Page 58 of Silent Deception
Clint glowered at him. “Minor errors. Sloppy bookkeeping.”
“Not just that. If you want to know the truth, I’m beginning to doubt Nate was guilty. I think someone else has been cooking the books for a long time. Oscar had the most access to the records...or it could’ve been an assistant foreman. I understand there’ve been several coming and going over the past ten years.”
“I had an expert in here—an accountant who knew what he was doing,” Clint snapped. “That isn’t what he found. Leland is like a brother to me, and he concurred. Then you waltz in here after all these years and think you know it all. What could you possibly know about this ranch? The people here?”
“Maybe that accountant just didn’t have the time to dig deep enough.” Ryan shrugged. “Either way, the money’s long gone, but I’m going to get to the bottom of it before I leave. I think it’s only fair to find the truth.”
“It’s that Cantrell woman, isn’t it?” Clint said flatly. “You think you’re gonna find some way to clear her father’s name and be a big hero.” Clint glared at him as he abruptly rose to his feet. “You can twist the facts however you like, but that doesn’t change a thing. Hiring Nate was the biggest mistake of my life, and you’re a fool if you think you can prove otherwise.”
Ryan looked right back at him, not giving an inch. “I’m not the enemy here, Dad. I’m onyourside, remember?”
“My side?” Clint laughed harshly. “Your brothers were good sons. They stayed here and made something of themselves rather than running off like a fool to some other part of the world just to prove a point.”
Ryan tactfully resisted the temptation to mention Garrett’s vagabond rodeo career. “I joined theservice,Dad, not a circus. Serving my country has been an honorable career.”
“One you wouldn’t have chosen if you hadn’t been so bent on defying me. And what happened? You nearly got yourself killed.” Clint muttered under his breath and stormed out of the office.
Bemused, Ryan watched him leave. But when he got back to work, Clint’s words kept playing through his mind.
There’d never been much love lost between them. Ryan had stood up to Clint’s domination even as a small boy. But just now there’d been something besides anger in his father’s voice.Worry.
And that, Ryan figured, was as close as he was ever going to get to an expression of love from his father.
* * * *
AT NINE TWENTY-SEVENon Sunday morning, Clint marched up the steps of the church as he did each week, nodding to the local ranchers and townsfolk he’d seen there for the past fifty years.
He ignored the new faces in the crowd until he reached the Gallagher pew, second row from the front, right side—and found a family of squabbling children and a very pregnant woman filling the entire space.Hispew.
His jaw working, he glowered at them.
There was plenty of room elsewhere, but she was too oblivious to take a hint.
Another family of homesteaders, no doubt.Free-loaders who’d come to grab good land and waste every precious resource on it.
The woman smiled back, oblivious to her mistake and the sudden hush that swept through the half-empty church. “We can just slide in,” she stage-whispered. “There’s room.”
As if.
Conscious of the openmouthed stares of those at the back of the church, Clint moved stiffly to the next pew up and sat with his arms folded and jaw set.
A dwindling congregation had led to fading resources, and when there’d been decisions to make, he’d put himself front and center on every score. Gallagher money had kept this church going for the past twenty years. He deserved respect.
During the sermon, he stared up at the silver-haired reverend, who stood at the pulpit delivering a strong sermon on tithing and decided that he and the big-boned Irishman needed to have a talk in the near future.
Anderson’s wife, Ruth, was on that blasted Home Free committee along with Enfield and several others. They were upsetting the balance of how things had always been, and the audacious woman sitting behind him, with a litter of unkempt kids and no husband in sight, was a case in point.
Soon there’d be even more people on the welfare rolls in Loveless County, and all because of a misguided group who had nothing better to do than stir up trouble. It was time to make his displeasure known.
Anderson had been admonishing the congregation about grateful giving for a full ten minutes when Clint felt someone touch his shoulder.One of the rug rats in the pew behind him, no doubt.He scowled irritably and jerked away, but at the second, persistent touch he glanced over to find Charlotte easing into the pew next to him.
Charlotte.
They’d kept careful distance from one another since their divorce—their mutual animosity as effective as a high-voltage electric fence—and she’d once sworn she would never again set foot in this church.
Beneath the brim of her lacy beige hat, her skin appeared sallow, her cheekbones sharply defined in her thin face. Her hand felt bony on his arm. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
He held himself rigid and didn’t spare her a glance for the rest of the service. But his dread grew, and he found himself wishing Anderson would double the length of his sermon.
