Page 112 of Proof of Guilt

Yes, it had been. Ten years. She would never be able to make her brothers understand why she’d cut them out of her life. Sometimes, she didn’t understand it, either.

August was the same as he had been ten years ago, and he still didn’t look as if he ran his brother’s ranch. He dressed more like a rich businessman, emphasis on the rich. And he was. In fact, he probably had as much money or more than Ivy’s family thanks to August’s wealthy mother, who’d died shortly after marrying Travis’s father and giving birth to August. Travis, on the other hand, had been a cowboy. One with a drinking problem. And despite the fact that August and Travis had been as different as night and day, that hadn’t stopped August from spearheading the fight to clear Travis’s name.

August turned to Theo next, and while Ivy wasn’t sure how the man would react, she certainly hadn’t expected him to go to Theo and hug him. Clearly, Theo hadn’t expected it, either, because she saw him go stiff.

“Good to have you home, Theo,” August said.

Ivy was instantly suspicious. August had always been somewhat of a hothead, and from everything Ivy had heard from Jodi, August had plenty of resentment for Theo.

“Will you be seeing your dad?” August asked when he stepped back from that hug.

“No,” Theo said without hesitation.

Now there was that flash of anger in August’s eyes that she’d been expecting. He aimed some of that anger at her. “Then why are you here?” August didn’t wait for him to answer. “Oh, I get it. You came for Jodi’s wedding. That figures. Instead of her saying ‘I do,’ you two should be helping me. Did you know your dad has been stuck in prison all this time?”

Ivy knew that, of course, but it caused her breath to go thin just thinking about it. She wanted Travis to pay for her parents’ murders, but nothing they did now, including Travis spending the rest of his life behind bars, would bring them back.

“I know,” Theo answered. “But he was convicted of murder.”

More anger went through August’s eyes. “On circumstantial evidence. Heck, he doesn’t remember anything about that night, and that’s why it was so easy for the Becketts to pin this on him.”

Since there were three Becketts in the room, August obviously didn’t mind letting them know he thought they had railroaded his brother. They hadn’t. She started to remind him that when Travis had been found that night, he’d had her father’s blood on him. But August knew that, too, and he probably thought they’d planted it there.

Or else maybe August had been the one to do the planting.

“There was another attack at the ranch,” Ivy said.

August nodded. “Yeah, whenever somebody goes after you or your kin, your brothers start hauling me in for questioning. They have this warped notion that if I kill one of them, or you, then it’ll get Travis out of jail. It won’t. The only thing that’ll do that is for the truth to come out.”

Both Jameson and Gabriel huffed as if this were old news. It gave her a glimpse of what they’d been having to deal with for the past decade.

“So, is that why you told me to come?” August went on. “Because you want to pin this latest attack on me?”

“Yes,” Theo readily admitted. “Did you have anything to do with it?”

August tossed him a glare before he gave one to Gabriel, Jameson and her. “No. Of course not.” He turned to Theo to finish that. “Your father loves both your sister and you. Why, I don’t know, since you rarely go to see him. But if I were going to do something to help him, it wouldn’t be by harming one of you.”

Gabriel stepped closer to August. “Then explain your connection to the man who hired the two gunmen who came after us.”

No glare this time. August’s eyes widened. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Birch McKenzie,” Gabriel said.

Ivy carefully watched August’s reaction. First, there was more surprise, and then he cursed. “Birch didn’t hire those men. Someone’s setting him up, and by doing so, they’re setting me up, too.” He cursed again, snapped back to Theo. “I wouldn’t have done this.”

August was so adamant about it that Ivy almost believed him. Almost. But then she remembered that his loyalty wasn’t to anyone but his brother. Why, she didn’t know. Since Travis was a lot older than August, maybe he saw Travis as more of a father than a half brother. Of course, there was another reason, too.

August had had motive to kill her parents.

Like Theo and Travis, August had also had a recent run-in with Ivy’s father. August hated him, and there’d been a long feud between them over land rights. Maybe August had killed them, and if so, his guilty conscience could be causing him to do everything humanly possible to free his brother from jail.

That wasn’t a new theory, either. Both of her brothers had been investigating it, especially now that the threatening letters and emails had started. Someone was sending those, and it wasn’t Travis since he didn’t have computer access in his maximum-security cell. Also, his mail was being monitored.

While August stood there still mumbling profanity, the door to Gabriel’s office opened. Both Ivy and Theo instantly looked over their shoulders to see Jodi pulling Nathan back into the room.

“Sorry,” Jodi said to them. “He woke up and got to the door ahead of me.”

“Mom?” Nathan rubbed his eyes and yawned. “When can we leave?”

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