn’t when I’d come back for Spencer’s funeral. He’d been away at college the last few years I’d lived on the ranch and then gone to work for some high-flying financial firm in San Francisco. I’d barely seen him until he’d come home for a weekend trip after Lauren had told him she was pregnant, and we were engaged.
He’d been tall and lean in that way Lauren’s entire family had been, and I’d been astonished by the strength he’d had when he’d planted a fist in my face and broken my nose. He’d always seemed soft as a kid, especially when compared to the steely muscle and weathered skin his dad and grandfather had carried from working the ranch. Maybe it had simply been the shock of witnessing the power he’d hidden that had allowed him to get the jump on me, had allowed him to back the single punch up with several others before I’d reacted. It wasn’t until he’d gotten a rope around my neck that I’d ended the fight.
And just like when we’d battled at anything as kids—games, races, or arguments—he’d despised I’d come out ahead in that fight too. Most of the time growing up, Adam had kept his jealousy hidden, but the truth of it had always risen to the surface whenever Spence or I had beaten him at anything or any time we’d gotten something he’d wanted and didn’t have because his family couldn’t afford it. When that happened, he’d stomp and pout and go into hiding for days.
I wasn’t exactly sure what had brought him back to the ranch after my father died, when he’d sworn he never would, but it was clear from the expensive suit he’d worn to Spence’s funeral and the Cartier dangling from his wrist that he had money. It had to be from investments he’d made working for the financial company up north, because it certainly wasn’t from the salary he was receiving as the ranch’s business manager.
I hadn’t cared. Hadn’t given much thought to any of it—the reasons for him coming home or how he was getting his money—until now. Until the fact he knew Puzo had doubts coiling through me. Was he laundering Puzo’s money? Was that what Spence had found out and called me about?
I narrowed my gaze on Adam. “Why are you even here, Adam? What exactly do you get out of any of this?”
His hand shook ever so slightly as he took a sip of the bourbon in my family’s heirloom, crystal glass, but his voice was dry and calm when he responded. “Other than wanting to help my sister through the loss of Spencer? How about the satisfaction of seeing the ranch successful again after you stole from it and Spence ruined it? I like the idea of knowing it will be a Hurly who rights the ship after the great Harringtons ran it aground.”
I bristled at his disparagement of my brother and the Harrington name. Maybe I hadn’t chosen to keep it. Maybe, when I’d had the choice, I’d separated myself from it to spite my father and to honor my mother, but neither Dad nor Spence would ever have done anything to destroy this place. They lived and breathed it. It was as much a part of them as their skin and bones. To ruin it would have ruined them.
And maybe that, more than anything, was what had killed Spence. The failure. The loan he couldn’t pay back. What I’d taken was far less than my half had actually been worth—a handful of old stocks that had been in the family kitty for decades and a couple of million when the ranch was worth nearly twenty, even failing as it was.
“I see. You were hoping to get a piece of the pie.” It wasn’t a question when I said it. “You wanted the Hurly name back on this land. How much were you hoping to get? A quarter? Half? All of it?”
He studied me, trying to read my emotions once again, but I’d finally tucked them all away after giving them away too freely. Finally, he said, “I hadn’t really thought ahead that far.”
Liar.Chess had always been Adam’s game. He’d spent as much time studying it as I had training horses, so it had always made him angry when I’d won our matches anyway. Back then, I’d shot from the hip instead of playing by the rule books and still beaten him. It was the opposite of what I did now, carefully considering all my moves.
I didn’t know which idea left me more disgusted. That I’d become him or that he might have come looking for a way to take back what he thought should have been his. He wanted to be the prince of the kingdom instead of the serf, and my father had definitely had a way of making everyone feel like servants. Even me. Spence had been the only real prince, whereas I’d been the spare who he’d seen as just another pair of hands.
As I watched Adam sip at the whiskey my brother had favored, the same brand my father had, my instincts screamed a warning I needed to heed. It was the same instinct that had saved my life in a dark alley. The same voice that taunted me when my demons struck.
Maybe Fallon was right. Maybe she had her own voice screaming at her. Perhaps Adam really had put something into play that had turned ugly. Whether that was with Puzo’s help or on his own, I couldn’t be certain, but I promised myself I’d find out. As much as I loathed the idea of owing my brother anything, I owed him this, and I owed Fallon answers so she could put the ranch behind her once and for all if we sold it.
Did I think Adam really killed Spence? It was hard to imagine, because if there was one person on this Earth Adam did love, it was his sister, and I couldn’t see him putting Lauren through that sort of agonizing grief. But I could see Adam trying to win back the land in a way that would prove once and for all that poker was for idiots and chess was for winners.
