Page 56 of River Strong

It struck him that today he might actually find out just how dangerous this woman was. He knew she was looking into Leann Hayes’s death. She’d drugged an officer of the law to go through Leann’s files and search his house. She’d taken one hell of a chance so whatever she was looking for, she was fairly desperate to find it.

But what was it she suspected and, more important, how far would she go to get it?

He slid into the passenger seat and buckled up. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Abigail take the wheel. Was it just his imagination that she was nervous, as if readying herself for what she was about to do?

What the hell was she about to do?

“WHATDOYOUWANT?” CJ snapped as his mother stuck her head in the guest room door. He’d thought she was going for a horseback ride. He’d heard her leave. But for some reason she’d come back. To spy on him?

She seemed surprised at his sudden rage. “I realized that you hadn’t had lunch.” Her gaze went to the can of beer in his hand. He fought the urge to hide it even though he was a grown man and she’d had the small refrigerator put in his room. What did she think he was going to stock in there, fruit juice?

“How about a little privacy?” he demanded.

For a moment she looked as if she was going to lecture him on his rudeness, but good sense must have prevailed. “Sorry to bother you. I’ll have the cook put your lunch in the refrigerator until you’re ready for it.” She closed the door.

He sat, heart thundering in his chest. She’d gotten so much worse since his accident. There was one way to get her to quit babying him. Tell her the truth. But he couldn’t. Not yet. He had to use this to his advantage. Even she would agree.

But he hated it. He hated the van. He hated the wheelchair. He hated that he was trapped here in this room even temporarily. Worse, he felt like everyone was watching him; not just Oakley and his mother but the entire staff. Not to mention his...associates. He had no choice. He had to keep pretending he couldn’t walk. But this couldn’t be over soon enough.

First, though, he had to set things up for Oakley. Once she heard about the new well being drilled on the ranch, she would walk right into the trap. Maybe she’d even bring a couple of her cohorts. Did she think he didn’t know how close she’d gotten to Duffy McKenna? He wasn’t worried about Pickett Hanson, who was just a ranch hand over on the McKenna place. But wouldn’t it be great if Duffy and Oakley could be lured out to the site where the Lees brothers would be waiting? Accidents happened around drilling rigs all the time.

He thought about Dixon Malone and now Rory Eastwood. People tended to disappear in this part of Montana and not even that PI could find them. If Duffy and Oakley disappeared it would cause much more of a stir, though. Better to have them injured while trying to vandalize the equipment.

CJ rolled over to the door, opened it and checked to make sure his mother wasn’t standing just outside in the hallway. All was clear. He closed the door, locked it and, moving to the window, placed the call. “Make it look like an accident,” he told Frankie after telling him that their business venture was moving forward. “With Oakley gone, we’ll be home free. She’ll come to the new drilling site at midnight—just like the other times she and her partners in crime vandalized the rigs. She might come alone this close to the house, but do what you have to do if she brings her friends.”

He disconnected. With luck, Oakley would be history soon, maybe Duffy and Pickett, too, if they got in the way. Their deaths should scare off other vandals.

It was a win-win situation and CJ would never have to worry about Oakley again. Not to mention that the tragedy would give his mother something else to obsess over other than him. He could see her at the funeral, him next to her in his wheelchair, the perfect son.

Of course she would blame the McKennas—this time Duffy and his hired man, Pickett. It would keep the feud between the families alive, which was exactly what he and Treyton wanted. Neither of them could bear the thought that Charlotte and Holden might find their way back together. That wasn’t part of the plan.

CHARLOTTEHATEDFEELINGthis anxious as she looked down the hallway toward the guest room before moving out of sight. Sometimes, her oldest son scared her. He had reason to be angry, she tried to tell herself. But in truth, CJ had always had a bad disposition, especially when he didn’t get his way as a child, as a teen and now as an adult. She blamed herself for spoiling him more than the others. He’d been her firstborn. But he’d also always worked at being her favorite.

Her other children had picked up on her shortage of maternal instincts and her lack of interest in raising them. In those days she’d been happiest on a horse, riding through the vast land that had become her ranch. Marrying her first husband after Holden had broken her heart had also saved her—and made her a wealthy, powerful woman.

She’d been in her late teens when she’d married Rake Stafford. Rake had been seventeen years older. He’d brought order to her life along with money that he used to build the Stafford Ranch. Before that, it had been the Carson Ranch, small because that was all her parents, John and Ruth Carson, could afford.

With Rake, the now Stafford Ranch had flourished and grown. Together, they’d had five children in the eight years before Rake died. Oakley was just a baby when he passed and left Charlotte a widow.

She’d felt safe married to Rake and then he was gone. Holden had lost his wife as well just months before. That she’d even let herself think he might finally come back to her made her despise herself. When she’d heard that he’d remarried so quickly—and who he’d married—she’d been beyond devastated and furious. Lulabelle Braden?

The only satisfaction she got was that the loud, obnoxious redhead had made Holden’s life miserable the few months they were married. Still, Charlotte blamed him for making her feel she had to rush into a marriage with Dixon Malone, the second biggest mistake of her life. The first had been falling in love with Holden and letting him break her heart.

Dixon had been a mistake in so many ways. Her children had been so young, and she’d been so miserable. But being married to him had been pure hell. He was lazy, spent too much of her money and thought he would boss her around.

CJ was twelve when Dixon disappeared. She often wondered how much he remembered of the almost year that she spent with Dixon before one day he was just gone. CJ had never asked what happened to him. Brand and Ryder had been told that their stepfather had left. The girls were so young, she doubted they’d noticed he was gone except for the lack of fighting in the house. None of them was sad to see Dixon go.

So she thought as she went to the kitchen to tell the cook what to do with CJ’s lunch, she knew she had only herself to blame. She had made CJ the way he was. Was it any wonder that he resented her the way he did?

She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth as she headed for her office, no longer interested in a horseback ride. She already missed Tilly, who’d been helping her with the paperwork involved in running a ranch. But she couldn’t forgive her daughter. How could she marry a McKenna knowing how her mother felt about it?

Oakley was another story. She’d made this mess. What had she been doing on the McKenna Ranch to start with? She just needed Oakley to stand by her brother until this all blew over. The problem was that she wasn’t sure she could trust Oakley right now. Her daughter was a hothead, stubborn and determined in what she believed. Charlotte couldn’t remember ever being that headstrong. But she’d certainly raised two daughters who were.

She thought about Tilly’s upcoming wedding that everyone was talking about in town. That Tilly had sent her an invitation showed how out of touch with reality she was. Charlotte’s heart held no place for forgiveness. Once someone turned on her, she wrote them out of her life. It was the only way she could survive, she told herself.

Now, as she glanced toward the hallway to the guest room, she tried not to think about CJ. She couldn’t imagine how she would feel if she ever found out that she couldn’t trust him or worse, that he’d already turned on her as well.

THESHERIFFWATCHEDAbigail out of the corner of his eye as she drove. What was he doing with this woman? It felt like a game of Russian roulette. How long was he going to keep playing? It worried him that he was playing at all.

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