Page 60 of The Last Dance You Saved
Even if my instincts weren’t screaming at me, I wouldn’t have believed anything he said. I was suddenly very glad I hadn’t given him the jewels. That I hadn’t brought them with me.
“Everything okay in here?” Adam and I both jumped at Rafe’s voice coming from the doorway. His all-seeing eyes narrowed as he looked between me and Adam. We weren’t anywhere near each other. A desk and a carpet stood between us, but there was an insidiousness that hung in the air, and I knew Rafe sensed it.
“Fine,” I said, whirling around and heading for the door. “I was just seeing if Adam was going to join us in the stables.”
Both men scoffed at the exact same time.
I had to talk to Rafe. About all of it. My family’s part in it, as well as the bitterness Adam had shown. I’d spill my guts and hope it somehow helped rather than added more burdens to Rafe’s shoulders.
Chapter Twenty
Rafe
RUNNING ON EMPTY
Performed by Max McNown
Sadie’s body was practically vibrating withunease. A hint of fear. I’d loathed walking in on them together, but it hadn’t been jealousy that had tripped through my veins. It was a renewed concern for her safety. Every moment she was here, every moment she interacted with the people who might be coming for me, who might have killed my brother, brought her closer to the danger.
“Did he hurt you? Threaten you?” I demanded as I followed her out into the hall.
She shook her head and then glanced back at the office before taking my hand and dragging me out the front door. With worry pouring from her, she told me what Adam said about his dad and his grandfather, and how he and Lauren had promised each other to leave the ranch.
Confusion and doubt bled through me. Lauren loved the ranch almost as much as she loved Spence—certainly more than she’d loved me. How could Adam have ever imagined she would leave? Even when she’d gone to the local junior college, she’d enrolled in agricultural management classes. She’d always envisioned a life that involved the ranch.
Had she lied to Adam? Or was Adam lying now?
“Spencer would never have given him any part of the ranch or the trust,” I said with a certainty I didn’t quite feel. What did I know of my brother or the relationship he and Adam had built in my absence. Had I left my brother to be taken in by the wolves? Were he and Lauren somehow involved in all of this together?
My chest squeezed tight before I shook the thought away. Lauren loved Spence wholeheartedly. I told Fallon it was like losing a limb when she’d lost my brother, and that was the truth. They were one soul that I’d tried stupidly to divide.
But what role had Adam’s bitterness and resentment played in both the ranch’s demise and my brother’s?
“I need to look through the ranch accounts and see what’s been going on. He gave me Spence’s logins and passwords, but I haven’t had a chance to use them yet.” I’d been kept busy since he’d given them to me—first with tasks on the ranch, and then with Sadie and a rattlesnake, and finally an attack on Lauren that may or may not have been real.
Had it all been one big distraction to keep me from looking at the books?
When I’d talked with Steele last night, the only new information he’d had on Puzo was that the man had definitely embedded himself into the finances of the town’s businesses. He still couldn’t find Nero Lancaster, and he’d tried both legal and not-so-legal methods of locating him.
“I can look at them with you tonight,” Sadie offered.
The way she looked at me, the openness and caring in those blue eyes, almost undid me. Almost made me forget sending her away for her own good was the right and selfless thing to do, because I wanted that goodness and light to be mine. I wanted to drown myself in it. To give up the power and control I usually required and let the time with her wash away every sin, every failure, every last ounce of grief.
But taking those moments, keeping Sadie close, would mean putting her in the middle of all the ugly that still existed in my life. And what I’d told her last night was still true. I would be the reason that light was dimmed and blew out.
“I don’t think—” I started just as she said, “Rafe, there’s something else—” when we were both interrupted by Fallon.
“Waiting for us?” my daughter asked as she and Maisey came out of the house. I glanced from Sadie to my daughter and then back.
“Later,” I said, and Sadie nodded.
“Is he whining about how much he hates the next chore on the list?” Fallon asked, looking at me with a smirk. “Or admitting he’s afraid of the chickens?”
“I’m not afraid of those scrawny-assed creatures,” I huffed. “And how would you even know any of that?”
“Spence told me. He said they used to chase you around the pen, and you’d squeal like a baby and run away.”
Sadie laughed, Maisey hid her snort behind her hand, and the tension that had stiffened my shoulders eased ever so slightly.
